Thursday 18 February 2010

No 9769, Thursday 18 Feb 10, Sankalak

ACROSS
 1  - Poison made by steeping elm extract in white wine (7) - H{EML*}OCK
 5  - Warship, one in a deceptive manoeuvre covered by leaders in Central Russia (7) - C{RU{I}SE}R
 9  - Cancer, for one (4,2,3,6) - SIGN OF THE ZODIAC [CD]

10 - Performance proverbially considered better than words (6) - ACTION [CD]
11 - Showing supreme happiness in upsetting FBI, CIA etc., endlessly (8) - BEATIFIC(-c)*
13 - He can give you a testing time (8) - EXAMINER [CD]
15 - A candlestick among various concealed articles (6) - SCONCE [T] Link available with last Sunday's CW
18 - Shrewd student drops study, enters the outskirts of Albertville (6) - A{STU(-den)T}E
19 - Compel the inclusion of French gentlemen in business (8) - CO{MM}ERCE
22 - Spare the spelling out of prior offences (3,5) - RAP SHEET* Nice clue
24 - Refueller worse off after end of job (6) - {B}OWSER* Nice one
27 - Money for the investor with a hint of more to come (7,8) - INTERIM DIVIDEND [CD]
28 - Gland that produces hormones including one for growth (7) - THYROID [E]
29 - Bout of bad temper shown by a militant ruminant (7) - TANTRUM [T]
DOWN
 1  - One held captive, he carries a very big label (7) - H{OS}{TAG}E
 2  - Strength, that is said to be right (5) - MIGHT [CD]
 3  - Medical specialist with nothing to record first (9) - {O}{TO}{LOG}{IST}
 4  - Flying it might be to test the waters (4) - KITE [CD]
 5  - Intelligent class leader, a learner always (6) - {C}{L}{EVER}
 6  - Craft that got nought in university club (1-4) - {U}-{B{O}AT}

 7  - The starch in the shirt (9) - STIFFENER [CD]
 8  - What to do with used paper, say, if one is eco-friendly (7) - RECYCLE [CD]
12 - Note on a drink that cheers (3) - {TE}A
14 - Lack of interest about processing tin produces intense aversion (9) - A{NTI*}PATHY
16 - Disturbance caused by business proposal involving a hint of merger (9) - {CO}{M{M}OTION}
17 - A drug to upset a spinner (3) - POT <- )
18 - Transport by the aerial route, a famous operation in Berlin once (7) - AIRLIFT [CD]
20 - Me a lord? Funny state for a British nobleman (7) - EARLDOM*
21 - Kind of universities considered as such (6) - DEEMED [DD]
23 - One of the Marx brothers (5) - HARPO [E]
25 - Damaging criticism as may be used in a campaign (5) - SMEAR [CD]
26 - Spiteful gossip that made a board member start tirade (4) - {DIR}{T}


25 comments:

  1. Good morning, friends:

    Still wondering how I couldn't get 26D - DIRT, an easy one. The rest were OK.

    The ones I liked: 9A, 27A and 3D.

    1A. HEMLOCK reminded me of the death of Socrates.

    For those interested, here is a graphic description of his trial and death. What an end to a great man !

    http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/socrates.htm


    Richard

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  2. Got all but 26D - does DIR stand for board member, director ?

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  3. Richard, so we both were stumped by the same 26D :-)

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  4. Krishnan, it was really dirt easy and we failed to get it. And DIR is director, a board member.


    Richard

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  5. Thanks Richard, yes it always happens, we are able to crack the tough nuts but are beguiled by easy ones.

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  6. DIRT was the last one I got too after going "alphabetically"

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  7. Good Morning Friends,

    I have been a THC buff since 1988, the blogspot has increased my enthusiasm , cracking the clues has become much easier. Thanks and keep it going!!

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  8. 19 A,

    why is "mm" a french gentleman ?

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  9. @ Krishna

    M is short for Monsieur (French eqvt of Mr, pronounced 'Messieh') and the plural is Messieurs. (I think 'M/s' which we use while addressing firms etc. is the abbreviation of Messieurs.)

    If a Frenchman addresses a letter to you, he will normally write M Krishna and not Mr Krishna.

    In crosswords, MM stands for gentlemen.

    Hope the experts will agree with me.


