Friday 24 August 2012

No.10550, Friday 24 Aug 12, Gridman

Gridman finishes this run much the way it was throughout, with an entertaining puzzle. I do have a bone to pick with 2D though. How far is too far with regional references. Your thoughts?

ACROSS
1 Drivers rack and rasp angrily when not finding these (3,5) CAR, PARKS (RACK RASP)*


5 Rest books the woman scribbled on top (6) OTHERS (OT + HER + S)
10 How Leander swam the Hellespont to meet his beloved (7) NIGHTLY (GK)
11 Delight in lather worked up to smother the nude’s head (7) ENTHRAL (LATHER* outside N)
12 Regard sessions recalled by evaluator at first (6) ESTEEM (MEETS<= after E)
13 Din Croat created is characteristic of a violent wind storm (8) TORNADIC (DIN CROAT)*
15 Aquatic creature, duck seen lying in shade (4) TOAD (O inside TAD)
16 Insignificant flow of millstream (5-5) SMALL-TIMER (MILLSTREAM)*
18 If one is sitting there, one is undecided (2,3,5) ON, THE, FENCE (E)
20 No limits to pasta! I will get wine (4) ASTI (pASTa + I)
23 The skill of our broadcasters in a flying machine (8) AIRCRAFT (CRAFT of A.I.R)
24 Leader of piety in Indian city finds site of temple (6) DELPHI (P inside DELHI)
26 Sounding natural and grammatical? No, Mother, it’s nonsensical (7) IDIOTIC (IDIOmaTIC)
27 Fancy ring given to the artist (7) CHIMERA (CHIME + RA)
28 Bird, no upstart, in a pound (6) THRASH (THRu(+A)SH)
29 Able peon described as tall, thin person (8) BEANPOLE (ABLE PEON)*

DOWN
1 Viol Constantine played is moderate (15) CONVENTIONALIST (VIOL CONSTANTINE)*
2 On roistering in Tamil Nadu, Al leaves boat race (7) REGATTA (RE + GalATTA)
3 Song puts worker on edge (6) ANTHEM (ANT + HEM)
4 King’s ‘yes’: first of orders to strike (4) KAYO (K + AY + O) K.O more familiarly
6 I, with ten, at it — producing mineral (8) TITANITE (I TEN AT IT)*
7 A title that could make me a lord (7) EARLDOM (ME A LORD)* &lit
8 A document in which one vouches for oneself (4-11) SELF-CERTIFICATE (CD)
9 Remember to band together again (9) RECOLLECT (DD)
14 One MP gets ref. and ‘tec’ tossed and disfigured (9) IMPERFECT (I MP + REF TEC*)
17 Lot of wastedirt set haphazardly around the lid of urn (8) DETRITUS (DIRT SET* outside U)
19 Dog’s blunder in row (7) TERRIER (ERR inside TIER)
21 Bosssuper-duper modus operandi (7) SUPREMO (SUPER* + MO)
22 Kind girl in African nation (6) BENIGN (G inside BENIN)
25 Spots cane arrangement (4) ACNE (CANE)*

67 comments:

  1. Hi all

    Some very cleverly contrived clues today. Liked CAR PARKS, AIRCRAFT, IDIOTIC, ASTI, BEANPOLE, IMPERFECT, RECOLLECT, ACNE and others.

    CONVENTIONALIST was breath-taking.


    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. i solved them all... wow... i feel good :D

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    2. Richard the First............ after a few years!

      The catalyst is active.

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    3. +2. While it is very refreshing to see lot of new people participate nowadays, it is always good to see people like Richard and David coming back.

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    4. Thanks, Bhavan, for the kind sentiment.

      During the past year or so, I could follow the blog only late evenings because of time constraints. With all crosswordesque subjects depleted by sundown, literally by the end of the day, there was hardly anything left to comment on.

      Now on, I want to be back in action. Maybe partly because of some prodding on by Dr D Srinivasan. I am grateful to him too.

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    5. Welcome back, buddy.

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    6. Richard@10.24 Reverse catalysis?

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    7. Oh, for a while I thought you said catharsis!

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  2. See some snaps of the dinner meet between Suresh, Kishore and self at RSI Banaglore at the THCC Families blog

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    1. Suresh in a red T-shirt. Hmm... Revenge or repentance?

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    2. With a vengeance, maybe...

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    3. Is RSI the Rajendra Sinhji Institute off M G Road?

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    4. Yes, ex Army chief, of the Jadeja family which gave us KS Duleepsinghji and Ranji and lately Ajay.

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    5. I did not have the pleasure of meeting Suresh and hence was expecting him to have some resemblance to the photo on the blog!

