RULES FOR POSTING COMMENTS ON FRIDAYS ONLY
All those who are not regular commenters but who are rookie commenters or silent followers of the blog are requested to post answers with annotations in the comments section. In your own interest please avoid looking up the answers from the interactive version. Don't hesitate to post your annotations, in case you make a mistake in the annotation someone will correct it with the right annotation.
PLEASE NOTE, SOLUTIONS WITHOUT ATTEMPTING THE ANNOTATIONS WILL BE DELETED
Each commenter is requested to post only 5 answers thereby giving others also a chance to participate. Please provide all your answers in one comment.
Regular solvers/Veterans can post 1 answer each, but after 11 AM only.
Thanks for the response, here's the regular blog.
ACROSS
1 Address picked up by browser monitored (6) SERMON [T]
4 Freshly set date including time is confirmed (8) ATTESTED {SET+DATE}* over {T}
9 Key pocketed by crew snaps from the back (6) ANSWER [T<=]
10 People on vacation near Kerala hill station going back each year (3,5) PER ANNUM {Pe..lE}{MUNNAR<=]
11 Variety of best feni (not seconds) with English gin - free perks? (6,8) FRINGE BENEFITS {BeST+FeNI+E+GIN+FREE}*
13 Cup of tea before meeting convict getting released (10) PREFERENCE {PRE}{conFERENCE}
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18 Cash counter at this point has very large parking space that is airy (10) ATMOSPHERE {ATM}{HERE} over {OS}{P}
21 After the inauguration, recite classical composition of a minister (14) ECCLESIASTICAL {rECITE+CLASSICAL}*
23 Several asteroids regrouped after one got destroyed (8) ASSORTED ASTEROiDS*
24 Film North Indian party revolutionary accepting money (6) PATINA {AAP<=} over {TIN}
25 Intruder starts to show temper, ranting with fury (8) STRANGER {Show}{Te...r}{Ra...g}{ANGER}
26 Second way of out of tall mountain is arduous (6) SEVERE {S}{EVEREst}
DOWN
2 Book about opening shot (7) RESERVE pRESERVE (Addendum - {RE}{SERVE} - See comments)
3 It blooms in Ongole and Erode (8) OLEANDER [T]
6 Engineers at leading American University rejected location deflecting wireless waves (1,5) E LAYER {RE}{YALE}<=
12 Pick edible grain with the old photocell (8,3) ELECTRIC EYE {ELECT}{RICE}{YE}
13 Soft netting with knots that you may find on a tea table (5,4) PLACE MATS {P}{LACE}{MATS}
15 Special leaf to wrap fuel waste (8) SPOILAGE {S}{P{OIL}AGE}
17 One filing charges against a constant cocaine consumer (7) ACCUSER {A}{C}{C}{USER}
19 Devious woman near Navi Mumbai suburb ditched husband (7) EVASIVE {E{VAShI}VE} Containment indicator is incorrect
20 "New currency note" cell (6) NEURON {N}{EURO}{N}
22 Vessel with base in glass (4) PANE {PAN}{E}
Reference List
Time = T, English = E, South = S, Australian = A, Very large = OS, Parking = P, Second = S, Way = ST, Son = S, Wife and Girlfriend = WAG, Engineers = RE(Royal Engineers), Vessel = SS< Oriental = E, King = R, Soft = P, Special = S, Constant = C, Cocaine = C, Husband = H, New = N, Note = N, Base = E
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ReplyDelete1A. SERMON - telescopic - brow(SER MON)itored
ReplyDelete4A. ATTESTED - SET + DATE + T(ime)
23A. ASSORTED - ASTEROIDS - I
3D. OLEANDER - telescopic - ong(OLE AND ER)ode
17D. ACCUSER - A C(onstant) C(ocaine) USER ( consumer)
ReplyDelete
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ReplyDeleteveteran or rookie
DeleteSorry. I don’t know what came on me. I totally forgot my ineligibity to answer now.
DeleteThought so! Eagerness,perhaps.
DeleteNot really, Paddy. Forgetfulness resulting from e(AGE)rness.
DeleteAJ mam. finally you forgotten to post your take after 11 am.
Delete25A Intruder - STRANGER
ReplyDeletestarts to (S)how (T)emper, (R)anting
with fury - ANGER
Colonel - kindly post my rangoli for Varalakshmi Vratham sent vide mail. Thanx
ReplyDelete10a PER ANNUM = each year; PE from 'p(eopl)e on vacation'; Kerala hill station => munnar , reverse it from 'going back'
ReplyDelete24a (PA(TIN)A) = film; North Indian party => AAP, revolution indicates flipping it; money = TIN inside
19d (E(VASI)VE) = devious; Eve from woman; Vasi from vashi ( Navi Mumbai suburb) minus H=> husband
19d container ind!
DeleteSorry about that
DeleteGood solves
ReplyDelete22d
ReplyDeleteglass=pane
Vessel=pan
base=e
Pan+e=pane
I think 'of' following 'way' in 26A is not supposed to be there.
ReplyDeleteSame in print.
