Saturday 22 June 2013

No.10806, Saturday 22 Jun 13, Aspartame

Rather nice one, Aspartame.

Trying new format. Any suggestions ?


ACROSS
1 POSSUMSent Ted away with money to get a marsupial (6)


POSted SUM



4 APPLETA program from computer giant, leader in tablets (6)


APPLE T, Clue numbering corrected



9 BALEEvil Christian celebrity? (4)


DD or 3D, Ref to. Christian Bale


Imagine Christian Bale as Batman giving a baleful look to 
Dr Evil and Mini-me from Austin Powers



10 MEMBERSHIPParliamentarian aboard vessel gets a pass (10)


MEMBER SHIP



11 STUPORPus and rot causes coma (6)


*



12 RETRIEVERescue tailless dog (8)


RETRIEVEr



13 CEASELESSThere is no end to lower vision reportedly (9)


~SEES LESS



15 AULDOld Scottish St. Paul died from within (4)


T


Remembered Auld Lang Syne



16 BUSYFully occupied vehicle on final journey (4)


BUS Y







17 SHELTEREDGirl let revolutionary communist be protected (9)


SHE LET* RED



21 ACHILLESGreek character, sick at heart, yearns for…. (8)


ACHES around ILL



22 NUMBER… doctor with mysterious rune to be less sensitive (6)


(MB+RUNE)* or MB in RUNE*



24 BRAINSTORMThink about book on meteorological phenomenon (10)


B RAINSTORM



25 CHIPFlaw that’s used while gambling (4)


CD,2



26 MONODYPoem on Odysseus has verses lamenting a person’s death (6)


T



27 INJUREHabituate abducted judge to harm (6)


INURE around J


Judge's obiter dicta has spawned SMSs like "I got married yesterday",
"So what? I got married twice yesterday to the same girl", responded 
by a third chap with "I committed bigamy yesterday"







DOWN



1 PIASTRECurrency of pirates at sea (7)


PIRATES*



2 SLEEPSkins pulled back for kip (5)


PEELS<



3 UNMORALSomehow mourn for criminal having no ethics (7)


MOURN* AL, our old crook is fairly popular



5 PRESTOPoster designed quickly (6)


POSTER*



6 LASSITUDEShuffle suits and deal without energy (9)


(SUITS DEAL)*



7 THIEVEDOddly after first king was ousted, she entered and stole (7)


THI(-r+EVE)D, Oddly after first refers to 'third'



8 X MARKS THE SPOTAt the exact location, carefully makes sixth port throwing one out (1, 5, 3, 4)


(MAKES SiXTH PORT)*
Reminded me of the huge X in the Church in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade



14 SUSPICIONDoubt heartless ultras taking half the cipher back into a Bombay suburb (9)


SION around US and CIP<



16 BUCKRAMLinen made from animals (7)


BUCK+RAM



18 LINEMANA straight worker? (7)


CD
Remember the heydays of the electricity and telephone linemen of yore ?



19 EREMITE“Queen of England has power” said the recluse (7)


ER E ~MIGHT, Queen=ER, England=E



20 CLOSEDDaughter took out shirt from cabinet that was shut (6)


CLOSE(-t+D), t for T shirt



23 MACAUIn China, leading marketing agencies campaign against unemployment (5)


Acrostic


Reminded me of Naresh Fernandes's "Obsessive search for the elusive
humerus of St Francis Xavier". I could not locate it on the net. But you 
can find it in Jerry Pinto's book - Reflected in Water


40 comments:

  1. This is also pretty good Kishore. Leaves sufficient space for your comments that all of us have come to expect. :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Kishore,

    Too many extra lines between clues

    ReplyDelete
  3. A very smooth and entertaining puzzle from Aspartame . Wrong clue number had me in a spin for a while as I entered applet in 5D. In the last one week, first time I managed to complete before deadline.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I was almost there. Missed 9A and missed a plateful of SAMOSAS !

      Delete
    2. 9A was the last to fall. I was riding the scooter going to buy veggies, trying to guess the first letter, and having discounted A, had gone to B and the penny dropped. Luckily the name was not starting with a latter letter.

      Delete
  4. I prefer yesterday's format.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I will wait for all the votes to come in and check with Deepak how he did it.

      Delete
    2. Nothing different. I had 4 columns - Clue number, Clue (with picture/cartoon inserts where needed), Solution and Annotation with comments as against your 3 columns

      Delete
    3. Did you copy paste the clues into Excel from Orkut or direct from the newspaper?

