Looks like he's playing cricket in South America !
ACROSS
1 Anoint Israelites to protect the Spanish’s most priced possessions (5,6) CROWN JEWELS (CROWN JEWS protecting EL)
9 One half of comic duo’s awards (7) LAURELS (LAUREL'S) DD
One of my all time favourites is this priceless piece of perfection portraying Philip's peculiar performance
on spotting a lady :
on spotting a lady :
Used by 6
11 Regular maid to assume fielding position… (3,2) MID ON (MaId DON)
12 … or another as an extended stump (4,3) LONG LEG
15 King, quiet, expressed surprise (4) SHAH (SH AH)
16 Placed Tom Hanks in charge of raincoat … (10) MACKINTOSH (TOM HANKS IC)*
Remembered Desmond Bagley's The Freedom Trap made into a movie called The Mackintosh Man
18 … with some more protection on the offside (10) EXTRA COVER
20 Stumble when standing next to the 'keeper (4) SLIP
23 Attorney caught in fight with tool (7) BRADAWL (DA in BRAWL)
24 Indicate to one misplaced pontiff losing couple of followers initially (5) POINT (PONTIff with I misplaced)
26 Assassin sick in half of southern Indian state (6) KILLER (ILL in KERala)
27 Rebel physician left New York with board game (7) PACHISI (PHySCIAn)*
28 This game always starts with a message of peace (6,5) TENNIS MATCH CD, starting with "Love All"
DOWN
2 Lamenting Oriental takes place of learner on the throne (6) RUEING (RULING -L +E)
3 Yesteryear actress soaked initially in damp surroundings (4) WEST (S in WET)
Mae be some of your can imagine her in damp or wet surroundings !
4 Leading juror’s retro link conjured by fantasy writer (1,1,1,7) J R R TOLKIEN J (RETRO LINK)*
You can get addicted if you make it a Hobbit to read his books
5 Woman losing head, morphing, lashing out… (8) WHANGING (W cHANGING)
6 … at South American cowboy, a confused loner in Los Angeles (7) LLANERO (LONER in LA)*
7 Part of emblem I discard is tarnished (9) BLEMISHED (emBLEM I SHED)
8 Ruined rotunda missing second room in Arctic region (6) TUNDRA (RoTUNDA)*
13 Source of trouble confused cows on farm (3,2,5) CAN OF WORMS (COWS ON FARM)*
Not a source of trouble if you are into angling ...
14 Regular, astute one surrounded by fellows with Indian breads (9) CHAPATTIS (AsTuTe 1 surrounded by CHAPS)
17 Male God, one displaced by instrument (8) MANDOLIN (MAN iDOL+I, N from ?)
19 Late, mostly sluggish, I have … (7) TARDIVE (TARDy I'VE)
21 … stashed support in some linen (4,2) LAID IN (AID in LINen)
22 Vomit-inducing drug made of chick-pea, does not choke regularly (6) IPECAC (CHICK PEA - cHoKe)
Initially thought of Aleph, and found myself with an extra pound. Had to Google this one
Nice crossie. Surprised to make most (though with some help) Missed out on the brawl & of all things the tennis match. Is it message of love or peace?
ReplyDeleteLove one- monogamy
Love two - Bigamy
Love all - Polygamy?! (Is it what the cartoon says?)
You must be knowing the definition of bigamy: One wife too many.
DeleteThe same definition, curiously, works for monogamy too !
:_)
DeleteHad known only :-) thus far, but what is :_)?
DeleteK 10:14 am - When a man, who had married one too many, was told that it was bigamy, he replied:
DeleteBigamy? No! It's big o' me!. He was indeed big-hearted...
O' god!
DeleteIs Big Amy any relation of Big Bertha?
DeleteWill have to check @ Big Adda!
DeleteSomebody had exclaimed to me long ago: 'With slips, cover, mid-off, short legs, fine legs, maidens...shouldn't cricket be a women's game?'
ReplyDeleteOur own Shanta Rangaswamy, Diana Eduljee, Anjum Chopra and scores of others seem to have proved the point with their skills and performances...
Short legs, no. Long legs, yes ...
Deleteclose in fielding is supposed to be more aggressive!
DeleteMany a cup between the lip and the slip ...
DeleteLovely crossword except what looks like a faux pas in 17D
ReplyDeleteHi All, the interview went well .. Colonel had an opportunity to talk about you and our blog :)
ReplyDeleteWhich interview is this? Link available ?
DeleteWill try to see whether a recording is available.. This was on Chennai Live FM on my book.
DeleteGet a recording onto youtube
DeleteNice one today. Why is whanging a cricket term ?
ReplyDeleteRamesh @ 10:32
DeleteWhy, women too can strike the ball very hard, in cricket !
Thank heavens for the last two words !
DeleteReading between the lines !?
DeleteKishore, tks for the short film
ReplyDeleteI really like the way SL goes boing !
DeleteGotta appreciate the effort but surface reading in most clues could have been better.
ReplyDeleteI, for one, had an easy time with this puzzle of KKK. Generally it used to be on the tougher side but not today. Thanks, KKK for a nice crossy.
ReplyDeleteShrikanth,
ReplyDeleteGood & happy. Unfortunately I could not listen, though I got your mail. It would be great if a recording is available.
Shrikanth, thanks for your advance e-mail about the interview. Congrats. It was off bounds for less mortals like me because of the geographical distance. Will be looking forward to a youtube clipping.
DeleteCan anyone, clarify the meaning of 'initially' in 24 A?
