Wednesday 26 January 2011

No 10061, Wednesday 26 Jan 11, Gridman


REPUBLIC DAY GREETINGS to everyone.
Stumped by 31A.
ACROSS
1   - Gag the woman journalist for being dry (8) - {WIT}{HER}{ED}
5   - Sailor playing ruse on drug addict (6) - {AB}{USER*}
9   - Church on rear parts of Chirala to charge rent (8) - {LA}{CE}{RATE}
10 - Lincoln and old mother back school-lab subject (6) - {AM}{O}{EBA}<-
12 - Cut, top bit removed and frozen (4) - dICED
13 - Fussy about mislaid hod (3-7) - OLD-MAIDISH*
15 - Old money placed in exercise area (6) - {PE}{SET}{A}
17 - Furious, loses head over the process of growing old (5) - rAGING
20 - Soul of comic superhero not black (5) - bATMAN
21 - Pitches said to cause agonies (6) - THROES(~throws)
24 - People should love … … on earth, bearing no ill! (3,7) - {ONE} {A{NO}THER*} Not sure of Anno. How is Love - One ?
27 - Vegetable? At rear of refrigerator is fruit! (4) - {PEA}{R}
29 - Evasive in giving key to unknown (6) - {SHIFT}{Y}
30 - Relating to land use in Indian city, rain-battered (8) - {AGRA}{RIAN*}
31 - Fashionable lady with tiny emptied hand (6) - D?C{TinY}L Something seems to be amiss here
32 - Nosey Parker's viewfinder (8) - PEEPHOLE [CD]
DOWN
1   - We have strange link to the clouds (6) - {WE}{LKIN*}
2   - Food for little Tommy? (6) - TUCKER [CD]
Little Tommy Tucker
Sings for his supper.
What shall we give him?
White bread and butter.
How shall he cut it
Without a knife?
How will he be married
Without a wife?

3   - Get nearabout (4) - EARN*
4   - Praise by former wife not completely narrated (5) - {EX}{TOLd}
6   - Disney character, black, has half of what it takes (5) - {B}{AMBItion}
7   - Won't this remedy do for the general? (8) - SPECIFIC [DD]
8   - They are swinishly reckless on the way (4,4) - ROAD HOGS [CD]


11 - Harm one married couple (6) - {I}{M}{PAIR}
14 - Office worker clips flower (4) - PEONy
16 - Whole about to be lost to hollow tiny being (6) - {ENTIre}{TinY}
17 - Tactful cough (4) - AHEM [E]
18 - Five made some ado and left in a hurry (8) - {V}{AMOOSED*}
19 - One may not even remember one is … (8) - AMNESIAC [CD]


22 - Wool-gathering in Rome? (6) - MERINO* My COD
23 - Love variety of fruit (6) - {O}{RANGE}
25 - Unpleasant Pole-turned-model is trim (5) - {N}{A(-s+t)TTY}
26 - High flier, one finally having broken a leg (5) - {E}{AGLE*}
28 - Complain about vehicle parking (4) - {CAR}{P}



33 comments:

  1. 31a is defective.
    Gridman offers apologies to solvers.
    Details are on the Orkut community: The Hindu Crossword Solutions.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi
    Time to remember with respect and gratitude, some PVC recipients, in our own little cryptic way: (ranks not included)
    Soft, win, lion,.....but touched the sky with glory (6,3,5,6)
    He has a Hall bearing his name in London, an ace in Hindi (6,4)
    Amateur radio operator has a diminutive identity, reminiscent of ‘the Loin’(5)
    Senior most, an aquarium in Mumbai is named after him ? (8)
    Devil of a lion (7,5)
    Shh, Samoan tram turns out to be the first (3,4,6)
    (Note: Some names could have alternate spellings and hence differ in enu)
    Quite a few nice ones today: DAC(T(-in)Y)L*, (-b)ATMAN, PEA-R, (-d)ICED or (-sl)ICED, SHIFT-Y, PEON(-y), NA(-s+T)TY,...
    Hence, difficult to pick one SPECIFIC Cod. I think PEEPHOLE gets it.
    PEA appears in both 15a and 27a, but innovatively clued differently in both, exercise area and vegetable.
    Remembered Deepak’s nomenclature for non-idiotic ROADHOGS.
    Was initially unsure about TUCKER or Supper, since both are 6 letter words and both figure in the nursery rhyme. Crossings brought enlightenment.
    Prob with 31a Maybe intended answer was DACTYL ?
    Time I stopped CAR-Ping and V-AMOOSED* or skedaddled.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Today, Deepak's cartoon links rub shoulders with Gridman's 20a comic superhero Batman and 6d BAMBI.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I can only say that 24a works only on FITB level. Another level intended has just been discovered not to be working. Gridman has no cover!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Kishore,

    How can you classify 31A as a nice one when the clue is defective and the answer impossible?

