Wednesday 26 May 2010

No 9852, Wednesday 26 May 10, M Manna

Not sure about 18A
ACROSS
1   - A slip one is too unconcerned over (8,5) - {CARE}{LESS} {LAPSE}
8   - A man second to none in peace or war (7) - SUPREMO [CD]
9   - Dastard in song in pastoral Greece (7) - {AR{CAD}IA} [CD]
11 - Zero assessed, held forth from platform (6) - {O}{RATED}
13 - Down and out — overcome with exhaustion (4,4) - DEAD BEAT [CD]
15 - A barbed fork to catch fish (5) - SPEAR [DD]
16 - They let you see the garden sprinklers (7) - SHOWERS [DD]
18 - Packer put me in to partner Close? (7) - {SERV{I}{C}E} ??
19 - Chap to leave tropical fruit? (5) - {MAN}{GO}

21 - Dealing with someone who is patient? (8) - TREATING [CD]
23 - Secret preserve in revolutionary era (6) - {AR{CAN}E<-}
25 - Reprimand means one has to make the case again (7) - {RE}{PROVE}
26 - Swimmer with a deep voice? (3,4) - {SEA} {BASS} [CD]

28 - Go overseas (5,3,5) - CROSS THE OCEAN [CD]
DOWN
2   - Satisfy with a couple of coins to achieve peace and quiet (7) - {A}{PP}{EASE}
3   - She always has the right to disappear (3) - EVEr
4   - Love God of the Greek but Cupid for the Romans (4) - EROS [CD]
5   - Less than life size mannequin? (5,5) - SCALE MODEL [CD]
6   - Car of the French crashed by discharge of electricity across terminals (5) -{ARC*}{ED*}
7   - Becomes sorrowful as the advertisements end uneasily on Saturday (7) - {SAD*}{DEN*}{S}
8   - Backward lad describes symptom of a nearly flat battery (4,7) - SLOW STARTER
10 - Their theories are formulated on more stars (11) - ASTRONOMERS*
12 - Fault causing failure of computer programme (5) - ERROR [E]
14  - Taming Ness monstrosity as a task to be done (10) - ASSIGNMENT*
17 - A mere turn to left may find him (5) - {E{L}MER*}
18 - Support for railway rails (7) - SLEEPER [E]

20 - A river once more going up and down (7) - {NIAGA}{R}{A}<-
22 - Lost ring used for working instruments (5) - {TO{O}LS*}
24 - Sea that lies around a small land area (4) - ISLE*
27 - Curve of a circle (3) - ARC [E]

39 comments:

  1. 18a Can it be interpreted as :

    Put= Serve (as in racquet games)
    Me=I
    Close=c

    Packer is a service available ???

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  2. Last chance to crack Monday's poser:
    When was the last time in the Indian defence forces that a Major outranked a Colonel?

    Will reveal all in the evening.

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  3. Hi all

    1A - A slip one is too unconcerned over (8,5) - {CARE}{LESS} {LAPSE}

    A lapse can occur out of carelessness. A person can be careless or an attitude can. But careless lapse? Over to experts.

    16A Good pun with 'show'. Liked 21A, 10D and a few others. Some cute anagrams.

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  4. Regarding lapses: A phrase I once heard from a Sardar in Nairobi: Galti se mistake ho gaya

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  5. Deepak, I had a good chuckle over the pic you posted for 18D. Wonder why the setter missed the opportunity of playing with the word 'sleep' while forming the clue.

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  6. 16a Pun can be exended: After show-ers, you can see flow-ers.

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  7. Sleepers may be in coaches - or under them.

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  8. @ Kishore, your 'Major-Colonel' quiz reminds me of a famous question reportedly asked during high-level interviews. I'm told that it has been often thrown at IAS viva voce sessions.

    Here it goes: In which year did Good Friday fall on an Easter Monday?

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  9. 18 A - Packer put me in to partner Close? (7) - {SERV{I}{C}E} ??

    It is SARDINE
    http://dictionary.reverso.net/english-cobuild/sardine

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  10. Richard, I agree with you on 1A.

    Just 'cause it's a careless lapse, doesn't mean you ain't gonna regret it. You're most likely to be concerned that you've slipped.

    I think the compiler's looking for a kinda lapse that you're indifferent toward, like you don't really care or something.

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  11. LOL @ Kishore's "show"ers / "flow"ers comment.

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  12. @Svemuri,
    What's the anno for SARDINE?

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  13. @Richard,
    Don't we say 'I made a careless mistake in my maths paper' or is that incorrect?

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  14. I feel at the back of my mind that there could be simple, serious, grave, grievous or egregious errors / mistakes / blunders / lapses. One could only be careless enough commit them.

    By regular use in colloquialism, such expressions might get accepted in the long run.

    Similarly, we hear of cost of living being expensive, whereas it can only be high or low. Also prices cannot be expensive; only commodities can be.

    May I resort to the much-in-use cliche - IMHO?

