ACROSS
1 Good man, returning from party at German prisoner-of-war camp (6) STALAG {ST}{ALAG<=}
4 Amble, from start to finish, with mountain creatures (6) TROLLS (-s)TROLL(+s)S
9 Aquatic organisms lose heart, grow wings (4) ALAE AL
10 Admitting heartless yahoo into urgent matters (10) PROFESSING {PR{O
11 Hesitate to replace head of one of the two with dummy head (6) DITHER (-e+d)DITHER
12 Greek God protects Israel from gradual destructions (8) EROSIONS {ERO{SION}S}
13 Awareness of one surrounded by doom (9) SENTIENCE {SENT{I}ENCE}
15 Speculate patron’s unfinished origin story (5) GUESS {GUES
16 Frighten Southern fish, cut off tail with knife finally (5) SCARE {S}{CAR
18 Made irate face at restaurant (9) CAFETERIA*
22 This outbreak occurred when pigs took flight, we hear (5,3) SWINE FLU {SWINE} {FLU}(~flew)
23 Noisy quarrel between a couple of followers and fish? (6) AFFRAY {A}{FF}{RAY}
25 German woman, partly dull, assisted criminal (10) FRAUDULENT {FRAU}{DU
26 Cook taking single off main… (4) CHEF CH
27 ...fast bowler residing in Chinese America (6) SEAMER [T]
28 Censures element from beginning to end (6) ODIUMS (-s)ODIUM(+s)S
DOWN
1 Father protect a lean toddler initially with cross (7) SALTIRE {S{A}{L}{T}IRE}
3 Defame regular boys intrinsically (7) ASPERSE {
5 Maker of apparel for antelope (6) REEBOK [DD]
6 Sluggishness of girl regularly into headless guy (9) LASSITUDE {LASS}{I
7 Sounds made by boy and his relatives lack unity initially (7) SONANTS {SON}{A
8 Classifications of dreadful, unclean metros (13) NOMENCLATURES*
14 Spider natural at traumatizing… (9) TARANTULA* &lit
20 … national leader leaving minarets to make Turkish hostels (7) IMARETS MI
21 Pour out from bottom the iron melt (6) EFFUSE {EF<=}{FUSE}
24 Scarf found in specific hutments (5) FICHU [T]
Tamaso ma jyotirgamaya
ReplyDeleteFrom yesterday's NESCIENCE to today's SENTIENCE !
:)
DeleteDG, nice cartoon under 22a. If pigs could fly, and swine flu ...
ReplyDeleteIf he caught him and wolfed him down, he would prove that he certainly is a pig
DeleteToday, KKK did not terrify me!
ReplyDeleteHaha. He doesn't surely make me dig my skull that much :P
DeleteThat's because he is being terrorised by the one that flew ...
DeleteBut he made me dig my skull in North-West corner! Nonetheless I enjoyed this puzzle.
DeleteConsult a phrenologist, MB
DeleteConsult a dictionary!
DeleteCol.@8.51-
Delete.....the cuckoo's nest?
Kishore and Paddy @ : Well, didn't consult the 'phrenologist' but consulted the 'dictionary' and found out it's pure 'skulduggery' in North-West corner! (As far as I'm concerned) :)
Delete27 a shows cricket has gone global.
ReplyDeleteHow is 14 a & lit?
Perhaps because tarantulas do traumatise us - naturally!
DeleteAsk those with Arachnophobia. They get naturally traumatised on seeing a spider
DeleteDef is 'spider' and the other words that follow form the fodder, so how is it an &lit?
Delete&lit because whole clue can be read as the definition: "Spider natural at traumatizing..." can be seen as a phrase that describes the tarantula.
DeleteNot a pure &lit because 'spider' is not on double duty. It contributes only to the def and not the wordplay (semi &lit)
DeleteI think I've seen a variant along the lines of "natural at weaving (9)" which would qualify as an &lit if you think the entire clue works as a fair enough definition
Could somebody explain 21 down. Sorry! I am a beginner.
ReplyDeleteNot 'doubting',? ;-)
Delete21 Pour out from bottom the iron melt (6) EFFUSE {EF<=}{FUSE}
Iron: FE. From the bottom: reverse FE: EF.
Melt : FUSE
Pour out: EF FUSE
Welcome, Thomas ! :)
DeleteWelcome!. One friend or the other will give you annotations and explanations if you have any doubts, Thomas
DeleteKishore,
ReplyDeleteSwine flu reminded me of PGW's 'Pigs have wings'.
Has the time come to
Deletetalk of many things
Of ships and shoes and sealing wax
Of cabbages and kings
and why the sea is boiling hot
And whether pigs have wings.
