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Sunday 5 September 2021

Jumbo General Knowledge Crossword (4 Sept) 1st pass: Across 10, Down 18 2nd pass: Across 6, Down 2 3rd pass (after checking Across answers): Down 2 This wasn't too bad an effort, helped by an astonishingly good run of Down answers on the first pass, although at 6d I was surprised that I'd never come across Botticelli's first name (SANDRO, as it turned out).  The only one I got wrong first time was 18a, which I assumed was TOM DALEY from the enumeration but turned out to be SKY BROWN.  15a had to be ETON something, but DORNEY escaped me.  At 27d I got CINCINNATI from the crossers but BENGALS was a total surprise.   The ones that I really should have known were MATTERHORN (32a) and CASANOVA (56a); the one I was most surprised to get was RICHARD SCARRY (53/48d).  It's amazing what's lurking at the back of one's mind sometimes! Cryptic by Hoskins (#3289, 23 Aug) Link to idothei (blogged by Saboteur) Link to Fifteensquared (May 2017, blogged by Simon Harding) ...
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Wednesday 1 September 2021

Five-Clue Cryptic (#3361) Polished off quickly, but much appreciated.  The main cryptic, being a four-year-old reprint, doesn't usually include topical references, but today we had two references to the time of year in 3/5 and 1d.  The cryptic definition in the former made me smile, and I thought 4d was cleverly put together as well.  Sometimes I think it's a shame that these clues don't get the level of attention given to the main puzzle. Concise (#3361) I fell into a trap with this one - not sure if it was intentional.  I wrote in HELTER SKELTER for 3d, which fitted the definition, and also fitted perfectly with the crossers at 8a, 10a, 19a and 21a.  However it left me with H?K?H for 1a (which looked like an Arabic word), I?T?S? for 12a and ?R?E?H?A?I?G for 15a, none of which suggested anything.  Fortunately the top-line pun came to my rescue - 1a had to be HIKER for "high commission" and I then realized my error.  Even then it took me a while to wor...
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Thursday 2 September 2021

Five-Clue Cryptic (#3362) 4/5 was my first one attempted but last one in; it clearly had to be an anagram, but I could only think of SEARCH SWEET, which meant nothing to me.  So I started with 1d, which appeared to be a homophone; I correctly guessed PHASE IN even though the homophone (FEY SIN) didn't work for me, since I pronounce "phase" identically to "faze".  (Does anyone pronounce it like "face", as the clue suggests?) The wading bird in 2d couldn't be a HERON, so it had to be an EGRET, leading to REGRETS.  Another bird in 3d, which was explicitly "hiding" in "Mr Edwin Gagiano" (a South African actor I'd never heard of), and so had to be REDWING.  (How often do we see "hiding" to indicate a hidden answer?  Perhaps the compiler was being deliberately kind today.)  6a was the fairly well-worn charade of IN-TENT, and now I had all the crossers to solve the anagram at 4/5: CHEESE STRAW.  Oddly satisfying. Concise ...
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