ACROSS
1 - It maintains temperature in a storm that rages around the east (10) - {TH{E}RMOSTAT*}
7 - Old place in the South-east, no doubt about it (4) - {S{UR}E}
9 - A crane collapsing is difficult to understand (6) - ARCANE*
10 - Look back in exotic Venice and see use of force (8) - {VI{OL}ENCE*}
11 - It tells you how far you have gone (8) - ODOMETER [E]
13 - Break in a ritual covering telepathy (7) - {R{ESP}ITE}
16 - Would a goat ail, however, from this pain? (7) - OTALGIA*
17 - Kind of writing as may be left by a spinner? (7) - SPIDERY [CD]
19 - Show disrespect for admirer beginning to exasperate (7) - {PRO}{FAN}{E}
22 - Greeting one with a sausage (6) - {SALAM}{I}
26 - Suspicion about a girl's property arrangement (8) - {DI'S}{TRUST}
27 - One of those preferred by gentlemen? (6) - BLONDE [CD] Gentlemen don't prefer Brunettes ?
29 - She saw what happened! (10) - EYEWITNESS [E] Sankalak for one has used 'she' instead of the regular 'he'
DOWN
2 - Such help needs to be paid for (5) - HIRED [CD]
3 - A pro mad about a travellers' guide (4,3) - ROAD-MAP*
4 - Love, green, is not hidden (5) - {O}{VERT}
5 - Make a statement in a southern state about a public house (6) - {T{AVER}N}
6 - Vehicle built by a swotter with energy (3-6) - {TWO-S{E}ATER*}
7 - Design for a kind of gun insurers rejected (7) - {STEN}{CIL<-}
8 - Welcome do (9) - RECEPTION [CD]
14 - Atonement by former detective followed by performance without a trace of conscience (9) - {EX}{PI}{A
15 - True pundit, nameless, troubled by depravity (9) - TURPITUDE
18 - One conscripted, a floater in a river (7) - {D{RAFT}EE}
20 - It provides a warning to ships in low visibility (7) - FOGHORN [E]
21 - What necessity may be turned into (6) - VIRTUE [CD]
24 - State what sounds like an entreaty to shoppers (5) - DUBAI (~do buy)
Another nice one!!
ReplyDeleteSome awesome clues, some simple ones..
I thought SPIDERY, DISTRUST, TAVERN, EXPIATION and DOBUY (hehe) were really clever!
Some clues were a bit blase...but overall, very satisfying CW.
19A: defn and answer are in diff. forms of speech.. Show disrespect being a verb, and PROFANE being adj.
22A: haha... I'd hardly consider Salami to be a sausage, but that's me! :)
DUBAI and DI'S TRUST really gave me a smile when I finally cracked them
For some reason, only 21D has stumped me! I'm gonna try for a few more mins, before referring to answers. :)
Hello everyone
ReplyDeleteA few difficult clues today, yet enjoyed.
DO BUY IN DUBAI is the promotional slogan of the internationally known, annual DUBAI
SHOPPING FESTIVAL. My years of stay in the Middle East helped me crack this at once.
Hari
ReplyDelete'profane' can also be used as a verb transitive. See dict.
@ Col : w.r.t. 27A: I ended up with BROADS... which conclusively proves that I don't discriminate! However, it also proves that I don't read my CW clues carefully! haha!
ReplyDeleteDeepak
ReplyDeleteYou may be aware that Clue 27a glances at a 1950s film.
Gentlemen are too narrow-minded to prefer broads.
ReplyDelete@ CV 8:43 - oops! Thx for correcting me. I've never heard or used profane in verb form... was news to me. :-)
ReplyDeleteI guess I'm not a gentleman then!
ReplyDeleteHi CV,
ReplyDeleteWas not aware of that, though I did have an inkling that it must be something like that, didn't try to look it up on the net.
Here's the link to the film alluded to in 27A GENTLEMEN PREFER BLONDES
ReplyDeleteAARRGGHHH!!! VIRTUE!!! Should've known!! Dang it!
ReplyDeleteI got stuck with the thought of "MOTHER"... Mother of invention and all that... and somehow my brain couldn't go anywhere else after that! :)
Oh well... Everything else is still a good day! (well... except for the broads!)
Hari, you seem to enjoy self-abnegation and self-torture! It's fun to read, nevertheless.
ReplyDeleteHari, you really must love your mom....
ReplyDeleteI like the fact that Sankalak often uses "she" in place of "he." He keeps proving that he's a fair and nice guy.
ReplyDeleteAnd 27A, who wouldn't like Marilyn Monroe!!
@ Richard : Lol! Glad my "pseudo"-masochism (pun intended!) provides some entertainment! haha
ReplyDelete@ VJ : Hear! Hear! :)
btw... VJ: 1A of ur wkly CW was VERY clever! Kudos for that anag!
ReplyDeleteI like the fact that Sankalak often uses "she" in place of "he".
ReplyDeleteIf the objection to use of 'he' is because it's gender-specific, then the use of 'she' too is so.
The use of 'he' once and 'she' next doesn't even it out.
I don't like partiality whether it is shown to men - or women (blondes included).
Poor Sankalak! When he says 'he' he is called chauvinistic and when he uses 'she' he is partial.:)
ReplyDeleteHow about using 'it'.
Apropos my last comment is Sankalak a he or should I have been writing she or something neutral like 'setter'
ReplyDeleteI can confirm that Sankalak is a "he".
