Quiet week, on the blog at least. Since your web host is hitting the highway, first in Albury, and later Lake Macquarie, with a radio cameo in Port Jackson as the pavlova’s cherry. I’ll be talking words – the kind of thing I love – and vouching for the allure of both new titles: Cluetopia and the latest summertime pastiche, Puzzles & Words 2.
If this post appears in time, you may even have a chance to snag a copy. I’m diong the year’s last #daplay with Adam Spencer on 702 ABC, in Adam’s final week. The game is simple. Modify a movie, a song or book title by incorporating a Sydney suburb, or a town in the sweep of 702’s listeners. Conjure the title, then add a brief synopsis. For example:
500 Days of Summer Hill – 18-month lease near Marrickville
Slaughterhouse Five Dock – supplier of Leichhardt’s osso buco
For a Few Dollars – Enmore – thinking of upgrading from Petersham?
The Bourne Ultimo – Matt Damon takes on Harris Street traffic
Even if you miss the play on the radio, then add your own below, as there must be Gregory’s gems to craft. And if you like a more orthodox puzzle to prime your solving week: What well-known film can be split into the surname of two movie stars (neither of whom appears in this drama), beside a famed hunter’s anagram?
Share the best of British stuff here. Like a recent charade, which I may presage my looming week on the wallaby: Get lost in middle of massive crowd (5)
Have a wordy week, dabblers.
We respire (breathe) and expectorate (spit) every day. (And if that last truth sounds gross, then how do you clean your teeth without a good splat?)
By that anatomical logic, we regularly observe these 12 bodily functions below. As a vocab test, how many do you recognise? And can you supply the lay names to most of them?
- lachrymation
- eructation
- nictation
- horripilation
- sternutation
- osculation
- borborygmus
- micturition
- oscitation
- onychophagia
- epistaxis
- singultus
[What other fancy terms can be clarified with lay names?]
SOLUTION NEXT WEEK
BB438 SOLUTION: Beck, Brandy, Dido, Jewel, Madonna, Meatloaf, Moby, Pink, Prince, Seal, Sting, Usher
Just two dozen entries – modest by Storms past – but the calibre of clues was superb, and very torturous to single out a winner. My ticks in the margins reached plague proportions. Yet in the end, as you’d expect from a cuisine-flavoured clue-fest, it boiled down to taste.
STEAK anagrams with KATNIISS EVERDEEN were the reorder du jour, with three of those featuring in my top six. In ascending order, the menu:
KATNISS EVERDEEN: Never dines with steak stew [Unmasked, CL shows a steady hand, almost in line to win the steak knives]
EFFIE TRINKET: Primary ingredients of eggs, flour and fruit? That’s trifle [If trifle contained flour, Cookie Monster, this could well be my top clue. See, that’s how close this contest was.]
KATNISS EVERDEEN: Cut into steak. End in disaster [Same old Cookie deserves credit for spotting the ‘sever’ fluke, and the bonus of minced steak beyond. Succinct and smart.]
KATNISS EVERDEEN: Dispatch steak dinners over the previous day? [The Monster again, with a different approach, equally impressive. If this was a cumulative game, we’d have a winner.]
CORIOLANUS SNOW: Artificial colours a sin now [Pickled Herring captures the moral panic of food colouring with rare flair]
KATNISS EVERDEEN: Divide stuffing. Take in ends. Cook [But wait, Pickled Herring is back, winning me over with concision and a sublime use of stuffing to preserve the perfect recipe-speak. It’s a stunning piece of work.]
A strange process this week, as I judged the clues without any aliases at all, never realising I’d favoured just three ‘cooks’ out of a possible eight. (Nor did this judge compete.) But so the best wrangles are determined, and I have no qualm in awarding the cordon bleu – and Rainy Days Crosswords – to the herring. Congratz, and thanks all for finding the appetite to play.
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A neat idea inspired by a tweet from Greg Beechmere: switch two adjacent letters in any word and give the new combo a comical definition. Greg’s example leads the way, with PEDESTRAIN – foot cramp. Here’s a few more below to whet the creative juices. Let’s see what kind of switch-dictionary we can compile.
ARMBUNCTIOUS – packing heat and reckless
HADNICAP – owned a patella
SIMULCATS – synchronised mouse-hunting
ARCONYM – name spelt out in rainbow colours
By all means, add to the ‘worldist’…
John Graham is hardly a name to make you blink. Or pulsate. Or cower. But change that common guise into Araucaria, and rarity arises. The man was the master of the mind-sprawling clue, earning his own adjective to encapsulate the liberal approach to wordplay.
Araucaria began making puzzles for the Guardian in 1958, kicking off with an exquisite twist of idiom: Establishment cut to the bone? = SKELETON STAFF. From that point onward, for the next 55 years, he always rejoiced in the humerus. And the scholarly. An ex-priest with a Classics degree, he knew how to dazzle across the fields of knowledge, never missing his chance to inveigle new language as well.
