Wednesday, 7 September 2011

No 10252, Wednesday 07 Sep 11, Gridman

ACROSS
1   - Harbour grounds in U.S. city (8) - PORTLAND {PORT}{LAND}
5   - Fair reassessment about Air Force's fibre (6) - RAFFIA {R{AF{FIA*}
10 - Chela modified Gridman's quest for gold (7) - ALCHEMY {ALCHE*}{MY}
11 - Same French books — nothing for keepsake (7) - MEMENTO {MEME}{NT}{O}
12 - Good or bad (6) - WICKED [DD]
13 - I leave coal fires out in the open (8) - ALFRESCO COALFiRES*
15 - Beginner emerges from party rostrum (4) - TYRO [T]
16 - Delayer Tom tackled to some extent (10) - MODERATELY*
18 - On weekday, stories circulated about teaching method (10) - MONTESSORI {MON}{TESSORI*}
20 - U.S. university drops extremes on language (4) - URDU pURDUe
23 - Everlasting — like one who has pawned his watch? (8) - TIMELESS [CD]
24 - Harmonious — as marching bands should be (2,4) - IN STEP [CD]
26 - Conditional detainee smokin' gets a spanking (7) - HOSTAGE {HOt}{STAGE*}
27 - Old lady with defacement gets a cosmetic application (7) - MASCARA {MA}{SCAR}{A}


28 - Method of the organisation? (6) - SYSTEM [DD]
29 - Perfect finish? (8) - COMPLETE [DD]
DOWN
1   - This would leave a trail of flames — in more than one sense! (4,4,7) - PLAY WITH MATCHES [CD]
2   - Vehicle that goes up and down? (4,3) - RACE CAR <->
3   - Took a bad long look: General's ashamed (6) - LEERED {LEE}{RED}
4   - Negative votes with a ‘yes' component in them (4) - NAYS N(AY)S
6   - Barbara getting into sea may not have this kind of bearing (8) - ARMORIAL {AR{MORI}AL}It appears Gridman liked her movie 'Kites'
7   - Artful handling of penalties on incomplete band (7) - FINESSE {FINES}{SEt}
8   - This presents more than what you can chew, perhaps (1,3,2,4,5) - A LOT ON YOUR PLATE [E]
9   - Listener's declaration (2,3,4) - I'M ALL EARS [E]
14 - Groups spied without the private investigator on one dominated by a spirit (9) - POSSESSED {POSSES}{SpiED}
17 - Dead giveaway — like Poe's heart? (8) - TELLTALE [DD]
19 - Sense I'm led to formidable opponent (7) - NEMESIS*
21 - Royal for a bit of harried routine (3,4) - RAT RACE {RA}{T RACE} (Addendum - {R}{A}{T RACE} - See comments)
22 - Completes objective before banquet (4,2) - ENDS UP {END}{S UP}
25 - It's fired in the morning by doctor (4) - AMMO {AM}{MO}



60 comments:

  1. Liked ref to EAP’s The Tell-tale Heart, where yesterdays 1d, is quite apposite.


    Ave, MORIturi te salutant

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  2. 21d: Royal for a bit of harried routine (3,4) - R A TRACE
    'a' comes for free.

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  3. For some time now, I am unable to see cartoons from cartoonstock site but can only read captions. And it's not my lorgnette that needs change.

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  4. Why are the QMs needed for clues 28A and 29A? Even without them the sentences make good sense.

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  5. Bhavan, you have a point, perhaps.

    But generally some DDs may have these ?s at the discretion of the setter.

    "Perfect finish" is not "Perfect finish" if you get the drift. It is Perfect / finish. Hence the QM.

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  6. Interestingly, 'Quand même' is a French expression which has multiple meanings - anyway, all the same, actually .... Used separately, it shows disbelief or outrage!

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  7. Thanks CV. Was wondering if there was anything oblique in those which warranted ?

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  8. I do love the breadth of gridman's clues. You get French, Italian, literary references, and even "down with the kids" street talk - banging innit!!

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  9. Kishore

    I have sent you a .jpg file of the cartoon. Enjoy!
    Ensure your wife doesn't overlook.

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  10. The "I'm all ears" reminded me of how abrupt French waiters can be - they just turn up at your table and say "j'ecoute" - I'm listening - the first time it happened I was at a loss to know what he was listening for, until it dawned on me that it was my order.