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  15. Correction to para 1 of 13:07 'one could only be careless enough to commit them'.

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  16. @Svemuri/Col:
    18 A - Packer put me in to partner Close

    Sardines are packed closely, agreed. But why capitalize Close???

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  17. @Kishore 13.55

    May be close/end with partner E

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  18. If Sardine's the answer, I wonder what the anno would be.

    Is "Sardine" the first person? Even then it doesn't quite fit the way in which the clue's been written. I think the surface translates to... "Packer has made Mr. Close as my partner."

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  19. I think it is packed closely like sardines. With a bit of imagination it is the only word that makes a little sense as an answer

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  20. Air Chief Marshal Fali Homi Major served as the eighteenth Chief of the Air Staff of the Indian Air Force taking office on April 1, 2007, and becoming the first helicopter pilot in the service to be promoted to the office of Chief. From the time he became a Group Captain he has been outranking Lt Colonels and from the time he became an Air Commodore, he has been outranking full Colonels too.

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  21. @ Kishore, I could guess that Major might have been a proper name but did not have the details.

    From another angle, subsequent upon India's becoming a republic on January 26, 1950, the country's first-ever president, Babu Rajendra Prasad, a major in age, outranked the entire armed hierarchy by virtue of being the Supreme Commander of India's defence forces. Ever since every president has achieved that distinction. How do you like that? ;-)

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  22. And now my question? In which year did Good Friday fall on an Easter Monday?

    The answer is 1946 in which year a horse called Good Friday fell in a steeplechase race in England on Monday following Easter.

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  23. They were meant to be Phunny Jokes when nothing was happening here.

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  24. 18 A Isn't this clue jaggiesque? (can be classified as a PJ? or a contribution of a word to the English language (at least in the Hindu crossword solvers universe). No offense meant to any one, just a bit of fun.

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  25. @ Giri: That would not be a PJ, it would be a NJ !
    @ Richard: That's why I capitalised the M in Major.

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  26. @ Col: Hey, you just created a new oxymoron at 1900

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  27. @Kishore,
    Checking on Oxymoron I found this on the net

    One fine day in the middle of the night,
    Two dead boys got up to fight,
    Back to back they faced each other,
    Drew their swords and shot each other,

    One was blind and the other couldn't see,
    So they chose a dummy for a referee.
    A blind man went to see fair play,
    A dumb man went to shout "hooray!"

    A paralysed donkey passing by,
    Kicked the blind man in the eye,
    Knocked him through a nine inch wall,
    Into a dry ditch and drowned them all,

    A deaf policeman heard the noise,
    And came to arrest the two dead boys,
    If you don't believe this story’s true,
    Ask the blind man; he saw it too!

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  28. @ Col: Hey, that is one of my favourite poems. Also check out XJ Kennedy's 'ONE WINTER NIGHT IN AUGUST':



    One winter night in August
    While the larks sand in their eggs,
    A barefoot boy with shoes on
    Stood kneeling on his legs

    At ninety miles an hour
    He slowly strolled to town
    And parked atop a tower
    That had just fallen down

    He asked a kind old police man
    Who bit small boys in half
    “Officer, have you seen my pet
    Invisible giraffe?”

    “Why sure I haven’t seen him,"
    The cop smiled with a sneer
    “He was just here tomorrow,
    And he rushed right back last year”

    “Now boy come be arrested
    For stealing frozen steam!”
    And whipping out his pistol
    He carved some hot ice cream

    Just then a pack of dogfish
    Who roam the deserts snows
    Arrived by unicycle
    And shook the policeman’s toes

    They cried, “congratulations
    Old dear, surprise surprise
    You raced the worst, so you came in first
    And you didn’t win any prize!”

    Then turning to the boyfoot bear
    They yelled, “He’s overheard
    What we didn’t say to the officer
    (we never said one word!)

    “Too bad boy, we must turn you
    Into a loathsome toad!
    Now shut your ears and liten,
    We’re going to explode!”

    But then with an awful holler,
    That didn’t make a peep
    Our ancient boy, age seven
    Woke up and went to sleep.

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  29. One of the best oxymorons found in the indian political scene: Ghulam Nabi Azad (Courtesy: journalist TVR Shenoy, during his last-page column days in The Week.

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  30. Contd: When I had recently recited the poem quoted by you, some one remarked that the plot Ajay Devgn was reciting in 'Athiti tum kab jaaoge' was very similar.

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  31. @ Rich: Superb, is he a slave or free man, anybody's guess.

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  32. A bad performance by an actor prompted the director to say: Put more life into your dying.

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  33. @ Rich:2156: Is oxy superfluous?

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  34. And deleting the superfluous 'oxy' from 'best oxymorons' would create another oxymoron.

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  35. Interestingly oxy means sharp and the word is an oxymoron by itself! I knew this just days back!

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  36. @Kishore
    The drama joke reminded me of this one:
    At the cemetery they increased the cost of burial; reason: increased cost of living

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