      There used to be a joke about the GT (between Delhi & Madras) being a day late. Suresh, by being several days late for S & B, has beaten that record hollow!!

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  3. BEANPOLE reminded me of the beanpoles here, Bhavan and Bhargav, making 4 Bs in all.

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    Replies
    1. Beanpole is the third and a certain bee the fourth ;-)

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  4. Back in my old routine - and it feels like I never left! Great to start off with a lovely puzzle from the ever entertaining Gridman!

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    Replies
    1. Hi DaDo, welcome back. Did you get a good look at the Crown jewels recently on display?

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    2. Thanks!
      @kishore - The Harry pictures have been banned in the uk! But obviously everyone has just googled them.
      Will be running around a lot on this trip. My daughter is now living in Bangalore, and is engaged. I have to go up to Lucknow (where the boys family live) to finalise the wedding date and book the venue etc. I am also about to embark on a road trip from kottayam to Bangalore in a car loaded with spare furniture we are donating to her new home.
      Oh - and other good news, my elder son just got his A level results and will be going to Oxford in October.

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    3. Great, David. See you when you are in Bangalore.

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  5. Agree with Bhavan's comment on 2D, regional references which are commonplace could be acceptable.

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    Replies
    1. Galatta (Tamil) over 2D?

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    2. Did not realise 'galatta' is so Tamil-ish. Crossings and of course the boat race are there ready enough. To be frank, galatta was the last thing to connect for me.

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  6. The Hindu, though a National Daily, is from Tamil Nadu.
    The setters are mostly from TN and the solvers too maybe mostly from TN. I felt Galatta is not out of context.

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    Replies
    1. After DG and CG's diametrically opposite views, it is my turn to sit on 18a

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    2. Being off fence may not be an offence.

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    3. In my de-fence, I don't want to fence some stolen fences, let they eat the grass they are supposed to guard.

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    4. I have no problem with a regional word being used in the grid. I object to using such a word (hard for non-TNers) as a component of wordplay.

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  7. ok... 5 ac cannot be stress?? ( anag rest + s in scribble on top)?? 20 a/c could be ziti... ziti is a tubular pasta...so got stuck there. over all, it was a good puzzle, but i had to rely a lot of anagrammer.com

    good day all.

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    Replies
    1. 'Rest' being the def., stress is antonym and not synonym. Still, stress crossed my mind too before being scored out.
      Rest- def.
      books- OT (OLd Testament)
      the woman- her
      Scribbled on top- S
      ot-her-s.

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    2. No. Stress won't fit here. its a cryptic crossword where all the components have something to do . stress has 3 s also. same with ziti. We are not consuming wine here :-)

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    3. Dr.Gayathri @8:38 so got stuck .. on the word or pasta?

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  8. 24 Leader of piety in Indian city finds site of temple (6) DELPHI (P inside DELHI)

    That makes me think: Oracle was there at Delphi, when SAP had not yet been launched.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Then Oracle moved out of Delphi?!

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    2. @Kishore,
      SAP was there much before Delphi or Oracle. Of course, I meant SAP as in 'Snake' :)

      p.s. above comment has nothing to do with my professional affiliation.

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  9. Sir, how do you know that today Gridman finishes his round?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Based on past cycles. Of course it is not a hard and fast rule. There might be a 7th puzzle tomorrow to surprise us.

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    2. If there is a 7 I will accept it with both hands. Enjoyed this run from Gridman

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  10. OK, here I am on 'galatta'.

    REGATTA has appeared in Gridman's puzzles four times in the past decade.

    The clues were:

    Somehow get a tar for the boat race (7)
    Rashly target a boat race (7)
    A target set for the boat race (7)
    Gun put in hold, our sailors lost in the boat races (7)

    Faced with the word once again, G wanted to give a different twist to it and so came up with what we have today.

    G thinks that though it is a regional word it is well-known enough. Why, we have had film titles (e.g., Galatta Kalyanam); there is the website galatta.com; there is a Blackberry app. by this name.

    To seasoned solvers the def 'boat race' and the enu 7 in themselves might fetch the answer. Having got it, it is a question of finding the justification and musing about the bloody regional flavour that a harried (much like the Prince) setter has given.

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    1. Galatta is not a word that is well known outside Tamilnadu. Even in Andhra people would not know it. so I do not think it is a fair clue.

      I had the answer without the anno because I did not expect such a reference.

