ACROSS
9 Praises income management by middle class (7) ENCOMIA {INCOME}*{
10 Furniture maker has to stop this fancy arrangement (7) IKEBANA {IKE{BAN}A}
12 Support the broadcast by messenger (7) PROPHET {PROP}{THE*}
13 Land conversion plan in use (9) PENINSULA*
15 Writer's nib — broken points embedded (5) IBSEN {SE} in {NIB}*
16 Green alternative found in lead (7) POTHERB {OTHER} in {PB}
19 Work during admission always keeps increasing (7) ENTROPY {ENTR{OP}Y}
20 Well loved partyman (5) DOTED {DO}{TED}
21 Part of skeleton, land in the cupboard? (4,5) BONE CHINA {BONE} {CHINA}
25 Herb's gone chasing wheels (7) CARAWAY {CAR}{AWAY}
28 Cigar and high class drink rejected (7) REGALIA {REGAL}{1A}<=
29 He helps with some untenable rates (7) ENABLER [T]
DOWN
1 Run on current for a month (6) DECAMP {DEC}{AMP}
2 Catch up regularly with the crew — makes sense (6) ACUMEN {
3 Ruler's frozen up (4) EMIR <=
4 England-Australia match — bit of a rig (6) LANDAU [T]
6 Hold up inner wear, nice to be undressed — seeking pleasure? (10) HEDONISTIC {HE{DON}IST}{
7 Male pride — is mom worried about endless pain? (8) MACHISMO {IS+MOM}* around {ACH
8 Deliberately ask for limited requirement (8) WANTONLY {WANT}{ONLY}
14 Good for nothing — one dweller accommodation (4-2-4) NEER-DO-WELL*
16 Short man in the photo has no time to take care of his feet (8) PEDICURE {P[ED}IC
17 Mentoring without great preparation (8) TUTORAGE*
18 Pass admits regular buddy of songwriter (3,5) BOB DYLAN {B
22 He's relatively new — without wife it's tough, I tell you (6) NEPHEW {NE
23 Technicalities resolved, hesitant to go as it's frozen (6) ICICLE
24 Follow for a day and call for attention (6) ADHERE {A}{D}{HERE}
27 State cover up accepted (4) UTAH {U}{TAH}<=
GRID
An open letter to Mahesh
ReplyDeleteDear Mahesh,
I see what you mean. That you can say a crossword is excellent or 'terrible'/'dreadful' and leave it at that.
I mused over it. Sometimes don't we say a man is 'handsome' or a woman is beautiful or either of them is'ugly' without really going on to list what attributes of the man or woman made us reach that conclusion.
But that kind of soaping/tarring doesn't help.
None of us here elevates a puzzle or condemn it wholesale. We appreciate the beauties, we point out the mistakes/infelicities. If you had done that, you would have endeared yourself to us.
What you did and continue to do is not giving reason for your judgement. If you had just said Clue A was excellent or Clue B was very bad, even without assigning a reason, readers would have passed over it. If you had done that by giving your reason as well, readers would have joined the debate. But what you write doesn't engender debate.
I would request you to follow the general trend here of appreciating good clues and criticising bad ones. Or taking part in our general discussions on clue types, conventions, etc.
Else the best thing would be for you to desist from the one-word 'Besh'/'Bale!' or 'Chee'/'Thoo...!"!
Sincerely,
CV
CV Sir, I am surprised about these repeated attempts to make Mahesh understand what we are trying to say. I have never come across someone who refuses to read what others write and make sense out of it, but continue to repeat what he has been saying for 2 weeks. 'I am only trying to help' is his constant refrain. Even when we say that by giving one word adjectives like 'dreadful', 'terrible' he is not helping, Mahesh is deaf to that. He seems to be undergoing some kind of catharsis by calling out on us. Just let him be. It is tiring that a nice blog like this has to see such type of exchange every day. What will you think of a person who assumes that each one of us here is arrogant and we are out to pull him down. Why should we collectively conspire that? He wants to think so. But of that is what is going to make him feel good & important, let him do that. We shall mind our business.
Delete27D clue needs tweaking.
ReplyDeleteI think what he means is that the anno needs to be indicated more properly.
DeleteHAT<- (U) : TAH U
DeleteState accepted cover up(4)
DeleteI agree with Raghu the clue needs tweaking else we get TAHU as indicated by him
DeleteSorry. Unable to figure out how it works.
DeleteRamesh is right
DeleteEven then is U: accepted or acceptable?
DeleteI see what you mean. It should have been 'state accepted cover up'.
DeleteHow about 'State's acceptable cover up'
DeleteShould work.
