6 - Speeds, resulting in charges being made (5) - RATES [DD]
9 - Nigerian city formerly notorious for slave trade (5) - BENIN [CD]
10 - The warder is not vegan (9) - BEEFEATER [CD]
12 - Nothing other than stretch of water (4) - MERE [DD]
14 - Bad to be late for removal (7) - {AB{LATE}D*} Totally messed up clue. No AInd
15 - Len lost out on getting German bread (7) - STOLLEN*
17 - No wonder to have died when foolishly submerged (7) - {DROWNE*}{D}
19 - Hates intensely of the French trials (7) - {DE}{TESTS}
20 - Also turned out to be in Asia (4) - LAOS*
25 - Housing an animal in unusually nice environs could be a bloomer (9) - {C{ELAND}INE*}
27 - Saint of top proficiency in judo (5) - A?DAN Highest I could find was Judan but that does not fit here nor the Saint ?(Addendum - {AI}{DAN} - See comments)
28 - Frontal forces to an attack (9) - SPEARHEAD [CD]
DOWN
1 - Ramble right oft (5) -
2 - Against new lot giving voice (9) - {CONTRA}{LTO*}
3 - Mention ‘pot' — would be all powerful (10) - OMNIPOTENT*
4 - Obliged to come in (7) - INBOUND [CD]
5 - Morning refreshments (7) - ELEVENS [CD] Should have been elevenses
6 - A lively dance to wind up with (4) - REEL [DD]
7 - Turn it over to the church! (5) - {TI<-}{THE} &lit
8 - Formerly, barristers of highest rank (9) - SERJEANTS [E]
13 - A businessman caught over farm equipment (10) - {C}{ON}{TRACTOR}
14 - Also a proper name for Mimi in Spain (9) - {AND}{A}{LUCIA} Couldn't get the link between Lucia and Mimi
16 - A certain weakness may make lads use it (9) - LASSITUDE*
18 - Silly fellows paying great attention to dresses (7) - DANDIES [CD]
19 - See codes i.e. explained (7) - DIOCESE*
21 - Looked askance (5) - OGLED [CD]
23 - Recorded become famous (5) - NOTED [DD]
24 - Prolific poet girl bearing no name (4) - ANON [DD] ?
Hello folks
ReplyDeleteIt feels as if the Gridman round got over so fast.
MM shows his usual penchant for Church-related clues.
Some tough ones. But good challenge. Anno for a few not clear. Yet to check the blog annos above. BEEFEATER and DIIOCESE had appeared here not so long ago. ENRAPTURED, INTONATION, OMNIPOTENT, CELANDINE, CONTRALTO, CONTRACTOR (two contras make it even !), ANDALUCIA (also spelt ANDALUSIA, but the former fits in withe the crossings), LASSITUDE, DANDIES etc were good. The spelling of SERJEANTS foxed me for a while.
Hi
ReplyDeleteQuite a few words oriented with the Church: ANCHORITE*, TI<-THE, OMNIPOTENT*, AI-DAN, DIOCESE*....
By a stretch, ENRAPTURED*, CONTRA-LTO*, could also be included. I-NTO*-NATION was cute, the nation hiding as people before an apostrophe which gives an image of being more attached to ‘way of speaking’. C(ELAND)INE* was the last to fall after I Googled the alternate spelling AND-A-LUCIA for what I had known as Andalusia, but of course, LUCIA is a proper name (there is apart from the Saint and island of that name, a hotel chain headquartered in Ernakulam). STOLLEN and SERJEANTS (initially used G instead of J) was confirmed through Google.
Correction: DIOCESE
ReplyDelete27a AIDAN is a Saint. A 1 is top, dan is judo ranking
ReplyDelete1d Deepak, this is a headless clue, where you chop off the head of the word !
ReplyDelete15A: A new word for me. Is STOLLEN bread sweeter?
ReplyDelete24D Though Anon is considered a prolific poet (is it just one poet or a bunch of anonymous poets is debatable), but rest of the anno ??
ReplyDeleteBest clues:
ReplyDelete19A
13A
14A
27A is A1 DAN
A remark by CV in Orkut reminded of a joke based on typos:
ReplyDeleteA group of humorists got a fan letter asking for a singed photo and gleefully took out a lighter and signed the edges of it and sent to the fan. Upon which, the esteemed correspondent wrote back: Gentlemen, I asked you for a singed photo and you have sent me a signed one.