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    2. I had a similar thought on a clue some days back, when to be out of place implied being away from Chennai! (wondered how the likes of Kishore and Suresh solved it)

      At least in today's clue the reference to TN is there, even if it makes it a bit difficult for non local lingo speakers

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    3. Solving for Kishore or me is not a problem. Both of us speak Tamil. But in a National newspaper with editions in Delhi etc. a clue like this is like an African's left leg (avoiding the original version for reasons of propriety). It is neither right nor fair.

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    4. My dear Bhala, quite elementary. Galata also exists in Kannada and Konkani as Galate and Galato, so mentioning TN, with ref to me, would be stating a subset of the domain where the word is in usage.

      But Suresh, while I know the the leg in question is neither right nor left, why bring racism into it by saying it is not fair? ;-)

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    5. Ah it looks like both of you have taken me a bit too literally, while the comment was somewhat tongue in cheek. The point was, why should 'out of place' be with reference to Chennai in a national edition

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  11. For me today's crossword wasn't one :

    Simple sweet path (8)

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    Replies
    1. You can walk the cake and have it too!

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    2. From sweet talking to sweet walking ?

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    3. For @Richard7:40

      Statement of understanding or possession. (3,3,2)

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  12. The Hindu Web Edition has goofed up miserably. One whole Column on the left 1 Dn was missing. It is very remiss on their part. After uploading anything editors should check the webpage. I cannot help feeling very let down.

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    1. They are ahead of the TIMES, as they claim, in their time capsule?

      Can we call it Journalistic malfunction? Denuding our dear virgin crosswords?

      Sloppiness, omissions and commissions in this Desk top era are unpardonable.

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    2. Reminds me of the saying " To err is human, to really foul things up requires a computer."

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    3. Remember we had the 'floppy' discs?

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  13. A huge Gadbad Gottala on Galatta? I agree, Hindu may be a national paper with a regional flavour and hence shouldn't use local dialects. Rather presumptuous to exclude hard-core solvers beyond the Vindhyas? When I was cursorily running thru' today's comments, I just couldn't figure out the annotations; may be upon solving the entire Grid- man's creation, I would have stumbled upon the only inevitable answer as REGATTA.

    Lets say Ta ta to such galatta and Gadbad Gottala.After all, we are all cryptomaniacs?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Great gappa goshti here on gadbad gottala- galatta

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  14. Now then, putting our backs on galatta-ghotala, here is some diversion:

    An innocuous-looking headline from the IANS (news agency) on August 23:

    CURIOSITY MAKES MAIDEN MOVE ON MARS

    Do the tongue-in-cheek experts in this forum see any mischief potential? Annotations on connotations welcome.

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  15. Changing one letter M to L in the fourth word...

    How about this blatant headline 3 days back in ET, Bangalore:

    http://epaper.timesofindia.com/Default/Scripting/ArticleWin.asp?From=Archive&Source=Page&Skin=ETNEW&BaseHref=ETBG/2012/08/21&PageLabel=1&EntityId=Ar00101&ViewMode=HTML

    Mind you it was central, top headline on the first page...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Kishore,

      My curiosity made me copy & paste your link. Lo & behold, it brings me back to our blog !!

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    2. I tried it just now, and it works fine...

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  16. Going back to Galatta, is it a word in Tamil , really? or is it a derivative of Ghottala, guttorily pronounced, from the north? Gaffla and Ghottala are the passwords amongst our worthy rulers who always guffaw their way to their Swiss banks.

    Galatta means confusion? uproar? melee? prithee,can our Tamilian scholars herein clarify?

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  17. Yesterday's Crossword:

    RHUBARB : '' Any of several plants of the genus Rheum, especially R. rhabarbarum, having long green or reddish acidic leafstalks that are edible''

    Rhubarb also means a row, used in yesterday's crossword context.''fray, free-for-all, fuss, hassle, melee, quarrel, rhubarb, riot, row, ruckus*''rumble, rumpus.

    Compilers of crosswords in the English newspapers love this word to beguile the solver by using in various contexts, as is my experience.

    Incidentally, Rhubarb (homophone in Bambaiyya Hindi) also means r'ob jamaana or to over-awe.

    Oh, the beauty of languages !!



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  18. CURIOSITY MAKES MAIDEN MOVE ON MARS
    Richard: cat killer made men from here to shift the girl.

    ( A possibility of clue formation only by Bheja fry NJ

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I am sure someone is going to find this 'creep'-tick!

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  19. On Roistering in Tamil Nadu, Al leaves boat race.

    REGATTA is a new word to me. I was stuck for a long time trying to remove Al from Tamil Nadu and shuffle the remaining letters to find out a word meaning boat race! Today's discussion will help me to remember this REGATTA for a long time :)

    ReplyDelete

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