Monday 25 April 2011

No 10137, Monday 25 Apr 11, Neyartha

Plenty of sweet stuff today.
Stumped by 7D and a few Annos.
ACROSS
1   - Drive back with quiet Bush to get the jellylike sweet (11) - {MAR<-}{SH}{MALLOW}
9   - Kitchen drawer? (5) - AROMA [CD]
10 - Afternoon nap cut short by bath bishop took inside was the shortest (9) - {S{TUB}{B}IESTa}
11 - The speaker's not our present (5) - THERE (~their)
12 - ISI operator bewildered by what was derived from observed facts (1,10) - A POSTERIORI*
13 - Beam of a person working on a float (6) - RAFTER [DD]
14 - Actor Seinfeld, entrusted with silver by George, loses recipe for sweet (7) - {J{AG}{G}ERrY}
18 - Beech family member's symbol of might (3,4) - OAK TREE [DD]
20 - Spying on the East Indian Army leaders going off to get the mop (6) - eSPiONaGE
24 - Vacation son prepared for a Canadian citizen (4,7) - NOVA SCOTIAN*
26 - Discover toys hid from the public (5) - OVERT [T]
27 - Inscription making the English government furious (9) - {EN}{G}{RAVING}
28 - Money not fully returned after ingesting unknown sweet liquid (5) - {eS{Y}RUP<-}
29 - This professional performer, in the Internet era, is outlandish (11) - ENTERTAINER*
DOWN
1   - Indiscriminate killing leads to prayers in Israeli port (8) - {MASS}{ACRE}
2   - Awful oar I made from a medicinal tree (9) - RAUWOLFIA*
3   - The regular customer would rather be in the shade (7) - {H{A}{BIT}UE}
4   - Gold, second-grade, discarded by oriental Islamic prince (5) - {AMbE{E}R}
5   - Caught undistorted look at the shore region (8) - LITTORAL Anno pending [(~literal) - See comments]
6   - On the way out, arrest the model for being imperfect (7) - {WAN{T}ING}
7   - Rising passion following joyous exclamation? That is sweet! (5) -?O?E? (Addendum - {HO}{NEY<-} - See comments)
8   - David ate some of the displayed edible fruit (5) - DATES [T]
15 - Surrender after Victor makes way for castle sale (9) - (-v+r)RENDITION
16 - Isn't Veer all at sea, being the most restive? (8) - NERVIEST*
?
17 - Adolescent's anger right at the end about himself? (8) - {TEEN}{(-r)AGE(+r)R} &lit ?
19 - Durable form of photograph patiently developed by the French goes missing (7) - TINTYPEla*
21 - Kind of share? (3,4) - PRO RATA [CD]
22 - Strange symbols in Malayalam language initially removed by the authoritarian (5) - BOSSYml*
23 - Move the vessel (5) - FERRY [DD]
25 - Tabloids turning up around the university? That is sweet! (5) - {S{U}GAR<-}

GRID


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12 comments:

  1. veer25 April 2011 at 08:31

    Thought 7D was HO(NEY<-}?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Deepak Gopinath25 April 2011 at 08:33

    Thanks Veer

    ReplyDelete
  3. Bhavan25 April 2011 at 08:40

    5 - Caught undistorted look at the shore region (8)

    LITTORAL (~ literal)

    caught is the homophone indicator.

    Undistorted = literal. Not sure what 'look' is doing in the clue.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Bhavan25 April 2011 at 08:42

    I felt today's puzzle was a little too smart for its own good.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Deepak Gopinath25 April 2011 at 08:43

    Same here Bhavan

    ReplyDelete
  6. veer25 April 2011 at 10:25

    @Col., @Bhavan: Wonder why you felt that the puzzle was more of a setter's than a solver's delight? Neyartha always does throw the odd little used word and this particular puzzle does have more than its fair share at least for my vocabulary. With the usual deviations from a Times style clue thrown in, I thought Neyartha has stayed pretty true to his cluing style. In fact, in recent months, N might have toned down on the obscure stuff - I remember he used to drive me crazy with those weird GK clues. Maybe the puzzle today was more workmanlike than guffaw-inducing as some of Gridnman's or Spiffytrix's are?

    ReplyDelete
  7. Venkatesh25 April 2011 at 11:04

    Veer figures in the clues today at 16D and, in our Orkut group, it was he who solved this clue!

    ReplyDelete
  8. Venkatesh25 April 2011 at 11:11

    Any idea why bush (for mallow) in 1 Ac has been spelt with capital B? At first read, it started off thinking of George Bush. But, with RAM<- and SH,it was easy to guess the answer and then work backwards.

    There are norms for which words within a sentence can have the initial letter as a capital.

    ReplyDelete
  9. VMA Nair25 April 2011 at 13:04

    Plenty of sweet stuff. But very tough for me. Got only less than half :( Yesterday's Sunday crossword was very simple where I missed only INANE and CARAFE.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Bhavan25 April 2011 at 13:20

    @Veer, its the choice of some of the words in the clues and solutions that's made me think so.

    For me its been an exercise of educated guesses and looking up words in the dictionary rather than being confident of an answer being right.

    How many can solve clue components like Bush = mallow (with or without the false capitalization), or heard of rauwolfia or a word like vendition ? How many THC solvers would have hit upon Jerry from the Seinfield reference ?

    But like you said this is Neyartha's style. Probably I didn't want to tackle such a puzzle on Monday morning : )

    ReplyDelete
  11. Bhavan25 April 2011 at 13:23

    There are norms for which words within a sentence can have the initial letter as a capital.

    @SR : From what I read, you can capitalize a word in a clue that is normally written in lowercase, but not the other way round. Mostly it is done to improve the surface reading.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Bhalchandra Pasupathy25 April 2011 at 13:51

    One needs to figure out his style of clueing to solve this intelligibly (sic!). Normally one would expect every word/term in the clue to be relevant to the solution, but not in this case.
    Doesn't get first prize in my book, though there were some neat ones as well, eg 6D

    ReplyDelete

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