Rok is another new solver (or new pseudonym - does would that make it a newdonym?), and we have a grid celebrating a work of art (hopefully not Pollock again!), lots of clues that have extra letters in wordplay, the rest have a misprint. There's rather a lot of clues, so look for extra letters first. Grid should finish up with all real words (Word Wizards at the ready), so this doesn't look too too daunting.
Oh, and while I'm writing this, Australia is doing pretty well against England in the semi-final of the Champions trophy. Woohoo!
However the 1 across test fails, as I can't see what turned out to be a reasonably simple clue in the end. The first one in is ADMIR(e),(P)AL. Wow, a P? That wasn't a bad starting place, the old naval commander helped me get most of the New England corner, and the combination of 9,10 and 11 down giving me a THE as a word or part of a word from extra letters.
The first misprint was a bit of a stunner - BABY->BABA at 20 across meaning there's a Y? Nearby there's FACIAL becoming RACIAL. So a 9 letter artist with an F and a Y??? Thinking there can't be too many possibilities, I went to Word Matcher with the misprints I knew and looked for 9-letter words (as well as the F and Y, I had N from SENATE - SEDATE, and K from KENT - LENT), so looking for 9-letter combinations that had a F,Y,N and K - I realized typing it in... this is probably going to be Pink Bloody Floyd. And if it's Pink Bloody Floyd then it's going to be that album cover that I see on t-shirts of kids who weren't even contemplated when the thing came out.
I already had most of the right hand side of the grid filled, - enough to see the R O Y G coming down a diagonal on the right. There was WHITE as part of WHITER, so that has to be removed, fill in the rest of the spectral lines coming out of the prism. The extra letters were tracks on the album- SPEAK TO ME, TIME, MONEY, US AND THEM and BRAIN DAMAGE.
Cracking the theme helped me with a few clues on the top half I was struggling with (including 1 across), and I had a completed grid at the end of my second solve. I had to find WATERS, GILMOUR, MASON and WRIGHT (I'm not a Pink Bloody Floyd fan, but I've been near enough to know the names of the guys - I liked Syd Barrett but he was gone by then). MASON and GILMOUR were easy enough to find, but it took a little doodling to see the how WATERS and WRIGHT fit in - but it made perfect sense.
To make an equilateral triangle in a crossword grid, you'd have to go two up, one across to get the right angle - that was a pretty nice touch. I had little circles to find the rest of the thematic stuff, and here is the end product in its computer-altered glory...
I didn't care much for the theme, but I liked the puzzle and the construction, so thanks Rok for some real fun and a much more relaxed solve than some of my recent efforts. I nearly fell for a trap of misprints vs correct letters (if you look carefully at my grid, in the box I started putting the correct letters instead of misprints). So I'm declaring victory to George, and the ship is starting to be righted a little.
2009 tally: George 22, Listener 15. Current streak: George 2
Here's a double-dose of recent videos from my sketch comedy group The Feral Chihuahuas. The first one was the filmed intro to a live sketch where I play Biff Christ, the stoner teenage son of Jesus.
And a commercial for a product that restores your manly smell. I get to wear a mullet wig!
Feel free to comment, and see you next week for a question by Aedites.
5 comments:
After months of being too busy even to look at The Listener (that's my excuse, and I'm sticking to it), I finally had a free day and got stuck in.
George, you're such an old hand at this now that I think you sound a tad disappointed by the lack of a challenge! But my thanks to Rok for a gentle puzzle by Listener standards, so do-able for me. Perhaps I was blinded by the light, but it took me ages to spot 'WHITE' hitting the prism.
Good to hear from you, Pauline - I'm not down on that, I'm just not a fan of Pink Floyd, so until the very end I was kind of "ho-hum". There was definitely a challenge there, but the clueing was fair, having all real words makes less of a stinker out of unfamiliar words like TIYIN or KITEMARK
I really enjoyed this one - perfect challenge level for me, and an imaginative theme with clever touches.
My nearest hint at fame is that I went to school with someone who married one of Pink Floyd!
Kudos, George - you're battling not only with the devilish Listener setters, but the unfamiliarity of words that are decidedly 'English'. KITEMARK is familiar this side of the pond because it's the common expression for the British Standards Institution (BSI) quality mark.
You know what George, I really should start having a bash at the Listener. I'm sure I'd have loved this puzzle as well as the recent Magritte and Marx Brothers ones. I'm going to ask Santa to give me Chambers and Bradfords.
I nearly finished the Brillat-Savarin one the other week but a lack of the required reference books meant I missed a couple of things.
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