Wednesday, 29 January 2014

No 10994, Wednesday 29 Jan 2014, Sankalak


Having solved 1A and 8A as the first two words, I thought Sankalak was giving us a themed crossword.

ACROSS
1   Belligerent chap goes after cache of money in a landmark place in aviation (5,4) KITTY HAWK {KITTY} {HAWK}
5   Possessed but was in debt, toting name (5) OWNED {OW{N}ED}
8   Flier, who was a knockout, included in facts and statistics (6) DAKOTA {DA{KO}TA}
9   Forebear who sent Cora wandering (8) ANCESTOR*
11 Country group formed by leaders of earnest, faithful, talented administrations (1,1,1,1) E F T A
12 It gives flavour to food but may cause pacer to slip (5,5) CAPER SAUCE*
14 Never go to work suppressing fungal disease (5) ERGOT [T]
15 Fuel mixture figuring in  note found in the can (7) GASOHOL {GA{SOH}OL}
16 Game John played covered by periodical (3-4) MAH-JONG {MA{H-JON*}G}
17 Lover boy has the right letter in code (5) ROMEO [DD]
19 With accents displaced, the spy can’t do English translation (10) SYNCOPATED*
20 Marsupial which lost heart on African tree (4) KOLA KOaLA
22 This tool designed for granules in the inner ear (8) OTOLITHS* Displacement of these cause vertigo I'm told
23 In which case is a person unable to cope? (6) BASKET [CD]
24 Set right the machinery to heal rift around the east (5) REFIT {R{E}FIT*}
25 Telescope revealing nuclear equipment in France? Quite the opposite (9) REFRACTOR {RE{FR}ACTOR}


DOWN
1   Vital part giving the solution to contain awful din (6) KIDNEY {K{DIN*}EY} This solution was an object of discussion in Spinner's CW ;-)
2   Spoil the brilliance as would a spinner with a new ball (4,3,5,3) TAKE THE SHINE OFF [C&DD]
3   Abominable one, an alien in the outskirts of Yadagiri (4) YETI {Yada{ET}girI}
4   Grinder taken for repair to a children’s school (12) KINDERGARTEN* I wonder if it really did get repaired!!
5   Magic words for unrestricted access (4,6) OPEN SESAME [CD]
6   Unattractive lunch took tomato pureed (3,4,2,4,2) NOT MUCH TO LOOK AT*
7   Author who was gloomy about odd bits in Rarden (7) DURRELL {DU{RaRdEn}LL}
10 The mapmaker took the motor to chat with the girl about the origin of geography (12) CARTOGRAPHER {CAR}{TO}{G}{RAP}{HER}
13 A crop production expert to monitor gas formation (10) AGRONOMIST*
16 He performs wrongly: the same is accepted by Scrooge (7) MISDOER {MIS{DO}ER}
18 Friendly teasing in urban terminology (6) BANTER [T]
21 Epic character in volcanic output (4) LAVA [DD]

45 comments:

  1. +1 for top line comment

    Thanks, Deepak for the Dakota pic. Before I die, I want to fly, a Douglas DC-3.

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    Replies
    1. If I'm not mistaken I think The HINDU had their own fleet of Dakota aircraft in the 60's which were used to transport the paper from Chennai

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    2. Yes, I remember seeing one at Meenambakkam in the olden days

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    3. If I recollect right, it also had the logo that appears at the top of the front page.

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    4. And they used to take passengers on the way back to Chennai

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    5. Kishore @ 9:15,

      Don't know about the logo as I have seen the plane flying overhead and if I remember right it had THE HINDU written on the underside of the wings

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    6. I remember seeing it parked on the right side of the terminal (as it was then) when walking out on the airside. The near side fuselage bore the sign over the windows. The windows were there despite being primarily used as a cargo aircraft, as it was also, as mentioned above used for passenger transport.

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  2. Yet another 'silken smooth crossy' from Sankalak ! Missed out on 23A BASKET.

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  3. Yes, all above correct and I remember them. Also, they were delivering TH in a few cars in different directions from Madras(as it was then known) One such was going up to Neyveli and on many occasions I had travelled in it to Madras on the return trip from my native place Tindivanam.

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  4. Col.,
    The link for 'note' in 15A does not lead anywhere. Pl. check up. I am curious to know how 'SOH' denotes note.

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  5. Slightly more difficult than usual (enjoyed nevertheless) and I had a few holes in the grid. I was too dull to get the author and could not 'see' the inner ear for example.

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  6. 15A : Underlined link "NOTE" not responding pl.

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  7. By sheer coincidence (I do not this it is intentional), today's quick cwd has the phrase "Beat a retreat" and we have "Beating the retreat" ceremony today.

    That crossie also has the words "centre" and "middle" in the centre column

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  8. Thank you Col. & Sandhya. I am a geek in music!

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  9. Dakotas and Viscounts used to be in the fleet of Indian Airlines.

    The latter, Vickers Type 360 aircraft, a medium-range turboprop airliner, was originally called Viceroy after India's Viceroy, Lord Louis Mountbatten. The aircraft was renamed Viscount following India's independence in 1947

    A child delivered on one such Indian Airlines flight in the late sixties was named 'Viscount Vimana Rao'.

    A baby born in Oct 2011 in an Air India flight to Toronto, Canada was christened 'Aakash Leen Kaur'. She was born in the skies over Kazakhstan. A pediatrician on the flight attended the delivery. He improvised by using scotch to sterilize the scissors, using threads (from a sewing kit with an air hostess) to tie the cord and the microwave to warm a blanket for the baby.

    It was said that such children born on flights enjoy free travel for life, but there is no confirmation of this.

