Christmas has come early in the Bertandjoyce household today – a Donk puzzle to blog at last! His first puzzle appeared on Saturday Oct 20th 2012 and since then weve had another 3 weekend puzzles and 7 weekday ones. Regular solvers may remember the May Day puzzle that was a real tour de force.
So, how did this one compare? Well, we thoroughly enjoyed it! There were smiles from the surface readings, laughs at some of the outlandish definitions and lots of lovely mis-directions.
We started reading through the clues in order but at one point there were isolated solutions scattered about the grid. We understand that some crossword aficionados do not like this method, preferring that all new entries connect with another. If we had used that method we would still be trying to finish! The NW corner was the last area to be completed.
Thanks Donk there are too many clues of the day to list in full but there are a couple were not so sure about!
| Across | ||
| 1 | Marine digs transport here | |
| CABIN | CAB (transport) + IN (here) | |
| 4 | Disneyland Paris, say floating idea to save eurocrats? | |
| THEME PARK | A play on THE MEP ARK! MEP obviously refers to the Members of the European Parliament or ‘eurocrats’. | |
| 5 | Offers while stocks last! Same again in Sainsburys entrance | |
| ASSASSINS | AS (while) + S (last letter in stockS) + AS S (the same again) + IN + S ( first letter or entrance to Sainsburys). An ‘interesting’ definition! | |
| 10 | Faiths caught with musical vibrator | |
| CREED | C (caught) + REED (musical vibrator) | |
| 11 | Is entering house once joined by Charlie, causing shock | |
| SEISMIC | IS inside or entering SEMI (house once joined) + C (Charlie). Joyce wasn’t sure about the use of ‘once’ until Bert pointed out if it was ‘twice’ joined it would be a terraced house! | |
| 13 | Describes ties in my absence? | |
| RELATES | ||
| 14/21 | Need to go low? | |
| CALL OF NATURE | Double definition! The low obviously refers to the sound of a cow! | |
| 15 | Reason for economy not yet taking off? | |
| DUTY FREE | We think this is a play on the fact that if you were about to take off, you may be hoping to save some money or economising by purchasing some of the Duty Free goods. This was probably our least favourite clue! | |
| 19 | Hairy jumpers mediums smallest, held together by pins | |
| LEMMINGS | M (medium) + MIN (smallest) inside or held together by PINS (legs). We loved the definition! | |
| 21 | See 14 | |
| 24 | Artists contribution to topic as songwriter | |
| PICASSO | Hidden within the clue. toPIC AS SOngwriter. Not CASSON as Joyce first thought because it wasnt long enough! | |
| 26 | Give approval, as does some hospital | |
| CONSENT | CONS (does as in swindles) + ENT (some as in some part of – hospital) | |
| 27/28 | Maybe crime on estates shocking to The Guardian/FT, but not Independent | |
| GRAND THEFT AUTO | An anagram of TO THE GUARD |
|
| 30 | Short bouncer gets gas seeing travelling supporters | |
| ROOF RACKS | ROO (short bouncer as in a shortened form of kangaroo) + FRACKS (gets gas!) | |
| 31 | Green, and centrally switching energy | |
| PULSE | PLUS (and) with central letters switching + E (energy). This is one where we are not sure about the definition. PULSE are not always green! | |
| Down | ||
| 1 | Traditional group, one with short name | |
| CLASSICAL | CLASS (group) + I (one) + CAL |
|
| 2 | Butcher is able to cut animal | |
| BESTIAL | An anagram of IS ABLE T |
|
| 3 | North American students | |
| NUS | N (North) US (American). There will no doubt be some who think that the enumeration should be 1,1,1 but that would have been a bit too easy we suppose! | |
| 4 | Whats wrapping up long jump | |
| TWITCH | W |
|
| 5 | Hide in disguise, so hed run | |
| ENSHROUD | An anagram of SO HED RUN (anagrind is in disguise) | |
| 6 | Dictators extra large cap | |
| EXCEL | Sounds like or dictated XL (extra large) | |
| 7 | Associate a suspect with retired cobblers | |
| ABETTOR | A + BET (suspect) + ROT (cobblers) reversed or retired | |
| 8 | Praise revolutionary, I hate this country! | |
| KUDOS | For quite some while with only the K as the initial letter, we were both trying to parse KENYA, thinking that it was a bit unfair on the country. When we had another letter we realised that we were on completely the wrong track and laughed! SOD UK (I hate this country!) reversed or revolutionary. We hasten to add that we dont agree with the sentiment! | |
| 12 | Beat Mario in race | |
| MAORI | An anagram of MARIO (anagrind is beat). This clue also reminded us of our son and the game he played on his Nintendo! | |
| 16 | End of tale, in itself, conveys lust | |
| YEARN | E (end of tale) inside YARN (tale) | |
| 17 | Protective of baton, almost made official conductor | |
| ELECTRODE | ELECTE |
|
| 18 | Silver coins spent over time doubtful, I think | |
| AGNOSTIC | AG (silver) + anagram of COINS (anagrind is spent) around T (time) | |
| 20 | House call made here? Wrong! Its for kids building | |
| MECCANO | Bert loved this clue if only because of the memories! MECCA (place where you may play Bingo and hear ‘house’ called) + NO (wrong) | |
| 22 | Not even out of tune qualifies | |
| UNEQUAL | Hidden within the clue tUNE QUALifies | |
| 23 | Champs boxing club needing banks for sales drive, perhaps | |
|
24 |
ACCESS
PAGER |
ACE (champ) around or boxing’C (club) + SS (first and last letter or banks’ of SaleS)
Way to contact PR – first letter’s drawn out PAGE (a ‘drawn out’ version of P) + R. Thanks to GeordyGordy for noticing that we missed this one out. Apologies ifthe alignment is now out but it is difficult to add more lines once the blog has been posted! |
| 25 | Sweat starts to stream under dress of runner | |
| SUDOR | First letters or starts to Stream Under Dress Of Runner. A new word for us that we needed to check. | |
| 29 | Empty mine over | |
| TIP | PIT (mine) reversed or over | |
Thanks Donk for the tonic, and thanks to B&J for the explanations. I never quite justified why it was ‘relates’ so it is one nil to Donk. I hope I take my defeat gracefully!
