Sunday 31 July 2011

No 2645, Sunday 31 Jul 11


ACROSS
1   - Win and celebrate (7) - TRIUMPH [DD]
5   - Popular - word describing one caretaker (7) - {IN}{TER{I}M} INTERIM
9   - Report coarse players (9) - {BROAD}{CAST} BROADCAST
10 - Awkward drunk (5) - TIGHT [DD]
11 - Commercial outlet in period before Christmas (6) - {AD}{VENT} ADVENT
12 - Viceroy, first to knock male club that's disreputable (7) - {K}{HE}{DIVE} KHEDIVE
14 - Poisonous plant, British, brought in by her boy (4,11) - {HER}{B} {CHRISTOPHER} HERB CHRISTOPHER
16 - Columbian one, one drunk very rarely (4,2,1,4,4) - ONCE IN A BLUE MOON*
19 - A giant, swine holding queue back (7) - {GO{LIAT<-}H<-} GOLIATH
20 - Say name of Island (6) - {STATE}{N} STATEN
23 - Love huge Greek character (5) - {O}{MEGA} OMEGA
24 - Not connected by marriage, a Parisian's told (9) - {UN}{RELATED} UNRELATED
25 - Swing - net added to facility, reportedly (7) - {TRAP}{EZE}(~ease) TRAPEZE
26 - Where youngsters play could make one spit, perhaps (7) - SANDPIT [DD]
DOWN
1   - Punch's dog in play about bishop (4) - {TO{B}Y} TOBY
2   - Appropriate batting line-up (2,5) - IN ORDER [DD]
3   - Fly military aircraft across Germany and Spain (5) - {MI{D}G}{E} MIDGE
4   - Sadness shown by audience coming from play (10,5) - {HEARTBREAK} {HOUSE} HEARTBREAK HOUSE
5   - Saying last rites, talk so differently (2,5,3,5) - IT TAKES ALL SORTS*
6   - Main part, perhaps, I retell to comic (5,4) - TITLE ROLE*
7   - Is lying in light rough that's deceiving (7) - {ROGU{IS}H*} ROUGISH
8   - Old French president needing hand with job (10) - {MITT}{ERRAND} MITTERRAND
13 - Rejected, we hear, in every part (10) - (~threw out)THROUGHOUT
15 - A new chair vandalised, and crockery? (9) - CHINAWARE*
17 - Yorkshire river passing over a large crater (7) - {CALDER}{A} CALDERA
18 - Dance on stage, saving energy (3-4) - ONE-STEP Anno pending (Addendum {ON}{E}-{STEP} - See comments)
21 - Ready to drop a couple of lines home (3,2) - {A}{LL} {IN} ALL IN
22 - This may turn up? Correct (4) - EDIT <-



20 comments:

  1. 18 - Dance on stage, saving energy (3-4) - ONE-STEP Anno pending

    {ON}{E}-{STEP}

    ReplyDelete
  2. (from yesterday)

    Going through the comments everyday gives me a feeling that some of the analyst commentators are losing the simple pleasure of spontaneous CW solving. Please correct me, If I am wrong in my view.

    What is 'simple pleasure'?

    What is 'spontaneous CW solving'?

    Anyway, I believe THC has CWs which afford exactly the kind of solving you are talking about - when you detach yourself from reasoning and jump to the answer that the setter has in mind and never for a moment bother how the heck the solution is derived.

    A leading analyst commentator.

    ReplyDelete
  3. TH has published an apology for the goof-up in grid last week.
    Thank God, they did not republish the crossword with the correct grid this Sunday and thus deprive us of our pastime today.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I so agree! I do like it when setters are a little whimsical and use puns and word play in their clues. Setters should be free of the shackles of dictionary syntax as long as their meaning is clear to the solver and not just a flight of fancy that is decipherable only unto themselves.
    I guess I get bogged down in exact syntax and meaning when I think the clue is unfair or just plain wrong - and as far as I'm concerned we haven't had anything like that over the last week. So, let's not stifle debate - but let's keep the fun.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I promise I will get off my soapbox soon
    But;
    I think dealing with different setters is like learning a new language (or perhaps dialect would be more accurate). Each person has their own vocabulary and syntax. I believe it is these individual traits that make crossword solving so enjoyable.
    I feel I am moderately fluent in gridman, sankalak and everyman. Can get by in Manna. But am completely list and tongue tied in NJ (are there any rules).
    Perhaps the frustration comes when you just can't get inside the setters head and you are therefore marooned in a land where you don't speak the language.
    So I guess my point is that confirming to extremely strict rules would cause a blanket uniformity and lose the thrill if actually knowing a setters vernacular.
    Apologies for some of the spelling. Am doing this on my phone and my fat fingers keep getting I instead of O. Please decipher and accept this as my distinct trait!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Exactly what I said yeaterday CV, though in a different way. Do not worry about fine issues and enjoy the CW.

