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| Artwork by Prasanna |
Solution to 19A has been deliberately left unsolved and is to be answered only by a non-regular / novice commenter, with proper annotation. Those who have answered earlier in the week, please give others a chance.
Open for anyone to answer, if not solved by 1 PM.
The Truth, Eric?
ACROSS
1 Everybody who's ruled regularly (5) WORLD {WhOs+RuLeD}
4 Piano finale in Sholay, amidst Gabbar getting shot and beheaded (4,5) BABY GRAND {s...aY} in {GABBAR}*{aND}
9 Salamander all too excited about kiss (7) AXOLOTL {ALL+TOO}* over {X}
11 I'll tell Betty it's cooked slowly (6,2,6) LITTLE BY LITTLE*
12 Standard from Ronaldo—scored on both sides upon returning (4) NORM [T<=]
13 Fruit vending station software on phone essentially stalled and rejected touch (5-4) APPLE-CART {APP}{staLled}{TRACE<=}
17 They hurt refusers badly, inspiring a dash of fear (9) SUFFERERS {REFUSERS}* over {Fear}
19 Main man in the woman's heart (4) ?E?O ()
22 What someone said, as reported in bleak court records backing filed copy (8,6) INDIRECT SPEECH {IN}{DIRE}{CT}{EPS<=}{ECHo}
25 Was easy to relocate shipping routes (7) SEAWAYS*
26 Perhaps one by poet Eliot? No withdrawing in front of audience! (7) ONSTAGE {AGE} by {TS}{NO}<= (Correction {EG}{A}{TS}{NO}<= - See comments)
27 Feral spy moving around quietly with thin, attractive agents of death (9) FLYPAPERS {FERAL+SPY}* over {P}
28 Procedure decimated pests (5) STEPS*
DOWN
1 Wife in lake, swimming next to grandsons on vacation (they're not very strong) (9) WEAKLINGS {W}{IN+LAKE}*{Gr...nS}
2 Bird in kangaroo's territory (7) ROOSTER [T]
3 Meadow-grazer eating weathered old drawing (6) DOODLE {DO{OLD*}E}
5 Joint recycling and waste processing centre? (5) BOWEL (+el)ELBOW(-el)
6 Watch test while skimming newspapers (8) GAZETTES {GAZE}{TEST}*
_Luc_Viatour.jpg/500px-Aurelia_aurita_(Cnidaria)_Luc_Viatour.jpg)
14 Places medicines outside upwardly mobile infants' limits (9) POSITIONS {PO{In...tS<=}TIONS}
15 Let's shoot randomly? That's ineffective (9) TOOTHLESS*
16 Adventures in a tavern featuring Greek wine (8) RESINATA [T]
20 Cheer a tense, boring cricket team, mostly (7) ELEVATE {A}{T} in {ELEVEn}
21 Resorts to extremes of malicious attacks (6) SPASMS {SPAS}{Ma...uS}
23 Follow Peruvian river around American country to the north (5) ENSUE {E{US}NE}<=
24 Former Kent captain, Iqbal from Pakistan? No chance! (2,2) AS IF {ASIF}
Reference List
Kiss = X, With = W, Quietly = P, Wife = W, Tense = T
Interesting that "Perhaps one" yields AGE--I hadn't thought of that! My intended parse was (EG A TS NO)<=
ReplyDeleteEnjoyable as ever, with a few tough ones.
ReplyDeleteSomething to do with Eric Clapton (on Googling)
I find Terry Pratchett in the grid
DeleteThe truth and Eric are his novels
DeleteI am not able to get Pratchett (P missing?)
DeleteBetween 3rd and 4th column, terry p and between 6th and 7th column you get ratchett
DeleteSathia
Got it. I did not notice the continuation.
DeleteI think 8D is not a dd
ReplyDeleteA Caesar cipher mapping is one where each letter is replaced by another one which is a fixed number of positions away (ref the link given by Col)
In a single hop Caesar cipher, the number of positions (hops) is 1, so D becomes C, i.e. D IS C
Record is the direct def
DISC = D is C
Other than Software types I don't think anyone else would have got that parsing
DeleteVery true. Some speciality!!
