Wednesday 21 May 2014

No 11090, Wednesday 21 May 2014, Sankalak


Wonder why TH has deleted the word 'From the files of'? Notwithstanding we are delighted to get to solve his masterpieces

ACROSS
1    Declare as true notice by adjudicator (7) ADJUDGE {AD}{JUDGE}
5    Kind of infection caused by a microbe mutating right away (7) AMOEBIC {A}{MICrOBE*}
9    English county where you find cherubim shaking wildly (15) BUCKINGHAMSHIRE*
10 A baby in the works? (6) EMBRYO [CD]
11 Off balance, politician retreated and allied with a group (8) LOPSIDED {POL<=}{SIDED}
13 What Robin Hood might have liked to do at show’s end? (4,1,3) TAKE A BOW [C&DD]

15 Loved one with the right for a protective shield (6) ARMOUR {A{R}MOUR}
18 Cruel or murderous (6) BLOODY [E]
19 The Almighty backs and follows helper, one who helps show the way (5,3) GUIDE DOG {GUIDE} {DOG<=}
22 A reasonable target of attack in straightforward sport (4,4) FAIR GAME {FAIR} {GAME}
24 Sphere of work of maid on training (6) DOMAIN*
27 Convenience for smoker who won’t touch tobacco? (9,6) CIGARETTE HOLDER [CD]
                                                                                               Cartoon by Rishi
28 Same as faithfulness, allegiance (7) LOYALTY [E]
29 Kind of glass that could reveal one’s future? (7) CRYSTAL [DD]
                                                                                      Cartoon by Bhargav

DOWN
1    Ban item surreptitiously going round (7) AMBIENT*
2    Name of a conservative in position (5) JACOB {J{A}{C}OB}
3    I’d aid Mary training to be a worker in a milk unit (9) DAIRYMAID*
4    Rich in breakfast foods, say, generally hollow (4) EGGY {EG}{GenerallY}
5    Female warrior or a male drinking up a very small amount (6) AMAZON {A}{MA{ZO<=}N}
6    Expels American found in military training establishment (5) OUSTS {O{US}TS}
7   The old bend, if lacking energy and treated, may deprive one of judgment (9) BLINDFOLD {OLD+BeND+IF}* One L missing in the fodder
8    Cheese for an Ibsen girl in Costa Rica (7) CHEDDAR {C{HEDDA}R}
12 Bed in company time! (3) COT {CO}{T} Lucky people!
14 No wife in regal protection would be in full awareness (9) KNOWINGLY {K{NO}{W}INGLY}
16 Sound receiver record close to decay in this science (9) RADIOLOGY {RADIO}{LOG}{decaY}
17 Dismissing society in a trick the French way (3) RUE RUsE
18 In the lab, foci get adjusted in such a lens (7) BIFOCAL*
20 Normal animal categories beginning to languish (7) GENERAL {GENERA}{L}
21 Workshop in technical institution set in modest surroundings (6) SMITHY {S{MIT}HY}
23 Himalayan creature located right in the end (5) GORAL {GO{R}AL}
25 Inspection of German car before time (5) AUDIT {AUDI}{T}
26 He fights for money and a posh car (4) MERC [DD]

77 comments:


  1. TH has missed mentioning 'From the files of....'.

    An essentially and characteristically Sankalakesque puzzle. Brought back the nostalgia.

    Got many answers at first look including BUCKINGHAMSHIRE, BIFOCAL, CRYSTAL, TAKE A BOW, LOPSIDED, DAIRYMAID, RADIOLOGY and others.

    2D - Remembered one of the bloggers here who has a similar-sounding name. ;-)

    27A - Liked the wordplay with 'touch'.

    Same with 21D - {S(MIT)HY}. Only unsure of the anno for 17D.

    RIP Sankalak.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Got the anno for 17D after seeing the blog.

      Delete
    2. Richard, yesterday CGB had drawn a little birdie near the In-Out trays cartoon. Was it a Jay Chick? What if we apply the word Cub to the young of a bird. We could call it a Jay Cub ! Like the blogger referred to by you, Thomas Jay Cubb!

      Delete
    3. You deserve to head the Research and Analysis Wing!

      Is my suggestion RAW?

      Delete
    4. I am quite RAW. I am quite green!

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    5. Green? I thought you had problems with spotting colours!

