Thursday 8 April 2010

N0 9811, Thursday 08 Apr 10, Nita Jaggi

As usual NJ has me stumped
ACROSS
1   - Caught out of the party group in confusion (8) - DISORDER ?(Addendum - {DIS(-c-o)}{ORDER} - See comments)
5   - Cancelled the first appointment for the King of Mercia (4) - {OFF}{A}
9   - It may be put on the fence to ward off wild animals! (8) - BARBWIRE [CD]
10 - Mark the track (6) - GROOVE [DD]
12 - Rustic poem (4) - IDYL [E]
13 - Couple of learners in England are in to amend the small problems (10) - CHA{LL}{E}NGES
15 - When magicians turn over the hot appliance (7,7) - WAS{H}ING MACHINE*
17 - Inaccurately explained items reprinted by mistake (14) - MISINTERPRETED*
21 - Retired cleric has a better kind of animal (10) - {VER<-}{TEBRATE*} )
22 - Friend is in China at University with the man (4) - {CH}{U}{M}
25 - Insect on the wooden tool (6) - O?E?L?(Addendum - BEETLE [DD] - See comments)
26 - A Sikh bachelor is celebrating one festival (8) - {BA}{IS{A}KH*}{I}
27 - Mostly shift the fence in front of the grass (4) - {TUR(-n)}{F}
28 - Chat with an agent on a cruise regularly (8)  - {CAUSE}{R}{I}{E}
DOWN
1   - Name an incomplete bridge in the city (6) - D?{BR}I?(Addendum - {DUB}{LIN(-k)} - See comments)
2   - Word of regret (5) - SORRY [E]
3   - Sappers initially will arrive in the princely state (4) - {RE}{W}{A}
4   - Somehow reheat the new objects made of clay (7) - {EARTHE*}{N}
6   - Unlikely for a father losing an article delivered (3,7) - {FA(-the)R} {FETCHED} Can fetched mean delivered? I think NJ meant Far-reached like Far-reaching!
7   - Almost all old different designs are cut short at the same time (9) - {AL(-l)}{O}{NGSIDE(-s)*}
8   - Runs away from the pests, overheard (5) - FLEES(~fleas)
11 - Go up the large distances with no energy to lose weight (4) - S(-e)LIM<- )
14 - An officer is her local representative around North Carolina (10) - {CHA{NC}ELLOR*}
16 - Soft material in cabs or Bentleys (9) - ABSORBENT [T]
18 - First engraver can refill used colour (4) - {E}{C{R}{U}
19 - Large peg in Punjab (7) - PATIALA [DD] hic !
20 - Decision maker at the stumps (6) - UMPIRE [E]
21 - Six have cut-off the first instrument (5) - {VI}OLA ?(Addendum - {VI}{BES(-t)} - See comments)
23 - Isaac in an hour is with the traveller (5) - H{IKE}R
24 - Takes advantage of an American in Spain (4)  - {US}{ES}

39 comments:

  1. Good Morning:
    21d = Vibes (Six=Vi, first=best, cut off =-t)
    25a Beetle, an insect and a tool

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  2. Contd: Vibes is a short name for Vibraphone, a musical instrument.

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  3. Good morning

    I was about to say as above. But Kishore has overtaken me.

    25A - BEETLE fits in perfectly there.

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  4. Apropos 13a, can challenges be ‘small problems’ or are they big enough to be challenging.

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  5. Apropos 8d Fleas/Flees:
    A fly and flea were trapped in a flue,
    Said the fly, “Let us flee”,
    “Let us fly”, said the flea,
    So the fly and flea flew through a flaw in the flue.

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  6. Maxed on ET and Hindu Quick CWs: In ET best clue was:29a Forced spy to conceal lies put out by French person (12)

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  7. Regarding 2d, regret:Will Henry: "Fools live to regret their words, wise men to regret their silence"

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  8. 1a= Disco (party)-co (caught out)=dis+order(group)=disorder (confusion)

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  9. @ Imprint: My Beetle (car) is faster than yours ! :-)

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  10. Does one have a Patiala on Baishakhi? Do fleas walk with beetles?