    Felt homesick from 17D, David?

    ReplyDelete
  7. Anyone

    Don't worry about slips of the finger while typing.

    We are grown-ups and we understand.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Suresh
    Yes! The Calder Valley is truly beautiful. Guess I also had the advantage of knowing the Yorkshire rivers too. My wife used to live by the river Aire and as youths we would climb over her back wall and go for long walks along the footpath.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Regarding Yorkshire. I have just realised I moved from "God's own county" to "God's own country"

    ReplyDelete
  10. There's a pleasure in the pathless woods, too.

    There's a rapture on the lonely shore!

    ReplyDelete
  11. It took a few mins. for the next line:

    There's society where none intrudes!

    ReplyDelete
  12. Deepak

    Please allow me to put in a shameless plug here for the benefit of those who who are not members of the Orkut community: The Hindu Crossword Solutions.

    Here we go:

    The August prize puzzle on a UK website has 30 clues written by volunteers around the globe for a special grid prepared by a volunteer duo.

    C. G. Rishikesh is among the clue-writers.

    I do not think I will be able to solve the special puzzle that is on the level of a Beelzebub or EV or Azed.

    But it was a pleasure to make a little contribution!

    The link:

    http://www.crossword.org.uk/RR5.html

    The first time you try to d/l, it may take a while for the grid to show up.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Col.-
    Solution for 8D should be Mitterrand-one R is left out.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Padmanabhan. Refer CV @09:37

    ReplyDelete
  15. sorry!
    More with a view that the answers published here should be faultless.

    ReplyDelete
  16. Thanks Padmanabhan,
    Typo since corrected

    ReplyDelete
  17. To answer Sowndararajan's query, the very reason of the threadbare analysis of Gridman's puzzles is because he is an experienced setter who is amongst us, always ready to answer our doubts. The intention is not carping, but learning.

    For all the analysis last week, it is a consensus that the wordplay throughout is impeccable and the points that went under the scanner were quite fine.

    ReplyDelete
  18. CV, I just opened 'Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit' and guess what jumped out at me in the very first sentence:

    "Pale hands I loved beside the Shalimar".

    "Kashmiri Song', by Adela Nicolson, who wrote under the pseudonym Laurence Hope and who having lost hope, committed suicide in Madras in 1904 (Wiki)

    ReplyDelete
  19. Gridman: On Saturday's puzzle: You could have conjoined 16 Across and 18 Across by ---- one after the other; What would one annotate such conjoined clues? However, you'd have then ruffled some rough feathers in the Publishers' Family?

    Sunday's puzzle was quite an exciting one THROUGHOUT.It created a HEARTBREAK in my house with my wife who found me so engrossed that I had forgotten to ask her whether she has had her breakfast.! I told her, such clues come but ONCE IN A BLUEMOON, and I needed to TRIUMPH over the compiler.She was about to throw some CHINAWARE at me and BROADCAST to the whole world about her anger against the challenge to her TITLE ROLE as the boss of the house, which was threatened by my crosswords.IT TAKES ALL SORTS. I was ALL IN by then.

    Clues aside: HERB CHRISTOPHER was a new one in my learning curve.

    DAVID:We are all used to rapid reading and reading in between words and lines. So don't curse your fat fingers.

    I fully agree and empathize with any compiler who is for ever searching for new ways and means to befuddle our minds, including NJ-- Again,IT TAKES ALL SORTS to become a compiler to regale us.

    ReplyDelete

deepakgita@gmail.com