ACROSS
5 - A chief showing the way (5) -{A}{HEAD}
6 - Expert at Indian village to create software (7) - {PRO}{GRAM}
8 - Enthusiast gets nothing in France — time for fuel for the body (8) - {NUT}{RIEN}{T}
9 - Navy tricolour (6) - ENSIGN [CD]
10 - Dog retirer Rishi in a dodgy manner (5,7) - IRISH TERRIER*
14 - From Etah, I niftily filched sesame paste (6) - TAHINI [T]
17 - Bairn might result from this dunce (12) - {SCATTER}{BRAIN*}
20 - Job for seamstress — to hothead, it is skirting (6) -
21 - Midday number on diet formulation (8) - {NO}{ON}{TIDE}
22 - Bear's appetite? (7) - STOMACH [DD]
23 - Work up: “Breakfast item's ready” (3,2) - {EGG} {ON}
DOWN
1 - Emotional disorder of connoisseur — paranormal, rejecting non-pro (8) - NEUROSIS
2 - Least likely to work, I somehow lasted without a bit of activity (6) - {I}{DLEST
3 - One has a plot: isn't love in it? (8) - NOVELIST*
4 - One rubs soap, a small soap (6) - ERASER ? Anno pending (Addendum - {ER}{A}{S}{ER} - See comments)
5 - It has swimmers on show (8) - AQUARIUM [CD]
6 - Depart, bursting explosive device (6) - PETARD*
7 - Periodical — one for the wise men (4) - {MAG}{I}
11 - Without being asked — in the auction house? (8) - UNBIDDEN [DD]
13 - Has transported new Indian cow to a foreign port (8) - {SHA*}{N}{GHAI}Indian Cow is actually pronounced as GAAI
15 - Source of ethnic pride — it's at heart! (8) - HERITAGE [CD]
16 - Small fish — it may wrinkle your nose (6) - {S}{TENCH}
17 - Mistake, wearing a kind of blouse (4-2) - {SLIP}-{ON}
18 - Begin again on work by an uninitiated number (6) - {RE}{OP}{
19 - Seems to indicate there's no beginning to poems (4) -
Good morning everyone
ReplyDeleteNINA is all over the place.
RISHI in 'confusion' again within two days. Nurses making a sisterly appearance again.
4D - {ER}{A}{S}{ER} - a well-made clue. Perhaps ER is the name of a TV serial. Will check the blog anno.
13D - SHANGHAI - I gave the hint of a possible error here at 0750 at Orkut. Indian cow is GAI. Subhash GHAI is a Bollywood guy, a remarkable showman.
On the whole, an enjoyable puzzle.
ER=soap is probably a reference to the NBC show.
ReplyDeleteER is a TV Soap see ER
ReplyDelete@Richard: ER is a popular TV series.
ReplyDelete(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ER_%28TV_series%29)
Thanks, Sandhya. I too discovered that it was a popular TV serial based on the lives of medical fraternity. It may have inspired the making of a Hindi serial called SANJIVANI and a couple of others later.
ReplyDeleteI am not sure whether there is a single way of writing Indian words in English.
ReplyDelete'ghai' for 'cow' is used in some Internet articles, though I never consider its occurrence on www as authoritative.
Isn't the word 'pilau' spelt in many ways?
The Indian newspaper(s) that we read may use one spelling consistently but that doesn't mean others are not allowable.
There are nurses in the ER.
ReplyDeleteAn enjoyable 9999.Filled in 17d as "slip up".So could not "stomach"22a.Had no clue to ER.But it had to be eraser with crossings.
ReplyDeleteNice puzzle... Both the Indian references were easy to find (Ghai and Gram). I think both these spellings are all right.
ReplyDeleteCouldn't figure out the anno for ERASER. I get it now. I never watch soaps. I think I'll die if I watched one.
2D: IDLEST. Both the first and last part of the clue mean almost the same. Not sure if this was intended.
No nitpicking, this. Having spelling variations is one thing. But using different alphabets is another. In Hindi and Urdu, 'g' and 'gh' are different alphabetical characters.
ReplyDeleteGamlA (flower-pot), gAjar (carrot), GorA(fair in complexion) are different from ghanTi (bell), ghaTA (cloud) etc.
Incidentally, GhAlib (poet's name), ghazal (song), ghAyab (missing) etc make another variation. They are spelt with 'gh' in Roman script but in Devanagri they are written with alphabet character 'ga' with a dot at the bottom.
cf Tamil script. Probably the reason for this. And other variants of names names like Geetha, Gita, where t has an h added.
ReplyDeleteI think GHAI fits better 'cause if it's spelled GAI, there's a possibility that it could be read/ pronounced in the lines of gate, gait etc.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure if I'm right, but I think the Hindi pronunciation of cow is similar to mountain i.e. GHAT and we spell it with a H
VJ
ReplyDelete"without a bit of activity" does have a role in wordplay. But point taken that the first part (def) and the end part are the same.
Gee! How's 'ghee' spelt?