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  11. 1d may be Dublin, with bridge shorted just to b and not br, but I cant annotate the remaining.

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  12. The post with the byline of IMPRINT was mine. It was inadvertently posted from my office ID.

    @ Kishore - 13A - I think that word 'small' represents S in CHALLENGES.

    As for the Beetle, you have made the Volkswagen manufacturers proud. :)

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  13. 1d= Dublin, (city), dub=name a person + l (short for London bridge) + in

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  14. @ Richard: Agree on 13a

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  15. I liked this, besides a few nice clues today.

    16 - Soft material in cabs or Bentleys (9) - ABSORBENT [T]

    It could be pretty difficult to arrange a telescopic clue for a nine-letter word.

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  16. Would love to get examples of such long, hidden words from my friends here.

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  17. "19 - Large peg in Punjab (7) - PATIALA [DD] "

    Could somebody explain?

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  18. Kishore said,

    "@ Imprint: My Beetle (car) is faster than yours ! :-)"

    Kishore Avure, whatever you do, please do not talk about racing in cars because you will get Colonel all riled up - the huge Vintage-car-driving, Yezdi-riding enthusiast that he is. :-) Ain't that right, Colonel? :-)

    Speaking of which, Colonel, you don't know how often I think about you as I'm driving my BMW 528i on these winding Tennessee roads. I would love to see you get a chance to drive one of these fine automobiles, especially on these roads. The other day, I was driving at around 80 (miles per hour, that is) and this guy passed me. So I speeded up and passed him. He got ticked off and returned the favor. In the end, we were both going at 120 mph (around 200 kmph) and soon sanity made its appearance and I slowed down. But, I gotta tell ya, Boy, was it fun or what!!!

    @Kishore, that poem on fleas was a lot of fun. Thank you.

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  19. @ Dan, in tipplers' parlance, a Patiala peg is a large one, as against a Chhota peg.

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  20. 1 - Name an incomplete bridge in the city (6) {DUB}{LIN(-k)}
    LINK is the synonym for bridge we are looking for here.

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  21. @ Satya-garu

    A line seems to be missing in the limerick posted by Kishore. The full text is as follows:

    A fly and a flea in a flue
    Were imprisoned, so what could they do?
    Said the fly, "Let us flee!"
    "Let us fly!", said the flea.
    So they flew through a flaw in the flue.

    Because of its peculiar word pattern, it is often used as a tongue-twister.

    I am not sure of its authorship. The style reaks of Edward Lear, the past-master of limericks. Chaturvasi-avargal can confirm it, perhaps.

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  22. @Dan,

    See the explanation of Patiala Peg at the link provided against the word in the main post. Wrap your fingers around a glasss with your little finger aligned to the bottom of the glass and then pour liquor into the glass till it tops your index finger, then you have a patiala peg! hic!!

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  23. Hi Satya,

    Yes I do enjoy going for the Yezdi and FIAT rallies here. No racing though.

    I have experienced driving on your roads when I came there on a visit in 1991. Drove with my b-i-l from Connecticut to Florida and back and then again from Connecticut to Niagara and back, it definitely was a pleasure, unlike our roads here where we have autos, motorbikes, cyclists and what have you, weaving in between. Invariably we have 5 lanes of traffic on a three lane road!!

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  24. I wonder what makesd NJ think that DISCO means Party?

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  25. @ Bhavan: Your anno is more convincing than my dub(lin)ious one !
    @ Richard: You are right about the limerick, I just typed it 'extempore'!
    @ Satya/Richard/Colonel: I once had the pleasure of racing from Mangalore to Bangalore with my f-i-l, he in a Fiat, I in a Landmaster. This would probably give Richard a clue about my connection with CorpBank.

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  26. @ Col: On disco=party, there you have me!

