Thursday, 17 December 2009

No 9716, Thursday 17 Dec 09, Nita Jaggi

Most of the clues are absolute nonsense today from the surface reading point of view
ACROSS
 8  - Safe plan for an officer to promote debt collection (6,8) - {CO}P{PER BOTTOMED*} This should have been shown as (6-8) and where did the P come from?
 9  - Foreigner has a queen bird (6) - {SCOT}{ER}

10 - Employing eight in front of a nagging character (8) - {E}{NGAGING} E from eight?
11 - Misfortunes for a group of cabs covering the initial kilometres (8) - {SET}{BAC{K}S*}
13 - They may be the clues solved from left to right (6) - ACROSS [CD]
14 - Hostility in the country to capture its borders (6) - {MALI}{CE} its borders is I and S and not C and E
16 - Request the worker to hold the tap on the street (6) - {BE{H}E}{ST} Tap and H ?
19 - Fish part is cut with a bit of oil in Norway (6) - {TARP*}{O}{N}

21 - Beat signifying the rhythm of life (4-4) - L?B?-D??? (Addendum - LUBB-DUPP [CD] Se comments of Dayquest in comments section- This is a new word for me)
23 - One in an ethnic community in Italy has a disease (8) - BER{I}BER{I}
24 - Scared to be alone in the beginning in the French capital at four (6) - A{F}RAID Anno eludes me
26 - Abandoned side favoured the sudden movement (4,2,3,5) - {LEFT} {IN} {THE} {LURCH}
DOWN
 1  - I yell aloud that it is cold (8) - ICECREAM (~i scream) Should be (3-5) or (3,5)
 2  - Mark the location (4) - SPOT [DD]
 3  - This system has a point (6) - METRIC [E]
 4  - Leaderless mob, severely injured out in the city on the opposite side (7) - (-m){OB}{VERSE(-ely)}
 5  - Do nothing in an administration covering the regular agendas (8) - STA{G}{N}{A}TE
 6  - Left George in a position holding the hard, half head of the turtle (10) - {L}{OGGER{H}E}{(-he)AD}

 7  - Finest kind of mock actions (6) - FEINTS*
12 - Scholar and a couple of learners aim to scribble in the beginning with pens (10) - {BA}{LL}{POINT}{S}
15 - Refers to the companies (8) - CONCERNS [DD]
17 - Gas absent in the first-rate lantern (3,5) - T?? LIGHT (Addendum - {TOP} LIGHT Don't know how though) (Correction thanks to Maddy - TOP (-f)LIGHT)
18 - Cardamom is good in Chile for its variety (7) - EL{AI}CHI* No indication about language
20 - Apes are at the Spanish borders of the eateries (6) - {AT}{EL}{ES}

22 - Church official has a rosary mostly for the French (6) - {BEAD}{LE}
25 - Uncommon part of an umbra region (4) - RARE [T]


25 comments:

  1. Very few of today's clues make any sense. Yet, you managed to solve almost all of them. Amazing !


    Richard

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  2. Hi all,
    Here's a bit of info. It's been a month since I added the clustr map to my blog and it has recorded 3466 visits over the past 30 days, the visitors are spread over the following countries
    India (IN) 2,532
    United States (US) 544
    United Kingdom (GB) 179
    Singapore (SG) 46
    United Arab Emirates (AE) 32
    Portugal (PT) 26
    Australia (AU) 23
    New Zealand (NZ) 12
    Asia/Pacific Region (AP) 11
    Japan (JP) 7
    Europe (EU) 6
    France (FR) 6
    Canada (CA) 6
    Kuwait (KW) 3
    Thailand (TH) 2
    Spain (ES) 2
    Bahrain (BH) 2
    Malaysia (MY) 2
    Poland (PL) 2
    Italy (IT) 1
    Croatia (HR) 1
    Hungary (HU) 1
    Norway (NO) 1
    Finland (FI) 1
    Germany (DE) 1
    Netherlands (NL) 1
    Belgium (BE) 1
    Switzerland (CH) 1
    Pakistan (PK) 1
    Indonesia (ID) 1
    Nigeria (NG) 1
    Brazil (BR) 1
    South Africa (ZA) 1
    Uruguay (UY) 1
    Sri Lanka (LK) 1
    Mexico (MX) 1
    Korea, Republic of (KR) 1
    Greece (GR) 1
    Bermuda (BM) 1
    Taiwan (TW) 1
    Saudi Arabia (SA) 1
    Turkey (TR) 1
    Thanks to all those who have been visiting the blog

    ReplyDelete
  3. 17A - TOP LIGHT? It should be TOP-LIGHT (3-5) in the clue. TOP for first-class. TOP-LIGHT is a lantern on the top of a vessel.