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    Replies
    1. What happened to the remaining Scotch? :-)

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    2. As per the news item seen on the net, the AI crew presented the doctor with a bottle of Scotch, now I wonder if it was the remaining Scotch and was it a miniature?

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  10. Thank you for the interesting details. What about their passport?

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  11. Also that they can take the citizenship of the country over which the flight goes at the time of birth - is it true?

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  12. Regarding cartoon by Kishore, We do add alcohol in petrol. Upto 10% of Ethanol is allowed to be added in petrol to improve its octane no. and reduce the content of aromatics, sulphur, olefins etc.

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    Replies
    1. In the toon, the alcohol is going into the driver ...

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  13. My first air travel is by Dakota from Mangalore to Mumbai on 20.02.1977. It is still green in my memories.

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  14. Spoil the brilliance as would a spinner with a new ball - shouldn't this be Spoil the brilliance as would a pacer with a new ball ?
    usually the pacers are there to remove the shine...?

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  15. Eswaran,

    There was a time when India had no pacers & only spinners! Part time medium pacers and some spinners were used initially to just take the shine off the ball so that spinners can get a grip on the ball. On such occasions I have seen the ball being rolled on the ground between fielders and the bowler so that it will loose shine soon! No polishing on their pants! I am sure sankalak had that on his mind.

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  16. Kishore @ 11.23-
    I am sure it was not given to the baby!

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    Replies
    1. If it was, the baby would be Canadian Indian, KAzhak and Scotch!

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    2. An interesting issue has been raised. Scot(ch) apart, how does one classify the geographic details of an in-air birth? Almost every country, as well as the United Nations, has procedures and recommendations for this. (Source: http://people.howstuffworks.com/air-birth.htm )

      Place of birth: The UN considers a child born in-flight to have been born in the airplane's registered country. Some countries point to the city where the child first disembarked the plane as the place of birth, and to the airplane's registered country as the place of citizenship.

      Citizenship: In the USA, documentation procedures vary from state to state and even from county to county. How does Texas document an in-air birth on a plane bound for Texas, even if the birth occurs over Australia? Here, they record the county and city where the child was first removed from the plane, and include a citation of where the birth shows up in the aircraft's flight log. As for the location of the structure where the birth occurred, against county, they enter "In flight," and for city the name and flight number of the aircraft and the latlong coordinates at the point of delivery.

      When looking for the birth certificate for a child born on a US-registered plane (or ship), figure out if the vessel was heading away from the USA or toward it when the birth occurred. For an outbound flight, the birth certificate is stored at (and accessible through) the US State Department. If the flight was inbound and landed somewhere in the United States after the birth, one has to contact the county where the plane landed for the record..

      Citizenship: In USA, the child is automatically a U.S. citizen regardless of the altitude of the birth if (i) the child's parents are both citizens of the United States and at least one parent has resided in the USA before the child's birth, OR (ii) one parent is a US national and the other a US citizen who lived in the USA for at least a year before the birth.

      Many countries grant automatic citizenship to a child born on a vessel that is registered to that country, so it's likely that an in-air birth could result in dual citizenship.

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  17. Complications galore, but interesting all the same. thank you Rajan- Shall we call you nada (walking) encyclopaedia?!

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  18. Digressing again to thank Richard, Kishore and Lakshmi for having congratulated me yesterday!

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  19. We had celebrated the Army Day earlier this month. Here is an interesting anecdote from the career of late Field Marshal Sam Hormusji Framji Jamshedji Manekshaw.

    In the Burma campaign of 1942, a brave young Indian captain lay by the Sittang River wounded in the stomach by a burst of Japanese light machine gun fire. Fearing the worst, British Major General D.T. Cowan pinned his own Military Cross ribbon on the valiant officer as it was never ever awarded to any dead person.

    The young officer eventually survived his near-death ordeal. Years later, as the army chief, 'Sam Bahadur' led the Indian armed forces to one of its greatest military victories ever that saw the emergence of a new nation, Bangladesh.

    His younger brother, Air Vice Marshal Jemi H.F.J. Manekshaw, served as a military doctor following in the footsteps of their military-doctor father.

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  20. At first I thought I may not be able to make it cent percent.1a kitty hawk seemed to be toughbut the 'x'ing 'k'idney lent a helping hand. Reg. 6d the anagram was so attractive & not az defined.In.fine a thorough entertainer from athoroughbred.

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  21. Kitty Hawk is quite famously connected with Rite Brothers.

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  22. I got my spelling wrong there- it is wright Brothers who were the first to fly.

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    Replies
    1. Write Wright right a hundred times as punishment, Paddy

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  23. 100 Pipers, anyone?

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    Replies
    1. Abide with me, now

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    2. Lights.

      For quite some time DD was saying Three Army Chiefs instead of Three Service Chiefs!

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  24. Back from witnessing the Beating Retreat ceremony. It was nice to see the Rashtrapati come in the good old buggy, and sit in the open without all the glass cover all around. The massed bands gave a spotless performance. The atmosphere was ethereal when dusk descended and the bells tolled in the belfry. What was missing was the fireworks in the sky at the end. After the VVIPs had left, we had a walk up to the Rashtrapati Bhavan gates and then came down the Raisina Hill.

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    Replies
    1. That is what I was covering in my comments above between 5 and 6 pm

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  25. Surprisingly, Douglas appears to be a not uncommon name in rural Tamil Nadu. It has featured in some movies and also TV serials including Saravanan Meenatchi on Star Vijay.

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  26. When I was studying plus two in gannavaram near vijayawada during 74-76 daily at 7 am hindu's flight used to fly over our hostel at loe altitude anf we used to watch in awr

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  27. Having missed doing crosswords 3 days in a row, I was determined to get back to it today. And, here I am, well past midnight, an hour of work and I got 23 right. Makes the sleep I am missing right now, worth it. :-)

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