Saturday 3 September 2011

No 10249, Saturday 03 Sep 11, Gridman

ACROSS
1   - It's set down at the meal table (5,3) - PLACE MAT [CD] I hadTable Mat first and was stuck forever!
6   - Country initially failed in judicious intervention (4) - FIJI {F}{I}{J}{I}
9   - Shops' delays? (6) - STALLS [DD]
10 - Puts in the roll (7) - ENLISTS [CD]
13 - Eggs or messages may be … (9) - SCRAMBLED [CD]
14 - Mineral in Karnataka for East Asian republic (5) - KOREA {K{ORE}A}
15 - Time to go after army officer's weapon (4) - COLT {COL}{T}
16 - One who is worshipped by stargazers (6,4) - SCREEN IDOL [CD]
19 - They are expected to be respected not just by person concerned (4,6) - ONES ELDERS [CD]
21 - National firm comes in the way (4) - SCOT {S{CO}T}
24 - “Check accounts of a university,” Parisian said (5) - AUDIT {A}{U}{DIT}
25 - In morning, speaker isn't fulfilling lover (9) - INAMORATO {IN}{AM}{ORATOr}
26 - Did a sound censoring? (7) - BLEEPED [CD]
27 - A detective I consulted initially is sour (6) - ACIDIC {A}{CID}{I}{C}
28 - Not the same eel swam around the edge of stream (4) - ELSE {EL{S}E*}
29 - Footballer drawing back cover over new animal (8) - ELEPHANT {ELEP<-}{HA{N}T}
DOWN
2   - Side rallies, after all, without female (7) - LATERAL AfTEARALL*
3   - Army officer's hesitation on new op-ed piece (6) -  COLUMN {COL}{UM}{N}
4   - Lost rare medals and pic (9) - MISPLACED*
5   - Way things are going, conclusion will be after a couple of trials (5) - TREND {TRials}{END}
7   - Covered by a policy (7) - INSURED [CD]
8   - Roguish stallion aint put in place (12) - INSTALLATION*
11 - Taste by passing the tongue over not a bit of cream (6) - LIKING LIcKING
12 - Shrink rap? (12) - PSYCHOBABBLE [CD]
17 - What you must do to become famous (4,1,4) - EARN A NAME [CD]
18 - Writer put up with being kept inside (4-2) - PENT-UP {PEN{T-UP<-}
20 - On and on — without an objective? (7) - ENDLESS [E]
22 - Instrument to a family going over a city (7) - CLARION {CLA{RIO}N}
23 - Short time with a good-looker in style (6) - MODISH {MO}{DISH}
25 - Kind of rock for one Pole to break down (5) - INDIE {I}{N}{DIE}



23 comments:

  1. 29A my cod. Black pearl in pachyderm. Truly inspired.

    After beriberi yesterday, we have col-col today in 3d15a.

    ReplyDelete
  2. 29 - Footballer drawing back cover over new animal (8) - ELEPHANT {ELEP<-}{A{N}T}

    TYPO: {ELEP<-}{HA{N}T}

    ReplyDelete
  3. 20 - On and on — without an objective? (7) - ENDLESS [E]

    This is a DD

    ReplyDelete
  4. 15 - Time to go after army officer's weapon (4) - COLT {COL}{T}

    Colts were always with cowboys, as hosses and guns. And what a name they had: Peacemaker. After one was gunned down by a colt, he was always peaceful.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Deepak

    I am sorry you were in a dilemma over 1a.

    However, the thumb rule is: the clue will not have the same word or same part of a phrase which is the solution.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Sandhya @ 8:39,
    Thanks. Typo since corrected

    ReplyDelete
  7. Dropping your aitches, heh?

    ReplyDelete
  8. Venkatesh @ 8:42,

    I do not agree. Both on-on and endless are the same.
    His speech went on and on.
    His speech was endless.

    ReplyDelete
  9. 20 - On and on — without an objective? (7) - ENDLESS [2]
    Exaclty. Now you are on track.
    Why it is a DD:
    1) On and on (as you have mentioned) = endless
    2) without an objective (objective = aim/end)
    = aimless/endless.

    ReplyDelete
  10. It is an endless, but not aimless, discussion on the clue.Let us aim for an end.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Venkatesh,

    Please clarify by what you mean by 'Now you are on track'?
    Please be careful on the phrases that you use here.

    ReplyDelete
  12. I hope you are not attempting railway stunts ;-)

    ReplyDelete
  13. The following is a Comment by D. Srinivasan of Salem, who is unable to post it here himself:

    Quote

    CV @08:48

    Re 1a. I followed your rule and could get the correct solution.

    But this rule is not applicable to another setter here as we found it a few a days back.

    Unquote

    ReplyDelete
  14. A trifle disappointing in terms of quality of CW (especially for a week-end), with numerous E type clues - 1a, 10a, 19a, 20a 7d, 17d etc. Also a number of short words (I did not want to say four-letter words!) in the solution.

