Club Monthly 20129 – June 2011

Author   linxitPosted on Categories Monthly Club Special
I’m posting this on Jerry’s behalf as he’s out of the country.

Solving Time: About an hour and a half.. Shouldn’t have been much over an hour really, but I got stuck on several that should have been easy, eg 25dn, and one that wasn’t at all easy, 8dn. More about those below. Overall, this remains the most entertaining crossword of the month, for me, and one of the most informative – especially if you read the blog!

When you read this, I will be somewhere in the high Pyrenees, probably clinging onto a crag. I will be back about mid-July, but if you have a question don’t hesitate to ask it here, and I am sure someone will be along shortly with the answer..

Across
1 Wire-sewn – victory = WIN, containing (WE’RE)* containing son = S: WI(RE(S)EW)N
5 Tune-up – place = PUT rev., containing “one at Le Mans,” = UNE: T(UNE)UP
10 Glueyness – (YES LUNGES)* ..needless to say, the word “stick” does indeed include amongst its meanings “adhesiveness,” according to Chambers.
11 Unget – lUNGE Then. Chambers has “Unget: to disown, to deny the begetting of.” I guess we’ve all done that, from time to time
12 Adam – A + DAM, who had no visible parents, so they say
13 Utraquism – U + a bromide or TRUISM, containing AQUA. The doctrinal difference between an utraquist and others of the same faith is so ridiculously trivial and abstruse, as to constitute a powerful argument in support of the idea that all organised religion is nothing more than a human construct. One certainly cannot imagine a god caring either way. It reminds me of this joke, which makes the same point
15 Upbuoyance – lead = PB + “the reader,” ie YOU rev., contained within NUANCE, a subtlety. Chambers describes the word as “rare,” and it is surely a contender for MUWW (most ungainly word of the week). Lose points for writing the superficially more plausible upbuoyancy.
17 Dhol – Claim = HOLD, with the D moved to the beginning = DHOL. Hold being used in the sense of “We hold these truths to be self-evident” etc.
19 Bauk – British = B + AUK = diving bird., sometimes Great.. BAUK is another spelling of balk, which can mean “shirk, avoid, decline, ignore, pass over, let slip,” it seems
20 Mundifying – maiden (over) = M + immortal = UNDYING containing despite = IF. Not certain if I can quite make that last connection, but no coubt it’s possible, if somewhat unlikely :-). Mundifying is a magnificent word, meaning to cleanse or purify; I will start looking immediately for an opportunity to slip it into the conversation.. “Just off to mundify myself, dahling, before we go out to dinner..”
22 Yoicksing – greeting = YO (as in the Bushism “Yo, Blair!”) + almost unpleasant = ICKY + squeal = spill the beans = SING. Yoicksing is an unusual word in that neither Chambers nor even the full OED contain it. I suppose it must be in Collins.. not a very difficult extension of the familiar “yoicks, tally ho” I suppose. Another MUWW contender.
24 Iwis – I + WISH. The Maori language has certainly been God’s gift to the crossword setter, over the years
26 Oxime – “organic experiments primarily” = O + E containing compound = MIX rev: O(XIM)E. An oxime is itself an organic compound, an imine, so this clue is an &lit. I do have some chemistry, but not this much
27 Otchipwes – old testament = OT + fragment = CHIP + “possibly to tack” = SEW, rev: OT+CHIP+WES. A perverse and complex alternative to Ojibwa. Or Chippewa.
28 Kayoed – (Sir) KAY + (ODE)* Sir Kay was Arthur’s foster brother. He suffered from a bad press for much of his life though he comes out somewhat better in that truly wonderful book, “The Once and Future King,” by TH White, which enriched my childhood, and has gradually become the authoritative version of the legend of King Arthur, at least as Disney interprets it..
29 Collyria – firm = CO(mpany) + lines = LL + delicate = AIRY rev: CO+LL+YRIA. The result is an eye ointment, and not as you might have thought a genito-urinary disease.
Down
1 Wage – WAG + E, a nice easy clue to start things off with, if you like to start at the NW corner of course, which I usually don’t.
