Tuesday 10 July 2012

No.10511, 10 Jul 12, Neyartha

If starred clues are not popular, Neyartha can still make starry clues : ) As always, the clueing is imaginative even if slightly dodgy at places.

ACROSS
1   - Teacher’s girlfriend (8) - MISTRESS (DD)

SEE THIS CARTOON

5   - Indian state to look around for support (6) - UPKEEP(UP + PEEK<-)
9   - Legal document tagged in the banks of the English river (5,4) - TITLE,DEED (TITLED outside DEE)
11 - Partial cellular variations seen in a caterpillar, say (5) - LARVA (T)
12 - The missing California socialite appeared to be the least trustworthy (7) - OILIEST (SOcIaLITE)*
14 - Reportedly notice pick in front during the surreptitious interaction (7) - FOOTSIE  (FOOT=pick {as in a bill} + ~SEE)
15 - Realize that the pickled dill outside is half-baked (3-9) - ILL-CONCEIVED (DILL* outside CONCEIVE)
17 - Rachel sights complicated illumination aids (12) -  SEARCHLIGHTS (RACHEL SIGHTS)*
20 - Obscure king ousted by the Nationalist was corrupt (7) - UNCLEAN (UNCLEA{-r}{+N})
22 - Pass by former partner’s Mediterranean island (7) - EXCRETE (EX + CRETE)
23 - French river shown in the first screening of Mani’s movie exhibition (5) - SOMME (Acrostic)
24 - Tom Hanks, in Seattle? (9) - SLEEPLESS (GK)
26 - Reel transcribed after commencement is spread around Austria (6) - ROTATE (wROTE outside AT ?)
27 - Animal protecting salesman returning with germanium gets a sprinkling of holy water (8) - ASPERGES (ASS outside REP<- + GE)

DOWN
1  - Celestial object in the east caught by a no-name teacher … (6) - METEOR (E inside MEnTOR)
2  - … could be Titan, with its stormy little sea (9) - SATELLITE(LITTLE SEA)*
3  - Lament about the French street (3) - RUE(DD)
4  - Honeyed words for one’s love? (5,8) - SWEET,NOTHINGS (CD)
6  - Fancy oil tech Palin detailed is related to a phase of the Stone Age (11) - PALEOLITHIC (OIL TECH PALIn)*
7  - Money concealed by amateur osteopath (5) -  EUROS (T)
8  - Trap seen after climbing mountain on Mars, say (6) - PLANET  (NET after ALP<-)
10 - Defensive sect’s characters show a bad quality (13) -  DEFECTIVENESS(DEFENSIVE SECT)*
13 - Swelling makes the heavy males get admitted to the medical department (11) - ENLARGEMENT (LARGE MEN inside ENT)
16 - Delaying time in puzzle, an example of a good piece of software code known by a few (6,3) - EASTER,EGG  ({t-}EAS{+T}ER, EG + G)
18 - Queen’s first letter to the Egyptian god’s about a celestial object (6) - QUASAR (QU + A + RA'S<-)
19 - Against having rhymes in recital (6) - VERSUS(~VERSES)
21 - Desire of Victor’s master to discover a celestial object (5) - COMET (CO{-v}{+M}ET)
25 - Greek character caught with a baked dish (3) - PIE(~PI)
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38 comments:

  1. Anonymous10 July 2012 at 08:30

    Password breaking news:

    Sorry to upstage Neyartha’s star trek, but I would like to inform you that my hotmail account (and yahoo account some days earlier) seems to have been compromised and has been used to send spam. Kindly ignore these mails. For all you know, these might be advertisements for 13d, as a cure to 10d ;-)

    Passwords have been duly changed and hope that all is well now.

    Coming back to Neyartha, nice one with celestial objects both in the answers and the clues: Titan, Mars, celestial object, METEOR, QUASAR, SATELLITE, COMET, PLANET, ROTATE, (maybe a few more).

