Sunday 15 May 2011

No 2634, Sunday 15 May 11

ACROSS
1   - Block Somerset's foremost spinner (4) - {S}{TOP}
4   - Way in which ginger's used? (3,4) - CAT FLAP [CD]
9   - Heavenly girl seen round about, heading for arcade (8) - {ETHE{RE}{A}L}
10 - Some favour banking in town (5) - URBAN [T]
11 - Financial agency vacating property (8,5) - {CLEARING} {HOUSE}
13 - Up against it, adult within points out (2,1,4) - {IN {A} SPOT*}
15 - Beast making awful noises on lake (7) - {L}{IONESS*}
17 - Excited seeing small band (7) - {GENESI*}{S}
19 - Fundamentalist spoke about Conservative (7) - {RADI{C}AL}
20 - Hear about soldiers with TA stuck inside a drainage basin (9,4) - {CATCH}{MEN}{T A}REA Anno pending. Does drainage basin refer to River Rea? (Addendum - {CATCH}{MEN}{T A}{RE}{A} - See comments)
22 - First sign of tooth decay - canine needs to be extracted (5) - cARIES
23 - Cheat to secure point in card game (8) - {CRIB}{BAG}{E}
24 - Clothes got grey, unfortunately (7) - TOGGERY*
25 - Singer in musical, Tormé (4) - ALTO [T]
DOWN
2   - Article on extremely memorable subject (5) - {THE}{M)(E}
3   - Clown, I report, is funny (7) - PIERROT*
4   - Army officer is in the central part, we hear (7) - COLONEL(~kernel)
5   - Better golf club, hopefully (5,4) - {TOUCH} {WOOD}
6   - Work switch in job centre (6,8) - {LABOUR} {EXCHANGE}
7   - Coppers shut in church (5) - {PEN}{CE}
8   - Go from job to job to ruthlessly pursue one's aim? (5,2,7) - STICK AT NOTHING [DD]
12 - Phone engineer around noon (4) - {RI{N}G}
14 - Has to step off as quickly as possible (9) - POSTHASTE*
16 - The Italian entering well of storage chamber (4) - {S{IL}O}
18 - Incomplete drawing by unknown character (7) - {SKETCH}{Y}
19 - Greek wine - what could be nastier? (7) - RETSINA*
20 - Talk about front of relief map (5) - {CHA{R}T}
21 - Machine that's programmed to drill almost overturned (5) - {eROB}{OT} <-



7 comments:

  1. 20 - Hear about soldiers with TA stuck inside a drainage basin (9,4) - {CATCH}{MEN}{T A}REA Anno pending. Does drainage basin refer to River Rea?

    I thought the REA came from about and a:

    Hear=Catch
    about=re
    soliders=men
    TA=ta
    stuck inside=AInd
    a=a
    drainage basin=def

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  2. 20 - Hear about soldiers with TA stuck inside a drainage basin (9,4) - {CATCH}{MEN}{T A}REA Anno pending.

    {soldiers(MEN) + TA} stuck in {hear (CATCH) + about (RE)} + A = CATCHMENT AREA (drainage basin)

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  3. Thanks Kishore and Venkatesh,
    I must have been daydreaming when trying to annotate that, I totally forgot about the definition part of the clue

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  4. Missed out on CAT FLAP not thinking of Ginger as a cat. Otherwise plain sailing.

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  5. Very enjoyable today. CAT FLAP was a bit of guesswork, given the crossings -- I am still not able to make the clue fit precisely, even allowing for Ginger being a cat!

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  6. Bhala,
    Read the clue as 'Way in which Ginger has used'

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  7. What a relief from a strssful NJ's letter-jugglery.!

    There could be a slight variation in the annotation of CATCHMENT area

    Hear: CATCH
    About :RE
    Soldiers :MEN
    TA
    RE in two As.(and not one !)

    Again, CUT FLAP is a new one for me in my several years of solving cryptics. One never stops learning, eh?

    Again PENCE: is a bit off- PEN-SHUT_- ?

    RAJU UMAMAHESWAR

    ReplyDelete

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