Wednesday 28 September 2011

No 10270, Wednesday 28 Sep 11, Sankalak

I've run out of superlatives for Sankalak's Crosswords. I'm off to Jodhpur tonight to attend the Raising Day celebrations of my ex unit, to and fro by train, shall be posting from the train on 4 days so delays may be expected.
ACROSS
1   - Avert a gag failing but make it worse (9) - AGGRAVATE*
5   - Reportedly spotted and called (5) - CITED (~sighted)
8   - A hug for a soprano steeped in worries (6) - CARESS {CARE{S}S}
9   - Good, popular men involved in art have a quarrel (8) - ARGUMENT {AR{G}{U}{MEN}T}
11 - Raincoat's reversed in a trick (4) - S'CAM <-
12 - Cuts credit marks for diners' tools (10) - CHOPSTICKS {CHOPS}{TICKS}
14 - Such a campaign is designed to discredit one (5) - SMEAR [CD]
15 - Creepy pests in shoe parts (7) - INSTEPS*
16 - Fault exposed in terrible mishandling (7) - BLEMISH [T]
17 - Dance, it takes two to do it (5) - TANGO [DD]
19 - Heartless child, genius, trained in programming (10) - SCHEDULING {CHiLD+GENIUS}*
20 - Passage without opening in insular area (4) - ISLE aISLE
22 - Shown the way for a possible decider with time (8) - DIRECTED* {DECIDER+T}*
23 - Charge everyone, say, beginning to err (6) - ALLEGE {ALL}{EG}{E}
24 - This fibre is found in Indian wood (5) - SISAL {S{IS}AL}
25 - Purses, sir, produce unexpected things (9) - SURPRISES*
DOWN
1   - Confront a conservative, good man about business (6) - ACCOST {A}{C}{CO}{ST}
2   - Watchful pets of pastors from Alsace? (6,9) - GERMAN SHEPHERDS {GERMAN} {SHEPPERDS}
3   - Recess in church (4) - APSE [E]
4   - Such a noise as may divide those at the receiving end! (12) - EARSPLITTING {EAR}{SPLITTING}
5   - Women of Madame Pompadour's ilk (10) - COURTESANS [CD]
6   - Disloyalty spelt out in U.S. research notes (15) - TREACHEROUSNESS*
7   - Confused steed on way back shows great aversion (7) - DETESTS {DETES*}{TS<-}
10 - They own the company (12) - SHAREHOLDERS [CD]
13 - Cricket match about to be in danger — it comes at regular intervals (10) - PERIODICAL {PERI{ODI}{CA}L}
16 - In addition, teams follow second-grade opener in England (7) - BESIDES {B}{E}{SIDES}
18 - Tools always needed in extremes of laziness (6) - LEVERS {Lazi{EVER}nesS}
21 - The blot — caused to speech by too much drink? (4) - SLUR [DD]



31 comments:

  1. Absolutely agree and second Col's topline appreciation.

    An odd type of charade clue in the Guardian Quick CW10607 today in the Metro Plus Bang ed: (presented in a slightly edited form below):

    14d Tramples relative (5,2/7)

    DD with dual enumeration ;-)

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  2. 12 - Cuts credit marks for diners' tools (10) - CHOPSTICKS

    reminded me of CV's:

    24 Kitchen utensil cuts insect (10)

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  3. 17 - Dance, it takes two to do it (5) - TANGO [DD]

    A Dean Martin version ! :

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96uOpfGowNk&feature=related

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  4. A smooth flowing CW quick in filling up.Most enjoyable.
    A doubt about 13D-what leads to CA-about to be?
    Imagining Col. filling the grid in a moving train-commitment to be appreciated.

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  5. Two to Tango-the setter & the solver?

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  6. Another excellent crossword - but just one query:
    Isn't treachery the noun from treacherous. To my ear treacherousness sounds wrong. Is it American ( apologies for the inference - but they do sometimes mangle bizarre words - burglarise! )
    Perhaps those with access to decent dictionaries can enlighten me.

