Thursday 7 January 2016

No 11594, Thursday 07 Jan 2016, Gridman


Gridman displaying desi shades today!

ACROSS
1   Trouble troubled Sid and Burt (7) DISTURB*
5   Girl's endless anger in auto repair shop (6) GARAGE {GAl}{RAGE}
9   Had defeated daughter to drop off (5) OWNED dOWNED
10 Dubiously get leader consigned to obscurity (9) RELEGATED*
11 By river, dare building sitting rooms (7) EXEDRAE {EXE}{DARE*}
12 Telling sweep of fish trap (4,3) GILL NET*
13 Dekhiye, the old left and somehow hoofed it (5) HIKED DEKHIye*
14 Badly need goodwill, having lost fine attempt (9) ENDEAVOUR {NEED*}{fAVOUR}
16 Boy to match a kind of bridge hand (5,4) MINOR SUIT {MINOR} {SUIT}
19 Firm's top man gets a shade (5) COCOA {CO}{CO}{A}
21 More eccentric with a more pert officer commanding gone (7) WACKIER {W}{A}{coCKIER}
23 And big iron endlessly distributed by African city (7) NAIROBI {ANd+BIg+IROn}*
24 Artist after artist to avoid short, frilly dress (2-2,5) RA-RA SKIRT {RA}-{RA} {SKIRT}
25 Indian aunty sports primarily haldi shade (5) KHAKI {K{Haldi}AKI}
26 Old English essayist’s mettle mentioned (6) STEELE (¬steel)
27 Finishing one's i's (7) DOTTING [CD]

DOWN
1   Study well for a project, not just clean, wash clothes and iron (2,4,8) DO ONES HOMEWORK [C&DD]
2   Where you can expose yourself and bask, no doubt (3,4) SUN DECK [CD]
3   A cow is ... (losing dollars and getting tense doubly, it is said) (7) UDDERED The wording of the clue leads to UTTERED See comments
4   Dandy includes request for memorandum (9) BORDEREAU {B{ORDER}EAU}
5   Short gun girl held up in prison camp (5) GULAG {GUn}{LAG<=}
6   Large dispersal and retrieval of top-class finery (7) REGALIA {LARGE*}{AI<=}
7   Don to enjoy really (3,4) GET INTO [C&DD]
8   Letting one's opinions know, without giving facts, masks its ideal origin (14) EDITORIALISING*
15 Blasted boy up on a boy (9) DETONATED {DET<=}{ON}{A}{TED}
17 Sailor with a container comes up — it's pale red in colour (7) NACARAT {NAC}{A}{RAT}<=
18 Put out again about the controversy (7) REISSUE {RE}{ISSUE}
19 Fair play by noise-maker (7) CRICKET [DD]
20 Delhi thief and a soldier are leaders of movements (7) CHORAGI {CHOR}{A}{GI}
22 Paid encomiums, leaving out Physical Director's uplift (5) RAISE pRAISEd

21 comments:

  1. Found it tough...lots of unusual & new words learnt...Exedrea...Gill Net..Ra Ra Skirt..Bordereau...
    Completed the puzzle huffing & puffing

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  2. No doubt, Gridman has RAISEd the bar. STEELE stole my samosas. Had tough time in SE corner.Detonated brought smiles. Nicely clued.

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  3. I received an SMS querying about 3dn.
    If it has a problem, my apols.
    However, my thinking was:
    It is an elliptical clue and you get UDDERED from "A cow is ..." (supplying this word in the place of the dots).
    Having got UDDERED, the solver has to be sure that it is the intended answer. Help is given in brackets.
    The substitution leads to 'uttered' - it's (the result of sub) is 'uttered'.
    Not convinced? Passable? I leave it to my gentle solvers.
    * * *
    As for the unusual words... I think except for that in 3d, all others have been seen - and will be seen - in crosswords.
    If you ask me how I chose, occasionally we setters set some challenges for us. I don't exactly remember how I gridfilled, but probably I used 'autofill'. The challenge in such an endeavour is whether we are able to come up with reasonable clues for words which we did not put in with an eye to good, clean, neat clues. (In any case I don't start with a clue before putting the answer in the grid.)
    Of course, after the autofill, we would examine the grid to see whether the words are acceptable, whether there is any offensive word and tweak a little.
    Here I don't thin I changed any word. But at 3d no other word might have been possible.
    If the clue doesn't work as I intended it to do, please forgive me. Opinions invited.

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    Replies
    1. 3D does work. I didn't look at it from that angle

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    2. Sir..the puzzle was extremely enjoyable..the unusual words added more enjoyment..i put in udder in 3d straightaway & got 9A..

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    3. I put in uttered with a ? in my head. The crossings resolved it and on re-reading the clue felt it was okay.

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    4. Sir..what is autofill(is it software generated grid fill?)

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    5. As CV says the brackets are an indicator of the intended answer.

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    6. In Crossword Compiler (and similar commercial softwware) the filling can be done manually one by one. However, when you have a slot with, say. S?S? you can straightaway enter SOSO from your knowledge. But you can also use AutoFIND facility which with a click will give "sash sass so-so and suss". Other software may give an extended list "sasa sash sass sese sess siss sist soso soss suss susu" from its diligently and carefully concatenated list. So you move from slot to slot and complete the fill.
      AutoFILL will itself fill the entire grid without any intervention by you. This, done mindlessly, will have many problems and is not usually preferred.
      Technology being available is one thing and harnessing technology is another.

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    7. Thanks Sir..very enlightening

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    8. Enjoyable Grid.I learnt a lot of new words...

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  4. Phew! Finally could finish it! I too filled in 3Dn as UTTERED and got stuck on 9Ac for quite sometime. Tough but enjoyable one. Thanks Gridman. Colonel's pet COCOA shows up today too! :)

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  5. 24Ac RA-RA SKIRT reminds me of a Boney-M number RA RA RASPUTIN.

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  6. New words (mentioned by Vasant) got me in today.
    I got uddered without much difficulty- in fact, it came to mind on seeing the cow.I was strugg;ing to fit in a SI mami in 25A till 'kaki' dawned on me. With chor & dekiye, Gridman has added a NI flavour today!
    I have a doubt about the Bridge hand. Minor suit is part of a pack (Diamomnds & clubs) but can it be described as a kind of hand? IMO, it can at best be part of a hand. Or a weird hand with all 13 cards of a minor suit like James Bond gets.

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    Replies
    1. I had the same feeling Paddy.It is not exactly a type of hand, like yarborough or chicane

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  7. Way to go, Gridman. New words , new anagrams complicated yet not needing any help !
    Adding to my glossary.However, I wonder, when and how shall one use such words and where?
    Thanks for including Nairobi, my karambhoomi .

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  8. Very nice crossword. Added new words to my vocabulary. Thank you Gridman.

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