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  11. A variation of Kishore's Latin quote above would be:

    Those who are about to be impeached, resign.

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  12. My grasp of indian politics must be getting better - I actually understood CV's reference.

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  13. In Madras hotels, it takes some time for you to place an order.

    Waiters keep moving, their supervisors with notebook and pen hover. There is the confusion as to who should approach the guest and take their order.

    You call a waiter: he says the table is assigned to someone else.

    The waiter for the table comes and as you start "Masala dosai..." he calls the man with the notebook.

    Why cannot that man come to you straightaway?

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  14. CV: Role reversal. You are under a miss-apprehension. You are the waiter.

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  15. Ensure your wife doesn't overlook.

    Overlook, oversight, these words have funny meanings. Ignore or supervise?

    The best, of course, are Oversight Committees which ignore what they are supposed to supervise, hence in a way, literally living up to their name.

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  16. Recently came across a brand name from Baidyanath:

    Di-givin

    Seems to exhort charity during death.

    I also came cross the name of a Taiwanese fighter jet:

    F-CK Ching Kuo

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIDC_F-CK-1_Ching-kuo

    Looks like the designers wanted to get back at their ex-president.

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  17. Not being able to see the cartoon happened to me also today.

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  18. Kishore & Suresh,

    What happens when you click on the link provided to the cartoon? Let me know so that I can see if there are any remedies. However I feel it must be something at your end as the link did take CV to the right location.

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  19. Kishore @ 8:44,

    Maybe you were using your better halfs lorgnette!!

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  20. Deepak, 1003: Wont fit. I am too fat-headed.

    The site opens, the caption appears, so I get the joke. But the sketch area is a blank. And I could see the jpg that CV couriered to me.

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  21. Pardon me, that bird was email and not courier.

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  22. When I click the link the page opens. I can see everything including the caption and the other cartoons at the bottom, but not the main cartoon, which is only a blank space. This happens once in a while. Probably will work tomorrow. I raised the point because Kishore seems to have the same problem.

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  23. Loved Gridman's reference to my Alma Mater in 20A.

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  24. Refer VP's mail yesterday regarding his CW site, he has opened the CW for 4 solutions per commenter

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  25. Col, what is the anno for 4D? How does NS come into play?

    Also is 'led' okay as an anagrind in 19D?

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  26. Sudalamani,
    I don't think NS comes from any wordplay. It is just the 'yes component' which led me to 'AY" and then to the answer 'NAYS' or 'Negative votes'

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  27. Friends

    I have tried to upload VP's puz in AcrossLite .puz format here for anyone to be able to solve it interactively.

    http://icrossword.com/share/?id=5996_vp.puz

    Please see if it works.

    I trust I have VP's permission for this.

    NOTE: ALL ANSWERS ARE TO BE ENTERED IN COMMENTS SECTION IN HIS BLOG.

    http://vpscrosswords.blogspot.com/

    Puzzle copyright: VP

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  28. I'm ok with 'led' as anagrind.
    Led or lead into or tend towards etc

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  29. CV @ 11:54,
    It works, however since you put in all A's to form the grid the check and reveal button are activated, so if one clicks on those all the letters other than 'A' are shown as wrong. Next time use 'X' instead of 'A' in which case the check and reveal buttons do not get activated

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  30. Sudalamani, led as in guided should be fine as AInd.

    Will have a go at VP's puzzle

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  31. 4a is what is called 'partial clueing'.
    The clue suggests that 'negative votes' (def) has within it a letter string (AY) that means 'yes'.

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  32. I plan to be in Kovai on 30th Nov/1Dec and perhaps one more day for attending a wedding. I would love to meet other bloggers during that trip.

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  33. Chaturvasi @ 11:54, perfectly fine by me. Thanks a lot for doing this. As I had mentioned, next time I will coordinate with you folks to do this more methodically.

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  34. Thanks all. But hope noone misuses this partial cluing trick for a 10 letter word - cluing only 3 letters in the interior!

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  35. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  36. Friends

    I have now uploaded a revised version of VP's puz in AcrossLite .puz format here for anyone to be able to solve it interactively:-

    http://icrossword.com/share/?id=6012_vprev2.puz

    This sets right a problem that Col. mentioned above.