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  7. David. Treacherousness is there in OED.

    I think its meaning is a little different from treachery. Treachery would be an act of deceit and treacherousness would be the quality of being treacherous.

    Maybe other experts can elaborate.

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  8. A double indian reference in yesterday's guardian:

    Huge numbers in india get rupees in central parts (7)

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  9. Can't count - the clue length is 6

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  10. DD, Suresh:

    I have no experience in treachery or treacherousness, so I can't explain. But I know that many times loyalty demands royalty.

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  11. DD,

    Treacherousness And Treachery are there in Chambers and are defined as betrayal, readiness to betray, falseness, treason

    ReplyDelete
  12. Since enu topics have figured about, I wonder if any of you do abugida crosswords and how is enu counted there?

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  13. Please read above instead of about in 952

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  14. Thanks all - I stand enlightened!

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  15. Another easy and smooth one. The chopsticks
    cartoon is quite funny!

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  16. I just came across a mail titled 'Spitting fine'. It does not, as presaged by the title, commend spitting, but proposes a drive against the red marks left by spitters. It ends with the line:

    Let us make our colony cleaner and greener.

    Makes me wonder...

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  17. Yes. Remember, a few weeks back, we had this:
    paint the town red!

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  18. Something like a Bengali reading the word Spitoon??!!

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  19. And viewing it as an invitation to spit.

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  20. Kishore@9:39 Did you mean royalty demands loyalty?

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  21. Suresh, I meant 1103 ;-)

    BTW, spitting is a pan-India problem.

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  22. A few funnies about this 'pan'-india problem!

    http://www.cartoonstock.com/directory/s/spittoons.asp

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  23. I enjoyed yesterday's very refreshing and unusual crossword.

    On blue-pencils, I recall having seen a two-sided pencil in my days,( I'm not that ancient and antediluvian , though!) half-half--- red and blue. Writing, editing and printing have been replaced by key-boarding( another hyphenated word)and nowadays, of course, the delete and spell-checking keys are ubiquitous amongst the editors. I'm so much interested in journalism, a profession I'd have loved to be in but alas, insurance covered me up for my diurnal subsistence.

    Talking about hyphenated words,Americans have this defiance against British English and insist upon doing exactly the other way around, opposing every rule laid down in English; as in, where there is a double letter use, make it single and vice-versa yanking and tail-gating the language topsy-turvy.

    Incidentally, haven't we all noticed many times in our crosswords, and wondered why Latin is termed as a 'dead language' though it is still in every day use and how many times haven't we come across a language called Esperanto, as of international usage?

    Lastly,& ampersand, a very unusual usage, rarely used, though it unites husband and wife, Mr and Mrs, etc. Such unifying power , eh?

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  24. Kishore: In Bombay, at every staircase landing corner, one would find an exhortative advice: '' Yethe Thuku naye'' and that's exactly the corner where you find Indian's artistic use of the lips for red graffiti. A national defiance against authority and to be a spitting image of your brethren.

    As for that irritating habit of sprinkler irrigation, let's spare it for another day.

    Females are more sparing in these two habits, though!!

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  25. Kishore 8:34

    The last word in the clue you cite should be 'insects'.

    ReplyDelete
  26. Yes, CV, thanks for the correction.

    Bangalore Railway station on the platfrom where Karnataka Exp leaves has a board in Hindi exhorting not to spit 'Thookna mana hai'. However the 'oo diacricit is missing and it reads 'Thakna mana hai'.

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  27. I am an infrequent writer and I have been reprimanded before by Chaturvasi Sir for commenting on the super critical and mathematical analysis of the clueing of cross words by various setters. My limited English is from reading endless fiction and I dare say that today's crossword was so pleasant to solve completely that the euphoria lingered throughout the day.
    Sowndar

    ReplyDelete

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