Comments on: Financial Times 13,972 by Cincinnus

By: Wil Ransome

Wil Ransome — Sun, 22 Apr 2012 22:06:33 +0000

Thanks Pete@5. But I think it’s meant to be rhyming slang, in which China plate = mate, and here [Exercises one needed in China?] China = mate = plate. So far as I can see. Perhaps I have it quite wrong and it’s simply china = plates.

As to the capital letter matter, Azed says that it’s OK to use a capital letter in a clue (as here) when it suits the surface, but not to use a small letter simply to mislead, when a capital letter is grammatically necessary. I think I agree with him, although far be it from me to agree or disagree with the Great Man.

By: Pete Maclean

Pete Maclean — Sun, 22 Apr 2012 14:35:52 +0000

Oh, poor George indeed!

By: john newman

john newman — Sun, 22 Apr 2012 07:17:14 +0000

Thanks again Pete. Quite a few of these I did not get, so pleased to be put out of my agony.

Glad to read a a few comments plus your own on OHMSS. In fact I always thought George Lazenby was excellent. He was I understand a car salesman from Queanbeyan, what was then a small NSW town next to Canberra. Not many young people around in those days and we all knew each other but I never met him.

I read somewhere at the time that Diana Rigg took a disliking to him and deliberately ate garlic before the kissing scenes. She would have had considerably more clout in the movie industry than he and that I guess was the end for poor George.

By: Pete Maclean

Pete Maclean — Sat, 21 Apr 2012 22:11:05 +0000

Wil, I think that cluing ‘plates’ with ‘China’ is taking a liberty both because ‘China’ has that initial capital and because china typically consists of much more than just plates (i.e. cups, saucers, dishes, etc.). But I do not see that it is odd or really wrong. I would not clue ‘plates’ with ‘Chinas’ even if it fitted the clue.

By: Wil Ransome

Wil Ransome — Sat, 21 Apr 2012 21:30:55 +0000

The usual Cincinnus excellence I thought, but 20dn has plates = China, which seems odd; surely plate = China and plates = Chinas, which obviously couldn’t be used here. What am I missing?

By: Pete Maclean

Pete Maclean — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 18:11:41 +0000

Bob, Thanks for the schooling (!) on ‘gam’. And I am happy to know you share my sentiments about OHMSS.

Bamberger, Durer is rather well known especially, I believe, for two pictures: one of a pair of hands in prayer and one of a hare. But a lack of knowledge of people from the artistic and literary worlds often gets me too, as it did with 15A in this puzzle. ‘Si’ is the word for ‘yes’ in Italian and Spanish and, for some usages, French — hence ‘foreign agreements’ are ‘sis’.

By: Bamberger

Bamberger — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 17:47:51 +0000

I couldn’t get gamer and for 3d had d?r??. As usual this was another person from the artistic word that I’m the only one on the planet never to have heard of.
The SE also defeated me -couldn’t get 23a.
Re 27a, knew none of kinesis, kine or sis.I’m afraid I still don’t get sis -the only thing that springs to mind is that the company supplies pictures to bookies.So totally failed on that clue.
Also couldn’t get 20d or 23d.

By: Bob Cumbow

Bob Cumbow — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 00:19:24 +0000

Hi, Pete. The more common term for a “school” of whales is a “pod”; but a second term for the same thing is a “gam.”

“Hum” was news to me. I second your comment on George Lazenby, and regard OHMSS as one of the very best Bond films.

bob