DeleteCan we stretch U to mean: Accepted by all?
Nice puzzle.Very elegant cluing.Lovely surface stories.
ReplyDeleteNeer do well...bonechina...pedicure..et al very nicely done
Dear Chaturvasi and Shrikanth,
ReplyDeleteAll is fine but when a community member purposefully calls my name as Magesh and treats me like a dog am I not to be offended?
When a community member disrespects my name saying it is an anagram of 'sham he' am I not to be offended?
These are personal attacks I only spoke of the puzzle But you want to speak of me?
I agree with you. ( on the name however, I thought it was a typo ). But some comments like that anagram yday is better avoided. That is not in good taste.
DeleteI agree that personal comments are to be avoided and request all members of the blog to desist from making any personal comments.
DeleteThank you both
DeleteMahesh, it's equally disrespectful to dismiss the entire puzzle as dreadful, terrible etc. In anybody's puzzle there could be a couple of faulty clues and they may have crept in knowingly or unknowingly. But would that mean that the entire puzzle is terrible or whatever? And it's also possible that the clues are perfectly fine and may look faulty to the solver due to his/ her wrong understanding. So it would be most appreciated if the views are shared with an open-mind. Being highly opinionated may not actually "assist" anybody.
DeleteOften times you would bring up "criticizing the movie" analogy. There's no denying that some movies could be absolutely terrible and most people would even agree on that. But if you rated movies like Shawshank Redemption, It's a wonderful life or 12 Angry men badly and called them "disastrous" or what not, you would definitely be pulled up for it. You may even have a lot of explaining to do and which I think is quite the case here.
Having said all that I wanted to say, I will in future pass over and and not react to any Comment by/on Mahesh.
ReplyDelete16 across is a good clue
ReplyDelete13 across how can conversion indicate an anagram in this context Convert is required. Anyone agrees?
In 13A maybe an 'of' after conversion would set it right, but the surface would suffer
DeleteThere has always been debates about nounal anagrinds. Having said that, they are pretty much in use. We have some strong opponents of such anagrinds in the community. BTW, have you been through www.crosswordunclued.com? There are a lot of references on such clues and their acceptability there.
DeleteRe 13a: in some cases, yes. But there is a school of thought, that where xy can be read as y of x, it works, and it is so in this case
DeleteIn 16A, though I thought of Spinach etc, I suspended that because I felt that it would then be mentioned as Greens and not green. But the wordplay was so clear to lead to the answer.
Delete16A is no doubt good clue. Pedicure is the one to fall first followed by Bob Dylan. Then, it became obvious lead is Pb and alternative has no OTHER choice.
DeleteBhala, here conversion appears before fodder. So xy rule works?
DeleteNot sure it works here
DeleteYou're right Ajeesh, seems straight nounal anagrind here. Some use it, others dont
DeleteSome synonyms for conversion are change, remodelling, turning,reshaping, (from Chambers), so that should work.
DeleteThe problem here is not use of a nounal anagrind but rather less-than-careful use of one.
Deleteanagram fodder-conversion (nounal anagrind)- def -- this might work.
conversion of (nounal anagrind) - anagram fodder - link (say, causes, brings, gets) - def -- this should work.
def - connector (say, 'brought about by'- conversion (nounal anagrind) -- this too should work.
13a does not seem to come under any of these devices.
Perhaps converting would work better without ruining the surface reading
Delete10A- Brand name but no indication? Also, 'fancy arrangement' without mention of flowers does not help either.
ReplyDelete+1
Delete+2
DeleteBut, if Arden intended "fancy" to mean "(of flowers) particoloured", this should be fine.
DeleteGE is used for company in abbreviations. If that is acceptable (only because it is time-tested), IKEA is a much easier reference. Having said that, I went desi and thought Woodpecker,Urban Ladder etc :) Hope we don't get a 'hyperlocal delivery company' in any of the clues in future. They are dime a dozen these days.
DeleteAbout to play the devil's advocate here. In crosswords, definitions will not always be given to the last detail. You can see them in almost any crossword. Just to give an example off the top of my head, 'circus' can be defined as 'entertainment in ring'. This could apply equally well to boxing, skating or something else. You get the word using the wordplay element of the clue.
DeleteI actually found 'Entropy' more difficult in this context, was the last one in and relied on crossings.
Some lovely clues today, typical Arden panache
Bar raised today! Tough going in N-E corner. Happy solving in rest of the corners!
ReplyDeleteI filled in 7D as MACHOISM and that had me grappling with NE corner!
