Wednesday 7 May 2014

No 11078, Wednesday 07 May 2014, Klue Klux Klan


ACROSS
1   Good man, returning from party at German prisoner-of-war camp (6) STALAG {ST}{ALAG<=}
                                                                                               Cartoon by Rishi

4   Amble, from start to finish, with mountain creatures (6) TROLLS (-s)TROLL(+s)S
9   Aquatic organisms lose heart, grow wings (4) ALAE ALgAE
10 Admitting heartless yahoo into urgent matters (10) PROFESSING {PR{OaF}ESSING}
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 {GUESt}{Story}
16 Frighten Southern fish, cut off tail with knife finally (5) SCARE {S}{CARp}{knifE}
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}{DUll}{LENT}
26 Cook taking single off main… (4) CHEF CHiEF
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}
2   Character of beer indicates acidity level (5) ALEPH {ALE}{pH}
3   Defame regular boys intrinsically (7) ASPERSE {lAdS}{PER SE}
5   Maker of apparel for antelope (6) REEBOK [DD]
6   Sluggishness of girl regularly into headless guy (9) LASSITUDE {LASS}{InTo}{dUDE}
7   Sounds made by boy and his relatives lack unity initially (7) SONANTS {SON}{AuNTS}
8   Classifications of dreadful, unclean metros (13) NOMENCLATURES*
14 Spider natural at traumatizing… (9) TARANTULA* &lit
17 … deserters in firm’s divisions (7) COWARDS {CO}{WARDS}

19 Precise journalist insisted on… (7) EXACTED {EXACT}{ED}
20 … national leader leaving minarets to make Turkish hostels (7) IMARETS MInARETS*
21 Pour out from bottom the iron melt (6) EFFUSE {EF<=}{FUSE}
24 Scarf found in specific hutments (5) FICHU [T]

54 comments:

  1. Tamaso ma jyotirgamaya

    From yesterday's NESCIENCE to today's SENTIENCE !

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  2. DG, nice cartoon under 22a. If pigs could fly, and swine flu ...

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    Replies
    1. If he caught him and wolfed him down, he would prove that he certainly is a pig

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  3. Today, KKK did not terrify me!

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    Replies
    1. Haha. He doesn't surely make me dig my skull that much :P

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    2. That's because he is being terrorised by the one that flew ...

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    3. But he made me dig my skull in North-West corner! Nonetheless I enjoyed this puzzle.

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    4. Consult a phrenologist, MB

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    5. Col.@8.51-
      .....the cuckoo's nest?

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    6. 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) :)

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  4. 27 a shows cricket has gone global.

    How is 14 a & lit?

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    Replies
    1. Perhaps because tarantulas do traumatise us - naturally!

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    2. Ask those with Arachnophobia. They get naturally traumatised on seeing a spider

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    3. Def is 'spider' and the other words that follow form the fodder, so how is it an &lit?

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    4. &lit because whole clue can be read as the definition: "Spider natural at traumatizing..." can be seen as a phrase that describes the tarantula.

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    5. Not a pure &lit because 'spider' is not on double duty. It contributes only to the def and not the wordplay (semi &lit)

      I 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

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  5. Could somebody explain 21 down. Sorry! I am a beginner.

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    Replies
    1. Not 'doubting',? ;-)

      21 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

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    2. Welcome!. One friend or the other will give you annotations and explanations if you have any doubts, Thomas

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  6. Kishore,
    Swine flu reminded me of PGW's 'Pigs have wings'.

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    Replies
    1. Has the time come to
      talk 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.

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    2. 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.

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    3. Abhay,
      Pl. let me know if you get it. I also remember seeing/ doing it.

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    4. If pigs are sick, they may have flies ...

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  7. Found wanting due to my limited vocabulary. Learned a few new words thanks to the blog. Enjoyed all the same.

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  8. A couple of issues.
    10A 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.

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    Replies
    1. Also I guess 1D should be Father "protects" or "protecting"

      Nevertheless nice one from KKK, enjoyed the solving it.

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    2. Heartless yahoo also falls in this category, I think

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  9. I thought boys as usual printing mistake for bays and had it correctly as AS :)

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    Replies
    1. Quite likely. Not good either way. Only the blame shifts from a setter to a typesetter.

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  10. Hilarious cartoon of the pig

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  11. Two 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.

    Agree 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!

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  12. 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 .

    Last week I created a record for myself-- didn't do a single crossword for a day ! Dunno how and why !

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    Replies
    1. That explains the rain, though belated! Raju not doing a CW the whole 24 hours?!

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  13. Thank you Suresh.
    Just read the Lewis Carroll poem and enjoyed it.

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  14. Nice cartoon, CV. It looks like calls are not 'barred'

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    Replies
    1. Unlike the door, window and dress wchich are barred

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  15. Only the person- that too occasionally, if he gets the 'connection'!
    All details are taken care of in the cartoon including the countdown marked on the wall !

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  16. 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.

    Given 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?

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  17. Mr K - Are you listening?

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    Replies
    1. The probability of my listening is quite low, Ram. After all you typed a comment, not uttered it aloud.

      Brings me to a line from the Sounds of Silence by Simon & Garfunkel :

      People hearing without listening ...

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  18. Re the caption in Kishore's cartoon...
    Cowards, 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 ...

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  19. I 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.

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    Replies
    1. It is just a disheveled mane!

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    2. I'm with Ganesh on this one.

      @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*

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    3. I 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.

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  20. Re 1a: Is returning from correct for reversal of gala? I think it doesn't work. It means reversing 'from'.

    ReplyDelete

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