23D's been gobbled up by someone at The HINDU!
ACROSS
1 Caterer lost it finally botching work (6) CAREER CAtERER*
4 Innovative Southern fiction (6) NOVELS {NOVEL}{S}
9 New coin (4) MINT [DD]
10 Shiny gelding giving birth to young ones! (10) GLITTERING {G}{LITTERING} G for Gelding?
11 Take a while to have a proper place (6) BELONG {BE}{LONG}
12 Double alcohol at midnight causing momentary pain (8) TWINGING {TWIN}{GIN}{niGht}
13 Rare, ruined, ringed revolutionary leftist (9) UNDERDONE {UN{DER<=}DONE}
15 Wander where all roads lead, reportedly (4) ROAM (~rome)
16 The mothers held the others (4) THEM [T]
17 Excelled? Not entirely certain, but did not fail (9) SURPASSED {SURe}{PASSED}
21 Principals primarily practised satanic perversion (8) CAPTAINS {P+SATANIC}*
22 Refreshed, calm after the downpour disappeared (6) RESTED RESTrainED
24 Air: scattered Phosphorus atoms proliferate here (10) ATMOSPHERE {P+ATOMS}*{HERE}
25 Unkind, heartless tart (4) ACID ACrID
26 Suddenly attacked, defeated, beheaded (6) RUSHED cRUSHED
27 The rest discovered in frenzied throes (6) OTHERS*
DOWN
1 Interject with jingle that’s popular (5,2) CHIME IN {CHIME} {IN}
2 Proportion observed in peroration (5) RATIO [T]
3 Ready to get hitched, angry with girl for rejection initially (7) ENGAGED EN(-r+g)GAGED
5 To get alumnus ain’t complicated (6) OBTAIN {OB}{AINT*}
6 Shocking ego surge setter received (9) EGREGIOUS {EGO+SURGE+I}* Received as AINd?
7 Have to own, for example (7) SYNONYM [CD]
8 Extraordinary diet using dish prepared curiously (13) DISTINGUISHED* Struck the eye immediately as the fodder and the answer had the same letters at the beginning and at the end
14 Little bits of negativity? (9) EJECTIONS rEJECTIONS (Addendum - ELECTRONS [CD] - See comments)
rons.jpg)
18 Impeccable administrator king sent down (7) PERFECT P(-r)E(+r)RFECT
19 English plant explosive mines around Spain to blow up hostiles (7) ENEMIES {E}{NEMI{E}S*}
20 Plain stupid (6) SIMPLE [DD]
23 (5) SPACE Because there is nothing out there :-)
Has Skulldugger lowered the bar?
ReplyDeleteManaged to crack about 15 clues, including long ones like SURPASSED, ATMOSPHERE, EGREGIOUS and DISTINGUISHED at first look!
Quite unthinkable in normal circumstances.
Editing goof-up continues. The last among the down clues, 23D, is missing in the Mangalore edition. I am clueless.
Space: the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship ......
DeleteENTER, get a PRIZE !
Delete23 (5) SPACE Because there is nothing out there :-)
ReplyDeleteI had thought the 'truth' was out there. Isn't it a SHAME, that a clue gets dropped out. Possibly by being at the tail end of the list.
Kishore, ESP? Both at 8:32...
DeleteWe are sailing in the same boat-train
DeleteMaybe I should have said telepathy...
DeleteTelepathy is transmission through space !
DeleteLong back when my son was a newborn, Dr K Radhakrishna Pai, a leading paediatricist in Mangalore, used to drop in almost daily to have a look at him. After my son was brought to Bangalore, we continued to consult him by telephone. This was not allopathy or homeopathy, but telepathy.
DeleteIn the days of conferencing, it could be videopathy...
DeletePaediatricist ?
DeletePaediatrician !
DeleteI could say I was inspired by your comment against 8d. But it really was a blooper on my part.
