ACROSS
1 - Church leader among slander, perhaps, and gossip (13) - {S{C}ANDALMONGER*}
9 - Long locks that can cause stress at a point (7) - {TRESS{E}S*}
11 - Appeal for each holder of the light (6) - {P{RAY}ER} Nice one
13 - Perfectly fit model of pacifism to follow (8) - {DOVE}{TAIL}
15 - An exclusive group of people (5) - ELECT [E]
16 - It's not eaten on rigs, being fit only for cattle (3,4) - OIL CAKE [CD]
18 - Greek letter and cash left freely for Islamic leaders (7) - {CAL{IP*}HS*}
19 - Defendants' answer to charges (5) - PLEAS [E]
21 - Certain English art treated as riches (8) - {TR{E}A*}{SURE}
23 - He gets discontented at the fortune of others (6) - ENVIER [CD]
25 - Healer taking one in gets to see problem as the bishop's responsibility (7) - {D{I}OC}{ESE*}
26 - Sailor did wrong, we hear, to cut off (7) - {AB}{SCIND}(~sinned) New word for me
28 - Preparing poultry under 14 lb is work for a mason (5,8) - {STONE} {DRESSING}
DOWN
2 - Daily these days needs little energy for the game singularly (7) - {CHAR}{AD}{E}
3 - A pseudonym for a French gent (3) - NOM [CD]
4 - Helps in defending an action (4) - AIDS [CD]
5 - Still having had no proposal? (10) - {MOTION}{LESS}
6 - Riviera resort takes in English relative (5) - {NI{E}CE}
7 - Subjugate (7) - ENSLAVE [E]
8 - Salesman did not take kindly to being substituted (11) - {REP}{RESENTED}
10 - Confident of one's own worth despite revolutionary leader's fuss (4-7) - SELF-ASSURED* Excellent anagram
12 - Let ox get mixed up and praise enthusiastically (5) - EXTOL*
14 - Police chief is full of venom (10) - {COPPER}{HEAD} Looking at the picture itself gives me the creeps!
18 - The woman in company retiring to smoke (7) - {C{HER}O}{OT<-}
22 - Serious at the back of the ship (5) - STERN [DD]
24 - Low in value (4) - BASE [E]
27 - An appeal for help (1,1,1) - S O S [E]
Hi all
ReplyDeleteQuite an easy one today. Agree with Deepak about 20D.
I guess nom de plume is a pen-name or a pseudonym. Nom by itself is 'name' in French.
CV, what sayest thou?
No complaints, except 19A to nitpick.
ReplyDelete1D - Nice cartoon of the three monkeys. Any idea about who the artist is?
ReplyDeleteWait a minute, Richard.
ReplyDeleteDeepak, 10d, which has received a wow from you, is a repeat from THC 9304 published on Aug 16, 2008.
At that time THC was published anonymously.
To determine that it is Manna's own I have to some more searches.
Richard
ReplyDelete'nom' being defined as a pseudonym is inaccurate.
With so many crosswords being published over the years I feel there are bound to be repetitions.
ReplyDeleteFollowing 19a: Yesterday or the day before, a report in the paper filed from the US had 'pled' (where I would expect 'pleaded').
ReplyDeleteI meant to check it but found time only now. I find that it is USage! But I don't remember having come across 'pled' in my reading of US papers/books.
Can Gita or anyone from the US say if 'pled' is more common than 'pleaded' in that country?
CV sir,
ReplyDeleteI can certainly confirm that - pled is most commonly used on the radio and on TV, as in, "So and so pled guilty this morning in the court." But then, I always assumed that the word was spelled plead and pronounced pled in America.
Its correctness apart, 'pled' reminds me of the past participle principle applied by the non-English-speaking students in the sitcom Mind Your Language for some words. When they cannot figure out the past participle form of 'fly', they settle for fly-flew-flid.
ReplyDeleteIt looks Manna has compiled this puzzle in a hurry. As Colonel pointed out, lot of straight clues and most of 'em not even CD's.
ReplyDeleteMy doubts on today's puzzle...
1A: not sure if "among slander" is right usage.
9A: "stress" is one of the words in the clue and the answer is TRESSES?
25A: Reading the surface gave me a headache
2D: OMG!!! An odd sounding surface
3D: NOM and pseudonym?
20D: The only connection I could make here is "Number 1 and ION." Even here don't know why NOI is reversing. Vague!!!
