Friday 14 June 2013

No.10799, Friday 14 Jun 13, Klue Klux Klan

Entertaining, but a couple of doubts...

Whither Tester & Skulldugger ? Maybe sequencing has changed ...
Trying CV's format using MS Excel formulae for trimming and formatting.

ACROSS
1   UNQUALIFIED Incompetent, heartless bird in coordinated surroundings (11)


QUAiL in UNIFIED, but is 'I' the heart of a quail? 'A' maybe, but not 'I'


9   REGATTA The boat race is about girl with Indian flour (7)


RE G ATTA



10  MORBID Diseased peacekeepers left moribund revolution (6)


MORIBunD*



11  TWAIN The pair of an American author? (5)


DD


In the US, I went to the East and West, but could not meet Twain



12  CONTORT Disfigure criminal for wrongdoing (7)


CON TORT



15  SKEP Doubter’s twitch removed by a beehive (4)


SKEPtic



16  LAUNDROMAT Roman adult bewildered by washing facility (10)


(ROMAN ADULT)*



18  ELEMENTARY Simple, according to Holmes (10)


GK, DD Please see CV's comments



20  OBOE Tramp heads off enemy leader with instrument (4)


hOBO E



23  PASCHAL Scientist overwhelms leading hater of Easter (7)


PASCAL around H



24  THEFT Stealing the foot (5)


THE FT, Wonder what would happen in the metric world. Themtr ?



26  MINIMA Self-confessed revolutionary dictator retreated to the lowest points (6)


I'M < AMIN<   Imagined Dada singing like C.Clay :  I'm Aaaamin....



27  WAGONER Driver of Indian car around the East (7)


WAGON R around E



28  LIBERTARIAN Alien protects right of book-keeper, believes in free will (11)


LIBRARIAN around ET (Addendum, ET who has engulfed the R from the librarian, leaving him as a libarian- See comments), but inserted after splitting the rubber alien found in China. Not Ximenian.



DOWN
2   NOTING Observing no sound? (6)


~NOTHING or NOThING? NO TING, See comments



3   URAL Of mountain range found within Tripura limits (4)


Telescopic



4   LAMPOONERS Satirists make morons leap (10)


(MORONS LEAP)*



5   FERETORY The fight began before the conservative shrine (8)


F ERE TORY, New word for me. Knew only of OFFERTORY



6   EPIGRAM Quip initially exchanged by swine and Aries (7)


E PIG RAM. A bacon-mutton sandwich?



7   PROTESTER Opponent for a guinea pig, say (9)


PRO TESTER &lit



8   AGNATE Paternal auntie, uncentered, admits insect (6)


A(UNTI+GNAT)E  Somehow reminded me of Aunt Agatha



13  MARTIAL ART Karate, say, was formerly not extra-marital? (7,3)


ex(TRA MARITAL)* 



14  ATTESTERS Vouchers thrown at setters (9)


(AT SETTERS)*



17  REACTIVE The imaginative, moved around, become responsive (8)


CREATIVE* Reminded me of the oft-repeated reaction: "That was a dastardly act", being the only reaction offered



19  ET ALIBI In alien’s clay heart, tibias and in other places (2,5)


ET (cLAy tIBIas)*   'In other places' on double duty?



21  BOEING Plane maker living around the globe (6)


BEING around O. If it ain't Boeing, I ain't going. Remembered my visit to their Everett plant. Boeing had converted a shipyard into an airplane factory.



22  STIGMA Spot master following driver at Top Gear (6)


STIG MA



25  EWER Beer maker missing British pitcher (4)


brEWER








Tried two different methods for the Obiter dicta, not directly connected to the annotation. Eg: On a separate line as in 11a and on same line as anno. in others. Which one do you prefer ?








53 comments:

  1. Replies
    1. Thanks. Thank heavens this is not a Hindi crossword. Hindi poems resound with high sounding sound words like dhan, jhanak, dhaD, jhar, etc. Not that English don't... Remembering the pitter-patter of raindrops

      Delete
  2. My take on 28A {LIB{E{R}T}ARIAN}

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Aaah, the ET takes the R of the Librarain

      Delete
    2. Which R does ET protect, as there are two Rs?

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    3. The one convenient for the setter. ;-)

      Delete
  3. Thanks, Deepak.

    Maybe next time, I can reduce the line space between entries

    ReplyDelete
  4. WOW!! Miss XYZ's competing with me for handlebars

    ReplyDelete
  5. 28 Alien protects right of book-keeper, believes in free will (11)LIB{E(R)T}ARIAN
    Iffy clue.

    17 The imaginative, moved around, become responsive (8) REACTIVE* Unfair, indirect anag.

    Apart from the above good one from KKK. Liked 27 WAGONER. Got the anno after seeing Kishore's blog.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. What ho!!

      Apart from the above good one from KKK.

      Not in my opinion. KKK's is wanting at many places.

      Delete
    2. +1 for Not in my opinion. KKK's is wanting at many places

      This is such a strange puzzle for me from KKK whose debut puzzle I still rate as his best.

      17 The imaginative, moved around, become responsive (8) REACTIVE* Unfair, indirect anag.

      To be fair to the setter, this is more a moving letter clue than an indirect anagram.
      The imaginative = creative
      moved around (c) = (c-)rea(+c)tive

      C moved where is not indicated clearly enough for my liking,

      Delete
    3. On second thoughts you're right.
      19 D ET ALIBI, 22 D STIGMA, 13 D in case 'say' is not an anagrind are questionable.

