Introduction
Similar to what seemed to be the consensus of the British bloggers, I found today's puzzle to be fairly easy and have awarded myself full marks for a complete solution. However, I do have minor quibbles with a couple of the clues.
Blog Enhancements
You may notice that I have added a couple of "gadgets" to the blog. The first is a tool which allows one to search the contents of the blog (but - unfortunately - not the comments, it would seem). The second is a list of links to other blogs dealing with cryptic crosswords. As a start, I have included Big Dave's Telegraph Crossword Blog and Times for the Times. Big Dave, a past visitor to this site, covers a number of puzzles appearing in The Daily Telegraph. His coverage of The Daily Telegraph Cryptic Crossword begins a few puzzles in the future from the point where the National Post currently finds itself (the puzzles run in the National Post about four months after they first appear in the UK). Although Times for the Times (naturally) does not cover The Daily Telegraph puzzles, it has links to a number of sites that should be of interest to any fan of cryptic crossword puzzles. One of the principal contributors to that blog is Peter Biddlecombe, who comments here freguently under the alias xwd_fiend. I have also included links in the Library to a couple of Peter's cryptic crossword related websites as well as to the Chambers Dictionary website to which Peter refers in a recent comment. I have noticed that Chambers is frequently referenced by correspondents on AnswerBank - usually in highly reverential tones denoting a sense of ultimate authority.
And, finally, a bit of blatant self-promotion with a plug for my other blog, the Ottawa Citizen Cryptic Crossword Forum. On Sunday, the Ottawa Citizen publishes the London Sunday Times Cryptic Crossword (about six weeks after it first appears in the UK). Since Times for the Times provides a full solution to the puzzle, my blog currently provides merely a link by which solvers in Canada may access the appropriate page on the Times for the Times site.
Today's Glossary
Some possibly unfamiliar words and expressions used in today's puzzle
centre-forward (CF) - position in English football
Chelmsford - county seat of Essex
halma - a board game
jeux - (Fr.) games
kite - a bird similar to a hawk (or a falcon)
paper - a set of questions for an examination (noun, defn. 15)
Ur - a city of ancient Sumer in southern Mesopotamia (a classic cryptic clue)
Today's Links
1. Crossword Ends in Violence (5) [DT 25834]: This being a Saturday prize puzzle, CEIV leans even more heavily than normal toward providing hints rather than complete solutions.
2. AnswerBank [DT 25834]: I found some 25 questions on AnswerBank discussing today's puzzle. Together with the duplicate preview versions of many of the questions, these span five pages of Google search results. This is far too many questions to link individually - so I am posting a link to a Google search today.
A hint for anyone who may wish to use this search list to peruse the AnswerBank site: Several of the questions appear twice in the list of links, with one of the appearances being a preview link. If you open a preview link, you will see the answer but the question will not be displayed. To avoid this, if you see ".../Preview/..." in the URL for a link, just look for the other link which will have the same question number but without ".../Preview/..." in the URL.
It is not unusual for there to be a lot of questions on AnswerBank concerning the Saturday prize puzzle. However, I have never seen as many questions as there were concerning today's puzzle - nor so many duplicated questions. Somewhat surprising since I thought the puzzle was rather easy.
A Great Clue - and My Favourite
11ac He could be a great artist but he does not produce great pictures (11)
Last Clue Standing - and One of My Least Favourites
6ac A young animal first detached area (4)
Here is my parsing of the clue:
A {young animal [CUB] first (at front)} /\{detached area [ISLAND]} = [CUBA]
I am supposing that the rationale behind the clue is that a "detached area" is an "island" of which one example is CUBA.
Quibbles with Today's Puzzle
It being a bit of a slow day, I am going to examine - at the risk of appearing overly pedantic - a couple of rather trivial items from today's puzzle. In one case, I detect a superfluous "S" in the clue while the other clue seems to be missing an "S" (perhaps it migrated!). While both may fall within the normal range of license afforded to setters, it would be interesting to have other views on this point.
19ac Showing forgiveness when awful crime's three-quarters complete (8)
The "apostrophe-s" would appear to be inserted solely to enhance the surface reading and is not otherwise involved in the wordplay (as far as I can see). In my opinion, its inclusion is unnecessary and the clue would work just as well (if not better) without it. The surface reading might be a bit less grammatical, but I think it would certainly be well within the norms for cryptic clues.
25ac Wizard place with boat in U.S. mountains (5)
The U.S. mountains are actually the Ozarks, so I wonder whether the answer OZARK is really appropriate. Maybe it can be argued that it is acceptable since the full name is the Ozark Mountains. Of course, there are a number of communities in the U.S. named Ozark so the setter might argue that "in U.S. mountains" refers to a town named Ozark, not the mountains themselves. As an analogy, this usage is equivalent to substituting PENNINE (rather than PENNINES) for "English hills". I wonder if this sort of substitution is common and generally acceptable.
By the way, this clue seemed to give many of the British solvers fits due to their unfamiliarity with American geography. It was nice to see the shoe on the other foot for a change!
Solution to Today's Puzzle
| Legend: | "CD" Cryptic Definition; "DD" Double Definition |
| "*" anagram; "~" sounds like; "<" letters reversed | |
| "( )" letters inserted; "_" letters deleted |
3ac C|OFFER
6ac CUB|A
8ac wherewit[HAL MA]stered
9ac STOOD |A|T EASE
10ac FIFTH - CD
11ac MINIATURIST - CD
16ac CHOICE - DD
17ac DEAD-HEAT - CD
19ac MERCI*|FUL_ - CRIME + FULL (delete L)
20ac TROUPE* - TO PERU
22ac IN DEEP WATER - CD
25ac OZ|ARK
27ac PUSSY|W(ILL)OW
28ac TO LET - TOILET (delete I)
29ac JEUX
30ac CH|UR|CH - Wouldn't "Ancient city surrounded by churches is place of worship" be a rather nice clue for this? Undoubtedly it has been used somewhere - or else breaks a rule about using the solution in the clue of which I am not aware.
Down
1d C(HE)F
2d ILL-FAVOURED
3d CASH-MACHINE - CD
4d FR|OWNS
5d END|PAPER
6d C|LEAR
7d BA|SIS
12d UNDER|GROWTH
13d IN|E|QUIT|AB|LE
14d T|ETHER*
15d SCAM|PI
18d OUTWEIGH - CD
21d wor[ST ALE R]ejected
23d {NO USE}* - SUE ON
24d ESSEX*
26d K(IT)E
And with that final clue I will fly out of here for today - Falcon :)
Apostrophe-S: You have to remember the three possible interpretations and consider each one. In this case 's is short for "has", as in "It's been a lovely day", and "has" means "has next to it" to join the two bits of the charade.
ReplyDeleteIffy defs are used for geographical places by the Saturday setter (he's not alone). "In ..." for "Any town I like in ..." is an example. Solvable as long as the wordplay is clear, but not terribly interesting. 30A: Maybe something like "Place of worship in old city, between two similar ones." (With the solver to decide whether "similar ones" are cities or Ps of W.
"Kite" as a bird of prey is relatively easy here as red kites have been reintroduced to various parts of the UK over the last decade or two.
The Ottawa citizen link doesn't work for me, BTW.
Re: "The Ottawa citizen link doesn't work for me"
ReplyDeleteOops! Thanks for the heads up. I've fixed it now. Ghastly stupid of me, messing up the link to my own site.