DeleteThat's not manly on your part Mukundala :P
DeleteAnother good message received in whatsapp..thought it would be loved here:
ReplyDelete"Lexophile" is a term used to describe those who are clever with words, such as "you can tune a piano but you can't tuna fish" , or "to write with a broken pencil is pointless."
A competition to see who can come up with the best lexphillies is held every year in Dubuque, Iowa. The year's winning submissions:
... A thief who stole a calendar got twelve months.
... The batteries were given out free of charge.
... A dentist and a manicurist married. They fought tooth and nail.
... A will is a dead giveaway.
... With her marriage, she got a new name and a dress.
... A boiled egg is hard to beat.
... Police were called to the daycare centre, where a three-year-old was resisting a rest.
.. Did you hear about the fellow whose whole left side was cut off? He's all right now.
... A bicycle can't stand alone; it is two tired.
... The guy who fell onto an upholstery machine is now fully recovered.
... He had a photographic memory which was never developed.
... When she saw her first strands of grey hair thought she'd dye.
... Acupuncture is a job well done. That's the point of it.
Good ones
DeleteQuite interesting and funny too!
Deleteha ha ha.. funny ones Vasant :)
DeleteHaha, nice ones, but why a new name?
DeleteI remember to have read this or some of these given by our Col himself in this column sometime...or is it longtime... ago
Delete6D took longer time in cracking.
ReplyDeleteAn excellent and enjoyable collection. thank you Vasant. Had a good laugh.
ReplyDeleteEnjoyed this one .. tho was tired and some easy ones took rather long to fall in place. Caraway, nephew, doted..bone china my favs.. some reservations but they have been discussed above :)
ReplyDelete28D. Does cigar mean regalia?
ReplyDeleteSorry for the typo. I meant 28A.
ReplyDeletePlease click on the link underlined REGALIA.
DeleteRegalia doesn't exactly mean 'cigar'. I think it's in itself or part of brand names of cigars. One can smoke Regalia Chica or Regalia Superfina. If you wish to choose something else, here's a list:
Deletehttp://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi-bin/History/History-idx?type=turn&id=History.VictorianShopping&entity=History.VictorianShopping.p0157&isize=text&pview=hide
Happy smoking!
Statutory warning: Pugai piddiappathu udalukku keduthal.
Thank you, CV .... and mikka nandri for the statutory warning, I heeded it 25 years ago.
DeleteThank you, MB.
DeleteThis is what is there at the wiktionary link about Regalia
DeleteNoun
regalia (plural regalias)
(archaic) A kind of large cigar of superior quality. [quotations ▲]
1840, Isaac Butt, Irish Life (page 294)
I have taken care that there's both brandy and whiskey nicely stowed away in the barrack-room, with plenty of prime regalia cigars […]
1850, United States. Congress, Congressional Edition: Volume 552 (page 868)
The quantity of regalias imported into northern ports is comparatively small.
19A. I am baffled how 'keeps increasing' is entropy. Even the dictionary did not help. Is there something I am unable to see?
ReplyDeleteEntropy is a descent from order to chaos. Or a gradual increase in disorder. Keeps increasing is a vague and not-so-good definition in my view
DeleteThank you.
DeleteThere is a saying that 'entropy keeps increasing over time', or something similar. Principle from thermodynamics
DeleteOK. So that is what it means
DeleteYou're right. According to the second law of thermodynamics, Entropy or the disorder in the molecular states of an isolated system can only increase till it reaches the maximum entropy. That is the basic nature of our universe. The clue could have been a bit more specific. 'Work during admission - it always keeps increasing' would have been better.
ReplyDelete'Work during admission leads to disorder?
DeleteMahesh, your insights into the holistic goodness/badness of the daily THC puzzles are brilliantly enlightening and lucidly analytic. Why don't you take the dip and start being a setter? Sincerely.
ReplyDeleteSurprising to note that CV has a list of cigars ready at his fingertips! Shall surely refer when there is a doubt on the subject.
ReplyDeleteI was reading a recent blog by the crossword editor of The Guardian where it is mentioned:
ReplyDeleteBut, for those who find that any particular Quick is completed too quickly and need some way of filling a gap for family or other group, here is a suggestion that was sent to me by Felicity in the Isle of Man. You ask all those who want to play to write a story of 100 words or less, within whatever time limit you choose, that includes all the solution words of that day’s Quick puzzle.
...I am proud to recall that several months ago we were practising exactly this game with solution words from THC. I am not suggesting that we were forerunners but certainly we are are as innovative as international solvers.
Bhargav was very god at it.
ReplyDeletetypo- I did not mean God! Good.
ReplyDelete