    ReplyDelete
  6. Deepak,
    Strange, but true. A case for Ripley, I believer. I seem to have gone the Gridman way on this one, namby pamby, willy nilly, whatnot ...

    A thousand apologies :-)

    ReplyDelete
  7. 24 - People should love … … on earth, bearing no ill! (3,7) - {ONE} {A{NO}THER*} Not sure of Anno. How is Love - One ?

    ONE ANOTHER = (ON + EARTH + E + NO)*

    Bearing = direction = E

    ReplyDelete
  8. Bhavn,

    You have given Gridman the required cover :-). He owes you a drink.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Colonel : )

    Unless there is a third level intended by Gridman, 24A is my COD ...

    ReplyDelete
  10. Bhavan
    You have saved Gridman!
    But in the Orkut community I thought Gridman had made one more mistake!
    You see, we setters fail to see our own breakdowns of words after the passage of time.
    Gridman doesn't note down the wordplay for the clues he writes. Not up to so much of typing.
    Sometimes, even while checking the crossword prior to publication, he has to scratch his balding head to see what he thought earlier.
    Thanks, once again.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Bhavan: That was a nice anno for 24A. I had written down the answer after some crossings but could not figure out how the clue worked - had put it down as fill in the blanks (seemed to be not Gridman's style, but did not know better). With your anno, 24Ac is indeed my COD as well, though before that, a tactful cough brought a few smiles..

    ReplyDelete
  12. @CV : No problem. One mistake in the grid (31A) was unusual enough for Gridman.

    Has the clue for 31A appeared as written by him ? What was the intended clue anyway ?

    ReplyDelete
  13. CV 854: and preen the phuzz accompanying the philtrum !

    ReplyDelete
  14. No misprint. The clue is defective, with error undetected at every stage. Veer has suggested a good alt in the Orkut community:THCS.

    ReplyDelete
  15. CV 854: and preen the phuzz accompanying the philtrum !

    ...but these are trimmed from time to time with a Korean protective scissors and so at the moment I am afraid I can't do what is suggested.

    ReplyDelete
  16. So, like onions, you await a fresh harvest !

    ReplyDelete
  17. With the anno. for 24Ac., Gridman skirts close to an indirect anagram with bearing = E. There is some ambivalence about bearing - could have been one of at least 4 one letter directions and could be argued as slightly unfair. Some sour grapes on my part as well..

    ReplyDelete
  18. @veer 09.11 : Agree about the indirect anagram.

    I'd personally like to see an unambiguous or clearer indication for E.

    Bearing is not only indicative of the 4 directions, but also of their combinations like NE,SW etc.

    ReplyDelete
  19. As you know Gridman rarely uses indirect or concealed anagrams.

    In the clue under discussion, it is a simple FITB - against which of course you can say how can that clue-type find a place in what's regarded as cryptic crossword.

    The indirect anagram comes in only when you take a relook at the clue and perhaps raises a smile.

    There is no doubt about the indirectness: that's how I failed to see Gridman's intention until Bhavan pointed it out.

    It must be taken as an occasional clue.

    ReplyDelete
  20. Hi CVasi sir

    Reg 9A, does convention dictate that 'A on B' is B followed by A for across clues?

    ReplyDelete
  21. I am a newbie and need some help with Monday's crossword 10059
    1. Report that a snow leopard is following the girl (8) - {ANN}{OUNCE}
    2. Why are soldiers = RA in Suppress the way soldiers are at the tip off a viewpoint (8) - {ST}{RA}{aNGLE}
    3. What is the significance of overcome in the solution "overcome an attack (6) - AFFECT [DD}"
    I understand attack = affect though.