DeleteDeepak, your note on 23D was apt! :-)
ReplyDeleteI especially liked the alliteration in some clues:
ReplyDelete3 Rare, ruined, ringed revolutionary leftist
21 Principals primarily practised satanic perversion
6 Shocking ego surge setter received
Regarding my remark at 8D. Try reading this
ReplyDeleteI cnduo't bvleiee taht I culod aulaclty uesdtannrd waht I was rdnaieg. Unisg the icndeblire pweor of the hmuan mnid, aocdcrnig to rseecrah at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno't mttaer in waht oderr the lterets in a wrod are, the olny irpoamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be in the rhgit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it whoutit a pboerlm. Tihs is bucseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey ltteer by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Aaznmig, huh? Yaeh and I awlyas tghhuot slelinpg was ipmorantt! See if yuor fdreins can raed tihs too.
It works.In this case, it worked better than usual because we had seen the word 'distinguished' used just a few days back wrt to FM Cariappa.
DeleteThe statement in italics against 8d is not quite correct, or is it?
DeleteThe answer is D...........D.
The anag fodder is D...........H.
As D (the letter under consideration) has not put the word 'respectively' I think we can give him the benefit of doubt and say he meant that D occurred at the beginning of the fodder and at both places in the answer. Though I do suspect he mean what CV has implied he meant.
DeleteCV @ 8:47
DeleteYou got me there!
But I appreciated your patient typing of that long passage... not an easy thing to deliberately misspell words!
DeleteI think he typed less than you think.
DeleteJust put this in your search engine:
cnduo't bvleiee taht I culod
But full marks for recollecting that that meaningful gibberish existed
CV @ 9:32,
DeleteKishore is right I didn't type that it was just copy pasted off the net, I had seen it sometime ago when someone sent it to me
Sorry for recycling the sketch in the cartoon. But there is a cryptic solution to the text.
ReplyDeleteI had put 14 down as ELECTRONS
ReplyDeleteI too had put ELECTRONS, and that is what I have drawn for!
DeleteI noticed Deepak has put in Ejections only after Jaggu pointed it out
DeleteNope. Ejections has been there right from the beginning. Will change it now
DeleteSorry, my post was unclear. I did not mean Deepak put it in after reading Jaggu's post. I mean I noticed after reading J's post. ;-)
DeleteI too started with electrons at first and got stuck.
DeleteWhy electrons stuck with you? Static electricity
Delete8 Extraordinary diet using dish prepared curiously (13) DISTINGUISHED* Struck the eye immediately
ReplyDeleteGet well soon, Deepak !
Re Kishore's offer 8:34
ReplyDeleteAlthough there could be scores of them to fit in there, some most common words are scale, scape, scare, shade, shake, shale, shame, shape, share, shave, skate, slate, snake, snare, spade, spare, spate, stage, stake, stale, stare, state, stave, suave
I demand a prize.... ;-)
I will buy you a milk SHAKE the next time we meet.
DeleteThe offer of a petty milk shake was more shocking...
DeleteDid it stir you or shake you?
DeleteIf you want me to increase the ante (or in this case, should it be the post), any number of milk shakes you can drink at a go. At Pabbas.
I will even request the owner to give you a rendition of Thingalavrea Bee, his Konkani version of Kolaveri Di
DeleteTo muddy the waters:
ReplyDeleteELECT(MO)RONS
Luckily you are not in Didi-land, otherwise there would have been knocks on your door by now...
DeleteCaution, you could be a marked person by now. ;-)
Without mentioning party or state, I am bringing the fact home that if you elect morons, you will end up in the negative zone. I don't know if any party is advocating to vote in morons (at least not officially).
DeleteShake it well till the last (clue)! TH continues to goof up the CW printing?
ReplyDeleteI agree with Richard that the bar has been lowered, but it is a welcome change and I enjoyed it immensely and was able to complete (except a couple) almost in time.
All of us could not complete one word, though we could take shots at guessing it. Which was the other?
DeleteCurious what could have been the clue for 23D & the word. Would it be one from the long list (given by Richard) and one beyond it? Would Skulldugger clarify?
ReplyDeleteOf all things- Synonym. Since I put Rome in a hurry in stead of roam.
ReplyDeleteHi,
ReplyDelete23D was He's not his own man(5)
SLAVE CD
DeleteLooks like the paper wanted to retain the SLAVE for its own use.
DeleteOne of the clues, with some editing, can describe how Skulldugger must have felt on seeing the void after 20d
Delete6d SHOCKing ego surge SETTER RECEIVED
Thank you Skulldugger for your prompt clarification. It is indeed one out of Richard's list- closest being slate & shave!
