Scintillator is as tough and devious as ever today. I struggled in the NE corner due to the CD's there. I'm also stuck for the anno of 19A & 7D.
ACROSS
ACROSS
4 - Link was reversed in a carpenter’s tool (8) - CHAINSAW {CHAIN}{->WAS}
9 - You poke at universal compassion (6) - UBUNTU {U}{BUNT}{U}
10 - Where duties are not burdensome? (3,5) - TAX HAVEN [CD]
12 - I back limited diet, possibly (8) - DIABETIC {I}{BACk+DIET}* &lit
15 - Beat partly or beat totally? (4) - ROUT {oR}{OUT} or ROUTe (See comments)
16 - Bad manners to change trade words (5,5) - BRAND NAMES*
19 - Sheer clothes reportedly found on lassie’s hind, throughout
(10) - EVERYWHERE Anno pending (Addendum - {E}{VERY}{WHERE}(~wear) - Thanks to Sandhya from the Orkut group)
20 - Largely frightening injury (4) - SCAR SCARe
23 - Rehabilitate one out of vampire affliction (6) - REVAMP VAMPiRE*
25 - Spanish fear of God (8) - HISPANIC {HIS}{PANIC}
27 - Unsure atheist wonders about Hanuman’s tail (8) - HESITANT {HESITA{N}T*}
28 - Compound of church adjacent to Italian city (6) - CHROME {CH}{ROME}
30 - Nevertheless a dry 1 ac.? (2,4) - AT THAT {A}{T T}{HAT}
DOWN
1 - He is the first person to fail dismally (7) - FOUNDER [DD]
2 - Fake guru-based illegal activity (4,5) - DRUG ABUSE*
3 - Poor profit on hill-climbing (6) - ROTTEN {->TOR}{->NET}
5 - Remedy of ghee balls, evenly picked (4) - HEAL {gH}{eE}{bA}{lLs}
6 - Basic books not out there previously (8) - INHERENT {IN HERE}{NT}
7 - See inside, see around, note to see this at first (5) - SEVEN ? Anno pending (Addendum - {SE{V}E}{N} - See comments)
8 - They breach the defence of the Wall (7) - WINDOWS [CD]
11 - Journal outlining Switzerland’s form of government (7) - DIARCHY {DIAR{CH}Y}
14 - Robot sapiens ? (7) - ANDROID [CD]
17 - Irish fellow gets into mum’s coat (9) - MACINTOSH {MAC}{INTO}{SH}
18 - Balance that’s exhibited by benzene? (8) - SYMMETRY [CD]
19 - Audio range of our radio (7) - EARSHOT [CD]
21 - Hand is starting to go over body part that’s most well-grown
(7) - RICHEST {R}{Is}{CHEST}
22 - Outcome of rising gunfire (6) - UPSHOT {UP}{SHOT}
24 - It’s a very ugly prospect (5) - VISTA {IT'S+A+V}*
26 - Burden related to setters and solvers (4) - ONUS [CD] (Addendum - {ON}{US} - See comments)
ReplyDeleteBeing out of station, with time constraints, managed about a half of the grid.
Liked FEDORA, HESITANT, TOADYISH, DRUG ABUSE, EARSHOT, VISTA, UPSHOT, ONUS and others.
7 - See inside, see around, note to see this at first (5) - SEVEN
ReplyDelete{SE{V}E}{N}
V: see
N: note
(The number of the clue - seen at first)
You can spot the unseen, Sandhya. Keep it up!
DeleteGood one
DeleteThanks Richard & Ajeesh :P
DeleteHow is V = see? I don't see it :-)
Deleteait could be (v)iew.
DeletePl. read 'ait' as it.
Deletev (abbrev) Vide (Latin), see
DeleteI often get emails from people saying certain package has been couriered vide ((sic) certain AWB no. or something. Is this wrong usage?
DeleteLiked the 2 shots- ear & up. The 26 D is on us to do the CW however tough it is- either singly or collectively ( with innovative help from Sandhya) I could not get the annos of quite a few that I managed to fill.
ReplyDeleteThe one that I could not get is UBUNTU. Never heard the word before. Loved SEVEN. My COD
ReplyDeleteCome on Scintillator - this tough a CW is not funny! What is UBUNTU? Never heard the word. Southern part is all I managed to solve.
