Rather nice one, Aspartame.
Trying new format. Any suggestions ?
Trying new format. Any suggestions ?
| ACROSS | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | POSSUM | Sent Ted away with money to get a marsupial (6) | |
| POS | |||
| 4 | APPLET | A program from computer giant, leader in tablets (6) | |
| APPLE T, Clue numbering corrected | |||
| 9 | BALE | Evil Christian celebrity? (4) | |
| DD or 3D, Ref to. Christian Bale | |||
| Imagine Christian Bale as Batman giving a baleful look to Dr Evil and Mini-me from Austin Powers | |||
| 10 | MEMBERSHIP | Parliamentarian aboard vessel gets a pass (10) | |
| MEMBER SHIP | |||
| 11 | STUPOR | Pus and rot causes coma (6) | |
| * | |||
| 12 | RETRIEVE | Rescue tailless dog (8) | |
| RETRIEVE | |||
| 13 | CEASELESS | There is no end to lower vision reportedly (9) | |
| ~SEES LESS | |||
| 15 | AULD | Old Scottish St. Paul died from within (4) | |
| T | |||
| Remembered Auld Lang Syne | |||
| 16 | BUSY | Fully occupied vehicle on final journey (4) | |
BUS Y | |||
| 17 | SHELTERED | Girl let revolutionary communist be protected (9) | |
| SHE LET* RED | |||
| 21 | ACHILLES | Greek character, sick at heart, yearns for…. (8) | |
| ACHES around ILL | |||
| 22 | NUMBER | … doctor with mysterious rune to be less sensitive (6) | |
| (MB+RUNE)* or MB in RUNE* | |||
| 24 | BRAINSTORM | Think about book on meteorological phenomenon (10) | |
| B RAINSTORM | |||
| 25 | CHIP | Flaw that’s used while gambling (4) | |
| CD,2 | |||
| 26 | MONODY | Poem on Odysseus has verses lamenting a person’s death (6) | |
| T | |||
| 27 | INJURE | Habituate abducted judge to harm (6) | |
| INURE around J | |||
| Judge's obiter dicta has spawned SMSs like "I got married yesterday", "So what? I got married twice yesterday to the same girl", responded by a third chap with "I committed bigamy yesterday" | |||
| DOWN | |||
| 1 | PIASTRE | Currency of pirates at sea (7) | |
| PIRATES* | |||
| 2 | SLEEP | Skins pulled back for kip (5) | |
| PEELS< | |||
| 3 | UNMORAL | Somehow mourn for criminal having no ethics (7) | |
| MOURN* AL, our old crook is fairly popular | |||
| 5 | PRESTO | Poster designed quickly (6) | |
| POSTER* | |||
| 6 | LASSITUDE | Shuffle suits and deal without energy (9) | |
| (SUITS DEAL)* | |||
| 7 | THIEVED | Oddly after first king was ousted, she entered and stole (7) | |
| THI(-r+EVE)D, Oddly after first refers to 'third' | |||
| 8 | X MARKS THE SPOT | At the exact location, carefully makes sixth port throwing one out (1, 5, 3, 4) | |
| (MAKES S Reminded me of the huge X in the Church in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade | |||
| 14 | SUSPICION | Doubt heartless ultras taking half the cipher back into a Bombay suburb (9) | |
| SION around US and CIP< | |||
| 16 | BUCKRAM | Linen made from animals (7) | |
| BUCK+RAM | |||
| 18 | LINEMAN | A straight worker? (7) | |
| CD Remember the heydays of the electricity and telephone linemen of yore ? | |||
| 19 | EREMITE | “Queen of England has power” said the recluse (7) | |
| ER E ~MIGHT, Queen=ER, England=E | |||
| 20 | CLOSED | Daughter took out shirt from cabinet that was shut (6) | |
| CLOSE(-t+D), t for T shirt | |||
| 23 | MACAU | In China, leading marketing agencies campaign against unemployment (5) | |
| Acrostic | |||
| Reminded me of Naresh Fernandes's "Obsessive search for the elusive humerus of St Francis Xavier". I could not locate it on the net. But you can find it in Jerry Pinto's book - Reflected in Water |
This is also pretty good Kishore. Leaves sufficient space for your comments that all of us have come to expect. :)
ReplyDeleteKishore,
ReplyDeleteToo many extra lines between clues
Thanks. Will reduce that in future attempts
DeleteNow the font has become too small
DeleteIs that better now ?
DeleteA very smooth and entertaining puzzle from Aspartame . Wrong clue number had me in a spin for a while as I entered applet in 5D. In the last one week, first time I managed to complete before deadline.
ReplyDeleteI was almost there. Missed 9A and missed a plateful of SAMOSAS !
Delete9A was the last to fall. I was riding the scooter going to buy veggies, trying to guess the first letter, and having discounted A, had gone to B and the penny dropped. Luckily the name was not starting with a latter letter.
