Thursday 21 August 2014

No 11169, Thursday 21 Aug 2014, Incognito


Leisurely offering from Incognito. If there is something hidden I didn't find it.

ACROSS
8   Liveliness of brother hugging setter (4) BRIO {BR{I}O}
9   Respond about the dramatic performance (5) REACT {RE}{ACT}
10 Bring up the posterior (4) REAR [DD]

 By Rishi
11 Munch around one site of 1972 massacre (6) MUNICH {MUN{1}CH}
12 Plant Karanth found in a military hospital after losing both extremities (8) AMARANTH {A}{M{kARANTh}H}
13 Radio enthusiast followed Lennon's wife at a Japanese port town (8) YOKOHAMA {YOKO}{HAM}{A}
15 A person who breathes convulsively for a cigarette (6) GASPER [DD]
17 Continue to involve sister in planning technique (7) PERSIST {PER{SIS}T}
19 Rabbits and the like jump in this place (3,4) PET SHOP {PET S}{HOP} &lit
22 Journey where the Royal Air Force flies back between South Africa and India (6) SAFARI {SA}{FAR<=}{I}
24 One law graduate was in prison with son's old fashioned golf clubs (8) NIBLICKS {N{1}{BL}ICK}{S}
26 Watering hole staff seemingly advocate bludgeoning of players (4,4) CLUB TEAM [DD]
28 Comedienne Uma Devi gets wine cask twice (6) TUNTUN {TUN}{TUN}
30 Plague usually has this symptom (4) AGUE [T]
31 Indian stick I left next to first electrical machine (5) LATHE {LATHi}{Electrical}
32 Alien capturing a team led to egress (4) EXIT {E{XI}T}

DOWN
1   German lady seen after famous psychotherapist leaves a mountain in the Alps (4) FRAU jungFRAU
2   Do mines contain nothing, only spotted tiles? (8) DOMINOES {DO}{MIN{0}ES}
3   Cosmic creator appeared when Abraham was confused after giving up first-aid (6) BRAHMA aBRAHAM*
4   Nuts found in bunches? (7) BANANAS [DD]
5   Saint called the French to cut off air supply (8) STRANGLE {ST}{RANG}{LE}
6   Sounds frogs make when they are dying? Or even when they are living (6) CROAKS [CD]
7   Silly actors have no alternative but to reform into a group of actors (4) CAST ACTorS*
14 Ring for each actor at first for a dramatic performance set to music (5) OPERA {O}{PER}{Actor}
16 Reserve electronically to get a digitalised publication (1-4) E-BOOK [DD]
18 Disease heard of when pigs took off? (5,3) SWINE FLU {SWINE} {FLU}(~flew)
20 I got into cavalry regiment and after losing direction and horse and became thinner (8) SKINNIER {SKINN{I}ERs horse}
21 Enliven tailless animal with endless tea (7) ANIMATE {ANIMAl}{TEa}
23 Spy thriller author was a walker (6) AMBLER [DD]
25 Ram right after western hill (6) BUTTER {BUTTE}{R}
27 Company representation record has nothing (4) LOGO {LOG}{O}
29 Peacekeepers with sex appeal formed a military formation (4) UNIT {UN}{IT}
                            Cartoon by Bhargav

GRID

17 comments:

  1. 20D-
    I think deletion of 'horse' also should be indicated.

    ReplyDelete
  2. A nice fast paced one from Incognito. I was able to rush through most of it without going bananas!
    Niblicks was new to me.
    Looking for the rabbits in their burrows but was led to the pets shop.
    Nice of Incognito te remember the good old Tuntun.

    ReplyDelete
  3. You will notice that the type-size or font size is rather small in today's crossword and yesterday's.

    The height of the column yesterday and today is the same.

    I did some analysis.

    From today's Incog puzzle text, I removed the words Across and Down and also all the numerics - that is the clue numbers and the enu with the brackets. Total clues: 32 :: Total characters: 1373 :: Total words 269

    Scint (after similar deletion): Total clues: 32 :: Total characters: 1231 :: Total words: 266

    Now I am going to look at a crossword where the type size is bigger than these two days and do an analysis.

    Conclusion will be: The fewer words, the bigger type size, as the space allotted is the same.

    Will come back in a while.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I thumbed through clippings of some Gridman puzzles (as we can look only at printed versions and not files in web edition) and I find that they too are in a similar type size.
    I didn't find any crossword where the type size was bigger because the number of words was significantly fewer.
    So the average number of words THC setters use for a crossword can be worked out, it seems.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Don't know about the letter (word) count, but I did notice that in the recent Buzzer puzzles, the font was different, the size seemed to be a point larger, and definitely more easy to read. Have to figure out the secret behind that!

      Delete
    2. CV, out of curiosity stemming from your number crunching, I did the same with my last two puzzles where Bhala mentioned that the font size was bigger:

      11162: Clues: 26, Words: 154, Characters: 802 (930 with spaces)
      11161: Clues: 26, Words: 164, Characters: 799 (937 with spaces)

      To be comparable, I picked one where I had 32 clues too:

      11132: Clues: 32, Words: 202, Characters: 1020 (1190 with spaces)

      Delete
  5. Barghav,
    I suppose the actual dress is not a military uniform!

    ReplyDelete
  6. In other words what Cv (or rather TH) is saying is that the setters are straitjacketed!

    ReplyDelete
  7. A gentle ride from Incognito today, but enjoyable nevertheless. I especially liked the clues for 19, 5, and 7. In 12, I kept looking for ways to use BV or Shivram before the penny dropped!

    With FRAU and MUNICH coming right up on top I thought there was a German theme coming up, but that didn't go further.

    For 28, I think it would have been more interesting to leave out the word "comedienne" - but perhaps that would work better for a film theme quiz.

    Thanks to the setter, blogger, and cartoonists!

    ReplyDelete
  8. Nice one from Incognito. This is how I felt after solving the puzzle. :-))))) Thank you Incognito.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Thank you Incognito - Happy to score 90% - mostly without any reference! This kind of clues only make me to hold on to the crosswords.

    ReplyDelete
  10. There you are Incognito. You give us the much needed confidence. Simple but interesting.
    But then where are the bloggers and the comments?
    No disputes, no controversies and no comments!

    ReplyDelete
  11. Thanks, all.

    O/t, quote from yesterday's speech by Imran Khan " ... He has only 6 balls ..." How does one interpret this without context? Why "only"? That certainly is not admiration? Condescending?

    ReplyDelete
  12. DG, Nothing hidden here. BTW, the anno of 12a has a typo. In Karanth, the H gets knocked off, while the T survives, as against T being shown as knocked off.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Corrected. Was out whole day - Morning attending a court case and afternoon for a round of Golf.

      Delete
  13. Results of the Hindi prize crossword are announced at Crossword Unclued. Congrats to the winner!

    ReplyDelete

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