DeleteYes. "Way out of" is correct. The first "of" is a typo
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThough I pressed the publish button @ 11:00:11 the system shows 10:59
DeleteTime travel 😃
Delete14a - (AS<=)(HE)
ReplyDeleteSouth Australian- SA; Retired - AS <==
male - HE
Def.- tennis champion - ASHE - US tennis player
18a : ATMOSPHERE : Space that is airy
ReplyDelete{ATM}{OS}{P}{HERE}
Cash counter = ATM
Very large = OS (Over Size)
Parking = P
At this point = HERE
5d THE RED-CROSS - a humanitarian group
ReplyDelete[RA?]
{Three-D*}
12Dn ELECTRIC EYE – {ELECT}{RICE}{YE} – Photocell
ReplyDeleteElect=Pick, Rice=Edible grain, Ye= old The.
18A Cash counter - ATM
ReplyDeleteat this point - HERE
has(contains)
very large - OS(oversize)
parking - P
space that is airy - ATM(OS)(P)HERE
ATM for cash counter is good & different.
Delete13a PREFERENCE; cup of tea; PRE conFERENCE
ReplyDelete13 ac Cup of tea-preference.
ReplyDeletebefore -pre
meeting-conference.
convict-con.con-ference.
compensating -26 ac severe
ReplyDeletes-second way-street. st.
tall mountain -everest-st.s+evere-arduous.
9A: Key = ANSWER. Reverse telescopic from "crew snaps"
ReplyDelete16A Somewhat open - AJAR
ReplyDeletearea - A
with nettle(irritate) - JAR
13D-Place mats; P(lace)(mats)
ReplyDelete7D- Tansies- Tan s(I E)s- Flowers
ReplyDeleteBronze= Tan
Vessel= SS
Trimmed Big- I
Eastern=E
Good one!
Excellent solve sir.........I was struggling to get. anno .for this. Bronze chem. notation is Cu Sn. it's a combination of copper and tin alloy. TAN . I could not get it
DeleteTan- sun tan- brown/ bronze. Body colour and not chemical.
DeleteIt reminds me of TANSI, government company in TN
Delete8D DAMASCENE = west Asian sword
ReplyDeleteDRAMA + SCENE = part of act on stage
R = King
is thrown = remove R
2d RESERVE = Book
ReplyDeleteRE = About
SERVE = Opening shot (as in tennis etc)
21A ECCLESIASTICAL meaning religious composition ( from a religious minister) . Anagram or Ecite+classical. Starting late indicating that R goes our from Recite
ReplyDelete20D NEURON
ReplyDeleteN-> New
Currency -> Euro
Note -> N.
Def. Cell
Joel S.
11Ac(answered and deleted) and 1, 6, 15 Dn not solved yet.
ReplyDelete5D & 19D annotations need clarification.
1d - swag; acrostic . Def: spoils - booty / outcome of plunder / swag
ReplyDeleteI didn't get the acrostic indicator
DeleteSorry . It came off Son , Wife , And & Girlfriend
Delete"Spoils" seems to do double duty here
DeleteI got that. What is the indicator?
DeleteI thought of double duty as well. I'd like to see an explanation.
DeleteNot an acrostic.
Delete6d E-LAYER
ReplyDeleteengineers = re
University = yale
Re yale rejected = e layer
E layer is in ionosphere that detects waves
This is addressed to Setters.
ReplyDeleteJust asking?
Do you guys formulate the clues yourselves or you copy and paste from clues that have appeared before.? When I do a google search typing the entire clue I can see the clue verbatim as well as. of course. the answer. for instance in wordplay.com
+1
DeleteYou brought up a good point. And I am sure there's a valid answer.
Used to visit wordplays.com often before joining this blog. I still do on occasion. But don't use them as my solutions on the blog.
Pick up any clue from this blog, from before the online version of THC started and check.
DeleteAlso try to check the clue of anyday before 4am. (THC usually gets posted around 1215)
This is by no means to undermine the setters.
DeleteMay be we should check as soon as the paper arrives in the morning. I will do it when I wake up early. 😁
We did a phd of sorts when these started appearing in wordplay. I probably even have the nearest date somewhere in the mail.
DeleteLike paady said below, wordplay and host of sites have crawlers which pull data from crossword sites and publish the answers.
a few times the wrong clues and answers appear as it is.
🙏👍
Delete15 d SPOILAGE = Waste
ReplyDeleteS = Special
PAGE = Leaf
OIL = Fuel
Wrap container ind
S+P+OIL+ AGE
These clues are solved and published in that site- clues are taken from here daily and solutions given and not the other way round. None of the setters would copy clues from these sites- there are several of them. The collect clues from all leading dailies.
ReplyDeleteThat is why Col. keeps saying - don't just give the solutions with out anno
The above is in reply to Maradnusro@ 14.10
DeleteTrue that👍
DeleteThank you. You must be right.
DeleteNo setter will copy and paste clues. It is a creative art that requires a lot of work in getting it just right. Sites like wordplay.com crawl the web and post answers from blogs etc. Sadly they are just pirates. I usually have at least one clue with my name Avtaar featuring in the grid You will find those clues also on the That also helps preserve the real source of the grid
DeleteThat's a good point.
