All good things must come to and end, and it's my streak.
I haven't tried any of Salamanca's crosswords other than the last (?) two of the "Plays of the Bard" series that I got nowhere on. So I was expecting something difficult, and I got it. First off, I had to look up Boustrophedon which means "alternately right to left and left to right" which doesn't seem to make much sense to me given that we start with 1 down? Does it mean down to up and up to down?
Then we're later switching to across. Across boustrophedon or just across? Hmmm. No letter lengths. Not every letter is checked... well since I'm lost on how these go in it's a pity not every letter is checked, I could look for letters that appear twice and hope they're forming a pattern.
What I do know is that the first clue is 1 down, presumably it starts in the first square and it is RESIDENTSHIP (anagram of THE N SPIDERS I). The second answer is either ANA or ANAIA, and with cold solving I'm stuck until (g)HOST.
Hmmm... if they're in across order near the end, then maybe I can start at the end and work up.
The very last clue is an anagram - PACKTHREAD. Maybe crosses with the P in RESIDENTSHIP? Try it... ANA or ANAIA could go up from the A in PACKTHREAD?
Is the second-last clue a two-letter word (please?). No, it's TONDINI. Hmmm... now if it went in backwards then maybe it crosses that I and N from RESIDENTSHIP and ANA, but that makes an ugly DK at the end of column 4. If the acrosses are normal, then maybe HOST rises from the H in PACKTHREAD and TONDINI crosses there? That would make the one above it most likely a 4-letter word for "something to sleep on" beginning IN... (in case Peter B is reading, I tried INRO as the stock 4-letter word beginning IN, but it doesn't work). I look for places for my other longish words that I think are in the across section (AU NATUREL, UNTAMES) to cross longish and weirdish words that I think are in the boustrophedon part (AUSPICE, MBIRA, BEDROCK, AKIRA), but it's not working.
I am completely stumped... I'm heading over to the listener site soon to see what it was I missed, but I just completely cannot get started on this one. Well done Salamanca, victory to the Listener Crossword.
2009 tally: Listener 1, George 6. Current streak: Listener 1
While I was toying with this, I was reading about a group I've performed for a few times, Arts2People doing a Labyrinth-themed ball in Asheville. So it would be a perfect finish for this puzzle if you had to go all around a bunch of hedges avoiding David Bowie and his creepy hair and camel toe. Let's all paint our toenails black and relive (if you're my age) your childhood with some David Bowie.
Comments welcome, and see you next week!
5 comments:
Bad Luck George, it was a worthy attempt!!! This one took me one hell of a long time...I had all sorts for 1 down, starting with something like prisade meaning a lieutenant, then I had Dispensator!!! Finally landed on Residentship.
I then had some Old Testament storyteller for the next one, something like ananais....however the intersection of Packthread (my first solve) helped enormously, and I worked backwards with the across clues from there.
Confusion was also rife as I had Erick linked to the Packthread K, making an awfully long bobsleigh run!! By the way, was interested to learn of the thematic section of a bobsleigh run.....the labyrinth!
However, keeped plugging away for about a week, with majority of cold solves, before I started filling the grid more and more......haven't got my working grid here, but remember enjoying SHIRR (somewhat of a turning point for me) and also EROICA.....timeless stimulating pieces, yielding Beethoven's 3rd symphony!!!!
Anyway this was one hell of a crossword and enjoyed every second, the literal pathway through the maze, (CORD, ROPE, , TWINE, STRING, COTTON, and THREAD) revealed itself and the "lurker" AKA Minotaur was found hiding in the diagonal.
Unfortunately there was no Ariadne (is that right?) waiting at the end of the Maze, haha!
For me there was a certain coming of age feel to this one as it relied heavily on cold solving, then it was a kind of infuriating jigsaw!!!
See you next week George!
Apache 4D 7 Listener 0
OK, just gone through the answer - I completely misunderstood while boustrophedon meant, and might have gotten a bit further (my sneaking suspicion for TONDINI was right, I had HOST in the right place and AU NATUREL on the right line but in the wrong order). Very interesting crossword. Nice work Apache4D!
The way I worked it out was that you went down then up for each of the down clues......this then lead you to the top right corner, so if you started the across clues from there right to left (Boustrophedon style apparently!), this meant that the last row was from left to right...hence the insertion of packthread.
You then didn't need to know the start of the across clues in the long list of clues as you could work backwards!
P.S It is truly annoying that the Times Online printout is not arranged into a single sheet!! The Telegraph manage it with the EV, ho hum!
Needless to say, I was bewildered by this one, failing to understand the instructions (even after looking it up!) Congratulations for getting even some of the answers, and finishing the grid fills me with awe.
Crosswords = Very Tricky...especially if you have to read instructions for them :P
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