I assume that (3,4) is the ----ing (4) on the --- (3) side of a boat (good for being seasick over) but it's not something that immediately came to mind until I had the letters
FFS FFS FFS
right, i have come to some sort of impasse. i have the following yet to get:
6a, 17a, 20a, 40a, 46a, 47a, 49a8d, 9d, 11d, 27d, 28d, 33d, 34d, 42d
HELLLPPPPP this is consuming me
― lex pretend, Saturday, 22 December 2012 19:35 (eleven years ago) link
oh yeah and 45a which i can't relate to the clue at all
― lex pretend, Saturday, 22 December 2012 19:36 (eleven years ago) link
8d comes is an old French phrase if that's any help
― Captain Humberbantz (Noodle Vague), Saturday, 22 December 2012 20:05 (eleven years ago) link
OK 45 across
"for good" = AY Retiring (going backwards) = YA
pupil = "L" for Learner
leaves English school = OUND(L)E
African capital = YAOUNDE
― Captain Humberbantz (Noodle Vague), Saturday, 22 December 2012 20:12 (eleven years ago) link
i got 46a by basically DESPERATELY READING A DICTIONARY and a few others fell into place after that - don't really understand 34d though
"for good" = AY
really?! i have never heard of "ay" being used like that. suspicious
never heard of oundle either
― lex pretend, Saturday, 22 December 2012 20:15 (eleven years ago) link
Oundle is a semi-famous public school
Ay = forever in Scots
― Captain Humberbantz (Noodle Vague), Saturday, 22 December 2012 20:17 (eleven years ago) link
cryptic crosswords giveth and taketh away. one minute you're feeling smug for having heard of lysistrata, the next it's all "i have never even HEARD OF that"
― lex pretend, Saturday, 22 December 2012 20:24 (eleven years ago) link
aha lysistrata, thanks
― Captain Humberbantz (Noodle Vague), Saturday, 22 December 2012 20:27 (eleven years ago) link
is "wick" some sort of obscure term for a thousand or something? wrt 6a
(yes i am still doing this goddamnit)
― lex pretend, Sunday, 23 December 2012 07:52 (eleven years ago) link
11d is one of those that makes perfect sense but i could have stared at that clue for a million years and never decoded it
― lex pretend, Sunday, 23 December 2012 07:56 (eleven years ago) link
Very little space for food — I thrash wildly about (5,7)
^^utterly baffled why this is what it has to be
― lex pretend, Sunday, 23 December 2012 08:07 (eleven years ago) link
I HAVE FINISHED IT!!!!!!!!!!!!
― lex pretend, Sunday, 23 December 2012 10:37 (eleven years ago) link
Congrats!
indefinite number = nrepeated = twice1000 = kamateur = ham
other is anagram of "i thrash" with "bread" (food) in the middle
― a panda, Malmö (a passing spacecadet), Sunday, 23 December 2012 10:39 (eleven years ago) link
yeah i worked out the latter one, i'd got 30a slightly wrong. good clue! as opposed to "twickenham" which is just tortuous kmt
― lex pretend, Sunday, 23 December 2012 10:48 (eleven years ago) link
Both of the above are well into the "would never guess from the clue, can only find words that fit the letters and justify it from there" category for me. The anagram part of the bread one was obvious from the start but with 5 unknown letters missing I didn't get it until right near the end.
― a panda, Malmö (a passing spacecadet), Sunday, 23 December 2012 11:00 (eleven years ago) link
it was the second to last one i got - basically got it because the ___d_h ending is so rare, it pretty much had to be a t in there, and hey presto "breadth" and oh right HAIRS.
― lex pretend, Sunday, 23 December 2012 11:15 (eleven years ago) link
happy enough with brier but it's ye're language i spose
― banlieue jagger (darraghmac), Sunday, 23 December 2012 11:47 (eleven years ago) link
congrats lex, finishing a prize araucaria is not to be sniffed at. started this morning, did not shun the help of this thread and i've got three and a half of the bastards to go.
― ledge, Sunday, 23 December 2012 13:04 (eleven years ago) link
Increased production and went in to eat. (7)
I'll give you the checked letters, and see if you're as amused by their use of 'went' as I was!
S_E_D_P
― Rocking Disco Santa (Dan Peterson), Monday, 24 December 2012 16:46 (eleven years ago) link
haha, but how is that one word?
― lex pretend, Monday, 24 December 2012 17:00 (eleven years ago) link
like i've never even seen it hyphenated
I've never seen it as one word either, but found it actually exists. A request to increase production (usually without an increase in pay) is a....
― Rocking Disco Santa (Dan Peterson), Monday, 24 December 2012 17:02 (eleven years ago) link
I quit experiment after difficult chores entailing many instruments (10)
Easy answer, but why am I not getting how 'I quit' works in this?
― Rocking Disco Santa (Dan Peterson), Wednesday, 26 December 2012 15:25 (eleven years ago) link
Tral = trial (experiment) minus I.
― Tim, Wednesday, 26 December 2012 15:37 (eleven years ago) link
(the letter I has quit the word trial, in case that wasn't clear)
― Tim, Wednesday, 26 December 2012 15:38 (eleven years ago) link
Ah, thanks! I think I suck the worst at the ones where I have to think of a synonym and then remove a letter. My mind doesn't work that way for some reason.
― Rocking Disco Santa (Dan Peterson), Wednesday, 26 December 2012 15:40 (eleven years ago) link
today i liked
The policeman in Perpignan releasing me before the end of Absolutely Fabulous (9)
very much
― lex pretend, Wednesday, 26 December 2012 16:35 (eleven years ago) link
Nice. I'm doing Sunday's Everyman, and the clue is: Father Christmas, very large, captured by artist in California City. (5,4)
Is very large OS for oversized and artist RA for Royal Academician? Because holy hell...
