ACROSS
9 Vessel is kept wrong way up in cover following instructions basically (7) ICEBOAT {C{BE<=}OAT}<=>{In...s}
10 Bar stocking some rum portion (7) EXCERPT {EXCE{Rum}EPT}
11 Disturbances in old city after female destroys rose (7) FURORES {UR}<=>{F} and {ROSE}*
12 General devastated by blow up (7) ENLARGE*
13 Tries internally, from the heart in practice (9) REHEARSAL {RE{HEARS}AL}
15 Crude people try taking the short recourses at the end (5) GOTHS {GO}{THe}{r...eS}
16 Fibre strands kept in loops outside old cover essentially (7) ROVINGS {R{O}{coVer}INGS}
19 Obsolete record for the most part at America's erased, emptied (7) DISUSED {DISc}{US}{Er...eD}
20 Plant sap secured from hollow tree in general (5) LATEX {LA{TreE}X}
21 Vocalists in a whirl snort some ganja, ecstasy on board (9) SONGSTERS {SNORT+Ganja+E}* in {SS}
25 Author told 'Finish off story without reading' (7) TOLSTOY {TOLd}{STOtY}
26 Approaches girl to replace union leader and gets even with (7) AVENGES AVEN(-u+g)GES
28 Issue coming back at head office with directions to absentees (2-5) NO-SHOWS {SON<=}{HO}{W}{S}
29 Permit insurers to collect no charge after preliminary examination online (7) LICENCE {LIC}{E}{NC}{E}
DOWN
1 File destroyed in Puerto Rico by snitch (6) PILFER {P{FILE*}R}
2 Explore Bay of Bengal perhaps, right with two leaders from Chennai (6) SEARCH {SEA}{R}{CHe...i}
3 Unit to primarily record resistance (4) TORR {TO}{Re...d}{R}
4 So, tips getting damaged leads to drooping of eyelids (6) PTOSIS*
5 Cot is placed across improper level and slanted (8) BEVELLED {BE{LEVEL*}D}
6 Say, greens have E.Coli mostly, sis got affected (10) ECOLOGISTS {ECOLi}{SIS+GOT}*
7 Issues with expert's rank (second) (8) PRORATES {PRO}{RATE}{S}
8 Emphasised lock to be kept in empty safe by guard at the end (8) STRESSED {Sa{TRESS}fE}{g..rD}
14 Princess's tax return is primarily zero. Normal to take over? (10) ANNEXATION {ANNE}{TAX<=}{Is}{O}{N}
16 Reporting about story in organization (8) RELATING {R{TALE<=}ING}
17 Doctrine of relativism rewritten, about to be released (8) VITALISM reLATIVISM*
18 Sister is shy, silly and cowardly (8) SISSYISH {SIS+IS+SHY}*
22 Almost new and advanced (6) NEARLY {N}{EARLY}
23 Brussels has company at northeast - a US city (6) EUGENE {EU}{GE}{NE}
24 British special regiment saves woman from belts (6) SASHES {SA{SHE}S}
27 Every electronic account's hacked primarily (4) EACH {E}{AC}{Ha...d}
Reference List
Old city = UR, Female = F, Old = O, Ecstasy = E, Reading = R, Girl = G, Union = U, Head office = HO, Right = R, Resistance = R, Second = S, Normal = N, About = RE, New = N, Brussels = EU, Company = GE, Northeast = NE, British Special Regiment = SAS, Electronic = E, Account = AC
Glad to be able to solve after ploughing around yesterday.
ReplyDelete20A- Lax from general?
ReplyDelete23D- Brussels= EU (European Union)? Agreed it is headquarters.
20a https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Baptiste_Raymond_de_Lacrosse
DeleteLacrosse shortened to Lax? Weird. It needs Col. first and Prasad later to give some indication. General= Lee is generally used in CW's.
DeleteThe below is from the Chambers thesaurus with me for LAX:
Deletelax
adjective
1 casual, careless, heedless, slack, lenient, indulgent, permissive, tolerant, easy-going, negligent, neglectful, remiss, slipshod, sloppy, inattentive
colloq. laid-back
2 imprecise, inexact, indefinite, loose, inaccurate, vague, general, broad
We find General as one of the meanings in No.2, I think in the sense of loose,broad...
DeleteI think e comes from online
ReplyDeletee commerce is on line sale.
ReplyDeletee is used as a prefix to mean online e.g. email, ecommerce, egovernance, eshop, so and so forth.
ReplyDelete9A Vessel is kept wrong way up in cover following instructions basically(7)
ReplyDelete'kept wrong way' is redundant or a poorly used misdirection. Imho.
1. kept wrong way
Delete2. up
One of the above should not be part of the clue!
wrong way is for the reversion (be=<) as shown by Col.
ReplyDeleteBe comes in for 'is'.
Actually up is redundant and it should mot come in an Ac clue.
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ReplyDeleteRao Pilla 13 October 2023 at 17:11
@economizer has not turned up for about four days now. Still upset with the recent IXL grid, perhaps.
Padmanabhan 13 October 2023 at 17:36
Hopefully he is otherwise fit.
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Thank you. I am well. I am satisfied with my IXL Round 4 result, considering that I caught my mistake and submitted with 100% accuracy, losing only approximately 10 points more than usual for taking extra time. I maintained my overall ranking of 16th with a chance to leapfrog a few competitors in subsequent rounds. Any mistake would have surely cost me 40-50 points and caused my ranking to drop. Compared to that, taking a few extra hours and only losing 10 points feels like a good tradeoff, given that the puzzle was full of obscure usages, and even one or two words not listed in Chambers but in other dictionaries.
I have not commented on the blog this week as I have changed my routine. I am solving far more puzzles than normal as practice for IXL (Guardian, Daily Mail, etc.), which has caused me to fall behind THC by 1 day. You can probably imagine my comments...
Tuesday's grid by Incognito felt routine...
Wednesday's by KrissKross was an excellent piece of craftsmanship - a setter's and solver's delight.
I didn't find Thursday's puzzle by Crescent very enjoyable. The setter tries to be too clever by withholding information that fair clues ought to include. Withholding information can make clues more cryptic, but that has to be balanced with fairness to the solver, who cannot read the setter's mind. In my opinion, it is better for the setter to use dual meanings of common words to make clues cryptic while technically including all the information necessary to parse the clues (such as substitution, deletion, and selection indicators). Crescent makes clues challenging by deleting the latter. Such crosswords have their own appeal...thankfully we must only solve Crescent once every month.
WrdPlougher on Friday...I've rarely had anything nice to say about this setter but the fact is that there were many fine clues in their most recent edition (eg. the Spoonerism in 26A). Frustratingly, there were also many howlers, as pointed out by Col. and the commenters. "Southern" was used as a reversal indicator in one of the telescopic clues, which I found annoying. Solving WrdPlougher makes me feel that THC could benefit from having a crossword editor and professional standards for setters.
As for today's grid by AD, I have yet to attempt it. I skipped reading Col's post and today's comments. I will solve it with my metaphorical red pen in hand, perhaps after tomorrow's IXL round. I am somewhat afraid that consuming Afterdark's alphabet-soup just before IXL may result in my performance dropping in that competition.
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DeleteI have also got into competitive chess, which seems to be an endless black-hole of puzzling satisfaction. I may fall behind on THC yet further as I progress in that direction.
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DeleteBest of luck Econ.
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