Friday, October 31, 2008

Empty, by George

listener4003

No bars, strange numbers, clues in usual order, some misprints in definitions.

Why can I get absolutely nowhere on this crossword? I've stared at it for hours, I've looked up every single word in every single clue in Chambers and Bradfords. I've invented all sorts of misprints and looked them up. I've done everything but cheat...

I can't even get started on this one.

Let's possibly redeem something... we have to guess the name of the setter, so I'm going to presume it's a regular setter. You rarely see someone with more than one puzzle in a year, so let's eliminate all setters going back to October 2007. Probably someone who set last year...

Poat? Maybe... seems to like odd grids. Only set two puzzles in the last three years, so maybe not familiar enough to solvers to use as an identifiable setter.
Arachne? Also not that many crosswords.
Charybdis? Likely contender... set quite a few in the last year but none since "Wot No Lines" (which I couldn't finish, but liked).
Bandmaster? Maybe, but the Bandmaster puzzles I've done have had a lot of clues, and this has very few.
Kea? I hope not, because I really loved "Safe Cracking" and the one with the crazy slanty lines.

So I'm putting my money behind Charybdis, let's see if I can get anything about it.

I am so stuck...

Across...

1. Looks like it might be a misprint definition for "encouraging six", because otherwise wordplay would be hinting at VI,EN, (on?). VIENNESE wouldn't fit a misprint of "encouraging". So maybe EN------. Enticing? Could ON give me TICING?
7. Cut Flower... oh, maybe it's a Dipper puzzle? No idea.
8. Maybe a misprint giving "homelessness"? But can't think of a 4-letter word. American boast cut short for wordplay?
9. If "egg" is "ego" misspelled then I could have N-MO- and something like NO MORE as the miprints. The only word I can think for "operation for birth" is CAESARIAN which isn't 8 letters.
10. FINALLY! ARENA - N gives AREA and a misprinted R.
13. IN out of ORDINARY gives ORDARY which doesn't make any anagrams I can think of.
14. Wordplay looks like NINTH as a hidden word. Nothing that means NINTH seems to fit the definition or a misprint in the definition.
18. Could be long ball? S--- SAIR? SALP?
19. ST-----R? WAYFARER?
21. Anagram of WEST? STEW? WETS?
22. Misprint maybe for "they're trapped"? ORAL in SPAN?

Down
1. EDGAR!! Got one!
2. One of the five-letter muses? Maybe starting with N, that doesn't help
3. I--ICAL? Living woman?
4. A rugby term for error? Don't know any rugby. Wordplay not giving me anything.
5. No idea...
6. EME,US, and we have a misprint of U -bush birds. The grid shape seems to be suggesting this crosses with 1 across, which would mean enticing isn't right. It could go next to EDGAR, I guess.
11. LOSSIER (RISSOLE)*.
12. Making furniture in six letters? CHAIRY?
14. Could be misprint of shunted? -M---?
15. That's an odd surface, I'm sort of running low on inspiration now
16. C(H)ARDS, misprint of R for T in tummy
17. SOMA? That's a wild guess since it's appeared in a Times and a Jumbo lately.

So great... I'm only sure of 5 clues, and I can't really place any of them, but I think 1ac starts EN so I put in EDGAR. Might as well be an empty grid.

Off to check where I failed on this one, but we can stamp it FAIL

Victory Listener crossword and possibly Charybdis. The lead is almost eroded! Current tally Listener 20, George 21. Current streak, Listener 3!

Friday, October 24, 2008

All the Henrys I know except Clay, Matisse and Thoreau

listener4002

First thing that struck me after printing off Listener 4002: A Process of Induction by Emkay was the grid. That's a very nice-looking grid, blank perimeter, criss-crossing of three long answers, the word in the middle meaning that it's pretty neatly blocked off into four quarters. I didn't weigh in on the discussion in the Crossword Club, but I have an aesthetic fondness for symmetric grids.

According to the Listener site, Emkay's last puzzle was in 2005, when I wasn't regularly attempting the Listener, and I don't recall that last puzzle, so here's a new setter for me.

The preamble suggests a plan of attack - the long answers are to be entered normally, as are any words that don't touch the perimeter. So let's start with those...