At one stage I didn’t think I was going to get anywhere near finishing it. The RHS was completed first and then the LHS gradually fell into place. Count me as another who couldn’t parse RELATES, but the answer seemed obvious enough from the definition. SUDOR was my LOI when I decided it must be a real word because the wordplay wasn’t leading anywhere else. As B&J said in the blog, there were plenty of clever definitions and some good misdirections.
Thanks B&J – this was great fun. I loved the fantastic anagram in 27/28 (I’m not sure you’re right about the estate car – doesn’t it just refer to “estates” in the sense of housing, industrial estates etc?), the cheeky 10a, and The MEP Ark (though to be picky I think “Eurocrats” usually refers to officials of the European Commission rather than MEPs).
Like Conrad I needed your explanation of RELATES – I was trying to make it RELATIVES less IV, which of course doesn’t work.
Excellent puzzle with a variety of good clues.
Thanks Bertandjoyce; I’m afraid I still don’t get offers=ASSASSINS, please explain! 🙁
I particularly liked KUDOS, TWITCH and THEME PARK.
Off is American slang for kill- hence an ‘offer’ could be described as an assassin. The first time we came across it had us thinking too! We’ve only come across it in crosswords!
There’s quite a few computer games around the grid, Assassins creed, lemmings, call of duty and probably more. Gosh this was tough though.
Thanks B&J and Donk for a cracker.
Very hard but very good and funny. There is more accuracy here than in, say, The Guardian pizzle today.
Have you perhaps got mixed up with 23 and 24 down?
I can easily believe it, I was mixed up to the point of abandoning it. How does cor equate to my in 13a?
Hi GeordyGordy – both my and cor are in Chambers as expressions of surprise.
Flashling – thanks for the comment about the computer games. We’ve only got access on our itouch at present so will look further when we are back home.
Thanks GeordyGordy – we (actually Joyce!) have missed out a down clue. When we are home we will sort it out.
For the time being it is PAGE (P is a shortened form of page hence first letter ‘drawn out’)+ R. The definition is way to contact.
Well spotted on the games, Flashling. THEME PARK is another one.
Thanks B&J. I can see it’s a cleverly-constructed puzzle but I had to give up with only half done. A tough one to complete in the time I usually have available for a daily cryptic. But others have enjoyed it, so well done Donk. Of the ones I solved, I especially liked ROOF RACK. Even if I had finished it, the games theme would have gone over my head.
There’s a picture of young Scarlett on page 19 of the paper. It’s definitely a cor rather than a my.
Thanks B&J
Too tough for me, I’m afraid. Got about half of it (and I did like 8dn) but after several hours staring at the same clues with no breakthrough, it loses its appeal.
Another fine crossword from Donk. But with him you don’t know what you’re going to get: some of his in the past have been (for me) of just the right level of difficulty, but this one was incredibly hard. It took me ages, longer even than today’s incredibly hard Times.
Hi all,
Sorry for the late appearance but I’m away in Bruges at the moment. Many thanks to B&J for the fantastic blog (maybe I should stay away from cryptic defs! I liked 15a!)
Sorry to those who found it far too tough, I’ll keep working on finding my level. Thanks to everyone who took the time to comment – as always, I really do appreciate it.
Well done to those who found the computer games – mainly used to start the grid off! I think the full list is THEME PARK, ASSASSINS CREED, CALL OF DUTY, LEMMINGS and GRAND THEFT AUTO.
All the best,
Donk
Thanks Donk for dropping in.
Hope Bruges (it’s on our list of places to visit) is good and maybe if you are flying back you can make use of 15ac!
Being of a certain age, our misguided youth was not spent on computer games so we only recognised one of them. The only other one we remembered from our son was Sim City! We prefer hidden themes though when knowledge of the subject is not required.