Monday Prize Crossword on 19 October 2009
dd = double definition
cd = cryptic definition
rev = reversed or reversal
ins = insertion
cha = charade
ha = hidden answer
*(fodder) = anagram
Paul dumbed down an octave or two and became Mudd. However, he is just as delightful, especially this time with many varied and interesting double definitions and not a single case of water from the same well.
Chambers defines spoonerism as the transposition of initial sounds of spoken words, eg “shoving leopard” for “loving shepherd”. I wonder whether in 7D, toil anchor qualifies as a spoonerism for oil tanker. Even if it doesn’t, it wouldn’t matter as all spoonerisms make me laugh
ACROSS
1 IMPASSABLE I’m (first person, Mudd the compiler) PASSABLE (fair)
7 OTTO Palindromic name of German king
9 SNAP dd
10 PORTCULLIS *(still up or c, first letter of castle)
11 TANNER dd
12 AMICABLE Tichy was of saying “Am I getting cable (message)”
13 RESTRAIN Cha of REST (break) RAIN (fall)
15 KITE A toy kite is attached to a string
17 SPOT dd
19 ASTEROID *(radio set)
22 WELL DONE dd a steak well done is not rare
23 COPPER Nice dd
25 DAISY WHEEL *(see why dial) What an anachronism from the early eighties. With the advent of word-processing plus multivarious font types, even the typewriter is facing extinction.
26 SHED dd
27 GEAR ha
28 WATERCRESS *(secrets raw)
DOWN
2 MANDATE Man and his date
3 ASPEN AS (like) PEN (swan)
4 SUPERMAN Ins of PERM + A (curly hairstyle on a) in SUN (bleaching agent) Of course, the well-educated will know that Clark Kent is the human name of Superman.
5 BARGAIN BASEMENT Cha of BAR (save) GAIN (acquire) BASE (vulgar) MEN (pieces on, say, the chessboard) T (tons)
6 EUCLID *(clue) + I’D (I had)
7 OIL TANKER The answer is simple enough but when I tried to operate the Spoonerism, all I got was Toil Anchor (sounds the same as Anker, which is also the Indonesian equivalent trade mark of the familiar Anchor Beer, so beloved of Malaysians and Singaporeans before losing its market lead to Carlsberg and Tiger)
8 TRIPLET Cha of TRIP (holiday) LET (allowed)
14 TOTALISER *(to alter is)
16 STICKLER Ins of L (large) in STICKER (label)
18 PRELATE P (first letter of Psalms) RELATE (describe)
20 IRELESS Wireless (kind of broadcaster) minus W. The only place where I could find ireless was in Dictionary.com
21 BOW-WOW BOW (bend over) WOW (excite)
24 POSER another delightful dd
Thanks, Uncle Yap.
I think 1dn is AND [joiner] in MATE [partner].
Hurray, a sign of life. It has been so lonely in this space where nobody visits.
I think the trick is to make some deliberate errors 🙂