ReplyDeleteNeigh in Tamil, Ghee in Hindi, Negi in Punjab ;-)
ReplyDelete)9:39 Certainly with the letter gha in Hindi.
ReplyDeleteChaturvasi, of course I got the wordplay. Was just wondering at the fact that both parts were quite similar.
ReplyDeleteI do not think that, even given the liberties of spelling while writing Indian words in English, Ghai would be a correct spelling for gai. GH gives a 'hard' ga while gaai goes with a 'soft' ga. Many Tamilians may not notice the difference, because it does not exist in Tamil
ReplyDeleteGAI in hindi is pronounced as GAAI with the sound of A extended. GHAI as intended in the clue will be like the name of the Bollywood guy mentioned by Richard
ReplyDeleteVJ Gai is not pronounced as Ghat. G and gh have different pronunciations. One is soft and the other is hard.
ReplyDeleteIncidently cow can also be guwa like in Guwahati, which means Cow market
ReplyDeleteThanks Suresh. I could easily have been wrong. I don't know Hindi. But somehow I got this idea that they had similar pronunciation.
ReplyDeleteMost Indian languages, Tamil being a prominent exception, have a concept of alpapraaNa and mahapraaNa, with ka, ga, cha, ja, ta, Ta, da, Da, pa and ba, (being the alpapraaNas) having a mahapraaNa conjugate as kha, gha, chha, jha, tha, Tha, dha, Dha, pha and bha.
ReplyDeleteI am not familiar with Gurumukhi, but in spoken Punjabi the word for house (ghar in Hindi) is spoken to sound almost like 'kar'.
We discussed ‘booty’ some days back. Today’s TH Pg3 has a headline “Man murdered after dispute over booty”. :-)
ReplyDeletePlease intepret the word 'booty' as per taste.
Kishore, in San Francisco, a significant majority have such a taste as to interpret booty in a particular way, that which resembles neither mine nor yours. :-)
ReplyDeletewhich resembles neither mine nor yours. :-)
ReplyDeleteresembles our taste or our respective booties ?
after typing the above, had a good chuckle over 'respective'.
ReplyDelete9999 is made up of 4 9s. Both 4 and 9 are squares. Speaking of squares, 10000 is a square too and the CW is a square made up of smaller squares. Keeping in view squares of all dimensions, how many squares are there in a 15x15 grid ? How can the number of squares be increased without changing the grid ?
ReplyDeleteKishore
ReplyDeleteFor a general n, it will be \sigma(i=1 to n) i^2...
I thought about the problem of total number of valid crossword grids possible, i.e., conforming to all usual rules such as no 3 consecutive unches etc. Seems quite difficult. Have to check out if it has been solved already...
ReplyDeleteThe shape of the Grid by itself suggested something unusual was up and so it was with the 9's all around.
ReplyDeleteWhat 9s?
Shyam, answer to first part is perfectly correct. The second part remains open. And this is trickier and not very straight forward as it may look...
ReplyDeleteAnd, yes, your 1521 is a much more difficult thing to think. There are too many variables like length of answers (including breaks in enu of a word, eg: 2,3 etc), symmetry(180 or 90). etc. I am not sure I am up to it. If you are, I give you another level to climb, the number of words possible (nonsensical, non-dictionary ones included). Actually, on second thoughts, that is quite easy, provided you have the previous step in hand. You could add conditions like mandatory pangram etc. to make the concoction even more potent. But I shudder.
Navneeth, after you fill up all the answers look for the verticals on each side, and horizontals on each side. You will find the word NINE spelled out on each side.
ReplyDeleteEg: One vertical is made up of the first letters of 8a, 10a,12a, 20a .
ReplyDeleteAnd four nines spell out today's CW number.
Regarding ref to the shape, Gridman usually uses the same grid, but today to accommodate only four letters in the outer most rows and columns, he has used a different grid
Kishore@17:27, thanks. Nicely done, Gridman.
ReplyDeleteKishore
ReplyDeleteI did not answer the second part as I couldn't quite latch onto it. The grid remains the same, no lines drawn etc, and you get more squares??
And the number of n-letter words, including nonsensical ones, drawn from the alphabet set is just elementary combinatorics, right?
How can the number of squares be increased without changing the grid ?
ReplyDeleteIs the grid restricted to a plane? If it's the grid in my newspaper, I could fold the corners towards the centre and come up with some more squares.
Shyam, Navneeth: No lines are drawn nor is origami involved. This requires some out of the box thinking. You can just solve the puzzle in the usual way.
ReplyDeleteOnce you have any grid, you will have to take the number of squares to be filled in, say X, and the number of squares which constitute crossings i.e. appear in both across and down, say Y. Then the number of possibilities for filling up (including nonsensical words) would be 26^(X-Y). If the number is determined for every grid you can envisage, the sum total would be sigma that.
Some teasers below :
One of the four of these in Bachet's conjecture sounds like Sancho Panza’s position (6)
A right angled shot in cricket might be a type of fashion (6,3)
Solving these might give you an idea.
Can some one tell me how RIEN represents nothing in france for the Nutrient clue?
ReplyDelete