Entertaining offering from Vulcan. My COD 27A.
ACROSS
1 Morgue scene extremely disturbing and shocking (8) GRUESOME {MORGUE+ScenE}*
5 In trouble after having spicy fast food (3,3) HOT DOG {HOT} {DOG}
10 Disturbed sleep ending in frustration and anger (6) SPLEEN {SLEEP*}{N}
12 Bustling region — hub for Sri Lanka! (9) NEIGHBOUR*
13 Follow the directions and make an appeal (5) ENSUE {EN}{SUE}
14 Superstar’s effigy (4) ICON [DD]
16 Trouble with fool leading attack (6) ASSAIL {ASS}{AIL}
18 Dance style from Gangnam region — revolutionary stuff (6) GERMAN [T<=]
20 Yield of rice decrease (4) CEDE [T]
23 Terrace atop one building (5) PATIO {ATOP+1}*
24 Cheese cake not satisfactory one bit. Portion sent back (9) MOUSETRAP {MOUsSE}{TRAP<=}
27 Doctor cures athlete’s foot for free (6) RESCUE {CURES*}{E}
28 Married a teetotaller and suffered (8) ATTACHED {A}{TT}{ACHED}
29 Stay in a ship with grand interior (6) LINGER {LIN{G}ER}
30 Bearing gifts, say (8) PRESENCE (~presents)
DOWN
1 Alternative energy nearly eco-friendly (5) GREEN ENERGy*
2 You finally got the fantastic new ipad? Outstanding! (6) UNPAID {yoU}{N}{IPAD*}
3 A rash reckless girl (5) SARAH*
4 Weather satellite circling round the poles (7) MONSOON {M{O}{NS}OON}
6 Burdened by work — squeezed (9) OPPRESSED {OP}{PRESSED}
7 Leather used in say, expensive coat (8) DEERSKIN (~dear){DEER}{SKIN} Why 'used'?
8 Crowds around East River (6) GANGES {GANG{E}S}
11 A song’s backing vocal part (4) ARIA {A}{RIA<=}
15 Tranquillity and oxygen in Colorado State guaranteed (9) COMPOSURE {C{O}{MP}O}{SURE} Anno not clear (See comments)
17 Chuck’s flight is on time — boarding (8) JETTISON {JET}{T}{IS}{ON}
19 One, for example leaving emergency room paralysed (4) NUMB NUMBer
20 Vessel (large) used in mess (7) CLUTTER {C{L}UTTER}
21 Rise of Paris’ left after revolution (6) SPIRAL {PARIS+L}*
22 Harp on about a mystery movie (6) ORPHAN*
25 Rewrite same ten papers (5) EXAMS {SAME+X}*
26 Father’s a doctor in Pennsylvania (in top 2) (5) PADRE {P{A}{DR}E}
From the life of pi, we have moved to the death of pi
ReplyDeleteGood to see some numbers in the clues, other than the clue number and enu
To e-number-ate :
Delete9a 2.7182,3.14159
23a 1
19d one
25d ten
Remembering royalty, Kishore?
DeleteWith apologies to other bloggers.
DeleteRoyalty is nothing but a cut in the pie.
Delete:) neat defn of Royalty . Your own ?
DeleteOn the spur of the moment, yes.
DeleteAha!
Delete19 One, for example leaving emergency room paralysed (4) NUMB NUMBer
ReplyDeleteAn anesthetist in the OR is also a number.
15 Tranquillity and oxygen in Colorado State guaranteed (9) COMPOSURE {C{O}{MP}O}{SURE} Anno not clear
ReplyDeleteTranquillity=def
oxygen=o
Colorado=co
state=mp madhya pradesh
guaranteed=sure
15 Tranquillity and oxygen in Colorado State guaranteed (9) COMPOSURE {C{O}{MP}O}{SURE} Anno not clear
ReplyDeleteI put it as {CO}{MP}{O}{SURE}
Thanks Kishore & Sandhya,
DeleteHowever the wordplay doesnt bring out the correct sequence in both the Annos
It may work this way
Deletecolorado state guaranteed= co mp sure
oxygen inserted in above= co mp(o) sure
Reminds one of Shuchi's recent post on 3 segment containers. I think Sandhya's parsing (and Kishore's last) is what was intended
DeleteAnother nice puzzle. We have been having a wonderful run of puzzles from various setters.