VJ,
ReplyDeleteRead BACKING for BOOKING and 20D becomes clear
Col,
ReplyDelete1 Church leader among slander, perhaps, and gossip (13) - {S{C}ANDALMONGER*}
You have taken it as Church leader C inside anagram of among slander.
Perhaps indicates (*)
However, there is nothing to indicate CC.
So, the anagram fodder contains all the letters{C+AMONG SLANDER}* to give SCANDALMONGER (defn - gossip)
Venkatesh,
ReplyDeleteThat is understood, C within parentheses is only for ease of understanding
Deepak, your anno for 20D shows that TIDE is annagrammed. I presume it's a typo. I hope you meant EDIT <-
ReplyDeleteWell I still have my doubts. NOI and EDIT have to be reversed to get ION and EDIT all right (if booking = backing), but how about the order? Would "backing" take care of this too?
Re 1ac
ReplyDeleteI would think that it is a clue in which a letter is inserted in an anagram. So Deepak's anno is dead right.
If it is not a whole word anagram, a clue could be
1. A letter or some letters + an anagram
2. An anagram + a letter or some letters
3. A letter or some letters going round an anagram
4. An anagram going round a letter or some letters
1a falls in Category 4.
VJ,
ReplyDeleteI had put the asterisk initially and forgot to delete it later my reading of the anno is
Issue = Definition = EDITION
Number 1 = NO I
with = addition indicator
current = TIDE
booking (typo for backing) = Reversal indicator
So NO I TIDE reversed = EDIT I ON
Oh I get it... I was seeing it as two separate group of words reversing, like, ION <- + EDIT <-, giving ION EDIT... Didn't occur to me that it could also be "EDIT ION <-"
ReplyDeleteAt lunch-break, more on 1A - SCANDALMONGER:
ReplyDeleteInstead of providing us with a complicated or a suspect clue, this 13-letter word could have been neatly turned into other options, prominent of them being the following:
ON GRAND CAMELS
NO CALM GARDENS
AND LONG SCREAM
NO CARS MANGLED
OLD GERMANS CAN
MAD CLANGERS ON
LONG NAME-CARDS
GRANDMA'S CLONE
and the best of them all -
RANDOM GLANCES
Who knows, the setter may not have intended to give it the easy way. :-}
If it is Manna there must be printing mistakes.
ReplyDeleteClues like 7D and 17D should not be there in a cryptic crossword at all.
But, of course, who said this is a cryptic crossword anyway.
What Deepak classifies as E I find to be D (difficult) because they can have more than one correct answer
ReplyDeleteEveryone must be relaxing after enjoying modhakams (in Tamil, we call it kozhakattai) for Vinayaka Chathurthi.
ReplyDeleteCV,
Re: 1 Ac
At the risk of appearing to belabour a point of apparently little consequence, one last comment is made.
A commonsense approach would indicate that the word 'among' in the clue is not functioning as an insertion indicator but part of the Anagrind. Even Col is in agreement; he says the answer was provided that way only to facilitate understanding.
You have reasoned that it should be taken as an anagram going round a letter or some letters.
Is it that 'among' is meant to serve a dual purpose or we have to presume that the single letter C is inserted in the anagram?
In the absence of an insertion indicator, one would feel inclined to read it as "{C among slander}, perhaps(*)" to give a 13-lettered word for gossip.
However, we defer to the expert advice of our CCA.
Looking at three monkeys, I recently came across a few pieces in a souvenier shop with 4 monkeys, the fourth monkey covering .... guess what
ReplyDeleteI withdraw my prev. comment.
ReplyDelete1a is indeed anag of C AMONG SLANDER, 'perhaps' being AInd.
It is not C in anag of AMONG SLANDER.
Hi
ReplyDeletePardon my delayed entry. Was busy with Gamps at home. I agree with CV's latest take on 1a.
If BACKING can become BOOKING,
LACKING can become LOOKING,
HACKING can be HOOKING,
SNACKING would be SNOOKING.
What do you get COOKING from?
ReplyDeleteCONKING, CORKING, COCKING
ReplyDeleteNo Crossword tomorrow. So we can all find something different to do
ReplyDeleteSince there are no papers tomorrow I shall upload a blank CW which came in last weeks Sunday Times. No blank grid will be provided.
ReplyDeleteEach person is allowed to put in two answers with annotation in the comments. I will continuously update the main post providing the crossings as and when the answers are posted.
Lets see if we can finish it that way.
Deepak 21:39
ReplyDeleteThat should be fun - of a different kind, off the beaten track.
It will appear at the usual time of 8:30 AM so you'll can get up late
ReplyDelete