    Also observed that some pairs of contiguous words made sense when read together:
    MISTRESS UPKEEP (high maintenance?), TITLEDEED LARVA (would that lead to a defective title),
    OILIEST FOOTSIE (the slimy snake!), ILLCONCEIVED SEARCHLIGHTS (badly located), UNCLEAN EXCRETA (no, actually it is EXCRETE), PALEOLITHIC PIE (hard, just like mother makes), and my favourite of all: RUE ENLARGEMENTS.

    Btw, are words like Excrete kosher in a crossword?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Dr.gayathri Sreekanth10 July 2012 at 08:34

      excrete-kosher... haha!!

      Delete
    2. Anonymous10 July 2012 at 08:54

      Nice to see you enjoyed that usage ;-)

      I kosher*

      Delete
  2. Dr.gayathri Sreekanth10 July 2012 at 08:33

    found some, clueless in others. sigh! when am i going to solve the whole thing???

    ReplyDelete
  3. Chaturvasi10 July 2012 at 08:50

    I don't think 'excrete' should be disallowed. The word means 'eject' or 'discharge' - one might excrete from sweat glands as well. Why, one might excrete pheromones and the consequences of such excretion between man and woman might be exciting or excitable.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous10 July 2012 at 08:55

      Thanks for clarifying.

      Delete
    2. Chaturvasi10 July 2012 at 09:00

      The Guardian has used it. The setter's clue was

      Pass old island (7)

      Nothing repulsive there!

      Delete
    3. Chaturvasi10 July 2012 at 09:11

      Talking of pheromones and the effects, expected and unexpected, that they may produce, one must read Roald Dahl's short story The Great Switcheroo.

      Delete
  4. Anonymous10 July 2012 at 08:57

    ILLCONCEIVED read with yesterday's GRAVID leads me to the lady who was impregnable, inconceivable and unbearable

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Chaturvasi10 July 2012 at 09:01

      Just unapproachable, I guess!

      Delete
    2. Anonymous10 July 2012 at 09:02

      Before the ladies object, may I bring to their kind notice while some ladies are i, i and i as given above, all men are i, i and i.

      Delete
    3. Anonymous10 July 2012 at 09:39

      CV 901:

      The Iron Curtain, I suppose...

      Delete
    4. Suresh10 July 2012 at 09:56

      Several ladies feel that men are all 'I'

      Delete
    5. Padmanabhan10 July 2012 at 12:36

      What if I object?

      Delete
    6. Suresh10 July 2012 at 16:29

      Ask the lady if you dare

      Delete
    7. Richard10 July 2012 at 18:13

      You guys are incorrigible!

      Delete
  5. Suresh10 July 2012 at 09:07

    Continuing yesterday's, when I said 'Scintillator started up and managed to stay there there', I meant he stayed "up" and managed to stay there. Meaning he started on top.
    I realised later that what I wrote could be easily misundertood, a la a character in P G Wodehouse who is robbed by the lake.

    Our PGW aficionados may be able to dig out the exact reference and wording.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Suresh10 July 2012 at 11:54

      Or was it the cop who was hit by the lake with the amusing two page conversation at the police station. Galahad at Blandings?

      Delete
  6. Padmanabhan10 July 2012 at 09:59

    Though I ma not able to, Kishore sure would, if he is available now.

    Nice enjoyable CW, with different kinds of stras (as Bhavan put it)I find this more enjoyable (should read less difficult)

    ReplyDelete
  7. Chaturvasi10 July 2012 at 12:54

    If it's Tuesday, it must be...

    ...Bhavan?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous10 July 2012 at 13:17

      I remember a movie of that name with a catchy song: if it is Tuesday it must be Belgium, if its Wednesday, it must be Rome

      Delete
    2. Deepak Gopinath10 July 2012 at 14:08

      Hear it here IF IT"S TUESDAY THIS MUST BE BELGIUM

      Delete
    3. Anonymous10 July 2012 at 20:37

      Thanks, Deepak. I think I saw it at one of the 3: Sapphire, Emerald or Blue Diamond in Madras.

