Saturday 10 August 2013

No 10848, Saturday 10 Aug 2013, Neyartha

Stumped by 12A and 22D besides a few annos.

ACROSS
1   Thirteen fear alteration from that point in the document (12) THEREINAFTER*
8   Spells ‘ages’ (7) SEASONS [DD]
9   Animal cage, good for a penny (6) GRISON (-p+g)GRISON
11 Modifying toy shaver was rash (9) OVERHASTY*
12 It’s undesirable for them (5) B?R?S (Addendum - BIRDS [CD] - See comments)
14 Hit back by collecting baseball clubs of a brownish-orange colour (9) TAWNINESS {TAW{NINES}S<=}
16 Informers in retreat with a celebrity (4) STAR<=
18 View arsenal contents for the military conflicts (4) WARS [T]
19 Three colours here, but a viewer might see only one at a time (9) TRICHROIC [CD]
21 Check on Maoist leader ousted by the Yankee from an Indian state (5) ASSAY ASSA(-m+y}Y
22 Lefthanders cheer Henry going back to wait for the auditor (9) SOUTHPAWS {S(-h)OUT(+h)H}{PAWS}(~pause)
23 Leaderless country in the peninsula (6) IBERIA sIBERIA Siberia is not a country?(Addendum - lIBERIA - See comments)
25 Place pastries around the good American soldier for the shoats (7) PIGGIES {PI{G}{GI}ES}
26 Crushed ski goes missing after kindheartedness is misconstrued (12) DISHEARTENED kInDHEARTEDNESs* Neyartha seems to have erred in the deletion letters

DOWN
2   Stressed about entering lifts directed towards the sky (11) HEAVENWARDS {HEAVE{NWARD<=}S}
3   Hide under fountainhead with a plant organ (4,4) ROOT HAIR {ROOT} {HEAD}{HAIR}
4   Pressing for the unstable fraud’s dismissal (9) INSISTENT Anno pending (Addendum - INconSISTENT - See comments)
5   Asian networking guru researching Yahoo’s leaders got furious (5) ANGRY {A}{N}{G}{R}{Y}
6   Attempt to imprison Israeli bachelor with a felt hat (6) TRILBY {TR{IL}{B}Y}
7   Letters from the superior in a Brazilian city (3) RIO [T]
8   Revolutionary leather bands put on athletic apparel (10) SPORTSWEAR {SPORTS<=}{WEAR}
10 Shuns uninitiated advances after East German car’s sent north (10) OSTRACISES {OST}{RAC<=}{rISES}
13 Justify breaking solitaire containing sodium (11) RATIONALISE {RATIO{NA}LISE*}
15 Hit providing a catching opportunity gets a leap from the Winter Olympics participant (3,6) SKI JUMPER {SKI {JUMP}ER}
17 Hate huge building where the Dutch royals live (3,5) THE HAGUE*
20 Wood reportedly from an island nation (6) CYPRUS (~ cypress)
22 Cadet, crazy and strange? (5) S?A?E (Addendum - SPACE [CD] - See comments. I'm not convinced though)
24 Nasty criminal (3) BAD [DD]

56 comments:

  1. 4 Pressing for the unstable fraud’s dismissal (9) INSISTENT Anno pending

    INconSISTENT

    ReplyDelete
  2. 23 Leaderless country in the peninsula (6) IBERIA sIBERIA Siberia is not a country?

    LIBERIA-L

    ReplyDelete
  3. 12 It’s undesirable for them (5) B?R?S

    BIRDS,
    from the phrase It's for the birds

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Nuts crack frequently ...

      Delete
    2. Kishore @ 8:42
      ....frequently and easily if they are bone dry. I'm talking about monkey nuts !! :)

      Delete
    3. Even coconuts crack in summer ...

      Delete
    4. ....in a nut-shell, all nuts crack irrespective of any season !!!

      Delete
  4. 22 Cadet, crazy and strange? (5) S?A?E

    I put this as SPACE - Space cadet(eccentric)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I was stuck on that. I was trying to work on CADET* with crazy as anagrind. But ACTED seems to be the only possibility, which does not fit in there.

      Delete
  5. Pardon me if this sounds like a personal query. Are there many 22A in this forum? I know at least one.

    2D - It was only yesterday we spoke of forging up and down.

    Liked 5D. Well clued.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Do you know a southpaw who is also a space cadet ?

    ReplyDelete
  7. One can guess by working backwards. I suppose there is only one qualified space cadet.

    ReplyDelete
  8. 3 Hide under fountainhead with a plant organ (4,4) ROOT HAIR

    Typo:{ROOT} {HEAD}

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Root head clashes with Tawniness, while root hair matches...

      Delete
    2. The answer is correct,there is a typo in the anno.

      Delete
  9. So does one get the right handed service or the left handed one ?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That's in resp to Raghu @ 0911

      Delete
    2. I meant that by knowing who is the only space cadet, we can surmise who the leftie is.

      Delete
    3. Add 'is' before the comma.

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    4. But that does not answer my question, Mr P ....

      Delete
    5. Make your Q short, Kishore, without the address. That'll probably come out one of these days.

      Delete
    6. But that does not answer my question, Mr Parthasarathy

      Delete
    7. Southpaw's leading hand is the right hand. Now you figure it out yourself.

      Delete
    8. It can only be right handed for the fastest draw in the East.

