Spinner has spun a fine web of clues today, enjoyed it, though I've been stumped at 5 places!
ACROSS
1 Get through post at meteorological centre (7,7) WEATHER STATION {WEATHER} {STATION}
10 Half the figure has nothing on the front side (5) ??C?O (Addendum - RECTO - {RECTangle}{O} - See comments)
11 Degrade girl’s direct design (9) DISCREDIT {DI'S}{CREDIT*}
12 Most delicate residue smeared over heartless birds (8) ??L?I?S? (Addendum - SILKIEST {SIL{KItES}T} - See comments)
13 Writer’s enclosure takes returning insurers (6) PENCIL {PEN}{CIL<=}
16 This group finds range and becomes artistic (4) ?U?? (Addendum - CULT CULTural - See comments)
19 Throw away a race due to lack of energy (4) CAST CASTe
20 How Tarun became Arun, immortally (10) TIMELESSLY {tARUN}
23 Eliminate an effect of close contact (3,3) RUB OFF [DD]
25 In this place, new, original techniques are deep-rooted (8) INHERENT {IN}{HERE}{N}{T}
27 Graduate’s daughter to make working game (9) BADMINTON {BA}{D}{MINT}{ON}
28 More compact, sound concentration (5) TITRE (~tighter)
29 I see flowcharts arranged in a straight line (2,3,4,5) AS THE CROW FLIES*
DOWN
2 Rises from the dead? Buried in broken cases! (9) ESCALATES {ESCA{LATE}S*} I think 'Raises' would have been more appropriate as the definition.
3 The sort of game chess players play when they are down to king
and pawn? (3-5) TWO-PIECE [CD]
4 Condos demolished in the narrative of “Looking within oneself”
(10) ENDOSCOPIC {E{CONDOS*}PIC}
5 Learner doesn’t make the cut for the band (4) SASH SlASH
6 A time to hold/release the evil spirit (6) AFREET {A}{FREE}{T}
7 Sanskrit-based excerpt from Brahmin dictionary (5) INDIC [T]
8 Long broadcast from the South ignored Henry’s card (7) N?T?L?? (Addendum - NOTELET {NOhTELET<= - See comments)
9 Search returns unlimited star-shapes (6) ?????A (Addendum - FRUSTA - {FRUS<=}{sTAr} - See comments)
14 Man’s admiration reflected with article from the present
(4,3,3) HERE AND NOW {HE}{RE {AN}D NOW<=}
17 Draw head-hunters out when doctor’s absent (9) UNSHEATHE HEAd-HUNTErS*
18 Platform impedes tall characters (8) PEDESTAL [T]
19 Majority portions of thinkers? (7) CEREBRA [CD]
21 Continuous talk of Satyajit returning with the train conductor
(6) YATTER {YA{TTE}R<=}
22 A projection of a forwards’ first penalty (6) AFFINE {A}{F}{FINE}
24 Offer alien a private bath? (5) BIDET {BID}{ET}
26 Sirius, for instance, ultimately has the Black stuff (4) STAR {haS}{TAR}
8 Long broadcast from the South ignored Henry’s card (7) N?T?L??
ReplyDeleteNO(-h)TELET<-
Believe it or not, I was stumped in the exact 5 places. Spinner should be renamed wicket keeper ? ;-)
ReplyDeleteAt 8:33 I too was stumped at many places. But fresh after a bath got back in the game
DeletePrivate?!
DeleteKishore Ji, as long as you regained your crease, you are not stumped :)
DeleteMay your tribe increase
Delete12 Most delicate residue smeared over heartless birds (8) SIL{KI(-t)ES}T
ReplyDeleteGood one Sandhya. Did think of silkiest but could not annotate it so left it :-(
Delete9 Search returns unlimited star-shapes (6) {FRUS<-}{(-s)TA(-r)}
ReplyDelete10 Half the figure has nothing on the front side (5) {RECT}{O} (rect is not half of RECTANGLE}
ReplyDeleteGood show, Sandy. I had Recto, but was unsure
ReplyDelete16 Ac cult cult+ural
ReplyDelete16 This group // finds range and becomes artistic (4) CULT (-ural)
ReplyDeleteIf 24D was clued as Offer alien a private jet?(5) it would have been tougher. ;-)
ReplyDeleteBut more like it since 'bidet' is not a bath as such.
Delete14D - Remembered an episode. An atheist said 'God is NOWHERE', to which a theist responded: 'God is NOW HERE'.
ReplyDeleteMost Konkanis are God-fearing people, especially the diabetics ...
DeleteRichard will explain ;-)
Now I notice that you are good at passing the buck too!
DeleteAll bucks stop at the stag!
DeleteUnless the files are missing
DeleteNow, for God's sake. don't complicate the matter...
