Thursday 9 September 2021

Five-Clue Cryptic (#3368)

"Males do get drunk repetitively; that's nothing new" (4,3,4,3).  Answer: SAME OLD SAME OLD.

This would be a worthy winner of Clue of the Day if it were in the main puzzle: but it goes uncommented on at idothei, as they don't concern themselves with the Five-Clue.  Shame really!  The other clues were all pretty good as well, although I didn't know FED = "G-man" and had to fill in 2d partly by guesswork.

Concise (#3368)

The three-word puns are usually even more painful than the two-word ones.  I had CAT and OLD but couldn't get the middle word for "evade" for some time, thinking it must be SKIVE; CAT-SHIRK-OLD eventually revealed itself as "catch a cold", but it took a certain amount of straining.  Other clues that held me up were 11a, BESIEGE (I had DELIMIT until getting 5d) and 10a, which I didn't know at all; Crossword Solver led me to BOUGAINVILLEA, "any of several South American ornamental woody vines of the genus Bougainvillea having brilliant red or purple flower bracts; widely grown in warm regions".  General knowledge?  Really?

Codeword (#3046)

A, L and P given, which you might think would have led to a fairly quick solution, but in fact a good deal of trial and error was required.  I finally decided on VALUE for the top word in the fourth column, and then scrutiny of the SE corner with 5 = U led me to deduce QUIZ, which meant I had the Q and the Z before most of the commoner letters!

Cryptic by Monk (#3304)

Link to idothei (blogged by jonofwales)

Link to Fifteensquared (July 2017, blogged by bertandjoyce)

Four stars from jonofwales on idothei, and I'm happy with that.

 

This one was quite deceptive: about half the clues were relatively simple, then I suddenly ground to a halt and needed idothei for inspiration.  I hadn't twigged that there was a Nina (message around the edge of the puzzle): in this case, the extreme rows and columns spelt out the reduplicated words and phrases MURMUR, TARTAR, TSETSE and THE THE (the last being a band name).  Knowing this enabled me to fill in most of the rest quite quickly, although I slipped up on 7a, where I could only think of TOYSHOP (or TOSSPOT, but I knew it couldn't be that!).

My favourite clue was 14a (BUSH TELEGRAPH); I also liked 16d (AT A PINCH) for the unusual way it was assembled.  The most ingenious clue was undoubtedly 19d, for its use of three words ending -URE for END URE.  I'd only vaguely heard of a POMMEL HORSE (9d), but eventually managed to tease it out from the crossers and the anagram.

The one I was least happy with was 17a; is "cheers" really a synonym for TOODLE-OO?  The latter is in the COED (and elsewhere) only as a dated term for "goodbye", but as far as I know "cheers" is either an informal toast or a way of saying "thank you".  I haven't checked all possible meanings of "cheers" but I don't think it can mean "goodbye".  Was TOODLE-OO ever used as a toast or to mean "thank you"?  Not that I'm aware of (maybe in a Wodehouse novel?).  Needs more research, I think - no one seems to have commented on either site.

Edit: The COED confirms that "cheers" can be used on parting, as well as before drinking or to express gratitude.  When I was young I'm sure it was only used as a toast, but I grudgingly accepted the "thank you" meaning as well.  Now it seems it can also mean "goodbye" - possibly as a contraction of "cheerio".  What a confusing term!