ReplyDeleteI liked 9a the best.
Ditto here. I thought I should leave it to Kishore for solving- he is the one who is still remembering his e's & Pi's!
Delete9 2.7182X + 3.14159O! Dying for an answer (8) EXPIRING {E}{X}{PI}{RING}
DeleteThe more I see this clue, the wonder grows:
In the print version, there is no perceptible difference between O and 0. I initially fell into Vulcan's trap since the mind registered the 3.1415 without observing the 0 that does not occur during the first 30 digits after the decimal point. My mistake, not differentiating between
2.7182X + 3.14159O
2.7182X + 3.141590
which was apparent in Orkut, but not in the print version, and since both are valid expressions, I was befuddled.
There's a neat trick here too. A leading zero after the decimal point may have meaning, but there really can't be one at the end
DeleteYes. For a split second i was searching for RING ! o in pi i missed.
DeleteTalking of numbers, pageviews number may hit the 999999 mark around the mid of the December, I think. That will be special for THCC, Deepak and all of us.
ReplyDeleteWill it trigger a 10^6 > 10^7 problem or some other Y2K sort of issue, or will it reset to 0, or will it add a digit by itself or on Deepak's coaxing
DeleteTalking of 10^6, I thought I will try listing the result of interactions between 10 and 6
Deletea.10+6=16
b.10-6=4
c.10x6=60
d.10/6= 1.6666*
e.axb-b= 60
f.10^6=1000000
g.10!/6!=5040, which itself is 7!, since 6!= product of numbers 8 through 10
h.10!x6!=2612736000
which makes me wonder why 1, 6 and 0 appear so prominently in the above? Any ideas. I understand that 0 has that indestructible quality in multiplication, while being the multiplicative identity in our math system has a similar property. But 6? Any ideas?
Since 0 is special, I wonder if there are numbers other than 6 which will do the same. Maybe Kishore can e (number)ate!
DeleteABCDE: What we hope we won't experience on this blog ?
ReplyDeleteHit out after opponent's attack (7,6)
Hit out after opponent's attack (7,6) .O..... ..R...
DeleteCOUNTER STRIKE
DeleteLovely crossword.
ReplyDeleteLot of thought put in constructing clues. Vulcan's careful to qualify removal of one S from the two in MOUSSE: not Satisfactory one bit. {MOUsSE}{TRAP<=}
ReplyDeleteNot sure about this:
ReplyDelete17 AC Chuck’s flight is on time — boarding (8) JETTISON.
The definition is a verb, but the ' sign signifies proper noun. It cannot be Chuck is or has, as 'is' is following flight. If it were 9 letters, then the ans would have been: JETTISONS. Permissible?
Whereas the ' sign is apt here:
26 DN Father’s : Father is.
Hi Raghu,
DeleteI'm not denying that I might be wrong here, but this is how I took it.
CHUCK is/ = JET IS ON with T inside.
Nice question BTW. I'd be happy to know how it really works.
This one reminded me of Chuck Yaeger.
DeleteI'm okay with Vulcan's take on this one. I'm fine with holding two completely separate meanings of ('s) in my mind. The first, to indicate possession, works for the parsing of the clue as grammatically right.The second as a contraction of is helps provide the Equal to sign(=) that equates the first part of the clue to the second. I get Raghunath's point though. Maybe the clue could be" Chuck's flight on time. Is Boarding. Doesn't read as well though. Great crossie btw.
DeleteI think there just might be a small issue with 20A. Grammatically it should either be 'Yields' or 'Decreases'. Any opinion?
ReplyDeleteI had this exact same doubt at the time of submission. I initially had it as "Yield of rice decreases" but later, just before submitting the puzzle, dropped the s as I thought the clue sounded better without it (this version seemed to me like a blanket statement - though I was still wondering about the grammar issue). IDK, I should have probably gone with the first one I had.
DeleteVulcan,
ReplyDeleteAs I wrote, there is an IS already, so how do you fit an extra IS? Does boarding mean T inside? I initially thought it was a reversal sign.