DeleteFor the rest of the friends, what Kishore meant at 9:21 - 'God' means 'gur' or jaggery in Konkani. Hence diabetics are 'god-fearing'...
'God' is also 'sweet' as an adjective. When we were small kids, if we happened to bite a chilli, we used to scream 'My God!', actually asking mom to pass a piece of jaggery.
By the way I have heard that the root of both 'sugar' and 'jaggery' is 'chakkara' (sugar) of Malayalam. We say 'sakkare' in Kannada. Any expert comments?
DeleteIt is also chakkarai (coloquially) in Tamil.
DeleteFiles are very frequently & conveniently missing nowadays. How about a cartoon on that at an appropriate place?
ReplyDeleteWait and watch!
DeleteWill do. Would not like to miss this!
DeleteSpinner bowled quite a few wrong ones (I mean in the cricketing sense) today- at least for me (now I see that I am not alone)
ReplyDeleteI filled in 'end games' for 3 and got stuck in that corner.Generally a pawn is not considered a 'piece' in chess.
Thanks for the enlightenment on the use of 'piece'. I went by the normal usage of piece.
DeleteFrom Wiki -
Terminology[edit]
In chess, the word "piece" has three meanings, depending on the context.
It may mean any of the physical pieces of the set, including the pawns. When used this way, "piece" is synonymous with "chessman" (Hooper & Whyld 1992:307) or simply "man" (Hooper & Whyld 1987:200).
In play, the term is usually used to exclude pawns, referring only to a queen, rook, bishop, knight, or king. In this context, the pieces can be broken down into three groups: major pieces (queen and rook), minor pieces (bishop and knight), and the king (Brace 1977:220).
In phrases such as "winning a piece", "losing a piece" or "sacrificing a piece", it refers only to a bishop or knight. The queen, rook, and pawn are specified by name in these cases, for example, "winning a queen", "losing a rook", or "sacrificing a pawn" (Just & Burg 2003:5).
The context should make the intended meaning clear (Burgess 2009:523) (Hooper & Whyld 1992:307).
Re Col's comment on 2D, I feel that 'rises' is all right, e.g., prices are escalating (rising, and not raising). This is just an opinion.
ReplyDeleteThat becomes 'prices are rising' and not 'rises'
DeleteSeems OK Col. 'Tension escalates' for eg
DeleteI should have said 'The price rises'. Then it fits my view. We wouldn't say 'the price raises'. A shopkeeper can raise the price.
DeleteThanks for the views.
ReplyDeleteTo clarify,
When the price escalates, it rises. That was the logic behind it, and 'Rises from the dead' sounds better with the surface.
10A The 'figure' in question that I had in mind was, 'Rectagon', an obsolete term for octagon. That way, Rect is half the figure, though the figure is old ;)
Srivatsava, in case of 10A, your idea may not be acceptable to many solvers. Well it's generally considered unfair to expect a solver to take 50% of a substituted word. It feels kind of indirect.
DeletePoint taken. But clues where 'mostly' and 'partly' are used to indicate to the solver that a part of a substituted word is to be taken are quite common, aren't they? Inserting the word itself (rectagon, in this case) sometimes leads to the solution being too direct. Probably, these indicators should ideally not be used with obscure words. It might be acceptable then, but I'd like to have the stalwarts' opinion on this.
DeleteAnd it is Srivathsan :) I like how at least my name sounds bright, with the 'sun' at the end.
DeleteA Japanese addressing you would sound like an echo, Srivathsan-san
DeleteSorry Srivathsan. Knew somebody whose name ended that way and misspelled yours.
DeleteIn case of mostly and partly, you got the entire definition and all you have to leave out is the final letter. So it's that much more fair. While it might seem arbitrary to accept one and knock the other, if you really thought about it from solver's perspective you'd find a huge difference between the two.
Kishore, that reminded me of the Japenese guy in that old awesome show Mind Your Language :)
DeleteChaps holidaying on government money was how a newspaper in Goa described CHOGM
ReplyDeleteDuring one of the UNCTAD sessions that was held in India a few decades ago, a delegate from an African country had described it as Under No Circumstances Take Any Decision.
DeleteIt had raised many smiles, but it was grammatically incorrect. 'Under any circumstances' is also bad usage. 'In any circumstance' is correct.
By the way, where is CV these days? Hope all is well.
Good one from Spinner.
ReplyDeleteClues of my day: YATTER, AFFINE and AFRETE
Sugar, Sucre, Shakkar and sharkarai-- very sweet for sarkaars who never get diabetic !!
Today is World Diabetes Day!
DeleteDid you read about the Nobel laureate who discovered insulin and that it controls blood sugar?
ReplyDelete