      Delete
    4. I prefered 3 columns hoping that it will come out better in the small screens. I copied from Orkut to Excel.

      Delete
  5. Amplification the anno for 14D

    US comes from U(-ltra)S and PIC from CIP(-her)<=

    ReplyDelete
  6. Have a question on 13A though. Does the wordplay correctly indicate the def?

    ReplyDelete
  7. Nitpicking time:

    6D LASSITUDE Shuffle suits and deal without energy (9) - Lassitude is a noun. The phrase 'without energy' is adverbial. What do others say?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Nitpicking is a lousy exercise ;-)

      Delete
    2. Working on a pack of lice? ;-)

      Delete
    3. with a lice-nce to kill

      Delete
    4. Uneasy lice the head thar wears a crown

      Delete
  8. Similarly in 22A, if it is (mb + rune)* does it become and indirect anagram? And if its mb in rune, is 'with' a fair containment indicator?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That is why I gave two anno.s both of which are not very satisfactory, hoping someone might have the answer. Also, agree with Richard @845

      Delete
  9. I have not solved this and I looked at only some clues that showed up on my screen as I scrolled to 'Comments'. They were 16 to 23. Of these, 16 and 23 are quite OK. But 18, 19 and 20 may not withstand critical scrutiny. Sorry I can't go into details.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Crisp cluing from Aspartame. Apart from ones pointed out, found these with problems:

    13 There is no end to lower vision reportedly (9) CEASELESS ~SEES LESS
    Don't think this is a Homonym clue. Wordplay does not contain SEES & LESS.

    18 A straight worker? (7) LINEMAN
    Insufficient description for answer.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Sorry, that was meant as homophone. Maybe this would work.

      13 There is no end to one having lower vision reportedly (9)

      Delete
    2. Doesn't "one having lower vision" lead to a noun?

      The definition is somewhat like "What one having having lower vision does." So prolly, if the clue goes like, "There is no end to what one having lower vision does, say" or something, it might work I guess.

      Delete
    3. Not easy to work with the core of the words of the clue.

      Delete
  11. I do not see a problem with 13A at all. Sees less means lower vision.

    I think 18 is also fine. That is why the question mark

    ReplyDelete
  12. 13A Maybe 'have lower vision' would have been better.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. "has lower vision" would be even better IMO.

      18D: Are all lines straight? Not necessarily I reckon.

      Delete
  13. 16 D: BUSY with the hearse toon.
    I was expecting Kishore to have a comment on these lines when I filled in the answer.

    ReplyDelete
  14. OMG, you can read my head !

    ReplyDelete
  15. Echo Colonel and SandhyaP's comments regarding the formatting of the post. (Desktop/Ubuntu/Firefox.)

    ReplyDelete
  16. i would like to point out that the new tabular format is impossible in a phone. A great deal of us students use our phones to access this site. And this new display is painful.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. What phone are you using? I have no problems on an android as well as an iphone

      Delete
  17. In my opinion, today's crossie is so-so. Firstly, there was a mistake in indicating the number of 4 Across as 5. Again, One hears of LINESMAN and very rarely LINEMAN-- nice decoy.! 13 Across: CEASELESS was a bit of a weak one. 21 Across could have been EPSILLON as ILL fits in woith PINES which could be derived from ACHES. Correct ACHILLIES could only fall in place after one gets BUCKRAM, which could be any number of linen made form animals.It takes quite a while to arrive at BUCK & RAM to fit in. Hence a weak cluing. MEMBERSHIP , again, is a sort of OKOK clue. THIEVED, was a bad one. too convoluted !

    Any way, one takes the thick with the thin in cryptics and can't complain. More BRAINSTORM-ing compilers the NITPICK-ier !!ASPARTAME can say:, ITs part"o'" ME

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Raju the spelling is EPSILON and not EPSILLON. Even if yu put ILL in PINES, where did you get the O from?

      Which are the any number of other options for linen made from animals?

      Delete
  18. When one's mind is engrossed in solving, all possibilities come to fore and then you hit pay dirt ! I know that the spelling of EPSILON but it is also a Greek character and almost fitted in.

    BUCKRAM fits in, but the hint in the clue is very broad as 'linen' and that's what I meant about the ' any number of possibilities' with 7 letters.

    All in all, I held an opinion that the crossie was so-so. Nothing much to write home or to blog about . We have seen better and worse, so there !!

    ReplyDelete

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