Comments on: Private Eye/Cyclops 462 – The Odd Couple

By: lemming

lemming — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 10:30:22 +0000

Heavens to Betsy, no, at least not ime. And apologies for overlooking the ambiguity. Classic human error. I’d totally discounted the likelihood of that second possibility, and made the faulty default assumption that anyone else would too. Just as well we’re not running a nuclear power station or flying a website.

By: dave miller

dave miller — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 14:34:44 +0000

‘scuse my ignorance, but do you mean heavens yes that is normal?

By: lemming

lemming — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 10:22:07 +0000

Heavens, yes: No 455, 19ac: Piss while holding pint – get it everywhere.

I’ve also found “splash” as a solution in No.213 (July 2002), though no idea what the clue was that time.

By: Dave miller

Dave miller — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 22:00:56 +0000

11 across – splash. This exact same clue appeared in a cyclops a few months back. Is that normal???

By: rrc

rrc — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 15:13:35 +0000

10a and 3d were the last two – not so many smiles and ahs moments on this crossword.

By: sidey

sidey — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 15:58:42 +0000

Unless the definition is simply ‘screwing’ in the sense of extortion. In which case I think ‘circa’ works as a bit of an &lit.

By: beermagnet

beermagnet — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 11:32:34 +0000

Of course lemming HAI[r] for the end of 26A.
I was completely misled by ‘tops’ being used so often in the Anne Boleyn sense.

As for 16D. If the C comes from ‘around’ then it seems to me that clue word is doing triple duty, as part of the def. (cheating is surely ‘screwing around’ rather than just ‘screwing’), anagram indicator (what else is there in that clue) and the C. So I am tempted by sidey’s suggestion that the ‘with’ = cum = C. I’m not fully convinced either way.

By: sidey

sidey — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 05:33:46 +0000

Thanks beery.

I have a feeling the C in 16d is supposed to be short for ‘cum’ rather than ‘circa’. I seem to remember seeing it used with ‘r’ for recipe in old prescriptions. It’s not in in any dictionary I’ve looked at though so that falls a bit flat.

By: lemming

lemming — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 01:34:34 +0000

I suspect the C in 16d is old friend circa.

A very little head scratching found some residual HAI(r) for 26a.