I "cheated" almost straight away... the definition for 15ac sounded like it should be ------SPHERIC... tropospheric isn't the right number of letters, nor is ionospheric or mesospheric. THERMOSPHERIC is, and I coudn't make it match the wordplay, but a search on ------SPHERIC on word wizards turned up CHROMOSPHERIC, which would fit the wordplay as R in C,Ho,Mo,S,P,H,Er,I,C (a degree in Inorganic Chemistry occasionally comes in handy). 35ac is an anagram - CAUTION,THREAT turning into AUTHENTICATOR, and 3D is HORSE,CHESTNUT. Thanks for the three starter clues, Emkay, we're off!

I'd like to stay I stuck with the game plan of filling in the normal entry clues, but since I got the first three I looked at, I decided to barge in and solve as many as I could, and when there were jumbles, write the letters on the side of the grid and eliminate checking letters. The clues were a mix of very tricky and pretty easy - here's my favorites...

6A - DR(ONG)OS(s) - cute little bird, and Australian term of insult
18A - ELD,EST
20A - CLEANER (anagram of LAWRENCE-W)
5D - ORRA - hidden reversed in wheelbARROw
23D - EELS - every fourth letter is a new one for me
31D (deva)STATE - the sort of clue I used to miss a lot, taking a small word away from a long word

After two sessions of solving, I had a pretty decent-looking grid, but still a lot of blanks across that centre, it looked like -O---H-E-R-. Putting that into Word Wizards (I relied a lot on Word Wizards for this one), suggested HOORAH HENRY, and this dropping was too big for a penny - the brick dropped. Are the perimeters Henrys? Look a the first one... FOR,D. We're on to something... if they're Henry's, that (9,two words) would be THE EIGHTH... E in HE in TIGHT,H (nice wordplay, Emkay). Further confirmation, anagram of virgin gives me IRVING.

I wrote down all the Henrys I knew... Clay, Matisse, Thoreau, Purcell, Mancini and tried to retrofit them into the perimeter clues. There's MANCI,NI, and PUR(e)CELL (and places to put them). A wikipedia and google search of Henrys gave me TH(I)E,R,RY as a soccer-playing Henry. That left me with two 4-letter Henry's to find. I thought the mild cheese one was C(LA)Y, but a google search of Cyprus cheese turned up HALLOUMI, and that Henry Hall was a 17th century poet. Finally putting in HENRY -O-D suggested Henry Wood (concert leader), so I presume the bird is a woodchuck without the chuck or something like that.

This was a lot of fun to solve! The Henrys were fun, and trickily clued, and I enjoyed doing the research to finish this off. There was a real sense of playfulness that resonated with me here. And I managed to get the theme and the answer pretty readily after some slogging.

Victory to George! Current tally - George 22, Listener 18. Current streak, George 2.

Finding Henry Theirry reminded me of an hysterical track by Cassetteboy on their most recent CD, "Carry On Breathing". Warning - while this is technically safe for work, you may not want to play it with sensitive ears present.



Until next week - comments welcome!

Friday, October 17, 2008

Amo = something you fire from a gun, Amat = something you sit on, Amamus = a pregnant rodent

listener4001

"Normal" blog resumes, with 4000 stashed away for a snowy week. We have a crossword with an interesting shaped grid by Alban, a kind of a tribute crossword. It appears Alban's last puzzle was in 2002, and was all German words. the one before that was all French, before that more German.

So armed with that little bit of foreknowledge about Alban and the title, I think we're up against some Latin. The first across I could see the wordplay to (12ac - LUC(k),RUM) confirms this - Latin roots that appear with the words in Chambers.

My Latin is pretty terrible, so I turned to a friend who is a Classics professor for some assistance. She liked this crossword a lot (her mother does the Times).

The phrase QUOD ERAT DEMONSTRANDUM came to mind almost instantly when looking at 4,4,14.

Something bugged me a little here, after the first sitting I had the theme, the hidden phrase, and probably half of the grid filled in. It didn't seem all that important to fill in the rest of the grid, which meant poring through Latin dictionaries and emailing my Classics friend. There's probably some mistakes in the left-hand side of the grid.

Looking through Alban's previous puzzles, some of them sound truly inspired (a tribute to Douglas Adams!, and a cubic puzzle), hopefully a few will be in the new Listener book that may find its way to the US (or I'll cave and order it from the UK, might have to make it and Chambers a Christmas present to myself).

George 21, Listener 18. Streak: George 1.