ReplyDelete23D He's not his own man(5)
ReplyDeleteWho is?!
LOL.
DeleteTo Kishore's pithy "Who is?!", I would add:
...including the premier person whose name begins with 'man'.
Have heard this expression often - He is essentially a ladies' man...
Delete;-)
DeleteMan ki shakti, ...
Richard @ 8:43,
ReplyDeleteNo prize for you as the intended answer is not in your list :-)
I save some money, but miss the opportunity of seeing Richard milk-fed.
DeletePoor me! :-(
DeleteYou must have heard of the Birbal tale, where to prove a point to the Emperor, he sits on a bridge with a basket of eggs and some horses. Of each passing man, he enquires, "who is the boss in your house?" Almost everyone answers "the missus" and is rewarded with an egg. The egg basket requires replenishment quite fast to keep up with the demand. One solitary man who claims that he is the master of the house is given a black horse. After a little while the man returns, saying, "My wife asked me to get a white horse". Birbal takes back the black horse and gives him an egg instead.
ReplyDeleteLet us stop horsing around and admit the truth.
LOL !!!
DeleteGood one. Egg-xtraordinary!
DeleteIt also makes horse sense!
DeleteLOL, but in this day and age, the question is not valid anymore.
DeleteGiving a positive spin:
DeleteBirbal signifies that all husbands including him are eggheads.:)
...straight from the horse's mouth ! :)
Deletelol! Wisdom!
DeleteThank you, Skulldugger, for lowering the bar and keeping many of us happy here ! A nice puzzle. :))
ReplyDeleteRichard @ 8:31 : Editing goof-up continues. The last among the down clues, 23D, is missing in the Mangalore edition. I am clueless.
ReplyDeleteHyderabad too is clueless !!!
Ditto with Bangalore edition, as mentioned by the Col in the opening remark on top.
DeleteNo single edition is to blame even the online edition does not have 23D
DeleteIn the printed ed.s one could probably say that there was no space for it. Not so in the online one
DeleteThe Delhi edition, too, has 23D missing!
ReplyDeleteThanks, Skulldugger, for enlightening us, and thus freeing us from the burden of an incomplete CW!!
Good day, all.
No different in Chennai
ReplyDeleteColl & CV:
ReplyDeleteOn seeing blank against 23 down, every one went blank !! Imagine my frustration when the whole grid is BLA(N-C)K on several occasions in Orkut. Many a times, the down clues get gobbled up in cyberspace, leaving me do guesswork with the help of across clues.
Incidentally, a few questions on Orkut. Who fills in here and who owns this blog? I was told sometime back that it is Gita Iyer. Invariably, other than herself and another regular solver no other names appear, though many must be positing their names, and must be answering YES for posting theirs. Sometimes there is this answer None. How does this blog work? Though it is a great help to do the Hindu crossies online, this blog needs a lot to be desired,. Any clarifications are welcome.
Today's Skulldugger had some interesting clues. I liked this interpretation for 23 down as SPACE as the answer by Deepak.
Raju,
DeleteThe online app for the Hindu crossword has nothing to do with the Orkut page for the same CW. The application has been developed by Magesh & Chitra (Gita Iyer's cousin) and the app can be accessed through Orkut and Facebook. Once you solve the CW through this app your name will be visible to others only if you click on the YES at the bottom of the app before saving in which case others who access the app can see your solutions by clicking on your name which will appear under the CW..
The Orkut page where THC is solved was started by Ganesh (who is in the US) and CV. Here any member of the group can start the thread for the day and each member is allowed to submit three answers with annotation.
Col& CV : Again, on the Hindu crossies, as supporters of the paper and regular bloggers, can we not do something to improve the quality of appearance and better editing, if any? CV had broken his head many times against a stonewall, as he had informed us earlier. Some more lobbying and pressure by a Ginger Group would help?
ReplyDeleteThe fact that the clue for 23D was missing could have been a clue by itself. SPACE is an appropriate answer in that sense...
ReplyDeleteShri CV,
ReplyDeleteWish you Many Happy Returns of the Day - 17 Jan. SR