ACROSS
1 - Frustration makes Pip sad, needing treatment with balm (14) - {DISAPP*}{OINTMENT}
8 - Business office starts capitalising in US city after a long time (6) - {AGE}{N{C}Y}
9 - Regional arm of the UN gets notice initiating enquiry into caper (8) - {ESCAP}{AD}{E}
11 - Without any preparation, toper, male, stumbled into river (9) - EX{TE{M}POR*}E
12 - Tax on article about popular field of study (5) - T{IT}THE (Typo fixed T{IT}HE)
13 - He cannot resist the bottle (7) - DRINKER [E]
15 - God, I'm about to take in uranium or another element (7) - {THOR}{I{U}M}
17 - Be worthy of two keys, be adequate (7) - {D}{E}{SERVE}
19 - One that gives new life to batteries (7) - CHARGER [E]
21 - Mythological twin figuring in bizarre musings (5) - REMUS [T]
23 - A professional, full of energy, not waiting for things to happen (9) - {PRO}{ACTIVE}
25 - Parade ground work, for finding fuel? (8) - DRILLING [DD]
26 - Self-service meal (6) - BUFFET [E]
27 - Scholarly tomes demystified? That is like Mr. Chips (14) - SCHOOLMASTERLY*
DOWN
1 - That is as far as one can go (4,3) - DEAD END [CD]
2 - Used in surgery, it is a reverse trap, in a way (5) - S{TEN<-}T )
3 - It improves heart function in a sick meat packer with no time (9) - PACEMAKER(-t)*
4 - New, a perfume just come into existence (7) - {N}{A}{SCENT}
5 - Intended for yours sincerely, a set of books (5) - {ME}{A}{NT}
6 - Close shave, but not from a razor (4,5) - NEAR THING [CD]
7 - Hymn, surprisingly muted with ecstasy (2,4) - TE D{E}UM*
10 - Angry, say? Fly high (4) - SOAR(~sore)
14 - She can't sleep, with a son, manic one, on the loose (9) - {I}{NSO*}{MNIAC*}
16 - Such payment is only partial when working for a report (2,7) - ON ACCOUNT [E]
17 - Make fun of the German notion being incomplete (6) - {DER}{IDE(-a)}
18 - Make a list of unusually pale men (7) - EMPANEL*
19 - Navigator who would have been at home in the galley (4) - COOK [DD]
20 - Critical phase in the life of a satellite (2-5) - RE-ENTRY [CD]
22 - Burst of gunfire in battle and to salute victory also, oddly (5) - SAL{V}O*
24 - Make a deduction that there is no Nobelium in hell (5) - INFER(-no)
GRID
Good morning, Deepak and all
ReplyDeleteAs you said, I too found it easy.
My views:
27A - Scholarly tomes demystified? That is like Mr. Chips (14) - SCHOOLMASTERLY*
A 14-letter master(ly) stroke to fox the solvers.
14D - She can't sleep, with a son, manic one, on the loose (9) - {I}{NSO*}{MNIAC*}
Why 'she' ? Don't males have a right to do without sleep ? ;)
Col,
ReplyDelete11A : What is the connection between the river and 'EXE' here?
15A :Is God related to Thor in anyway?
Thanks
Mothers are fond of children and children are fond of mothers.
ReplyDeleteAmma endrazhaikkathe uyir illaye!
Incidentally, did you the read the article in the Open Page of the paper by a reader about this close ties between mother and children, with father often looked upon as a martinet?
Yeah i agree. Too easy only day when i can finish the crossword in the morning in 15 minutes as it does not eat into my time.
ReplyDeleteI was thinking whether it would not be a better idea to shuffle the crosswords rather than having this pattern which is not only predictable but also falls into a rut. So we have to handle our bete noire NJ for 10 days flat. And have this pattern. I think the Hindu should have an assortment of crosswords which they decide randomly rather then get us into any pattern of thinking. Please comment. I dont think this kind of predictive design happens with other newspapers What say?
I don't mind a crossword being easy or hard.
ReplyDeleteWhat matters is cluemanship.