ReplyDeleteKeep at it Rita. By and by you will start enjoying the challenge of solving a toughie. I seed to feel that the Sunday CW was tough. Now I find it easy.
DeleteCrosswords will have words which you may not know. Deepak seems to have no problem getting UBUNTU. I could not. But I am not complaining. Only kicking myself that I could not, what with Google and other tools that we did not have in the days of yore.
The word seed above should read as used
DeleteI don't know why but Ubuntu seems to be stuck in my head (though I did not know it's meaning), as that was the first thing I thought of when I saw the crossings.
Delete
ReplyDeleteRita Mathur10:39 AM GMT+05:30
Come on Scintillator - this tough a CW is not funny! What is UBUNTU? Never heard the word. Southern part is all I managed to solve.
Reply
Ubuntu is an ancient African word meaning 'humanity to others' (compassion)
and also name of popular Linux operating system.
DeleteAnd that was today's theme
DeleteFedora,Ubuntu,Windows,Macintosh,Android
Add chrome & vista too. Lots of software floating around today
DeleteAnother scan & I unearthed seven possibly for Windows seven
DeleteFairly straight forward one today ( To fill up, Needed this board for explaining seven & macintosh).
ReplyDeleteSolution to yesterday's ABCDE : salad days {SA {L} {ADDA} YS}
Scintillatorat his _ best today ?
Mysterious yell before commencement of President Truman's investiture ceremony (7)
RJ You really have a CRYPTIC way of conveying your ideas...
Delete:)
DeleteIt took me a while even to notice the capital letters of cryptic ! (which confirmed my line of thinking)
ReplyDeleteI had a different annotation for 15A
ReplyDeleteBeat -- The "route" of a cop on his patrol; Beat partly is - "rout";
Beat totally is -- "rout"
This is more likely what was intended
DeleteThough I'm not able to actively participate in the daily blogs, since I have not yet done the day's thing, I run through the comments alright.
ReplyDeleteThere seems to be an outcry amongst some bloggers about the puzzles being tough. Well, This is as it should be. I fully agree with Richard that , one learns a lot of new words and phrases in the process, though the compilers can indeed be a bit more considerate to avoid too many obscure words that one never comes across nor have any usefulness for our daily life. I never knew that words like Zebu, Gnu; Axolotl ever existed !!So don't despair and keep plodding on. In those days , we had only the dictionaries to refer to; today, we have the ubiquitous Google Uncle to solve all our agonies. But try not bothering him too much and give your grey cells a bit more stir to solve, using other avails like adjoining crossings, your own lateral thinking out of the Box( literally) and you will be surprised how a word or phrase snugly cuddle into the square, sending you a warm thrill and feeling of achievement. The whole cyber space , above, below and beyond is your oyster to explore, thanks to Cryptic crosswords!!
Bit of heavy weather encountered today, very cryptic indeed.
ReplyDeleteAgree with Sridhar on his 1:24, had the same anno.
Likewise for 20A I think it should be SCARY - Y, but net effect is the same.
Yes, I too had it as scary-y.
ReplyDeleteHi all!
ReplyDeleteRe. 15A, Sridhar's anno was what I had in mind, but Col's works perfectly too - a bit of a surprise how two different annos work equally well for the same answer. Also I thought I had some wordplay for 26D:
related to: ON
setters and solvers: US
I thought so too
DeleteMe as well!
DeleteA day of operating systems!
ReplyDeleteAnd the two long ac. clues in the middle seem to make a reference: BRAND-NAMES EVERYWHERE
I was a bit surprised to see Ubuntu featured. Being a long-time user of the OS (though I'm on the fence with what has happened to it of late), it was the first answer to pop-out (and sort of hinted at the possible existence of a theme), although I suspected that it may not sit well some with some of the solvers. (Cheer up, you may soon see more of it, as the company has recently partnered with Dell to market pre-loaded laptops in India.)
while i do enjoy doing the crossword and agree in general that it needs to be reasonably challenging, i beg to differ on certain issues.
ReplyDeletea. reference to women as "dish", "broad" i think needs to be avoided!
b. Yes we all know that there is internet and google, bing etc, but the whole point of doing the crossword is just with a paper pencil and the grey cell! The setter can have his own style and way of clueing but then clues like 7 down baffles all reasoning!