ReplyDelete24A : INDICATE to one misplaced pontiff losing couple of followers in tially (5) POINT (PONTIff with I misplaced)
DeleteInitial letter of "Followers" is F. A couple of them means FF (to be losing from PONTIFF) One = I misplaced btn PONT = POINT.
Hope it's clear.
'couple of followers initially' gives F F
ReplyDeleteF is obtained from 'followers' initially - as F is the first letter of 'followers'
'couple' doubles it
Thanks to both of You, but, i thought, 'couple of followers' itself denotes two 'FFs'.
DeleteGoogle is celebrating Math wizard Shakuntala Devi's 84th birthday with a doodle today. Rated as one in 58 million for her stupendous mathematical feats, she had extracted the 23rd root of a 201-digit number mentally, and won while playing against a computer by giving the cube root of 188138517 faster.
ReplyDeleteShe demonstrated the multiplication of two 13-digit numbers 7,686,369,774,870 x 2,465,099,745,779 picked at random by the Computer Department of Imperial College, London, giving the answer 18,947,668,177,995,426,462,773,730 in a mere 28 seconds thus making her way into the Guinness Book of Records. Prof Arthus Jensen, an educational psychologist in the US, tested her on two problems, the cube root of 61,629,875, and the seventh root of 170,859,375. Shakuntala Devi gave the correct answers — 395 and 15, even before Jensen’s wife could start the stopwatch.
Despite the international acclaim she had garnered, Shakuntala Devi would mentor the children in Sowmya Springs in Basavanagudi where she lived for the sheer love of teaching maths. This prodigy, who had a troubled life, died at Bangalore Hospital on April 21, 2013 at the age of 83.
We look forward to our mathemagician Kishore's comments on this Day.
I am nowhere near Mathematics, but, i am proud of being her neighbour in Delhi, East Vinay Naghar (now Lakshmi Bai Nagar). Then she was Central Government Employee, like my father.
DeleteYes, I saw it too- yet to read it in full, though I have heard and read about her earlier.
ReplyDeleteI have a doubt here about the distinction between mathematics and arithmetic or numeric computations. Would the speed and ability in one would indicate a proficiency in the other. I hope I am expressing it clearly- what I want to know is that was she or did she have to be proficient in say algebra or calculus in order to do what she did.
I think Ramanujam was good in both though it is sad that he had financial and self imposed (religious) handicaps which did not allow him to bloom in full. One should also understand things were very different back then including travel and computational assistance. I am also not sure if we still have the infrastructure to spot genius early and encourage it to develop to its full potential.
Second point is if it is inborn quality or one acquired by practice?
There are many skill sets involved in mathematics and its various components. Some are innate and some can be inculcated. It would require practice to keep acquired skills sharp. I am no mathemagician, as NR puts it. Most of it is hard work and perseverence and not a gift. I read a book called The Trachtenburg System of Speed Mathematics during my early teens and practised vigourously till I could multiply two 8 digit numbers without writing the intermediate lines you usually use in long multiplication. I could do it till I was about 40. But today I do not have that skill anymore. And it definitely took more than the 15 seconds SD used for the 13 digit numbers.
DeleteBut that is arithmetic and mathematics goes beyond mere arithmetic. I remember how excited I was when I used Newton's Finite differences concept in financial projections. It was not taught to us anywhere during any of our courses. It is only when one gets such epiphanies that one realises mathematics goes past mere computation. A few years back, I was reading up on the Kaprekar's constant, when I suddenly realised something new. I was up till 2 am writing a paper on it, working out proofs for various instances of the same, till I could prove that the conjecture I had made was indeed true,which I then circulated amongst friends.
Answering Paddy's question, computational experts need to necessarily be proficient in algebra or calculus, though additional skills may help. She was no doubt a prodigy in computation. We would probably and most computers and calculators will do that task in some finite time. But Ramanujam is a different deal altogether. His mind took flights of fancy and that is what opens up new grounds, and that, is something that cannot be replicated either by computers or most of us.
Sorry for the rather long response. Anyone interested in my paper may write to me at kishoremrao@hotmail.com
DeleteAnd before I scare anybody ( ;- ) ), the whole thing, conjecture, analyis and proof is only around 10 pages long, and does not require more than high school mathematics to understand.
DeleteGood one from KKK. A few new words that I hadn't come across in my crossword life. IPECAC and PACHISI.Has pachisi got anything to do with 25? What's the etym for this word? Spelling IPECAC itself will induce a puke ?
ReplyDeleteYes it is 25. It is the forerunner of games like Ludo
DeleteTalking about the late Shakuntala Devi, immediately after her sad demise, I had written to the press a letter wondering why her brain and DNA could not have been preserved for posterity It appeared either in the DC or NIE. Such number crunching czarinas do not come by very often !
ReplyDeleteWatch out for a child prodigy of all of six years, previewed in Kaun Banega Crorepati , in this week end who belts out places' locations in rapid-fire succession. The show is usually aired on Sony TV between 830pm and 10pm Fri-suns.
Read Czarina as wizardina !!
ReplyDeleteIs it correct to say ' physician left New York' when it is actually it is NY that left physician?
ReplyDeleteIt is ok. Like, I left umbrella at home.
Delete6 … at South American cowboy, a confused loner in Los Angeles (7) LLANERO (LONER in LA)*
ReplyDeleteIt is LA in LONER, not the other way as given in the clue
Love is blind, but marriage restores its sight.
ReplyDeleteBut do you have the right to see?
DeleteI am left with no right.
Delete