How about:
To Chuck, whose flight is on (as in ready/ not cancelled): 'time to /go inside/board.'
So now we are moving from word play to number play...or wait both!
ReplyDeletepi = 3.14159265359
so the 'O' in the decimal must be alphabet
Vulcan
Did you intend to play Tic Tac Toe as well with this clue?
David John
Col,
ReplyDeleteLiked the HOT DOG pic! Great creativity!
David John
Might be creative, but I thought it was a bit offensive and demeaning - like a living dog is just a piece of meat of somethin'
DeleteA beauty from Vulcan with many clues to savour like 9,10,27. Immensely enjoyed solving this one.
ReplyDeleteSKULLDUGGER" "This is just the kind of thing up with which I will not put."
ReplyDeleteThis appears to be a quote of Winston Churchill?A sentence that ends with a preposition.
This is not Queen's English and Churchill was the Prime Minister of Britain.
I'd like to know the context in which he must have replied so, as he was known to be a man with a ready cutting sarcastic wit. Who told him what for him to retort so?
Raju
DeleteNo idea about the context.
Read:
http://public.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/churchill.html
Every age has an aphorist to whom one attributes the clever things that one can't seem to find a source for. Mark Twain is the main culprit of course. If he said everything that's attributed to him, then he'd have had to have spoken wittily every second of every day. Churchill, known for his wit,is another chap who oft gets to be the deliverer of sharp ripostes and crackling anecdotes. The story is probably apocryphal.
DeleteBut I think the tale is meant to highlight his impatience with a sort of linguistic purism. We are oft told in school not to end sentences for a proposition. Which means " This is just the sort of bloody nonsense I will not put up with" which sounds perfectly normal, becomes an incorrect sentence( cos it ends with With). So the rule's bunkum. And Churchill, to show how nonsensical the rule was, would have said,: "This is just the sort of bloody nonsense up with which I will not put." Now we don't have the preposition at the end, but the sentence sounds bloody ridiculous. Reductio ad absurdum!
Of course, this is just my take.
"...up with which I will not put" sounds really cool. Had I known, I'd have used it a lot more.
DeleteI agree with Skulldugger here. I ain't never been a big fan of linguistic purism. Grammar nazis have a lot of objections for no justifiable reason. For instance, "ain't" is a word that's often frowned upon. Well, after all, it's just another word for isn't, ain't it? This being so, what's so wrong?
As I see it, most of the grammatical rules are arbitrary in nature. Had we learned 'em differently, we'd have a whole set of different rules. The point is, like everything else, language evolves too. Zealously sticking onto certain rules just 'cause we've had 'em around for some time, is a little short sighted IMO. If we could get our point across with clarity, our job is quite done.
Yup. Churchill didn't like Nazis either, both grammar ones and the regular kind.
DeleteThis reminds me of the long argument I had with a friend on the topic: "It is grammatically correct because it sounds right" vs "It sounds right because it is grammatically correct". Needless to say, the argument never ended.
DeleteGlad you are back, Kishore. With your regular mathematical tranquillizer shots, you can make one number and number...
ReplyDeletesarvatra shunyam,
Deletesarvasya shunyam
King Solomon (Bible) -
ReplyDelete“Meaningless! Meaningless!”
says the Teacher.
“Utterly meaningless!
Everything is meaningless.”
Here an interesting 'kadapayaadi' sloka for value of pi
ReplyDeleteगोपीभाग्य मधुव्रातः श्रुंगशोदधि संधिगः |
खलजीवितखाताव गलहाला रसंधरः ||
gopeebhaagya maDhuvraatTaH SrMgaSoDadhi saMDhigaH
khalajeeviTakhaaTaava galahaalaa rasaMDharaH
ga-3, pa-1, bha-4, ya -1, ma-5, Dhu-9, ra-2, tha-6, shru-5, ga-3, sho-5, dha-8, Dhi -9, sa-7, Dha- 9, ga-3, kha-2, la-3, jee-8, vi-4, tha-6, kha-2, tha-6, va-4, ga-3, la-3, ha-8, la-3, ra-2, sa-7, Dha-9, ra-2
PI = 3.1415926535897932384626433832792...
jAYASEELAN:
ReplyDeletevery PIous indeed !!