    ReplyDelete
  15. Solvers are entitled to their opinions about the satisfaction level of any crossword by any setter.

    As for the grid, statistically it has;

    12-letter words: 2
    10-letter words: 2
    9-letter words: 4
    8-letter words: 2
    7-letter words: 6
    6-letter words: 6
    5-letter words: 4
    4-letter words: 4

    If a solver thinks that in this letter-distribution, ithere are not 6 15-letter words or 14-letter words and so on, he will be right.

    Can any word that is more than six-letters be considered 'short'?

    Gridman's next three grids will have 13-, 14- and 15-letter words, but with just two of these in symmetrical positions.

    ReplyDelete
  16. To clarify my comment: The short words (4 letter and 5 letter words total 8)in the solution along with the numerous Quick/Easy type clues, was the reason for my disappointment with the quality of the CW.

    ReplyDelete
  17. Copy of mail received from Dr Chandraseharan is reproduced below

    Quote
    Dear Sir,
    I am a retired professor of mathematics and principal. My wife and I are ardent followers of your blog. To be frank, we began to appreciate the clues fully only after going through the explanations given in the solutions. Thanks. You are doing a great job.
    I have always felt that it would be nice if the hindu crossword can be solved online. I now know that it can be done using Across Lite software. A text file in a specified format is necessary for each crossword to do it. I have uploaded the required file for September 3 , 2011 crossword in my website. The link is http://krcgee.50webs.com/crossword/ . If a person has downloaded and installed the Across Lite software (available free at www.litsoft.com/) in his computer, he can open/save the file sept3_2011.puz from the link above and solve the crossword online/offline.
    I request you to inform your readers so that they can try this, if interested. I will upload the files for three or four days. If the response is good , I will continue it.
    Yours sincerely
    Dr. K.R.Chandrasekaran
    Ph: 08144543693

    Unquote

    ReplyDelete
  18. I commend the efforts Dr. K. R. Chandrasekaran.

    I wonder if he is aware that the Orkut community and Facebook have a free application called The Hindu Crossword application created by Chitra and Magesh of Calif. Just by clicking on it, one gets to solve the day's puzzle interactively. By changing the date in the calendar, one get any archived puzzle.

    May I suggest to Dr KRC that while he is preparing the file, he also includes the name of the setter and The Hindu (for which there are fields in the format required to be prepared). I would think that the copyright rests with the paper. It might also be argued that the copyright rests with the creator. However, even if the setter brings out a collection of his puzzles, he is expected to acknowledge that they appeared originally in the paper.

    If one uses any app privately, it is quite all right. But if it is distributed in a public domain to be used by others, I don't know what the position is.

    Apart from the app noted above, there are also other commercial apps that do the same thing - that is enable solvers to do the puzzle without visiting the Hindu website - which admittedly lacks an online interactive version; my appeals to the paper to provide one have not yielded any results.

    The paper does not seem to be bothered about this issue as it probably has much bigger issues on hand. OK, why then do they have the notice: All rights reserved; reproduction in whole or in part without permission is prohibited.

    A gentleman on his website provides an interactive version of the Sunday HC and provides links in the public domain. The puzzle in the Hindu has copyright notice, the right belonging actually to The Guardian.

    I, aka Gridman, am not trying to intimidate anyone but certainly I am raising a serious issue that has to be considered not only by those providing apps/interactive versions but also by the paper.

    ReplyDelete
  19. DR. Chandrasekharan and CV;Very valuable service to all of us. Nothing like solving the puzzles on paper with a ball point pen, tho' technological assistance does help a lot, if it is easy and user-friendly. I used to regularly solve online the Herald of Scotland cryptics but you are always left with something to be desired. So I used to print the blanks and solve them. I also a have a hand held crossword digital unit but I can assure you, its no fun at all, as are the CDS that give you very many xwords. Nothing when compared to the good old pen and paper.

    Hindu crosswords are very interesting but the blocks are so bleary and writing to them is of no avail. They have other geese to cook and couldn't be bothered. The minimum courtesy to its readers is lacking and I'm sure they would be more responsive to their advertisers. Do they even have a crossword editor? Look at the Guardian crosswords in their Metro Plus. They are so miniscule in size and yet our passion overruns the inconvenience and we still do those grids. For the publishers it is a filling up the space affair and the readers be damned. So be it.

    ReplyDelete
  20. Col,

    Can you please elaborate on 24A?

    Check accounts - AUDIT

    How is DIT explained?

    Regards,
    David

    ReplyDelete
  21. DIT is said in French. Cheers!
    Mohan

    ReplyDelete
  22. Agree with Raju's comment on solving THC by pen and paper! I've tried the one on FB but solving it on the daily is a pleasure in itself.

    ReplyDelete

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