      Delete
    4. Anonymous10 July 2012 at 20:48

      Here's the version from the movie:

      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5yk8wrJSDk

      Delete
  8. Vasu10 July 2012 at 13:41

    Kishore8:57 AM IST
    ILLCONCEIVED read with yesterday's GRAVID leads me to the lady who was impregnable, inconceivable and unbearable

    If impenetrable, yes, all the above.

    ReplyDelete
  9. pavalamani pragasam10 July 2012 at 14:05

    It has become unfashionable to blush!!!!

    ReplyDelete
  10. Bhalchandra Pasupathy10 July 2012 at 14:21

    But for the slightly 'dodgy' clues as Bhavan puts it (eg pick up would be foot, not pick), found it quite entertaining and easy going.

    Not sure I agree with the anno for 18D. I make it out to be:
    Q = Queen's first letter
    USAR = Egyptian god (alternate for OSIRIS), about A
    ie Q+{U(A)SAR} = Celestial object

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Deepak Gopinath10 July 2012 at 14:41

      Queen’s = QU
      first letter =A
      to the
      Egyptian god’s = RA'S
      about = Reversai indicator
      a celestial object = {QU}{A}{S'AR<-}

      Delete
    2. Bhalchandra Pasupathy10 July 2012 at 14:54

      can't argue with that either. I suppose RA being the more familiar god, this is the way Neyartha might have conceived it. Apologies Bhavan

      Delete
  11. raju umamaheswar10 July 2012 at 14:45

    Yesterday's Crossword by Scintillator'
    20 across: ORAL-- aperture? OR IF it is that I CE it wrongly?
    Spare us Horrible Torrricellis please ! ESCHEW proper names. Some of us will be totally AT A LOSS.
    GRAVID is a good one. Quite inconceivable as a clue. We don't see the GRAVITAS.

    Scintillator provokes titillation from the bloggers by their comments
    here. Fully Pregnant with humour.
    Great fun , I should say.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Richard10 July 2012 at 18:16

      Yes, fully pregnant with meaning, followed by perfect delivery.

      Delete
  12. Unknown10 July 2012 at 17:15

    As a newcomer to this site,I am tempted to pose a question,"Will it not be of some more interest and anxiety,if the completed solution can be made public at still much a later time in the day?

    ReplyDelete
  13. Unknown10 July 2012 at 18:41

    How about christening this column as "THINC Corner"representing The HINdu Crossword"corner?Or even THINC Square,I mean THIN and C to the power of two.(The grid is a 15x15 square(,

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous10 July 2012 at 20:25

      Though I don't second the proposal, therein lies a pun...

      Delete
  14. Venkatesh10 July 2012 at 19:47

    Disappointed that Neyartha has not included any clue on the moons of Uranus in his astronomical crossword. All of these are named after characters from the works of William Shakespeare and Alexander Pope as Miranda, Ariel, Umbriel, Titania, Oberon, Cordelia, Ophelia, Bianca, Cressida, Desdemona, Juliet, Portia, Rosalind, Belinda and Puck.

    May be an interesting topic for Shuchi to consider.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Chaturvasi10 July 2012 at 20:01

      This was done in a UK crossword quite recently.

      Delete
  15. Anonymous10 July 2012 at 20:36

    Talking of planets, grav-id, -ity and -e and remembering 'if all the trees were one tree...'

    If all the planets were one planet, Mercury,
    What a heck of a lot of gravity would that be,
    The combined cosmic attraction of the whole,
    the gigantic Mercury and its neighbour Sol,
    Would probably render Mercury into hot jelly.

    ReplyDelete
  16. Padmanabhan10 July 2012 at 22:54

    Probably that is how it was a few millenniums ago !

    ReplyDelete

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