Friday 15 January 2010

No 1290, Sunday 10 Jan 10, TOI Sunday Cryptic

Since yesterday was a holiday for The Hindu newspaper there is no THC today. So I am posting last Sunday's Times of India Sunday Cryptic, a CW which I enjoy, as it rarely if never uses any proper nouns like names, place names or movie names etc. It is not an Indian setter and I have not been able to find from where it is syndicated. The answers however are in white color within the square brackets so iy highlight the area within you will be able ot see the answer. I am unable to post the grid however.
So have fun with this one to keep yourselves engaged on today's 'superstitious' eclipse holiday. I am not putting the definition in bold and italics as that will take the fun out of solving. Unable to show the annotations due to some technical glitch.
ACROSS
1 - Mistake from backward schoolchildren (4-2) - [ SLIP-UP ]
4 - an inclination to write and sing (8) - [ PENCHANT ]
9 - Choice form of potion (6) - [ OPTION ]
10 - Shorten an agreement (8) - [ CONTRACT ]
12 - Definitely edgy and possibly alarming (8) - [ MARGINAL ]
13 - A medium state perhaps (6) - [ TRANCE ]
15 - Condiment makes many sick (4) - [ DILL ]
16 - A creature that could become richer soon (10) - [ RHINOCERES ]
19 - Is little skill required to sail them? (5,5) - [ SMALL CRAFT ]
20 - Boat takes doctor from Moscow - (4) - [ SCOW ]
23 - Get out a piece of fire-fighting equipment (6) - [ ESCAPE ]
25 - Submitted to the Spanish guard (6) - [ SENTINEL ]
27 - Return to harvest fruit (8) - [ REAPPEAR ]
28 - Step right back inside (6) - [ STRIDE ]
29 - Banished and, indeed left at sea (8) - [ DEPORTED ]
30 - He sets about making bedclothes (6) - [ SHEETS ]
DOWN
1 - Became very angry when attacked (7) - [ STORMED ]
2 - It's Latin among other things (5,4) - [ INTER ALIA ]
3 - This system works perfectly (6) - [ UTOPIC ]
5 - Black bone structure (4) - [ EBON ]
6 - A reduction in the barber's charge (3,5) - [ CUT PRICE ]
7 - A win, not for the first time (5) - [ AGAIN ]
8 - Ties the rest in knots (7) - [ TETHERS ]
11 - Collects in the rags all over the place (7) - [ GATHERS ]
14 - Showed a sign of cold and contempt? (7) - [ SNIFFED ]
17 - Once tried to be obscure (9) - [ RECONDITE ]
18 - It brings insects to a sticky end (8) - [ FLYPAPER ]
19 - He reads the cut version! (7) - [ SHEARED ]
21 - Wrestle like boxers (7) - [ WELTERS ]
22 - Make an effort to reduce the rent? (6) - [ STITCH ]
24 - Number having an inclination for restraint (5) - [ CRAMP ]
26 - Stop sleeping at the stern (4) - [ WAKE ]

10 comments:

  1. If you wish to see the grid, here it is:

    http://dailydozen.blogspot.com/2010/01/reqd-grid-for-toi-puz.html

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks Chaturvasi,
    Post got delayed due to a technical hitch, I had to delete and redo several times till I could manage to get all the answers whitened, had to remove the curly brackets and annotation indicators, don't know why though.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I have inserted the Grid. Thanks to Chaturvasi once again.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Easy clues :)
    Had to rack my brains with 22 down - got confused with property rent!

    ReplyDelete
  5. The ToI publishes the cryptic crossword only once a week.

    If you have observed, every sixth grid that the NIE crossword (syndicated, set by Rufus) uses is a 15x15. In UK papers this appears every Saturday, as the solver has more time to tackle a bigger crossword with more clues (compared to 13x13).

    By the simplicity and no-questions-raised nature of the clues I suspect that ToI uses the 15x15 of the puzzle from the syndicate.

    If you have the grids of the NIE puzzles, please look up a 15x15. If I remember right, NIE uses a similar grid with for plus signs.

    Then if the other 15x15 grid that ToI uses also matches with the second 15x15 grid that NIE uses, we can be sure that the puzzles are by Rufus.

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  6. My suspicion has been confirmed!

    After I saw Sandhya's comment and after I remembered that the clue was familiar, I did a search in my Orkut community and found that the relevant clue was published in NIE on Jan 3, 2009.

    So the puzzle is the same syndicated that NIE uses.

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  7. In the above I must have said that the syndicated puzzle in NIE is by Roger Squires. Rufus is the byline that the setter uses for his Guardian puzzles.

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  8. In one of the posts above, please read: If I remember right, NIE uses a similar grid withtwo plus signs.

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  9. To the visitor who posted in Tamil. Kindly post your comments in English.

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  10. Colonel

    Perhaps the answers could have been withheld for half a day, so that there would have been some fun, for at least those who had not seen the published grid on TOI.

    When the answers were readily available, just a click away in the parentheses, the human weakness to immediately look for the answers would naturally have the better of us.

    Honestly, the day was so boring.


    Richard

    ReplyDelete

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