― Rocking Disco Santa (Dan Peterson), Friday, 28 December 2012 21:46 (eleven years ago) link
did anyone try the Xmas FT? 52 paired clues, alphabetically ordered answers with 2 of each letter, one each of the clues not fully defined with those clues having a common theme. You then have to fit in the answers jigsaw-style. Killed a lot of time over Xmas, still didn't finish it!
― Neil S, Friday, 28 December 2012 22:24 (eleven years ago) link
xp yes, Dan, that looks right.
― Fizzles, Saturday, 29 December 2012 08:31 (eleven years ago) link
RA is one of those ones like cricket abbreviations I've never seen in my life.
― Rocking Disco Santa (Dan Peterson), Saturday, 29 December 2012 14:38 (eleven years ago) link
fairly common I find. they're with all the cricketers, sailors, university graduates and other f'ing ranks, poring with interest over the periodic table in that big geometrically chequered house in the setter's mind.
― Fizzles, Saturday, 29 December 2012 14:46 (eleven years ago) link
i do sometimes feel like applying the rules of cryptic crosswords to vaguely contemporary stuff like, idk, nicki minaj references
― lex pretend, Saturday, 29 December 2012 14:48 (eleven years ago) link
I don't know if this exactly follows the rules, but:
Rapper's picnic: Kim, in a jazz group, appearing. (5,5)
― Rocking Disco Santa (Dan Peterson), Sunday, 30 December 2012 16:06 (eleven years ago) link
Coming to realize that my education is lacking in the likes of Shakespeare, Dickens etc. Do most people know that "Southey and his friends" were the Lake Poets?
Example: Sailor-neighbors of Chaucer's wife? One might consider them tubby. (4,5)
Actually my teenage son, attending a classics-based charter school, is getting more of these references than I do.
― Rocking Disco Santa (Dan Peterson), Thursday, 10 January 2013 15:13 (eleven years ago) link
yeah I think UK cryptics assume a certain knowledge of this kind of thing.
― my father will guide me up the stairs to bed (anagram), Thursday, 10 January 2013 15:30 (eleven years ago) link
lol the Chaucer one.
yeah a lot of crosswords assume certain kinds of erudite knowledge and "literature" wd be part of that
― Broken Clock Britain (Noodle Vague), Thursday, 10 January 2013 15:37 (eleven years ago) link
betraying my lack of such knowledge, but solution please!
― Neil S, Thursday, 10 January 2013 15:38 (eleven years ago) link
Chaucer's wife = BATHSailors = SALTS
"Find in a tub" = "tubby" = "BATH SALTS"
― Broken Clock Britain (Noodle Vague), Thursday, 10 January 2013 15:39 (eleven years ago) link
Bath salts. The trifecta of Chaucer ref, antiquated sailor ref and groaner pun was just lol... okay... I have a lot to learn.
I needed a new screen name anyhoo.
― Sailor-neighbor of Chaucer's wife (Tubby) (Dan Peterson), Thursday, 10 January 2013 15:39 (eleven years ago) link
first word is a wifely character in Chaucer, second is a slang word for sailors
whole thing is something you might add to a bath
xxp
― my father will guide me up the stairs to bed (anagram), Thursday, 10 January 2013 15:40 (eleven years ago) link
thx, I get it! good clue!
― Neil S, Thursday, 10 January 2013 15:40 (eleven years ago) link
god knows why certain things come up so much in cryptics. as soon as i see "sailor" i'm gonna think "salt", "tar", "RN"...it seems odd to have so much nauticality so commonly used
― Broken Clock Britain (Noodle Vague), Thursday, 10 January 2013 15:41 (eleven years ago) link
you forgot AB
― heartless restaurant reviewer (ledge), Thursday, 10 January 2013 15:41 (eleven years ago) link
esp Rufus in the Gdn on Mondays, he's notorious for his nautical refs
― my father will guide me up the stairs to bed (anagram), Thursday, 10 January 2013 15:42 (eleven years ago) link
That recent Araucaria with the Winter's Tale theme was rather beyond me in that respect. My work newsletter does a bumper Christmas issue with a crossword every year and the latest one had a Dickens theme, which was a bit daunting at first, but thankfully it only needed a knowledge of titles, not characters or plots.
That seems a fairer way to do it to me, but then my education is also pretty lacking when it comes to these things. Not really that my school didn't do those things, just that I never found the classics we did do interesting enough to get around to the others in my spare time. I've sort of meant to catch up on the complete works of Shakespeare one day but the entire concept of the Great Victorian Novel still fills me with dread tbh
(I quite liked that Chaucer one, though the second sentence seemed unnecessary)
― a panda, Malmö (a passing spacecadet), Thursday, 10 January 2013 15:42 (eleven years ago) link
but the second sentence is the definition part, without that there is no def.
― my father will guide me up the stairs to bed (anagram), Thursday, 10 January 2013 15:43 (eleven years ago) link
I think my point stands though, that several of you are getting all that without any of the cross-letters, and even if i have I have them I'm often wtf.
― Sailor-neighbor of Chaucer's wife (Tubby) (Dan Peterson), Thursday, 10 January 2013 15:45 (eleven years ago) link
god knows why certain things come up so much in cryptics. as soon as i see "sailor" i'm gonna think "salt", "tar", "RN"...
i think i went about two decades without seeing "tar" used to refer to a sailor before i started doing cryptics. WHY is "RN" a sailor?
i totally want to modernise cryptic crosswords.
― lex pretend, Thursday, 10 January 2013 15:46 (eleven years ago) link
RN = Royal Navy
― my father will guide me up the stairs to bed (anagram), Thursday, 10 January 2013 15:47 (eleven years ago) link