Saturday 4 April 2015

No 11360, Saturday 04 Apr 2015, Sunnet


Our A to Z man is back, with a theme to boot.

ACROSS
1   Having two strands of Saudi architecture (6) DIARCH [T]
4   Very large girl's show is cancelled initially (8) GALACTIC {GAL}{ACT}{Is}{Ca...d}
10 Clarified and stored (6,3) SORTED OUT {STORED}*
11 Note an individual’s skeletal remains (5) BONES {B}{ONE'S}
12 Listen to first love (5) HEART {HEAR}{To}
13 Said to row after dull fool (9) NUMBSKULL {NUMB}{SKULL(~scull)}
14 A long time framing a coalition's schemes (7) AGENDAS {AGE{NDA}S}
16 Catch a carriage (4) TRAP [DD]
19 Replica of city house (4) ECHO {EC}{HO}
21 Behold! The sulphur boils (7) SEETHES {SEE}{THE}{S}
24 Taking advantage of energy mutual fund's Chinese unit to move ahead (9) UTILIZING {UTI}{LI}{ZING}
25 Caught between genuine cease-fire (5) TRUCE {TRU{C}E}
26 Head cook rings one (5) CHIEF {CH{1}EF}
27 Decapitate rodent's mother in city (9) AMSTERDAM {hAMSTER}{DAM}
28 Fairness of oriental character (8) EQUALITY {E}{QUALITY}
29 Split piece without energy (6) SHARED {SHAR{E}D}

DOWN
1   Forgotten list of ten Indian articles on power (8) DUSTHEAP {DUS}{THE}{A}{P}
2   Freely swear via medium of radio (8) AIRWAVES*
3   Stone supports guerilla's case (5) CHEST {CHE}{ST}
5   Seek amateur model to attract (7) ATTEMPT {A}{T}{TEMPT}
6   Cuba made small changes to attack (9) AMBUSCADE*
7   Speech's not about half the guests (6) TONGUE {TON<=}{GUEsts}
8   Acts differently on the French fort (6) CASTLE {ACTS*}{LE}
9   Bars marijuana cigarettes (6) JOINTS [DD]
15 Wasted futile month at first by lying (9) DECEITFUL {DEC}{FUTILE*}
17 Must queen bear? (8) SHOULDER {SHOULD}{ER}
18 Prized seed scattered around swarm (8) ESTEEMED {ES{TEEM}ED*}
20 Attorney stopped mixing toxin in chemical agent (7) OXIDANT {OXI{DA}NT*}
21 Wisest saint grows older inside (6) SAGEST {S{AGES}T}
22 Stubborn one grasped Supreme Court's strength (6) MUSCLE {MU{SC}LE}
23 Background note instead (6) MILIEU {MI}{LIEU}
25 Peg the clipped fangs (5) TEETH {TEE}{THe}

GRID

PS: Coming Mon-Tue are 'pull up your socks' days for me!!

22 comments:

  1. 14A Some of us are used to agendum as singular and agenda as plural. Freedict clarifies this:
    The term agendum has largely been supplanted by its Latin plural agenda, which is treated as a singular noun and denotes a list or program of numerous things, as in The agenda for the meeting has not yet been set. In this use, the plural of agenda is agendas.

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  2. But then joints are also body parts!

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  3. Got caught in a couple of places, but enjoyed doing the wonderful CW. Thank you Sunnet.
    Body parts dawned on me after seeing Col.'s opening remarks.

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  4. Col. has warned us of heavy headwinds in the coming days. Met has given us 48 hours advance notice to sharpen our pencils & wits,of course!
    Thank you NR for the clarification. I had the same doubt while filling it in.

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    Replies
    1. You mean we could be in for some xActing and xHausting two days!? Who knows it could turn out to be as xCiting too! Anyway when it gets tough, the tough get..... ! BTW I am not tough!

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    2. The last sentence brought out a smile/ laugh. I am with you all the way.

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  5. Quite a brainy affair! I was almost there but for DUSTHEAP! A wonderful puzzle with Indian flavour thrown in here and there, namely UTI, NDA and DUS. I thoroughly enjoyed solving. Thank you very much, Sunnet. :)

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  6. Off topic: use of active and passive voice.

    Wife: Sone ki chain kab doge?
    Husband: Chain se sone kab dogi?

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  7. Second chain is 'To sleep'- Am I right?

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  8. I took it as the husband asking his wife to give her old gold chain (to be exchanged for a new one) !!

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  9. Enjoyable puzzle, Sunnet - thank you! My clues of the day were 10 and 28.

    The grid made it appear as if the top and bottom half were near-independent from each other - only 6d and 15d were the connecting links.

    AGENDAS gave me pause, but then most dictionaries do accept AGENDA as a singular noun these days - one must move with the times! The other grey area for me was in 23d: "instead" would give us "IN LIEU" rather than just LIEU, right?

    Thanks for the blog, DG! As Rajan has pointed out above, JOINTS too is part of the theme. (Also, at a stretch, the SKULL part of NUMBSKULL!)

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  10. I couldn't see the pangram, as I had spelt 24a as UTILISING - the s/z is unchecked, so it didn't register.

    Which brings another thought to mind: if a standard variant spelling of a word has the differentiating letter(s) showing up in unchecked squares in a crossword, how would it get treated in, say, a crossword competition? In the case of UTILISING/UTILIZING, it is not even a case of British vs American spelling - both are used in British spelling.

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  11. The 'Tut,tut'! MB was expecting came late yesterday evening- for the benefit of those who missed it.
    And, after that came Raju's mini treatise on CW's & their outlook in general. Too long to be quote here.

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    Replies
    1. It was a mild one! Not a thunderbolt!! Ramesh to note!!!

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    2. May be getting too old and feeling the weary worthlessness of being sensitive to many things which have become silly in the present age!!! Mellowed indulgence and resignation to the fact of boys will be boys, too!

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  12. An interesting news snippet for today is that a minor planet between Mars & Jupiter has been named 'Vishyanand'. Here is the citation-
    Michael Rudenko proposed the name "Vishyanand" (adhering to rules requiring names to be 16 characters or fewer, and preferably without spaces), along with a brief citation explaining the reason for the name. To his delight, the committee gave its approval, and minor planet (4538) is now officially known as "(4538) Vishyanand". The citation reads: "Viswanathan (Vishy) Anand (b. 1969) was India's first chess grandmaster. He went on to become the fifteenth undisputed world chess champion. In addition to his passion for chess, he is also an avid astrophotography enthusiast."
    For those who want to know more about it-
    http://en.chessbase.com/post/minor-planet-named-after-chess-player

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  13. Thanks for all the feedback folks

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