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  27. Contd: Unfortunately, tomorrows paper will have only answers and not annotations. A few days back we had detain as answer with connotations of apprehend and hold up. Arrest would have fitted the bill, though not matching with the other words, if one had written it before others.

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  28. i Could fill only 12 clues sorry i have a long way to go. more than filling up the clues i really enjoyed the comments and conversations which gives me real high...
    party mood sirs..
    mathu

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  29. ET best clue was:29a Forced spy to conceal lies put out by French person (12)

    = Mademoiselle (French person), Made(forced)+mole (spy) + concealed therein "isel (lies)

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  30. @ Col : Now that you say you are stumped, I give you ET April2nd 10d, which I had mentioned earlier: One may have a ball if there's miss in front of him (6,6), Nice puns on ball and miss, the answer being Wicket Keeper. However, if you interpret ball=dance, miss=NJ, we are being led on a merry dance by NJ !

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  31. I am just waiting for tomorrow to get over, so that I can enjoy a double Patiala at night, to drown my sorrows of the last 10 days, and then wake up fresh on Saturday morning to tackle Gridman

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  32. Those who have not done so as yet, do remember to send in you family snapshots for publication in my blog

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  33. @Col: Cheers! Drowning would be right in the PM's street, if you are using water along with whatever liquid you prefer. I, myself, am a Table Tennis guy, so I would have to use a swimming pool for drowning my elephantine sorrows in Jal-andhar!

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  34. The limerick,
    A flea and a fly in a flue was written by Ogden Nash.
    Here is his ode to the llama:

    The one-L lama,
    He's a priest.
    The two-L llama,
    He's a beast.
    And I would bet
    A silk pajama
    There isn't any
    Three-L lllama.

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  35. Your blog is a saviour on NJ days, Colonel. Even when the crossword is gloomy, the comments pep things up by swerving towards bright topics like Nash's limericks.

    Here's one of his about a noisy Bengali gentleman:

    There was an old man of Calcutta
    Who coated his tonsils with butta
    Thus converting his snore
    From a thunderous roar
    To a soft, oleaginous mutta.

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  36. @ Bhargav: If the Lama is there can the yeti be far behind. Here is my poem Yet I think I met a Yeti, written many winters back when I was snowed-in in the Himalayas.

    We had crossed the upper snow line,
    And left it far behind.
    To see the Yeti, a fond hope of mine,
    Was at the back of my mind.

    The mountainside was steep and cold,
    My hands were feeling rubbery.
    There was hardly any crag to hold,
    The climb was very slippery.

    Suddenly I saw something very queer,
    Large footprints in the snow.
    And saw as I went some more near
    Small footprints were in tow !

    Large feet in front, small feet behind,
    Almost like a reverse kangaroo.
    Another thought jumped into my mind
    Was it one or were there two ?

    I looked for it everywhere around,
    Up and down and all about.
    I thought it might be behind a mound,
    And felt I should check it out.

    When I neared the snowy outcrop,
    I noticed a smell almost like a goat.
    Then I climbed over the mound top,
    And saw it came from an old fur coat.

    As I saw more my heart beat faster,
    That she was not all alone.
    In her lap was her li’l young master,
    A small kid, her little clone !

    To see a Yeti, many climbers dub
    As their carreer’s pinnacle.
    But to see a Yeti and her little cub
    Was nothing but a miracle !

    I stood still, my heart quickly beating,
    Snowing had now increased.
    The magical moment was fast fleeting,
    As visibility became decreased.

    I heard a loud growl behind my head,
    And turned around to see,
    The father, eyes glowering bright red.
    It was time for me to flee.

    Shouting, jumping and scared I fled,
    Waking up in the dark night.
    Found myself safe in my warm bed,
    Woken up early by my fright.

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  37. The only Limericks I remember are the ones I used in School, to write in autograph books, unfortunately and for obvious reasons I cannot reproduce them here.

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  38. "Boys will be boys," goes the old saying.

    @ Bhargav, yes, it was Ogden Nash who flew the fly and the flee in poetry form. How didn't I remember that ?

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