Two days back I had posted:
ReplyDeleteReversed bed for the ex British PM (5)
Answer:
Bed=cot=cos /sin, reversed = sin/cos=tan=brown=Brown
Gita, 13A got jinxed, did not make it to the puzzle !
ReplyDeleteProlific poet// girl bearing no// name (4) - A{NO}N{-N}?
ReplyDeleteCGB: In that case 'no' does double duty, inserted in ANN and dropper for N.
ReplyDelete14 - Also a proper name for Mimi in Spain (9) - {AND}{A}{LUCIA} Couldn't get the link between Lucia and Mimi
ReplyDeleteGoogle is the mother of all answers :)
Although I have no clue how Manna expects the average solver to make this connection.
Its from Puccini's opera La bohème.
Setting: Christmas Eve in a room in an attic
Synopsis: After Rodolfo tells her that he has fallen in love with her, he asks Mimi to tell him something of her. She responds, telling him (among other things) that her name is Lucia, although she is called Mimi.
http://ezinearticles.com/?Great-Moments-in-Opera,-Si-Mi-Chiamano-Mimi-From-Puccinis-La-Boheme&id=4121084
WAH BHAVAN
ReplyDeleteI did google search MIMI aka LUCIA but never reached anywhere
SPAM alert
ReplyDelete-------------------
How advisable is it to use reference dictionaries and crossword lists while solving the cryptic ones? I mean, do any of you use these resources for solving rather than verifying? As a clichéd question, is it 'wrong'/ 'cheating'?
Nothing wrong in using dictionaries, it's not wrong or cheating. However use of word pattern searches etc would be wrong and can be construed as cheating
ReplyDeleteAre looking askance and ogling the same? I wonder!
ReplyDeleteCertainly not!
ReplyDeletedrat! typed out my entire commentary on today's CW and proceeded to lose it by hitting a wrong button! :(
ReplyDeleteAnyway... didn't like today's CW.
Started out nicely. First read resulted in a few clues across the grid, which is nice. But as I started uncovering some of the other clues, they didn't satisfy.
1D: AMBLE - only confirmed due to crossings... clue itself was vague IMHO.
19D: DIOCESE - The only word that fit, but I had to dig deep into the thesaurus to find the link with 'see'.
ANCHORITE and STOLLEN were new, but they were defined well. 'See' is such a common term in CWs...
23D NOTED - This was clever.
26A TRUST - Not so much... cryptic, but not satisfying.
I guess my definition of satisfying is when I look at it and go 'aah!' or smile! :) NOTED did that, TRUST left me looking at the clue, saying, "Umm... ok .. I guess..."
16A LASSITUDE was well structured. Good surface reading. :)
Overall, I don't like having to refer online or google so many clues. Similar thoughts voiced by Dranzer @ 9:04.
But... that's me. Obviously, today's CW was not my cup of tea. :-D
Halfway thro' but not enjoying as much. Gridman was challenging, but ultimately satisfying... especially the last couple of his offerings. Doubt I'll feel that way about Manna today.
Hoping for better tomorrow! :)
There... that's another one! OGLED! What??? I figured that was the only word that fit there.. but what the heck? Looking askance?!? Not cool.
ReplyDelete@ Bhavan 8:56 - Wow! Great find. Hats off for being able to get this connection. Are you an "operand"?!? ;-)
ReplyDeletewow!!! Just looked at the answers, and I'm SOOOO glad I didn't waste any more time on this CW!! Sorry Mr. Manna, I'm not usually so harsh even if it's deserved... 'cos everyone deserves some leeway... especially setters, 'cos it's a tough job; but this was just too much sir!
ReplyDeleteThe few bad clues (either the answer or the clue structure) have marred the rest of them today. Not to mention hard to correlate answers like lucia, eleven and of course ogled.
ReplyDelete@Hari : Not sure what you mean by operand, but you can put that opera discovery as a side effect of my day job skills :)
@ Bhavan 10:00 - haha. I like playing w/ words at times...
ReplyDeleteGourmand - Enjoys food...
'Opera'nd - Enjoys operas. Clearly my own concoction, hence the double quotes! :)
Now, what exactly r ur day job skills that lend themselves to connecting Mimi and Lucia?!
Chaturvasi in a fix
ReplyDeleteWhen I went to the formal dance
There came a girl with a glance
That seemed to be ogle;
When I bravely did amble
Near her, she at me looked askance.