    ReplyDelete
  22. Hi madhu...
    1. Ounce = snow leopard, Ann = girl report = announce

    2. RA = royal artillery

    3. Affect = attack, as in he was affected by cold.

    ReplyDelete
  23. Shyam

    This question of whether A being on B (in ac clue) gives AB or BA has been discussed by us from time to time. The topic is treated by Anax in DIYCOW and also by Shuchi in Crossword Unclued, apart from whatever observations I make in scattered Comments.

    It has been said it is as it is in 9a in this crossword.

    However, Gridman may have used the same device for AB as well. I wonder whether there is any problem about it.

    ReplyDelete
  24. @^: Oops, I seem to have missed this discussion in both these places! Let me browse through them. Thanks a lot...

    ReplyDelete
  25. It was nice to see Shri TN Seshan participating in a discussion on Corruption moderated by Sagarika on CNN-IBN. Perhaps, this is the first time he is appearing in a public forum ever since he settled down with his wife in a home for senior citizens in Perungalathur near Chennai.

    ReplyDelete
  26. CV

    Perhaps Gridman intended to use LAD in place of LADY. Then it would have worked this way:

    31 - Fashionable lad with tiny emptied hand (6) - DACTYL*

    Fashionable - AnagrInd
    lad LAD
    with (if we take it as around) - C for Circa
    tiny emptied - TY
    Defn: hand - DACTYL*

    ReplyDelete
  27. The answers to the PVC clues:

    F/O Nirmal Jit Singh Sekhon Touch the sky with glory is the motto of the IAF and he literally did that.

    L/n Albert Ekka , Albert Hall in London, ekka=ace

    CQMH Abdul Ham-id,Ajit, the Loin’s real name is also Hamid.

    Lt Col Tarapore (Taraporewala Aquarium)

    Major Shaitan Singh Shaitan=devil

    Major Som Nath Sharma*, the first recipient, and co-incidentally reported to be a relative of the lady who designed the Param Veer Chakra, Mrs Savithri Khanolkar, ( born Eve Yvonne Maday de Maros)

    I trust I have achieved my objective of having at least a few people looking up the gallantry awards and thus remembering some of these brave men.

    ReplyDelete
  28. I fared badly today: only about half the crossword done. And I think it has something to do with having the TV turned on while solving (Eng v Aus).

    Anyway, here's a photo of something I spotted at the Chozha temple at Darasuram, near Tanjavur. Do you think they were onto something one thousand years ago? ;-)

    http://i74.photobucket.com/albums/i276/navneeth/IMG_1802.jpg

    ReplyDelete
  29. Navneeth, let us request Gridman to put life into it !

    ReplyDelete
  30. Apart from a possible CW grid, the overall 3x3 also resembles a sudoku grid.

    ReplyDelete
  31. Navneeth
    Thanks for sharing this pic with us.
    I was captivated by the window design.
    I wonder whether the stone mason used the two L's vertically or horizontally for each section; on closer examination, I think he placed the L's horizontally.
    Kishore's idea that the grid with nine sections resembled a Sudoku grid did not occur to me immediately.
    Can we try to set a crossword with this grid - by considering some of the holes as blocked (still maintaining some sort of symmetry/consisency? I will think about it
    As for the sense of symmetry - Does everyone have it? Is it a desperate attempt to see some design in art when we can't find it in real life? Or is it natural, inborn? I have noticed that my young granddaughter right from three years or so uses symmetry in whatever she doodles.

    ReplyDelete
  32. Regarding the Ls there seems to be no one answer. While top left square has clearly two horizontal ones, the bottom left has two different types of link with the outer frame. In that squareIn the horizontal arm linking to the left vertical, a full width stub extends inwards, whereas in the lower vertical arm, linking to the bottom frame, there is a squarish stub of half the width of that vertical. So, it almost looks like it could be used as a jigsaw puzzle if taken to pieces. Far from recommending the original to be taken to pieces ! A copy would work.

    Real life is nearly symmetrical in many places. Go look in a mirror. Agreed that there are minor variations but by and large nature does follow symmetry.

    ReplyDelete
  33. Unless those Korean scissors have been wielded ineptly ...

    ReplyDelete

deepakgita@gmail.com