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    6. Aha! This green is the literary one, not for envy, but for inexperience. As to colours, sadly, the problem continues... I am better at colouring spots than spotting colours.

      Delete
    7. Namo is still scouting for raw hands to fill in the RAW positions ! Greenhorns are also welcome. Send in your application !

      Delete
    8. Just realised that just like RAW=WAR<, NAMO=OMAN<

      Delete
  2. 9a was awesome!

    For 27a, I initially put in Electronic Cigar (you have heard of the E. Cigarette, but I wonder if there is such a thing as E. Cigar!) and then changed it when the crossings did not work.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I liked this cluing immensely ! untouched cigarettes , hah ha ! no nico-stains !

      Delete
  3. For Kishore's cartoon, it is a bow with a wow!!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. “How now brown cow ?” asked the crow to the cow,

      Read further at:
      http://kidsstories.wordpress.com/2007/08/06/how-now-brown-cow/

      Delete
    2. "With a bow-wow here,
      And a bow-wow there,
      Here a bow, there a bow,
      Everywhere a bow-wow..."

      Delete
    3. Sandy seems to have joined the Pun-dits' Club. ;-)

      Delete
    4. That's from the nursery rhyme Old MacDonald Had a Farm!

      Delete
    5. Old MacDonald had a farm,
      And he had cause for alarm,
      As very few were a-peckin',
      His well-done tasty chicken,
      But to the KFC outlet they all did swarm.

      Delete
    6. What did the cow say to the bull ? Ah, come now , I have come now !

      Delete
    7. Kishore,
      I read somewhere that they changed their name to KFC to avoid openly admitting the 'fried' part in keeping with the avoid fats syndrome.

      Delete
    8. 'Old MacDonald' song is my favourite ever!

      Delete
  4. For 23D, I had no clue as to the Himalayan creature, but the crosses and the wordplay put the word into place - all that remained was to confirm that it fit the definition! This is what I love about cryptics - you can often get a word even when you don't know what it means! :)

    ReplyDelete
  5. So near, yet so far! Missed out on 17Dn. Tried translator for 'way' in French and it gives 'moyen'. A typical Sankalak puzzle that makes me happy always. :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I guess 'moyen' in French is middle or mean or average. They refer to Middle East as 'Moyen Orient'.

      Delete
    2. Instead of 'way' I should have tried 'street' and the translator gives 'rue'! That's how I missed the 'trick' in 17Dn !!

      Delete
    3. As a philosopher once said, "All roads, streets, ways and paths lead you to rue ..."

      Delete
    4. ...yes, I rue my chance of scoring a centum today :(

      Delete
    5. I got the ruse & rue thanks to my familiarity with the French Pondicherry!

      Delete
    6. Très bon, Monsieur Paddy!

      Delete
    7. An Irishman in Paris?

      Reminded me of
      http://thesaboteur.wikia.com/wiki/File:The_Saboteur_An_Irishman_in_Paris_Trailer

      Delete
    8. Ric,
      My knowledge of French starts and ends with le,la,rue and probably just a few more. So, you will have to translate it for me. Bon is good,is it? So, is Tres bon very good?

      Delete
    9. Oh! No! I am not that Irishman- I am a recent convert in THCC.

      Delete
    10. Paddy, your guess @ 11:41 was on target.

      You can use THIS SITE for translation.

      Delete
  6. Earlier, The Hindu was referring to the setter as 'From the files of Sankalak'.

    There is a change today.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Another case of missing files, I suppose ...

      Delete
    2. It is quite simple to guess why.
      Previously the text box was 'landscape' to a three-col width. There was enough space for the longish byline.
      Now the text box is 'portrait' to just two-col width,
      The present text box for the CWD cannot be lengthened or widened further. It is fixed.

      Delete
    3. K@9.19-
      You have now been designated as RAW. So it is a case for you to solve.

      Delete
    4. CV has presented you a fait accompli even before you designated the case. Now I can go back to war ...

      Delete
  7. Nice toon, CGB. Your chappie has a crystal ball right in his face! Richard might have come across a Mangalorean surname called Ghadiyar, which means 'clock'. In our childhood, we used to call one such person, as the uncle whose face can tell you the time...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I think we should probably request the Colonel to set up THCCC ...

      Delete
    2. What is that last C for?

