Solving time : Didn’t record a time, I was working on this during breaks in the pub quiz tonight, but I can add in an extra half hour or so as I started typing this blog, and then in trying to add some HTML markups, I seem to have deleted it. It may have gone into the submit queue, in which case I’m sorry if there’s two blogs and one is incomplete.
Back to the drawing board – there’s a few things I’m not sure I understand, but they could be just cryptic definitions, which I’m not great at spotting
Away we go (again)
Across | |
---|---|
1 | HARDBACK: cryptic definition based on a hardback having rigid covers |
5 | CHUBBY: C(100) then HUBBY |
9 | LOVE SONG: (GO,NOVELS)* |
10 | BIG BEN: GB in BIEN |
12 | SECOND INNINGS: cryptic definition based on cricket and someone who has lived a long time |
15 | EM,MET: the EM coming from pavEMent |
16 | ELECTORAL: (RELOCATE)*,L(50) |
17 | LOUISIANA: OUI,SIAN in LA |
19 | FRANC: RAN in Liverpool F.C. |
20 | SOME LIKE IT HOT: one of those fun clues where you work backwards from the answer, which can be read as cryptic wordplay for KEITH |
22 | COUP(stroke of genius),ON(covering) |
23 | our across omission |
25 | ORKNEY: OR, then N in KEY(island) |
26 | HEAR HEAR: A,RHEA in HER |
 | |
Down | |
1 | HELLS BELLS: double definition, one cryptic |
2 | REV: VER |
3 | BASINET: new word for me – A, SIN in BET |
4 | CONSIDERABLE: double def |
6 | HAIRNET: (THE,RAIN)* |
7 | BABY’S(invention’s) BREATH(instant) |
8 | our down omission |
11 | UNREMARKABLE: (A,REAL,NUMBER) with K(1000) inside |
13 | COME UNSTUCK: double def |
14 | FLYCATCHER: got this from the “bird” definition – not sure I quite see the connection with gawper |
18 | SOMEONE: ME in SOON, E(uropean) |
19 | FRITTER: double def |
21 | ECHO: double def – the other being from the legend of ECHO and NARCISSUS |
24 | UTE: hidden in compUTErised |
I was fortunate there that I had eventually considered ON for covering. This kind of thing is one of the advances I have made over the past year or two since starting to take crosswords seriously. If I may add to what Jerry said yesterday about using aids, Iâm not sure that everyone (certainly not me) is of the temperament to set these things aside across several days. I prefer to get them done and dusted. For this personality type, recourse to aids in the early days of serious solving is quite reasonable and even helpful, as you can have a look at half a dozen or so other words with the same pattern which might crop up later. Itâs not a mere cop-out, in other words! A little extra milk is necessary for some of us (especially the non-Bletchley types) before we are ready for a steady diet of meat.
Went through Otto, Cato, Dido, Dodo, hero, Nero and Iago before getting ECHO, but my COD still goes to CHUBBY. Thanks to the setter and to George for the wordplay for 19 & 20ac and 7dn.
Edited at 2012-06-07 05:11 am (UTC)
I would have been confused if ‘of genius’ had not been part of the clue; partly because it suggested the non-political sense of ‘coup’ that I don’t usually think of (at that point I had the U), and because ‘Stroke covering slip’ would have stopped me in my tracks.
‘Though, on reflection, I’m sure Jimbo must have…
It had seemed to me that there was quite as lot of strange cluing going on here but on reflection I don’t think that’s so. I found ‘academic’ distracting in 1ac but then no doubt that’s its purpose and we have ‘perhaps’ in mitigation.
I never heard of BABY’S BREATH and struggled to justify the wordplay but having done so each element of it is perfectly fair.
I know about the cricket aspect of 12ac , the follow-on and all that, but Iâm less clear on the second part of the clue. There is an expression âa good inningsâ referring to living a long life but Iâm not sure how SECOND fits in with this idea.
I thought âGawperâ at 14dn referred to an old saying âDonât gawp or youâll catch flies’ or something to that effect but it seems that gawping / holding one’s mouth open for no particular reason can be termed ‘fly-catching’ and there’s no other particular phrase or saying that’s in common usage.