@ Kishore 8:39 - U got to be kidding me! :) That clue really showed up in FT?!? It's really clever, but I would NEVER have thought of going mathematical on it! :-D
ReplyDeleteDo you believe it's a tough, but "good" clue? I'm asking because I don't know the GAAP equivalent for CW clues. ;-)
@ CV 10:18 - Oh my god!!! My first real big laugh of the day! That was just too funny!!! I actually did a LoL at my desk! :-D
ReplyDeleteHari 09:37
ReplyDeleteI know the predicament of losing your entire text, after typing it out so meticulously and painstakingly, can be so frustrating.
It had happened in my case several times. Whatever you do the second time may never match the quality of your initial output.
But I got wiser from the experience. Now I type the matter on texpad and save it, and then copy-paste to the blog and post.
This may take a little more time. But better be safe than sorry. (I have an exclusive textpad file dedicated to THCC comments and saved in my PC.)
@ Col: just saw 3D toon. Hilarious! :-D
ReplyDelete@CVasi, thanks for the laugh.
ReplyDelete@Hari like every second or third engineer in India, I'm in the IT industry. Part of my job is/was to be able to unearth information on the internet for comparative studies.
@ Richard 10:26 - That's the smart thing to do! It's one of those things where u never think u'll do it again, until it happens again! :) My usual safe-guard (especially for my impromptu replies that happen to get long), is to do a CtlA, CtlC every few lines. That way it's in my buffer in case I lose it. Much faster and as reliable. Of course, one's got to remember to do so! haha.
ReplyDelete@ Bhavan - Ah, I see. If I remember correctly, u recently moved back to desh from Oz, right? B'lore or Chennai?
ReplyDelete10:18
ReplyDeleteWhen I bravely did amble
Near her, she at me looked askance.
Thankfully, it was not "she at me looked and said 'Hence!'" (Ref a recent clue in THCC.)
Btw heard this one? A man from the Met office always boasted that he could look into a girl's eyes and tell whether...
@Hari, its actually the other way round. Moved a few months back from Pune to Queensland.
ReplyDeleteBhavan, your profile shows your current domicile as Australia. So I admire you as the Word Wizard of Oz.
ReplyDeleteBtw, is Pune your home city or did you only live there for some time?
@Richard :)
ReplyDeleteI was working out of Pune before moving here. My hometown is Hyderabad.
Good Morning
ReplyDeleteA mixed bag for me. I missed a handful 9a, 10a, 25a, 2d and 8 d. Couldnt work out the Anno and not clear about definitions too.
I havent read the comments yet, lots of anagrams made the puzzle relatively easy upfront however much work done after but without much success.
Good day
Mathu
Bhavan 10:57 Thanks.
ReplyDeleteHari
ReplyDeleteSome times i feel i dint have to type my comments and simply Ctrl x and ctrl p urs. Today you seems to be in a mood of Exhaustive commentary...
After going thro the comments i felt satisfied i missed the clues missed by some other solvers too. I am growing - day by day...
24 - Prolific poet girl bearing no name (4) - ANON [DD] ?
ReplyDeleteAN{O}N
(no = O)
Richard: The guys from the Met Office are usually wrong...
ReplyDeleteThey usually predict today's girl's answer on yesterday's girl's answer.
Hari: No, it is not an FT clue. It is a self generated one by yours not falsely :-).
And, if you had everything ready and lost it (??), you would feel like Deepak's lamp rubber.
Hey people, did you notice the mole under my mouth in the smiley in my previous post.
ReplyDelete@ Kishore 11:44 - Lol!!! Too funny! :)
ReplyDeleteKishore 11:44 Don't tell me it is a beauty spot intended to ward off the evil eye !
ReplyDeleteHey Richard, it is the evil eye to ward off beauties, methinks, as I have not seen any person near me lately who can qualify as a member of that group.
ReplyDeleteWell, I'll be off trekking deep in the forests of Venkateswara for the next 3 days. So I bid you adieu for now, and will see you all on Monday!
ReplyDeleteCheers! Pour yourselves a stiff one for me! ;-)
Just found out that another Rao around here is crazy about mountains (should I say Harry is Potty about them). I too used to be long back when younger: Kolahoi, Affarwat (before the ropeway 1983), Alpatherm, Tsomgo, the list is smaller than the other chap and not that high, not the Kangri and the like. Last was Surkanda. Now I cant climb with all my excess baggage. But for the last few years my Christmas hols destination has usually been in the Himalayas. Wishing you all the best to achieve more heights, more than 20135 as against my 17799.
ReplyDeleteSurkanda was more of a trek, not requiring to use ropes. I recollect earlier acronyms of HAPO and HACO used by HMI guys on my first at Kolahoi, but luckily never had to face it.
ReplyDelete