DeleteI prefer yesterday's format.
ReplyDeleteI will wait for all the votes to come in and check with Deepak how he did it.
DeleteNothing different. I had 4 columns - Clue number, Clue (with picture/cartoon inserts where needed), Solution and Annotation with comments as against your 3 columns
DeleteDid you copy paste the clues into Excel from Orkut or direct from the newspaper?
DeleteI prefered 3 columns hoping that it will come out better in the small screens. I copied from Orkut to Excel.
DeleteAmplification the anno for 14D
ReplyDeleteUS comes from U(-ltra)S and PIC from CIP(-her)<=
Have a question on 13A though. Does the wordplay correctly indicate the def?
ReplyDeleteNitpicking time:
ReplyDelete6D LASSITUDE Shuffle suits and deal without energy (9) - Lassitude is a noun. The phrase 'without energy' is adverbial. What do others say?
Nitpicking is a lousy exercise ;-)
DeleteWorking on a pack of lice? ;-)
Deletewith a lice-nce to kill
DeleteUneasy lice the head thar wears a crown
DeleteSimilarly in 22A, if it is (mb + rune)* does it become and indirect anagram? And if its mb in rune, is 'with' a fair containment indicator?
ReplyDeleteThat is why I gave two anno.s both of which are not very satisfactory, hoping someone might have the answer. Also, agree with Richard @845
DeleteI have not solved this and I looked at only some clues that showed up on my screen as I scrolled to 'Comments'. They were 16 to 23. Of these, 16 and 23 are quite OK. But 18, 19 and 20 may not withstand critical scrutiny. Sorry I can't go into details.
ReplyDeleteCrisp cluing from Aspartame. Apart from ones pointed out, found these with problems:
ReplyDelete13 There is no end to lower vision reportedly (9) CEASELESS ~SEES LESS
Don't think this is a Homonym clue. Wordplay does not contain SEES & LESS.
18 A straight worker? (7) LINEMAN
Insufficient description for answer.
Sorry, that was meant as homophone. Maybe this would work.
Delete13 There is no end to one having lower vision reportedly (9)
Doesn't "one having lower vision" lead to a noun?
DeleteThe definition is somewhat like "What one having having lower vision does." So prolly, if the clue goes like, "There is no end to what one having lower vision does, say" or something, it might work I guess.
Not easy to work with the core of the words of the clue.
DeleteI do not see a problem with 13A at all. Sees less means lower vision.
ReplyDeleteI think 18 is also fine. That is why the question mark
13A Maybe 'have lower vision' would have been better.
ReplyDelete"has lower vision" would be even better IMO.
Delete18D: Are all lines straight? Not necessarily I reckon.
16 D: BUSY with the hearse toon.
ReplyDeleteI was expecting Kishore to have a comment on these lines when I filled in the answer.
OMG, you can read my head !
ReplyDeleteThat will be my lucky day.
DeleteEcho Colonel and SandhyaP's comments regarding the formatting of the post. (Desktop/Ubuntu/Firefox.)
ReplyDeleteSad news for samosa-lovers
ReplyDelete:-(
i would like to point out that the new tabular format is impossible in a phone. A great deal of us students use our phones to access this site. And this new display is painful.
ReplyDeleteWhat phone are you using? I have no problems on an android as well as an iphone
DeleteIn my opinion, today's crossie is so-so. Firstly, there was a mistake in indicating the number of 4 Across as 5. Again, One hears of LINESMAN and very rarely LINEMAN-- nice decoy.! 13 Across: CEASELESS was a bit of a weak one. 21 Across could have been EPSILLON as ILL fits in woith PINES which could be derived from ACHES. Correct ACHILLIES could only fall in place after one gets BUCKRAM, which could be any number of linen made form animals.It takes quite a while to arrive at BUCK & RAM to fit in. Hence a weak cluing. MEMBERSHIP , again, is a sort of OKOK clue. THIEVED, was a bad one. too convoluted !
ReplyDeleteAny way, one takes the thick with the thin in cryptics and can't complain. More BRAINSTORM-ing compilers the NITPICK-ier !!ASPARTAME can say:, ITs part"o'" ME
Raju the spelling is EPSILON and not EPSILLON. Even if yu put ILL in PINES, where did you get the O from?
DeleteWhich are the any number of other options for linen made from animals?
When one's mind is engrossed in solving, all possibilities come to fore and then you hit pay dirt ! I know that the spelling of EPSILON but it is also a Greek character and almost fitted in.
ReplyDeleteBUCKRAM fits in, but the hint in the clue is very broad as 'linen' and that's what I meant about the ' any number of possibilities' with 7 letters.
All in all, I held an opinion that the crossie was so-so. Nothing much to write home or to blog about . We have seen better and worse, so there !!