I remember a crossword - I think it was in the Guardian - which used the PGW book as a clue for the entry SWINE FLU. Must look it up again.
DeleteAbhay,
DeletePl. let me know if you get it. I also remember seeing/ doing it.
If pigs are sick, they may have flies ...
DeleteFound wanting due to my limited vocabulary. Learned a few new words thanks to the blog. Enjoyed all the same.
ReplyDeleteA couple of issues.
ReplyDelete10A Pressing is urgent. Matters is redundant for the clue, but without it makes incomplete reading. Could perhaps have been worded better.
3D Regular boys becoming AS is too indirect IMO.
Concur with you re 3d
DeleteAlso I guess 1D should be Father "protects" or "protecting"
DeleteNevertheless nice one from KKK, enjoyed the solving it.
Heartless yahoo also falls in this category, I think
DeleteI thought boys as usual printing mistake for bays and had it correctly as AS :)
ReplyDeleteQuite likely. Not good either way. Only the blame shifts from a setter to a typesetter.
DeleteHilarious cartoon of the pig
ReplyDeleteTwo new words learnt - ALAE and FICHU. The latter was easy from the wordplay; the former took ages because, while I thought of algae almost immediately, I dismissed ALAE as a word and kept hunting for aquatic organisms other than algae.
ReplyDeleteAgree with the earlier comments about the indirect clueing in 3d - it took a while to work out, especially because a similar device in 6d works quite directly.
An enjoyable workout, overall. Thank you, KKK!
Coimbatore has had good rains since yesternight and it is still drizzling scotch mist. Heavenly. There's a nip in the air due to a sharp dip in the temperature. Trust Orkut to make my day black with a blank. But I refuse to be disheartened and allow it to spoil and dampen my exuberant mood with this exhilarating weather. Will cat6ch up with my pending clippings, having to stay indoors, listening to soft Mozart classics .
ReplyDeleteLast week I created a record for myself-- didn't do a single crossword for a day ! Dunno how and why !
That explains the rain, though belated! Raju not doing a CW the whole 24 hours?!
DeleteThank you Suresh.
ReplyDeleteJust read the Lewis Carroll poem and enjoyed it.
Nice cartoon, CV. It looks like calls are not 'barred'
ReplyDeleteUnlike the door, window and dress wchich are barred
DeleteOnly the person- that too occasionally, if he gets the 'connection'!
ReplyDeleteAll details are taken care of in the cartoon including the countdown marked on the wall !
An entry here appears in today's Guardian Cryptic (Nutmeg) too. I have noticed this happening a couple of times earlier - would be interesting to keep track of how often it happens.
ReplyDeleteGiven that the puzzles come up on the same day and are thus not influenced by each other, would any statistician be able to calculate the probability of the same word appearing in two separate, unconnected lists of, say, 30-35 words each?
Mr K - Are you listening?
ReplyDeleteThe probability of my listening is quite low, Ram. After all you typed a comment, not uttered it aloud.
DeleteBrings me to a line from the Sounds of Silence by Simon & Garfunkel :
People hearing without listening ...
Re the caption in Kishore's cartoon...
ReplyDeleteCowards, apart from being cowards, is also CO wards (towards the CO) or wards of the CO (i.e. protegees) and co can mean these wards are colleagues ...
Thanks for noticing that, CV!
DeleteI visit this forum not regularly, but more than occasionally, for the discussion, and mostly for the banter, especially about Coimbatore, where I grew up! I have to say I cringe when I see 'Klue Klux Klan' at the top, and cannot imagine it to be in print as the byline. And the references to KKK that it encourages are cringeworthy too. I request the setter to take on another, less offensive, pseudonym and lay this present one to rest. I hope the setter does not take offence.
ReplyDeleteWhat's in a name?
DeleteIt is just a disheveled mane!
DeleteI'm with Ganesh on this one.
Delete@Colonel, we should ask all those who insist(ed) on changing Madras -> Chennai, Bombay -> Mumbai, Bangalore -> Bengaluru, Calcutta -> Kolkata :)
@Kishore, Ganesh isn't wrong in saying this one is mean*
Amen, Bhavan!
DeleteI think even I brought this up on the first day this particular setter's puzzle appeared. And I was surprised too that the paper accepted this pseudonym. Why would some one want to have their pseudonym after a horribly racist organization like the Klu Klux Klan. Setter may not be racist, but what the handle inadvertently may make people think is that the person is insensitive to the whole issue.
DeleteRe 1a: Is returning from correct for reversal of gala? I think it doesn't work. It means reversing 'from'.
ReplyDelete