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 work out 15a as I was convinced the second element had to be something like HEADING or HEARING at first.
HELTER-SKELTER is given as hyphenated in the Concise Oxford, whereas ROLLER COASTER is given as two separate words. Personally I'd write the latter as a single word, which is probably why I didn't see it straight off, but I can't think of many crosswords I've done where it's possible to make such a major error and not notice it for such a long time!
One answer had to be checked in the dictionary - 9a (RUCHE).
Codeword (#3039)
The letters given were U, Y and W, immediately giving rise to a distinctive pattern 17-U-17-20-5-15-U in row 8. Having ruled out French words ending in -EAU and the like, I realized it had to be JUJITSU (17 not appearing anywhere else in the grid), and then that the word in column 10 had to end -TICALLY. A-C-25-S could then only be ACES (because T had gone), and with the E in place it was straightforward to complete the grid.
Cryptic by Vigo (#3297)
Willow's debut blog on idothei gave this puzzle two stars, which seemed about right. Because of the unusual shape of the grid I was half-expecting a Nina (a message spelt out around the edge), but this was not to be; nor did there appear to be any particular theme, though Vigo has used them before. I did notice that it was a pangrammatic grid (one containing each letter of the alphabet at least once), although, since I solve one of these as the Codeword every day, I'm less impressed with them than some others are!
First in was 19d, which I immediately noticed could be parsed two ways to give the same solution: either "drunk" as the definition and "devastated" as the anagram indicator, or vice versa. I don't think I've ever seen a clue like this before, and it was an unusual touch. The rest of the puzzle was enjoyable but fairly unremarkable for the most part, with a couple of stand-out clues at 23a and 6d. 20d was noteworthy simply for including SALT as "sailor" rather than the more predictable AB or TAR.
2d was interesting because, although there was nothing wrong with it, it could possibly have been done better. Here's how Fifteensquared analysed it:
2 Braved changes daily, weekly or yearly perhaps
ADVERB
(BRAVED)* ‘Daily’, ‘weekly’ and ‘yearly’ are all examples of ADVERBS.
All this is sound, of course; but "daily", "weekly" and "yearly" are also all examples of adjectives as well, so they were maybe not the best examples to pick. What's interesting about the clue is that any adverb (verb modifier) would have been grammatical in the context, so the clue could for example have been written as:
Braved changes resolutely, courageously or manfully perhaps
with the same solution. A very minor criticism indeed!
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