    NOTE: ALL ANSWERS ARE TO BE ENTERED IN COMMENTS SECTION IN HIS BLOG.

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  37. Suresh @ 10:16, ditto for me as well, can see everything but the main cartoon. I was wondering if there is a problem with my browser.

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  38. Which OS do you use, VP. I use MAC and it did not open with Mozilla or Safari

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  39. Suresh,

    I normally use Mozilla Firefox on Windows XP. The cartoon did not show up correctly today.

    Some time back, I had seen the same problem with Firefox on MAC as well. Don't have the MAC with me now to cross-verify.

    But with IE on Windows XP, shows up fine, so guessing its some firefox (or maybe even non-IE) thingy.

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  40. Am unable to post my four answers in VP's blog as neither preview nor the letters image appears.

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  41. Mozilla FF, Windows XP - the cartoon appears on my screen.

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  42. Chaturvasi,

    I just tried a test comment and it worked, so am not sure as to what's wrong. If you do wish to send in the 4 answers to pvenkattesh@gmail.com, I can post them for you.

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  43. Re.cartoons-

    I have been having this problem for a long time.Like all of you describe everything except the main cartoon picture appears with Mozilla firefox OP.But all of it comes ok with IE( I have the XP version)

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  44. One more thing-Apart from the main cartoon,all the others are totally different in both versions.Probably,this might give a clue to the problem to the experts.

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  45. Suresh/Padmanabhan,

    Figured out the mystery with the cartoon at my end. Basically some conflicting rule in AdBlock Plus for firefox which ended up blocking this image.

    If this is your problem as well, you can specifically allow images by adding execption rules. If you right click on where the image is supposed to be, you ll get a tab to go to Adblock Plus. It will by default point to something like this:

    ||cartoonstock.com/newscartoons/cartoonists/gro/lowres/*

    to be your "Add filter rule".

    From there you can make this an exception rule instead of a filter.

    You can even put the wild card for all of @@||cartoonstock.com/images/*

    Hope this helps.

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  46. Thank you VP.It worked.It will be simple and easy in future.Thank you once again for taking the triouble.

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  47. VP. I could not manage it on Firefox and Safari. But Chrome on MAC opened it without any difficulty.

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  48. Padmanabhan, you are welcome, had to do figure this out for myself anyway.

    Suresh, no clue on the MAC side.

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  49. VP, did not work for me. Right click in FF did not produce Adblock plus. Hence, non-plussed.

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  50. I don't have a prob with any: IE, FF, Chrome, Opera.

    Kishore, Silly that I am asking this, but do you have ABP on your machine in the first place? If so, you will find ABP on top right after opening FF.

    But then if you don't have ABP why is the cartoon blocked?

    Out of my depths.

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  51. Kishore,

    Can you please check if under the Tools tab of FF, something like "Adblock Plus Preferences" shows up. If it does, you could view all filters out there (and edit it). If "Adblock" or "Adblock Plus" is not there under Tools, then I have no clue about the problem you are facing either.

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  52. A waitress was admitted to Hospital with labour pains. When her pains became severe she hailed a passing doctor . His reply was "Sorry ,Not my table".

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  53. 1a grounds = land & 11a books = new testament.
    Are they ok / allowed? Pl enlighten

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  54. Yes, both are absolutely correct.

    G almost always goes by the dictionary. Even if he knows something himself, he will invariably check toa void mistakes.

    Will come back to this tomorrow as I am watching TV now.

    Or maybe Venkatesh will come to my help.

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  55. CV.VP: Nope, neither ABP or AB is there. And I was able to see the cartoon before a FF update.

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  56. Hm... a bit disappointed by 6D. Not bad cluing, just a vague GK reference (for me). I was thinking of Hanna-Barbera -- I wasn't quite sure of the spelling, obviously, Streisand, Mrs. Geroge H. W. Bush et al. (to come up with an answer, of course).

    Re: the cartoon, I can't see it either.

    Firefox 3.6.21 w/ ABP
    Firefox 6 (no extensions installed)
    Chrome 15 (dev) -- with and without ad-blocking extension

    All running on Ubuntu 10.10.

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  57. I'm in fact more familiar with the Kannada word 'mori' than I am with the kite lady. :D

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  58. What about Barbara Bach, the spy who loved me.

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  59. Nope. And now that you mention it, I (surpisingly) didn't think about Maria Barbara Bach either.

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