I can't vote, but I'm caught up in the US election anyway. I live in one of these "swing states" that is being heavily canvassed, and on Sunday, James Taylor is coming to my little town to do a concert to support Barack Obama. I've got a ticket, James Talyor is a kind of a guilty pleasure, but whenever I think of him, I think of this



Vincent Price looks so happy in this clip.

Friday, October 10, 2008

Listener 4000: saved for a rainy week

It has not been the best of three weeks. Two illnesses, two trips out of town, writing a show , and a couple of performances have really eaten into my crossword time.

Listener 4000 looks like a work of art, and it wasn't until a second look at it that I realised the "individual" crosswords occupy the same space. I don't want to do a half-assed job on it, so I'm not going to look at the answers, and I'll be saving Listener 400 for a rainy week (maybe a week-long trip I have to Houston in December).

I'm calling this a timed-out failure. Listener 18, George 20. Current streak, Listener 2.

Friday, October 3, 2008

Smoke if you've got 'em

listener3999

On a plane from Atlanta to Asheville last year, I got almost half of Convert by Mr. Lemon out - I saw that there was a Harry Potter theme from identifying "Diagon Alley" in the extra letters, and I started to pick up more of the tricks that help with solving Listeners. I never did finish it, but I was looking forward to seeing what Mr. Lemon had in store with Tobacco.

16 answers need metallic changes, remaining clues lead to an answer with an extra letter. A message makes it all clear.

Starting on the across clues, nothing jumped out until 12 - (A1,TITIAN)*,ED makes INTITATED with an extra A, and right after it is DIAL + C (hidden). 18 looks like the first answer that needs changing - LO in SAL giving SALON, and a letter needs to be removed (since I'm writing this well after coming up with that, I'm pretty sure SALON isn't right).

Then a bunch of unsolveables, until I hit 21 across... (OIKS)*,MET gives KISMET + O, S(CAN)S, then (LAIC,TYPE)* gives ECTYPAL + I, didn't know 27, (t)RAIL+S, 32 looks like something...ISHLY, a peek at Bradfords and there's SNOTTY for midshipman, so SOTTISHLY + N, and 33 is a clue I like a lot - TOO in OLEO (appearing in 73% of New York Times crosswords) gives O'TOOLE + O. I have almost all the bottom half of acrosses written in.

Downs... trickier. 4 is SAGINATE and needs changing. 6 is SCREE,N, another change (change appears to be losing one letter, or some modification that leaves a word one shorter). For 7, (ANY,SIOUX)* about AL gives ANXIOUSLY + A, 8 is SE,RA+N, and then a bit of a break.

16 is (KAREN) in SOOT which gives SNAKEROOT, and since I have the K,E,R and O, then the modification looks like it's in the first three characters. Sn and Na are chemical symbols for metals - are we merging the two and getting rid of the N?

20 looks like (LINT)* in GAGS to give GATLING+S (that fits). If 23 is C(LOTH)O+N (fits), 26 is PAOLO+I, and a trip to Bradfords to look up cattle gives GYAL so that's an extra N to finish off.

With the words I've written in, I can see a few more clues - 1 ac is BAR,BAR,Y COAST+T (nice clue). I scanned this a little early, I saw 2 is A,RUN,HEM to give ARNHEM+U. Word Wizards suggests TELEOLOGICAL will fit at 35, it has an anagram of COLLEGE and ALI, but I don't see where the rest of the clue could come from.

Since BARBARY COAST is in place, making 4D start with A, there goes the merging metals idea - are we just losing the S so the word starts with a metal symbol (Ag)?

The extra letters look like this T?BAC?OI?SNO?U?AN?DS?N?I?N. TOBACCO IS NOT(NOW?) U AND S?N?I?N? I've got nothing.

And I am stuck...

Looking at it now, I think it probably is removing the first letter so that answers start with the symbol for a metal, that would explain the metallic change, and although it doesn't match what I have in the grid, my need to change answers can all do this...

SALON - ALON (but that wouldn't work with SAGINATE??)
SAGOUIN - AG
SCANS - CANS
35 may have been STELEOLOGICAL to becomne TELEOLOGICAL?
SAGINATE - AG
SCREEN - CREEN

Dammit - is it S that needs to be taken off?
SNAKEROOT - NAKEROOT

Was I this close?

Well done Mr. Lemon - victory to the Listener Crossword. Listener 17, George 20. Current streak, Listener 1.