ReplyDeleteThere were two Chinese students in our university named Hi and Shi. Hi was a she and Shi was a he. You can't make up stuff like that. :-)
ReplyDeleteGood Morning
ReplyDeleteNot much to cheer about from me as some of the clues i could not decipher the anno. Ofcourse DDS AND ANAGRAMS are ok. I always associate DI with queen here it is used for Girl..a confusion on my part i believe.
Hare hari you seem going great...broad minded never seem to prefer blondes...haha
Good day
Mathu
Suresh 09:58 - in the place of 'he' or 'she', 'this person' could settle the matter. :-)
ReplyDelete@ Satya: LOL!! That's funny as hell! :-D
ReplyDelete@ Mathu: We all have our days right? Today was a good day for me... yesterday, not so much. Quite a lot of blank spaces in yesterdays grid. :)
Satya 10:17 - I read this somewhere: In the green-room of an international, multicultural show, a westerner calls out to an artiste, "Hey you!".
ReplyDeleteA Chinese artiste turns around and asks, "How you know my name?"
Richard @ 10:45,
ReplyDeleteLMAO :-)
Last few days, I was spineless. Today I was powerless. Hence the delay.
ReplyDeleteBlonde, of course, reminded of Dagwood who appeared in the CW a couple of days back.
PI in 14d reminded of Shuchi's detective write up.
Liked usage of rejected as in 'sent back' in 7d.
The quick CW has been reprinted by TH: it is same as yesterday :-(
Expiation looked like a good candidate for a clue writing contest.
One time endless buccaneer without rights charged particle, or closure without one side (9).
What category would above clue fall into, DD, CD or DCD (double cryptic definition) ?
Apropos the Chinese discussion:
How Long is a Chinaman.
Deepak, your cartoon for Blonde reminds me of the lady who does not find any hair on her husband's dress and charges: Now you have started going around with bald women !.
ReplyDeleteSankalak's liking for measuring and control technology continues: After altimeter yesterday we have odometer and thermostat today.
After writing the first 5 across words in the grid, I said to myself: Aha, looks like Sankalak is going for a Nina as the first vertical and second vertical spelt TAO and ECO. But it petered out.
Now instead of Nina we'll have Nita?
CV: Foghorn reminded me of Ray Bradbury's story The Foghorn:
ReplyDeleteRB Story
Kishore, just when Hari is thought to be standing in for you, you are back in action.
ReplyDeleteChaturvasi (944), LOL...
ReplyDeleteWe generally take it for granted that words like "he," "man" etc are somewhat gender neutral and universally applicable. I feel this is a bit unfair.
I thought it'd be nice to break the cliche and do just the reverse. A gesture that would be remembered and appreciated.
Reading VJ, 1129, I have a feeling he is Sankalak and has inadvertently blown his cover.
ReplyDeleteRichard, I remember some line about crossword solvers unable to carry umbrage for long.
ReplyDeleteI dont like the use of the word 'broad', but since we are talking of it, I think 'gentlemen prefer narrow broads', to coin a pseudo-oxymoron.
ReplyDeleteLOL, no, that was me defending my position (on why use of "she" is all right.) It was in reply to Chaturvasi's 944 comment. My comment was perhaps misleading. Sorry for that.
ReplyDeleteVJ ????!!!
ReplyDeleteNext meeting after S&B should be Setters and Betters
ReplyDeleteBetters as in punters or as in better than?
ReplyDeleteI was thinking of punting but Kishore's def is als fine
ReplyDeleteWell Suresh, some people here like CV are definitely better in the CW line than some setters.
ReplyDeleteSuresh, remember to take Mae West with you.
ReplyDeleteYes Kishore, I can't swim
ReplyDeleteKishore @12:22: I have been a long time reader of espionage fiction. So conundrums such as "who's Sankalak" are always very interesting to me. As I had mentioned one time before, one must carefully look at the choice of the cover name, how it is constructed etc etc..
ReplyDeleteIn the case of 'Sankalak', he seems to think of himself as a 'compiler' of the puzzle. For 'sankalan' is the act of compilation. This is common Hindi. But a compiler would be a 'sankalankarttaa', not a 'sankalak'.
On the other hand, in modern Internet Hindi, Sankalak is a neologism used for 'aggregator'. So not only our puzzle setter knows Hindi but is also in touch with new tech words in Hindi.
I feel therefore 'Sankalak' knows Hindi. Does that mena he's not a south Indian? This is iffy ... for one thing only a south Indian esp a Tamil speaker of a certain age has heard of stuff like 'Emden'. It could be one of them Hindiwallahs living in Chennai or Bangalore.
He could be a Gujarati, Marathi or Bengali speaker also - I don't know if the word 'sankalan' or 'sankalak' exists in those languages too.
Also, this habit of trying to be fair to the women. Is 'Sankalak' perhaps a 'she'? I think I lack data on this one.
I guess the question is still open.
Judgement day tomorrow: NJ or no NJ?
ReplyDeleteI sincerely hope it is NJ, inspite of all problems and irritations, as extra problems and uncertainties give extra bite to the fare, IMO.
LNS: Fully agree with all your deductions, I was just mentioning VJ's direct admission. However, it is an important part of crime investigation that every admission of guilt may not necessarily be true...
ReplyDeleteSo extra bite to the fare is on. It's NJ!!
ReplyDelete,... and by throwing in the word "initially" in the very first clue, she's perhaps announcing to everybody that she's not out yet.
ReplyDeleteThe first clue has 'finally' not 'initially'... and talks of damsels and tries to seduce you into mellowness.
ReplyDeleteoops oh yea lol... It was late night and I was a bit groggy.
ReplyDelete