DeleteIt was used by julius ceasar! Nothing to do with software guys!!!
DeleteDISC, WORLD, FANTASY and WIZARDS are theme words I could spot.
ReplyDeleteThanks for blogging, Col. Gopinath, and many thanks to all solvers, as usual! Here are my notes for this crossword:
ReplyDeleteNotes
This crossword's theme is the marvellous Discworld series of novels (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discworld). The author's name, TERRY PRATCHETT, can be seen running down the sixth and twelfth columns.
The title is a concatenation of the titles of two Discworld novels, The Truth, and Eric, with the question mark serving as a definition-by-example indicator for its cryptic reading as "Discworld novels."
DISC and WORLD are the entries in 8d and 1a, respectively. WIZARDS (10a) and FANTASY (18d) are thematic entries too.
Personal notes
I've had minor problems while running, recently. The left calf seems to "knot up" after a while. This happened to me over ten years ago too while running a half marathon in Pittsburgh. On that occasion, I had just kept going at full pace, and then something had suddenly snapped badly, and I had to stop running for a couple of months.
So, this time around, I've been cautious, have seen a doc, and have changed a few things, hoping to get the calf back in proper shape by the end of July (for the San Francisco half marathon). I also learned that a general orthopaedic doc is not the right person to see about calves, you have to go to a podiatrist!
Podiatrist- Specialist among specialists.
ReplyDeleteSports medicine has become a separate branch- highly specialised.
Which is the Peruvian river in 23d?
ReplyDeleteEne is a river in Peru, one of the headwaters of Amazon.
DeleteThe underlined word in the original blog by Col. always leads you to a link and you can get your doubt clarified.
DeleteThank you Prasanna for remembering the Guru. 3rd in the list after parents. God awaits his turn in the last place!!. Mata, Pita, Guru and then Deivam.
ReplyDeleteWe have our CW gurus here!
DeleteLet me salute to all guru here starting from Colonel , Paddy sir, Sree Sree and KK Garu, Mrs Gowri Mr Vasanth and others who all guided me for the CW techniques over the years. My sincere Pranaams to All on the eve of Guru Purnima. ALL my Gurus.,This artwork dedicated to our THCC Members.
DeleteMissed few of them who known me well viz., Ramki sir, Suresh sir , Mr Viresh...and others . Please accept my Pranaams.
DeleteWell said Paddy sir. After our Mother and Father Guru roll starts. Hence they are our first Guru.
Delete19A-hero=main man; Woman -her; the wOman's heart (centre of two words taken together)
ReplyDelete"The woman" doing double duty?
DeleteHeart can be taken as O?
DeleteLesser of the 2 evils!!
DeleteM in the heart of wo"m"an ??
DeleteHer love her-0
Outstanding WP about 19A. Special Thanks to setter.
DeleteHad both options in mind but couldn’t find any reason to use ‘o’ for heart
ReplyDeleteRe: 19A: pasting my comments to the same question, from elsewhere:
ReplyDeleteYeah, it uses "heart" for O, which is not very standard (but the licence is taken from "anything shaped like O" listed in Chambers).
I've used orange/bagel/ring in the past, and this seems close enough to an O shape to me: https://share.google/d8811K9NqIDFNEKsn
Apologies for any heartbreaks 🙂
It's not 'very' standard? I m sorry but it's not standard at all. Morever, it's not correct either. Let me assure you the heart does not look like an O. It looks like an inverted cone with rounded edges. Apology accepted.
DeleteI've conceded to the O characterization given by, er, doc, essentially.
DeleteFor the record: for posterity (i.e., later appearance on my site), 19A will be:
Main man in the woman's story, essentially (4)
And yes (for those with keener/nitpickier senses 🙂), that creates a duplication with the "essentially stalled" in 13A, which will be changed to "stalled in the middle" ("essentially" has a better home in 19A, and "in the middle" works fine in 13A.
None whatsoever! Thanks!
ReplyDeleteSurprised that I solved a Gussalufz fully including assuming Heart is O (without knowing why)
ReplyDelete.My fav
ON STAGE, BOWEL, INDIRECT SPEECH.
Thanx