The crossword and "i"

Five-Clue Cryptic (#3365) Most of this was straightforward, although 1d required knowledge of ENS, a term from metaphysics meaning "being or existence in the most general abstract sense" (Collins online).  It's not in the Concise Oxford, and although I've come across it in the wordplay in a couple of full-size cryptics, it seems rather obscure for the Five-Clue.  I thought 4d had the best surface, and I liked the anagram at 3/5.   Concise (#3365) I momentarily thought of BASIL for 1a before realizing that THYME was more likely for the pun, and indeed it proved so, combining with STABLE for "times table".  8a looked as though it might be A LOT, but the crosser from 6d revealed it to be A FEW; which is the better synonym for "several"?  I got stuck for a while in the SE corner because I could see that 11d started OVER- but couldn't get the rest, and I didn't know that PECAN could be a tree as well as a nut.  Once I'd sorted those out the ...

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) ...

Five-Clue Cryptic (#3364) Some really elegant clues today.  The one I particularly liked was 3a, PALAVER (PAL + AVER), for which one needs to know the well-used rhyming slang reference "China (plate)" = "mate".  Also nicely done was 5a, which had TREND in HEARING to give HEART-RENDING; as an aside, I'm slightly annoyed by the modern habit of saying "heart-wrenching" instead, presumably by confusion with "gut-wrenching".  I doubt whether anything much can be done about it though. 2d had (E + ST) in WEND to give WEST END.  I suppose non-London readers might have reason to complain that in other cities the West End isn't usually the theatre district, but London's West End is so well known that I think this slight metropolitan bias can be forgiven.  AWARD (A + WARD) for 4d was straightforward, but 1d was slightly more convoluted: (A + PH) in a reversal of LEAR to give RAPHAEL.  For this I needed to remember the Ordnance Survey abbreviati...

Five-Clue Cryptic (#3363) I began with the cleverly concealed (Malcolm) SARGENT (2d); he died in 1967, and was a distinguished conductor in his day, but I'm not sure how many other people remember him now.  Next in was LEGAL TENDER (5/6), guessed mainly from the crossers and the definition.  Two fairly standard charades followed: REPLIES (3d) and CURATE (4a).  This left only 1d, which had to be QUALITY; I paused a bit over the definition of QUAY as "seaside", since a quay can be on a river as well, but it's good enough I suppose. Concise (#3363) I almost wrote ELBOW as the answer to 1a before realizing it was unlikely to be the first half of the top-line pun; instead WRIST and then REIGN led me to "restrain".  No problems after that until I got to 16a, which I originally misread as "militaria"; not knowing the actual word, I simply had to wait until the crossers gave me something plausible for the answer.  A trip to the dictionary confirmed that ...

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 ...

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...

Five-Clue Cryptic (#3360) No real trouble today.  The odd surface of 3/5 meant that it had to be an anagram; were we supposed to imagine that the town of Tonbridge in Kent perfected the art of ordering cricketers before passing it on to the rest of the world?  The only one that gave me pause was 1d, with three vowels as the crossers; I went through the names of elements ending in -GEN before realizing that it wasn't a specific element, but a group of them (in the technical sense as well as the everyday one). Concise (#3360) A three-word top-line pun is usually particularly groanworthy, and today's was no exception!  I didn't get it for a while; my first one in, rather unexpectedly, was TAG TEAM (9a), a term I hadn't heard for years.  Most of the rest was OK but for some reason I missed SHAKY as the obvious answer to 18d (SHADY was the best I could come up with), and I didn't know POPLIN (2d), apparently "a ribbed fabric used in clothing and upholstery".  C...