Edited at 2012-06-07 05:40 am (UTC)
Edited at 2012-06-07 07:57 am (UTC)
Last entries COUPON and ECHO. I do not think I would have got ECHO with just the O; the static from “hero” provided too much interference. and it’s not exactly a legendary name.
SOME LIKE IT HOT and its clue was the centrepiece for Listener 3955, one of the most memorable ones which played with no less than 21 film titles. Now there’s legendary!
BASINET is misfiled in my synaptic dictionary as small piece of furniture used for washing, so the clue made no sense. Must rewire.
SECOND INNINGS is weird – afterlife, perhaps? Second childhood? BABY’s BREATH is a plant unknown to the common man that I represent, needing all the checkers to hazard a guess.
HELLS BELLS recalled early fun with calculators: it’s what you got when you added 57734 to 4. It gets my CoD for “ring of fire” alone.
Edited at 2012-06-07 09:15 am (UTC)
Some I still don’t understand, such as 12A – it’s just rubbish as far as I’m concerned. 14D isn’t much better. 20 minutes to solve but all in all 23A
20ac – the film that I found immediately was The King and I (the K
ingI)*, so I needed several checkers before getting the solution.LOI was COUPON, having entered ERGO (OGRE rev.) at 21dn in spite of there being no plausible definition.
The “clue” says: What may be following on after a good long life?
I think it’s cricket teams that “follow on” after a poor first innings performance so the first definition is loose to say the least.
I’m nearly 70 and I’ve never come across the second definition. If somebody suggested to me that I was about to enter my “second innings” I’d think they were barmy. And why “good”?
I interpreted ‘good’ in the sense in which it is used in the phrase ‘a good while’ (i.e. ‘extended’ – which, admittedly, is much the same as ‘long’).
Took Jerry’s advice of yesterday, and came back to finish with COUPON swiftly followed by ECHO.
Unknowns today: EMMET and BASINET, but both easily gettable.
With the film at 20ac, is it just that KEITH appears in the title? What about the other 8 letters? Anything interesting about them? Am I missing something?
Re Jerry’s comments of yesterday regarding Xword technique: I very rarely use ‘aids’ these days, preferring to do what I can, and then come to this site to check the rest. If I do particularly badly, I don’t usually post anything. Maybe because I completely finish (relatively) few, the idea of keeping them piling up for days until I finish them seems just wrong! Like Ulaca, I like to get them ‘done and dusted’. Also, there are times when I check the answer on here and think there’s no way I’d have got that! Happily that happens less than it did a year or so ago…
Didn’t your mother tell you that if you continued to gawp you were bound to catch a fly? đ
I should have added, that the clue for ‘hear, hear’ is identical to one I completely blew in a puzzle I blogged a while back. One of the early commenters, McText or ulaca or somebody, had to explain it. But as I said in my 3rd anniversary comment, I never forget my blogging mistakes, so this time I put it right in.
Edited at 2012-06-07 12:10 pm (UTC)
Share othersâ puzzlement about SECOND INNINGS. I can only think that it has to do with what is said by hearty, somewhat insensitive types at funerals:
âHow old was your father? Ninety six? Well, he had a good innings, didnât he?â
I seem to be attending a lot of funerals these days.
Didnât get Echo and Coupon and didnât know the plant, the bird, the money or the food. I couldnât think what Liverpool could possibly mean nor what Keith had to do with SLIT so thanks George for explaining those.
Iâm embarrassed to say I had thought âhear hearâ was spelt âhere here,â for which the cryptic made no sense.
Thought Chubby was a splendid clue. I don’t remember seeing Ton = C before.
Doesn’t really help this crossword, as it’s not specifically after a “good” life. I think friend anon has the most probable reading as a supposed afterlife rewarding good conduct in this one, but I’m not aware of any evidence for this use of the phrase.
Edited at 2012-06-07 04:17 pm (UTC)
I think if you compare the clues today with the ones I blogged yesterday, you can see just how good yesterdays were!
Edited at 2012-06-07 10:41 pm (UTC)
Like many others, COUPON and ECHO eluded me, and I had question marks everywhere, so thanks to the blogger and commenters!
I chuckled at HARDBACK and CONSIDERABLE, and enjoyed the puzzle as a whole, finding it much easier going than the last two days.
not common but one has seen the expression