DeleteWhen the crossword gets published at 12am in the Hindu website, people do web scrapping from the website and collect the clue and solutions and publish it in their websites. They would mostly do it for all major newspapers that carry crossword. If you observe in more detail, in case there was an error in the clue that was corrected later, only the clue with error would be published in these websites.
ReplyDeleteOne more observation is that, none of the Sunday special clues would appear on any of the websites. This is because these web scrappers have not made it a point to scrape through this blog to collect clue and solution from the Sunday special crosswords.
Taking liberty to post Gridmans mail from those discussions
ReplyDelete"
Thanks.
I too have been checking at various times (Ind and US) but I could not reach any conclusion. My input in wordplays contact box asking how they can use Gridman's clues w/o permission did not yield any response.
Note that they are stil not including TH among papers from which clues are culled"
End of mail
Infact they had stopped for a while when this issue was being actively discussed in the blog here.
But they restarted.
Let us leave it at that and hope that it helps some newcomers getr into the act of solving. I have sometimes notices (wherever possible) some indication about how they get it- mostly T type of clues. You get everything on thge net these days if you know only how to look for it. Afterwards, it is upto us to use/ misuse it,
ReplyDeletePrsad,
Thank you for the quote from Gridman. All of us owe something to him at one time or another. He was our CW wiki.
Just checked 26A on wordplay. It has the extra 'of' just as published in THC.
ReplyDeleteThese guys must be very dedicated!
I did observe that Sunday specials' clues which are relatively easier are rarely, if at all, found on this site.
Yes, this issue of piracy is as old as many of us here. It is just a piracy like you see a camera print of a movie recorded with a handheld device and uploaded to a torrent site. I don't really know whether they do it for free or get some money for the service depending upon no. of hits. The piracy is not just limited to movies. Lots of precious books/materials are also available on net easily, which proves their strength of accessing the sources and crosswords are no exception.
DeleteIn India, except The Hindu there is no other paper which publishes original crosswords. Unfortunately, these setters' clues are also pirated and published in those blogs.
Revenue model for such websites work in two ways. One, they publish ads and they get money for each view/click of the ad from any user. Two, they have premium subscription (30$ a year or so) which will have no ads and some other perks.
Delete@rao pilla - it is not about whether the Sunday special clues are easy or not.. it's about whether they scrape the website to collect the clues and answers and add it to their collection.
DeleteThe guys who are doing this are from London, I suspect. They don't post Sunday specials because it carries a prize for all correct entries on lottery basis. Maybe they follow some ethics and that's why you don't find answers to this.
DeleteConsidering they are not giving any attribution to the setters or publishers of the clues, I don't feel this website follows any ethics. The absence of THCC Sunday Special clues is more likely due to the high cost (in time and effort) of developing and maintaining web crawlers to collect data from various sites and in numerous formats. I have previously done some work like this for tracking prices of products on certain sites. It is both a thankless/annoying sort of work and a legal/ethical gray area. Given that cost-per-mille of display ads can be trivial, I wonder whether they even have a steady revenue stream from whatever traffic they are getting.
DeleteAs to '1D Spoils son, wife and girlfriend'...
ReplyDeleteWag = wife or girlfriend
Wife and girlfriend = wags
Are you in PE/Venture fund by any chance, sir.
DeleteDidn't get your drift. But no.
DeleteAnd you can address me as Rao or Pilla.
But S should be in front.
ReplyDeleteCol. has published his regular blog and his link takes us to Free Dic. which lists one of the meanings of Swag as loot, dirty money (and so spoils)
I too noticed it. but could not get Acrostic indicator. later, the clue has with bit of punctuation. A comma makes different. wife and Girlfriend is single entity.
DeleteWife and girlfriend = WAG a term used for partners accompanying male sportspersons especially cricketers
DeleteOk. Wife and girlfriend as single entity makes it fair. 👍
DeleteIt was interesting to find Indian place names MUNNAR and VAS(-h)I used in the wordplay for this grid. Perhaps there was a missed opportunity in 24A to use PATNA - somehow the AAP entered the clue in relation to accepting money. OLEANDER and TANSIES were pleasant inclusions to the grid, while DAMASCENE was an interesting word to research.
ReplyDeleteMy clue of the day:
Delete13A Cup of tea before meeting convict getting released (10) PREFERENCE
As 19D as ever.
ReplyDeletePardon me, but 5D solution needs a better explanation. Account for every word in the clue.
ReplyDeleteWhats missing?
DeleteI am not clear, but something is missing.
DeleteClue to get to "Three-D", a humanitarian group.
I don't get the word play.
It is a Reverse anagram. Anagram CROSS of THE RED*. gives THREE-D. The clue to be interpreted as "What is a hint to get THREE-D" with definition as a humanitarian group?
DeleteIt makes sense now. Thank you.
Delete@Col sir
ReplyDelete2d isn't it charade clue (as answered by HR@12.29)?
{re}{serve}
+1. It is.
Delete