2 Roundaboutility – (ODOUR BAN)* + UTILITY, a (usu. overpriced and inefficient) public “service.” Yet another MUWW entrant here, though looking at the words still to come I do feel things start to pick up, from here on..
3 Skyrmion – space = SKY, + (MINOR)* – a skyrmion is a particular type of (the somewhat more interesting) soliton. I count myself a scientist by upbringing, but the ease with which setters keep finding concepts that I am totally unfamiliar with reminds me I am only an engineer really, and a lapsed, retired one at that..
4 Waefu – If I were leaving clues out this would be one of them, for starters.. Waefu is our Scottish cousins’ woeful attempt to spell (and pronounce) woeful. In their defence, they also coined the marvellous word “waesucks,” meaning “Alas!” Over to you, setter…
6 Urumqi – university = U + curious = RUM, + QI = chi, the supposed “life-force” of Chinese “medicine.” Another fine word, spoiled for use in scrabble by being a proper noun (but hang onto qi). Urumqi is in the Guinness Book of Records as being the major city furthest from any sea, in other words nearest to the Eurasian pole of inaccessibility. If you click on only one link from this blog, make it that one.. fascinating stuff, n’est-ce pas?
7 English civil war – (W + CHARLES I LIVING)* – a very clever anagram, as is the indicator, doing double duty as an anagrind and reference to the one of the more entertaining episodes in our history, the execution of Charles I.
8 Potamology – OK, hands up if you have heard of this word before. What, none of you? Well then, hands up if you can tell me how to go about solving this clue? It is nothing more than a (not very) cryptic def. to an obscure word. I can’t detect any wordplay at all, not a jot. So, what to do? I prefer not to use aids other than a dictionary so I was reduced to leafing through Chambers: pat.. pet.. pit.. pot.. oh yes, there it is… humph!
9 Ostracod – to serve = DO (as in “Shall I do you now, sir?” or maybe, to do pork for lunch?) + float = CART as in milk cart/float, + “this way” = SO (as in “just so”), all rev. A delicate, Swiss watch of a clue this one, for a delicate word which describes a delicate life form.. altogether charming.
14 Bubbly Jock – a difficult concept to picture (Billy Connolly?) and a very rare example this, perhaps unique? of Scottish rhyming slang.. Bubbly jock = turkey cock.
16 Abutilon – trouble = AIL containing objection = BUT, + ON = over, perhaps in the sense of on top of. The def. is “showy shrub,” but do I detect a hint of jealousy? Some are very pretty.
18 Official – liver etc., = OFFAL containing “French here” = ICI. Neat clue, another simple one to help you get going
21 Ekuele – the shells or outside letters of “Efik, usable like.” The def. is “shortlived African currency,” which it indeed was.
23 Gecko – fine = OK, cape = C and for example = EG, all rev. Another straightforward one. Geckos are (mostly) about as close as reptiles get to being charming.. they chirrup. Physicists like them as a physical exponent of van der Waal’s forces
25 Asma – This straightforward clue, ASMA being an Arabic woman’s name with the meaning “prestige,” delayed me longer than it should have, because the word does not appear in any dictionary except in the appendix at the end dealing with first names.. this happens from time to time, and usually succeeds in catching me out

One comment on “Club Monthly 20129 – June 2011”

  1. I normally do nothing but complement the setters of these puzzles for creating such tight clues that completely unknown words can be derived from wordplay and then the definition verified in the dictionary. I think that transition away from guessing answers based upon a definition and then reverse engineering the wordplay is one of the most important in developing solving skills. It is therefore sad to report that 8D POTAMOLOGY falls well short of this standard. Like Jerry I was reduced to dictionary hunting and it shouldn’t be like that. The rest of it was good.

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