Cluemanship may be good or bad.
If it's good, you stay with the composer; if it bad, you diss him (or her).
What I cannot understand is inconsistent cluemanship (or cluewomanship).
How can the same setter have excellent clues and absolutely questionable clues?
If this kind of predictive design does not happen in UK papers, it is because most of them have crossword editors.
ReplyDeleteYes, I am talking about UK papers. As for Indian newspapers (bar The Hindu) they don't know a thing about crosswords and they don't care a damn for them.
And even this paper does not seem to have have a proper crossword editor who nurses the feature.
But it is to be commended for using a week-day original crossword since the Seventies instead of picking up syndicated puzzles from local agencies with tieups with foreign sources.
@Sadaiyappan,
ReplyDeleteEXE is the name of a River in the UK, this appears in CW's very often.
THOR is the name of a God.
Look up both on the internet if you want further details.
12A U have only 5 letters. But used ^,ie ;TITTHE
ReplyDelete.eXPLAIN?
@Veeramani,
ReplyDeleteSorry that is a typing error it should be T{IT}HE
I have since corrected it
@Chaturvasi,
ReplyDeleteI second your views
2D - STENT
ReplyDeleteWhere does S and T come from?
In a way = Street = ST?
ReplyDeleteA way
ReplyDeleteway = ST RD AVE
I don't know if they use TR for 'trace' or 'trail' which US street signboards have but which we don't see in India as yet.
Real estate developers have Manere and Enclave in their project names but street naming does not seem to be in their domain, so we still have 'theru' and 'salai', matching the mentality of vote-bank conscious municipal councillors.
To be able to breeze through the puzzle is such a rare pleasure, it sort of makes the day! I prefer it to being frustrated, irritated, enraged etc by some of our brilliant setters. It is true the ease has something to do with the setter's skill in cluemanship.
ReplyDeleteDEE is used more often for river. The River Exe is in England. It is the main river in Devon. It rises near the village of Simonsbath, on Exmoor in Somerset, near the Bristol Channel coast, and flows more or less directly due south, with most of its length lying in Devon.
ReplyDeleteTHOR is the God of Thunder in Viking Norse mythology. Thor comics are popular among children.
The Te Deum (also known as Te Deum Laudamus, Ambrosian Hymn or A Song of the Church) is an early Christian hymn of praise.
RUE in French (one finds it still in use in Puducherry and Karaikal), and MARG (used in North India) are other words for Street used in X-words.
ReplyDeleteCluemanship is different from the difficulty level of a puzzle.
ReplyDeleteNeyartha's crosswords may be hard.
Sankalak's puzzles may be easy.
Both are on equal terms as far as cluemanship is concerned.
You may have an occasional quibble with their wordplay but on the whole they have a grip over the English language - grammar, usage, etc.
Also, the wordplay depends upon gridfills. Sankalak's lights may all be from everyday vacab and consequently his clues too might tend to be easy.
OTOH, a setter who works with a theme is constrained in some ways and as a result his clues might tend to be abstruse.
@Cvasi sir
ReplyDeletecluepersonship might be a good alternative like chairpersonship, in view of its gender neutrality.
In the above, read 'vocab'
ReplyDeleteAs far as I am concerned, man embraces woman.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, the word 'woman' encompasses 'man'!
ReplyDeleteWell said PP, anyhow we can consider this as the lull before the storm which will engulf us after another 5 days minus the Sunday when NJ appears. Getting Sankalak after the Manna-Neyartha dose relaxes the nerves and gives our grey matter time to relax
ReplyDeleteFrom the point of surface reading of a clue I personally would rate Sankalak above Neyartha
ReplyDeleteGood morning all, yes I too like Sankalak. was able to get most of them today bar few.
ReplyDeleteI still dont c y the crosswords cant be shuffled and the pattern be more random than this predictable order where you get used to a particular style for some days then switch over to another one. No element of novelty and then get stuck with someone called NJ for another 10 days and wait for a lull. It does not require the skills of a great crossword editor to do that.I am sure HINDU does a great job but constructive suggestions may help. maybe we all should take this up in a letter to the editor. I think it will benefit us all.