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    9. Only stigma, not protection :-(

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  10. Is Neyartha taking us to the movies?

    The SPACE movie
    STAR WARS
    BIRDS

    or into space, along with
    HEAVENWARDS

    ReplyDelete
  11. Yesterday I got only 75%. Today I did'nt get 3 clues, 12A,14A & 22D.Earlier I used to get only 50%. Have I started understanding the setter. Or easy on both days - to ace solvers?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I am also like You - still a learner. I feel, it is not the knowledge about the setters, but, learning from the experts, above, through annotation & discussions.

      Delete
    2. You are getting better. 12A and 22D were not clear to many of us, including myself.

      Delete
    3. LV garu,
      Getting 75% of Neyartha's puzzle is no mean achievement ! The ones that you could'nt solve were really tough. IMO you are within a striking distance of some of our veteran solvers !! Keep it up. BTW I'm an amateur and am sure you are aware of it. Cheers !

      Delete
  12. @ Vijay sarvangam Sir, Yes of course I have learned a lot from this blog.I must thank Col sir for this.
    @ Col sir, Thanks a lot!
    @ Suresh Sir, Thanks a lot for encouraging me.
    @ MB Sir, I am also in your group! I started doing xwords just a year and a half back.So a lot to learn from all the ace solvers.I am still in the lowest step of the ladder!Thanks a lot for your cheering words :-)

    ReplyDelete
  13. Heartening to know the experts were floored by some annotations too! managed around 70% ,going by the crossings and intuition:/

    ReplyDelete
  14. Just curious-was the paper delivered today? or do all of you work online?
    My daughter thinks I'm 100% crazy-I took the trouble of drawing the whole grid on a paper before trying to solve it! - I thought it was the id holiday(in gods own country)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The paper was delivered in Bangalore. But since the paper remains in the protective custody of my father till about 10am, I usually do it online. You can try it under Applications in the Orkut Community which you can access through the first link under Links on the left side of this blog. This app does not work sometimes and in such a case we are forced to copy the grid from the second link under links. You may copy the grid into MS Excel or any suitable software.

      Your daughter's diagnosis does her credit. But tell her that there are many more similarly crazy people in the world ! Megele Amchigele crossword paLailevey Mayye ?

      Delete
    2. As usual door delivery at home. I do it on paper. Don't know about others. Drawing the whole grid ? It shows how deeply you are interested in CW solving !

      Delete
    3. I always do it on the paper. If I had to do it online it could take all day, since I will start around 10 and intermix with other work.

      Delete
    4. Prefer the paper too ,as at least 25% of the satisfaction I get is from crossing the solved ones out!

      Delete
    5. I thought you had the app?

      Delete
    6. BTW I quite hate this Neyartha, I think I got about 6 yesterday and about the same the day before; glad I can look forward to the express sunday quiz tomorrow, which is really a no-brainer.

      Delete
  15. Thank you, Padmanabhan, for answering my question regarding yesterday's 5A (I had missed it yesterday).

    And in today's grid, we have not just BIRDS but ANGRY BIRDS, although I'm not sure if that fits into a theme, or even if there is a theme to start with.

    ReplyDelete
  16. Nice one for a smile:

    A man ordered for a voice automated robot car that does anything he tells it to do correctly without any error.

    He got the car and started sending it on errands. He became very proud of what the car could do without mistakes.

    One day, he was home and his wife told him to tell the car to go and pick the children from school as she was very tired.

    The man agreed and said to the car; Car, go and bring my children from school.
    The car went and didn't return in time as expected, they knew something must be wrong.

    Several hours later and no car, the man became apprehensive.

    He dressed up and got ready to lodge a report at the police station. As he and his wife stepped outside they saw the car coming with an overload of children.

    The car parked right in front of them and said; "These are your children sir". In the car were their Landlady's two daughters, their choir mistress's two sons, his wife's best friend's daughter, their pastor's son and their neighbours two sons.

    The Wife said; Don't tell me all these are your children ?.

    The man asked her calmly; Can you first tell me why our children are not in the car?. ......

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. HAHA ! HAHAHA !! HAHAHAHA !!! A super joke :))

      Delete
    2. Not surprising in these days of live-in relationhips,shotgun marriages and divorces !!

      Reminds one of the old joke between a man and a woman: Your kids and my kids are playing with our kids

      Delete
    3. Yet another super duper joke !!! :-))

      Delete
  17. The theme was ANGRY BIRDS (if you are familiar with the popular mobile game series from Rovio Inc.)

    We have Angry Birds, Seasons, Rio, Space, Star Wars and also Bad Piggies

    ReplyDelete
  18. Today's Neyartha's took me a whole 45 minutes to solve !! So, all-ye out there !!
    Some of the clues were really offbeat, like SPACE ( nice decoy with an ACTOR !) and BIRDS. Unless one looked for names of movies .

    What I am surprised still, as queried yesterday, why has no one noticed and commented on his word -play with 9 to 12 letter long words !! Fantastic, I should say, Drives one to go for the pen and paper to work out the deletions-additions and anagrams. Good learning curve for beginners and of course, lovers of long words like me in crosswords. A few more days with him and then he'll have to produce other rabbits form his hat !!

    I'm a part-southpaw and ambidextrous, but quite dextrous with words alright.

    Clue of my day" SEASON

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. 25A, Birds, Piggies and SouthPaws Still has me foxed

      Delete

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