      Delete
  6. STIG of 22D is too obscure. I just googled for it and found it at this link

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I wanted to give this link, but missed it in the heat of formatting.

      Delete
  7. How is 7 D an &Lit? Opponent is the def. I think it is a charade.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The def. and charade part is correct as I have given in the anno. However, I took it as a person against testing of guinea pigs, ie. he is 'for' a guinea pig .

      Delete
  8. On my screen some end letters in some long lines don't show up.

    The horizontal scroll bar does not come on either.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I had the same problem viewing through an Ipad just now. For eg. the comment against 1a stopped at 'but' and there was no hor. scroll bar like you said. Did the said comment stop at the same place in your screen, CV?

      Any suggestions from friends?

      Delete
    2. After 'but,' I also get 'space, n and partial character' - probably the left stem of the letter o.

      Mind you, mine is a long screen.

      Delete
    3. My desktop with 19" monitor shows fine. I have problem with Ipad viewing. Any feedback from laptop users?

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    4. Its fine on big screen. On the phone, half the annotation appears with a blue background. And others bloggers comments is getting squeezed into half the page. Was fine yesterday

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    5. I have the same issue too in the iPad Kishore. Stopped exactly where you said.

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    6. Checked in the laptop. Comes fine in that.

      Delete
  9. Tried two different methods for the Obiter dicta, not directly connected to the annotation. Eg: On a separate line as in 11a and on same line as anno. in others. Which one do you prefer ?

    I prefer 11A.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Kishore,

      I think the anno on the right side (Like in the Excel sheet you sent me) with the comments in Italics under the clue would be better

      Delete
    2. I changed it, after observing that the third column, ie clues, were getting truncated after pasting in the blogger. Hence, I increased the length of that column and brought this in the next line so that it did not go off-screen. But the problem still persists, as noted by CV. BTW, one advantage this method gave me was that I could format all the answers to Bold and colour at one go, instead of doing them individually, as earlier.

      Delete
    3. Deepak, I will try that on Monday, barring the blues.

      Delete
    4. Shall try from my end tomorrow

      Delete
  10. I would not classify 18a as Dd.

    Easy yes, but also GK, literary reference, allusive. Something like that. It is not double def.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Long time since I telegraphed code no.8.

    RIP

    ReplyDelete
  12. What ho!

    To start off, I apologize for 1A. It was a poor clue (the disheartened part) and one that I can or will no excuses about.

    Re 17D, Bhavan Sir rightly pointed out, should've maybe indicated 'moved around three places' or something to that effect. I thought that the clue was alright as it were but I can see that this addition would've made it more clear, and, in some ways, more decipherable.

    About the grid in general, well, I can't say that I am not in the least disappointed. In myself, of course. All I can say is that I will try, in the future, to set better grids. I am aware of the fact that I might have said these very words on this very blog in the past but clearly, I am not working hard enough.

    Thank you for the feedback and I would love to hear more.


    Cheers!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Also, re Stig, I thought the 'at Top Gear' was revealing enough but obviously, it was not. Sorry about that!

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    2. Hi KKK,

      What's your anno for 19 D?

      Delete
    3. KKK,
      I feel you can cut down the unnecessary use of 'the' like in 9 A, 11 A 5 D and possibly 17 D.

      Delete
    4. Suggestion taken, Sir. It's just that I, in general writing, like to use the article (tautology, I know) and somehow it translates into a clue as well. Shall endeavor to cut down on it. Thanks!

      Delete
  13. 13D - Isn't the anagrind missing?

    Similarly not too very convinced about 19D either.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. 13 D: I thought'say' was one.

      Delete
    2. Again, I must apologize. The anagrind is indeed missing in 13D. Had one at the end of the clue in the original version but ended up deleting it when I sent in the grid.

      19D, I just checked the entry that I sent in and the 'C' of 'Clay' was capitalized. I was going for ET + ALI + tiBIas. I am still unsure if the Clay = Ali reference is OK but that was the anno that I was going for.

      Delete
    3. In alien’s clay heart, tibias and in other places (2,5)

      Even so, what does the clue mean?

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    4. Clay for Ali ref is ok in my opinion.

      Delete
    5. Same here. But, I'm trying to get a hang of what KKK meant in the clue

      Delete
    6. Actually, there was no real meaning in the clue. Just thought it fit the wordplay. My bad.

      Delete
  14. @ Kishore Tried two different methods for the Obiter dicta, not directly connected to the annotation. Eg: On a separate line as in 11a and on same line as anno. in others. Which one do you prefer ?

    I prefer 11A.

    ReplyDelete
  15. For 13D I took the trailing ? as the anagram indicator.
    Question for setters/solvers : Is '?' a valid anagrind ?

    ReplyDelete
  16. No. Don't think it conveys rearrangement.
    I think a QM can be used to indicate that the clue is not straightforward and also that the setter asks for some leeway in reading of the clue as in this clue from Buzzer:

    8 Gas cooker split in half? (6,7) CARBON DIOXIDE

    ReplyDelete
  17. From my research so far, '?' is allowed as an anagrind but there is only tepid support for it.
    http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/public/article1004731.ece

    ReplyDelete
  18. K K K-- You were okay okay okay today !! Enjoyed .

    Clue of my day REFERTORY -- unheard of --so far 1

    ReplyDelete

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