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  4. 16A - Tap can be either C or H from the cryptic crossword abbreviations link I sent earlier.

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  5. @Dayquest,
    Well done, but why the laugh?. By the way are you a doctor to have managed to decipher the answer? For the rest see LUBB-DUPP

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  6. @ Sembhayya,
    But why does the top-light not have Gas??

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  7. 24Across Anno is as follows
    Alone in the beginning - A
    French - FR
    Capital - AI
    Four - D

    Now, I have no idea how AI and capital are related. I again found AI for capital in the cryptic crossword abbreviation link I shared earlier...

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  8. Colonel, Good question. I don't know about the gas part:-) I can only explain how TOP is related from the clue. After all, it is NJ again :-)

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  9. Here we go again...
    Gas absent in the first-rate lantern (3,5) - T?? LIGHT

    My take - First rate - Top Flight
    Gas absent - delete 'F' which is chemical symbol for Flourine, a gas

    So, we get Top (-f)Light - Lantern

    I actually thought its a good clue

    ReplyDelete
  10. Sembhayya,
    Don't trust that c/w abbn link, it has many dubious entries, though AI for capital is a valid one.

    Here Capital means first rate or excellent ie A1 =>AI when 1 is written in roman numerals, at least thts how i interpreted it...

    BTW todays Guardian also had 'Scoter' as one of the clues-

    Cortes prepared duck

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  11. Regarding the Tap = H/C conundrum -

    Taps as in water faucets are labelled 'H' or 'C' to indicate hot and cold water resp and that is how tap = H or C

    Somebody correct me if I am wrong, but I don't think they are universally accepted as cryptic abbns.

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  12. @Maddy,
    Now that you have annotated TOP LIGHT it definitely looks a good one

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  13. @Sembhayya,
    A1 is there in 18D as well for good, A1 appears quite frequently in CW's for excellent, top, good etc

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  14. @Madyy,
    For NJ anything goes whether universally accepted or not, she has H from a tap her and H from Hard in 6D this one I presume from classification of pencils

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  15. Colonel Sir,
    Thanks for the cluster map note..

    Given that there are so many countries represented I wanted to share an iPhone app that downloads the daily Hindu crossword into the iPhone in editable form. It is free In the App store and created by fundoo research. I discovered it recently and is useful if one does not have access to the paper or not near a printer. Please delete comment if inappropriate to today's cwd discussion.

    Veer

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  16. 8AC I guess Officer = COP

    4D would have been a very good clue for DECIMAL (This system has a point). I felt it was weak for METRIC


    OBVERSE is supposed to be the side facing the observer not the opposite side.
    How do we get -ely from out in the city?

    I liked this clue
    15 - Refers to the companies (8) - CONCERNS [DD]

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  17. @sriks7
    ELY is the name of a city in the UK see ELY

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  18. Too many questions today, another example being,'Rosary mostly' becoming 'BEAD'?

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  19. Somebody correct me if I am wrong, but I don't think they are universally accepted as cryptic abbns.

    I've seen taps = H and C used before in other crosswords, but they've always occurred as a pair.
    e.g. In a clue for HANDCRAFT. Or "hot and cold" is in the clue somewhere and the answer has "TAPS" in it.

    I wonder who or what is the deciding authority for valid abbreviations. I guess any abbreviation recognized by a standard dictionary like Chambers should be valid?

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  20. Rosary is 'beads' or a set of them. so mostly rosary could be bead. That is how I answered the clue. By first looking up the meaning of rosary

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  21. As Suresh said, Rosary is a set of beads for Christians for keeping a count on prayers - something like a Rudraksh for Hindus and 'Misbah' for Muslims - and a bead is therefore a part of it('mostly').


    Richard

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  22. I can only say that it has been observed by a Commenter (maddy?) here or in the Orkut Community THC Solutions that it is not an "in" thing to pluralise a word (X) and then say mostly of X.

    Rest is silence.

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  23. maddy wrote something about it, a comment on Crossword Unclued:

    Why BENGALI = BENGAL + I doesn't fly

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  24. If BEAD is acceptable for 'Rosary mostly' then the possibilities of other similarities are innumerable to name a few 'Books mostly = Paper', 'Shirt mostly = cloth' so on and so forth

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