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    3. Crossword Cartooners' Club?

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    4. We are already clocking in the bloggers!

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    5. The Hindu Crossword Cartoons Corner

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  8. Put FAIR PLAY for fair game and AP ACH E for Amazon had some problem initially. However, could score 85 % in 45 minutes! - which is a record for me. Miss you Sankalak

    ReplyDelete
  9. 8D - Hedda in Kannada means a duffer, a dullard.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Richa: If the Hedda Hopper( remember?) were alive, she'd be hopping mad !!

      Delete
  10. Had a great morning, deciphering Sankalak. Compose few more crosswords while you are in heaven and throw it down. We'll grab it with glee.

    ReplyDelete
  11. My COD? From 1A to 26D!!
    100% adding to my pleasure.

    ReplyDelete
  12. 7D Looks like the printer's devil is back with old bend instead of old blend

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Looks like you have hit the Bull's eye!

      Delete
    2. Agree. That fits the surface too ...

      Delete
    3. Paddy, you seem to be still under the influence of the centre of target in the cartoon ...

      Delete
  13. Posting from the (deep) jungle in Ranthambore. Extremely lucky to have a male tiger pass by our gypsy within touching distance and give us company for almost 15 mins, in the first hour of going into the park. Truly magnificent animal. Keeping fingers crossed for sightings in the rest of the trips.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Why go so far to Ranthambore? Here in the South, panthers and toger cubs cross your way on the Ooty Road ! leave alone, mammoth mastadons without mahouts wandering into the Thadagam road in Coimbatore !

      Delete
    2. Raju,
      The probability of encountering the tiger is very high in the park. The excitement and thrill of tracking, waiting for alarm calls from langurs, cheetal and other animals and braving the 42 deg heat, is totally indescribable.

      Delete
    3. I was just making an aside. I have experienced the thrill of meeting these wild ones, the BIg Five, as they used to call them in Kenya, many a times.Surely, one does not enjoy meeting them in the domesticated environs of the zoos !

      I can stand anything but not the 42 degrees !

      Good luck, happy game-viewing and return to base safe ! Enjoy ! Do take Shots-- from your digital and not the rifle !

      Delete
    4. @Sandhya,
      I'll post photos on Facebook.

      Delete
    5. Pl. also post it on THCC. Happy viewing. Look at tigers, not words. Words can wait!

      Delete
    6. No problem. Posting in the interim between morning and afternoon trips.

      Delete
  14. @ Kishore, Nice play of words in the toon.

    ReplyDelete
  15. Sankalak's, RIP, spirit prevails and is all- pervading ! So true that a man lives in our hearts, even after his death, by his creations while alive ! Somehow, I could sense his cluing even before I completed the crossword in Orkut (thank God for that !) before jum-hopping to the THCC. So smooth that the flow doesn't cause nary a ripple !!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. ... the flow doesn't cause nary a ripple.

      May be better this way:
      .. the flow causes nary a ripple OR the flow doesn't cause a ripple .

      Delete
    2. Double negatives, the U.S.style?

      Delete
  16. Nay, nay, nary US istyle double negatives ! in a hurry , i made a curry of nary !

    ReplyDelete
  17. Paddy @ 11-41 Lest you should miss my post above

    You can use THIS SITE for translation.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you. It will be very useful. I am glad I guessed it right (bull's eye?!)

      Delete
    2. Yes, I did say you were on target in my message above @ 12:02.

      Delete
  18. Friends, seeking the Col's permission to go off-track:

    With a sad heart I recall that today is the 4th anniversary of the AIX 812 plane crash in Mangalore on May 21, 2010, which claimed 158 lives.

    Read a report I wrote soon after the crash, at the request of an international media house - The Aircrash and after....., reproduced by many websites since then..

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Sad & shocking to read through it. This is certainly not one of those stories you read in the papers about an accident somewhere unknown and the first time I read an almost first person account ( so well written from all angles that it looks as though he was there when the whole thing happened including the rescue) of a tragedy of this magnitude. One is bound to have a heavy heart after reading it. May the victims' souls Rest in Peace and may God bless all those who helped on time unmindful of their personal problems. Yes, such tragedies bring people from all walks of life closer together and more importantly forget those who try to divide them.

      Delete
    2. A heart-rending report. Felt really sad reading through it.

      Delete

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