    Richard

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  10. Amendment: In crosswords, MM stands for French gentlemen.

    Richard

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  11. As Richard brought out M is Monsieur for Gentleman in French, so for gentlemen it's MM

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  12. Richard
    You're there but not quite there!
    Yes, 'gentleman' is Monsieur in French.
    Yes, 'gentlemen' is Monsieurs in French.
    M/s is used in before company titles. Yes.
    It is abbr. of Monsieurs - yes. I may add that M/s comes from Messrs which comes from Monsieurs.
    So far so good.
    But how does gentlemen give MM?
    Ay, there's the rub, as the Bard would moan!
    gentleman + gentleman = gentlemen
    M + M = MM
    Now you must be recalling a joke. I shall leave it to you to say for I am a poor raconteur.
    Meanwile, try solving
    Spoke, spoke, spoke... (5)

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  13. Friends, is Sankalak the easiest of the THC compilers ?

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  14. @Krishnan,
    I've said it before, Sankalak appears to be the easiest only because his clues are well formulated which does not leave any scope for doubt, moreover he uses words which are not too obscure. Very rarely will you say that I'm seeing that word for the first time.

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  15. @Richard,
    You could also try Coach, coach, coach ... (5)

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  16. A small comment on the Sankalak thread. I was reading the book by DS MacNutt (Ximenes on the art of the crossword) that Shuchi wrote about in her blog, and a passage from Chapter 3 seems to frame this discussion well. MacNutt argues that a section of more discerning solvers would like a sound and difficult puzzle over a sound and easy puzzle.

    Sankalak has been described as one of the more Ximenean of the Hindu setters but perhaps he (an assumption here on my part) does not bend his mind in strange directions to set more challenging word play that seeks to playfully mislead the solver while being sound (not to say that I prefer Manna over Sankalak, but his clue last week for PENSIVE was beautiful in this sense).

    For example, in today's crossword I could solve for "SCONCE" relatively easily but had a far tougher time of it in Sunday's crossword. I think both of the clues were very sound, only one was a bit more challenging than the other. Some of the difficulty level is of course the solver's mindset but some of it is doubtless embedded in the word play as well.

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  17. @ Chaturvasi

    I have always enjoyed exchanging notes with you. Besides, I deem it a privilege too.

    From your post above, I gather that in your opinion, the plural of Monsieur is Monsieurs.

    I only hope that it is not a joke. I'd love to hear from you on the following references, since I am confused.

    1. Collins Dictionary of the English Usage

    Collins, London and Glasgow 1980

    Monsieur n. pl. messieurs. A French title of address equivalent to 'sir' when used alone or 'Mr' when placed befoe a name. (literally: my lord)

    2. Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
    Longman Group, London
    First Indian Edition 1998

    Monsieur n. plural Messieurs. French. A way of addressing or referrig to a French-speaking man

    Online dictionary:

    http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/monsieur

    monsieur/ Fr. Pronunciation [muhs-yur; Fr. muh-sye] noun, plural messieurs

    BTW, the answer to your second clue is COACH (5). I will get back to your later on the first one.


    Richard

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  18. It should have been Messieurs. A typo that went unnoticed.
    But the point of the post was that 'French gentlemen' gives not MS (as one might expect from messieurs) but MM which is from Monsieur and Monsieur (which jocularly could be Monsieurs).

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  19. Hemlock is inseparably associated with Socrates in my mind too!

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  20. Hemlock?
    I am not reminded of Socrates, though I do know he consumed it and found surcease from life's travials (which, for me, for the past several weeks, one of these is wave after wave of terrible pain in the left elbow.
    For me it's Keats...
    "My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains
    My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk..."
    While Socrates met death as a result of that intake, here the poet is drifted to a different world there might be mortality but also immortality.

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  21. With clues like Diazepam and Thyroid I am wondering whether Sankalak is a Medical Man.[ Being a General Surgeon myself]

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  22. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  23. jaggu
    I am afraid we cannot make that sort of conclusion. Crossword composers wear several hats and you don't know what they are now and what next. Throughout their career they might have been a bureaucrat or a Carnatic music critic. In an Indy toughie puzzle that I just completed and on which I am writing a detailed blog for bigdave, the compiler has WONDERBRA. And he is a man, I can tell you!

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