ReplyDeleteI strongly endorse Ajay's suggestion to The Hindu of shuffling the crosswords from different compilers around.
ReplyDeleteCVasi sir had said that The Hindu is the only paper which has all along published week-day CWs done by our own Indian compilers and not used syndicated or imported ones.
I had earlier expressed the hope that our compilers who dish out a challenging fare to whet our appetites can be given a chance at compiling even the Sunday CWs. This way we can have fresh ones instead of rerun of the old ones from The Guardian.
I stand by my statement that shuffling of crosswords by different composers and different standards and different difficulty levels requires a crossword editor.
ReplyDeleteBut i think v should still try if we can make a change. I am sure there is still room for improvement. Let us not resign ourselves. Who knows because of this blog and others who r interested there might even be a crossword editor in the future. We are only saying to shuffle the same crosswords that we get. i haven't mentioned that we need to have different standards and dificulty levels etc. The only thing i am saying is shuffle the same order and not to have them in a predictable pattern so u dont know who is coming next etc. That is merely shuffling the same Xwords. I am not asking for the moon. And i am sure a lot of people agree
ReplyDelete"....we can consider this as the lull before the storm which will engulf us after another 5 days minus the Sunday when NJ appears..." What an ominous weather forecast!LOL!
ReplyDeleteThe topic of difficulty level makes me think of the names given to sudoku puzzles like 'evil','fiendish', 'insane' etc. The puzzles of some of the setters are capable of tempting me to categorise them under such level names!
Let me not be misunderstood.
ReplyDeleteI reread the posts that I entered above. Nowhere have I said that crosswords should not be reshuffled. I only said reshuffling of crosswords needs a crossword editor, true and proper.
On the subject of reshuffling itself, I really don't understand how it helps.
Let's say you like compiler A and don't like compiler B.
Now you clasp Compiler A for a certain number of days and avoid Compiler B for a certain number of days.
Predictability or not you're going to solve or avoid for the same number of days.
At least now you know that for a certain number of days, the time that you usually spend on the crossword you can direct elsewhere. For a certain number of days the time that you spend on something else you can happily direct towards the crossword.
If it was unpredictable you're neither here nor there!
OTOH, if all crosswords were of a certain uniform standard, you're going to spend time on the crossword every day and there will be thrill in knowing what card turns up.
Sadly, that does not seem to be the case.
And it is here that the crossword editor as I understand the term steps in.
Except that there are no steps available for him or her now!
+1 for shuffling setters. It brings variety and lets us not make rigid, closed choices about setters. (If a setter is so bad that every solver wants to avoid him/her, then it's worth considering why that setter is getting published at all.)
ReplyDeleteIf shuffling requires a crossword editor, that's one more reason why The Hindu should get one.
"As for Indian newspapers (bar The Hindu) they don't know a thing about crosswords and they don't care a damn for them."
I have no inside knowledge of the Hindustan Times, but I have been pleasantly surprised to see them invest precious print space on promoting their new crossword feature. Now solve The Times crossword in the Hindustan Times, so said banner advertisements in HT in Jan '10.
It made me think that at least someone on that paper does know and care.
Since you mention the Hindustan Times.
ReplyDeleteThey may have publicised the use of The Times crossword but do they really respect the feature?
It is there to fill up space on a page where they usually put weather and ads of a certain nature.
If on a particular day there are too many unforgettables the solution grid becomes forgettable!
The solution grid was skipped for two consecutive days recently.
Not that solvers in the Orkut community: The Times crossword of old ever need to look at it as they get it under their collective belt by noon.
And there have been complaints that the image of the solution grid is hazy owing to mismatch in format/resolution/extension I know not what between the supplier and the consumer.
That belt that I talked about extends (as far as I know) from Chennai through Bangalore, Hyderabad, Mumbai, Kuwait to North Carolina.
ReplyDeleteI hope the discussion here is brought to the notice of the powers that be at THE HINDU
ReplyDelete