I grew up in the setter’s thrall. Even now, I still remember the buzz of cracking my first Araucaria solo, riding a bus to Exeter in 1983. And so many of his clues still luminesce in my mind. A sampling is below. See how many you can solve, and please add your own favourites, or Araucarian memories.
- Believer, princess or couturier (9,4)
- Summit at both ends is stone (5)
- Live wire’s second season of Sex & the City (6)
- No drink? We looked for a spoonerism (3-5)
- Garment of polyester not cotton? (7)
- It’s a pity it’s not Philadelphia (4,6)
ARAUCARIA – Setter created a largely strident song (9)
A Storm with a prize, and an appetite. Below are the elaborate names of Hunger Games, from Katniss to Coriolanus. For a chance to win Rainy Day Crosswords – that Fairfax volume so kindly recycled by Sam – see who can twist any name into some wordplay that suggests food, or hunger.
GALE HAWTHORNE, say, could be Rabidly gnaw whole heart. PEETA MELLARK may be Sound veggie – eat large and small perhaps, plus bird.
No need to vote. I will give the forum a sweep after Thursday 5pm, with the winner announced on the weekend. To keep things above board, please pick a peckish (or foodie) pseudonym. Here’s the menu:
KATNISS EVERDEEN
GALE HAWTHORNE
PEETA MELLARK
HAYMITCH ABERNATHY
EFFIE TRINKET
SENECA CRANE
CLAUDIUS TEMPLESMITH
CORIOLANUS SNOW
Tuck in. May the best cut-lunch warrior prevail.
Fish crates scattered on boat in profile (9,6)
That’s just one clue in today’s Times, a true catch among crosswords, after the blast of Saturday’s Sunday Times, if that makes sense. Share the joy and quandaries of the Brit business here.
Brisbane dabblers, you get a double dram of DA banter this week. On Tuesday,around 4.30 AEDST, I’m chatting about Puzzles and Words 2 with Tim Cox. And then on Wednesday, it’s a Cluetopia rap with Sky Kirkham on the 4ZZZ Book Club around 11am AEDST.
Meanwhile Melburnians are welcome to join me for a soiree next Tuesday, at My Bookshop in Hawksburn for a 6.30 event. Corrie Perkin will be chatting with me about strange clues and landmark puzzles. Which leads us into a barnstorm of Newcastle and Lake Macquarie that same week. Check out details.
As for Sydneysiders, wheels are turning. Early whisper I know, but at this stage, keep Tuesday, January 28 free for the biggest circus yet. More details as they are confirmed.
Enough plugola. Time for a puzzle: what word can change its initial to an H in order to reveal its own male equivalent?
And your challenge, care of Column 8: craft a sentence of 25 words or less that would be incomprehensible in 1983. The best examples, ahem, win Cluetopia.
Have a wordy week.
Today’s dozen answers share an obvious connection, once you secure a few answers. In fact the link may be the easier part. Even with the theme, can you account for all twelve? (Just to make things kinder, the answers are arranged in alphabetical order.)
- Call’s other half
- Snap sort
- Carthage queen
- Gem
- Virgin Mary
- Baked mince
- Aquatic Dick
- Colour
- Harry or William
- Close
- Smart
- Guide
(Can you add to our who’s who?)
SOLUTION NEXT WEEK
BB437 SOLUTION:
Sponge, lamington, Madeira, trifle, upside-down (cake), crème brulee, syllabub, lumberjack, zabaglione, croquembouche, blackforest (cake), blancmange
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The periodic table contains 14 elements in total that own a single-letter symbol. Those symbols are BCFHIKNOPSUVWY. Amazingly there is a Melbourne suburb (and a Sydney suburb) that can both lose left or right to reveal eight different symbols from this list. Name both locations.
(And with duplicates allowed, can you name a NSW town of nine letters?)
And lastly, can you unravel these clues, where the answers use only those 11 letters, with zero repeats?
- Sort of castle (6)
- High boot (6)
- Squelch (6)
- Dream on! (3,4)
- Spry and mischievous (6 and 7)
- Sit on it! (7)
- Monsters (7)
- Two poets (both 7)
Share your eurekas below. And offer your own clues, manipulating the same 14 symbols, and using byline and number to mark each clue. Let’s adhere to the no-repeat rule.
We are gathered here today to make some tough decisions. Ask your inner jurist whether anyone responsible for the clues below should cop the full weight of the law. Or warrant a reprieve.
For that’s the spirit of Cryptic Court, where I present six clues that tread the ethical tightrope, and give you my reasons for wishing to file proceedings. Though you may disagree. Feel free to add your own views – and see who can compose stronger clues for any of the answers.
Capital report on underwear drawer? = NICOSIA [Knicker’s here? Philistine must be hiding his diphthong in his thong drawer.]
Make a fuss when drug is found in case = CREATE [Create is to make, not to make a fuss, thanks Times 9626]
Junkie delivering final bits of The Walrus and the Carpenter = USER [Wait up, Shed. Are you saying we need to use the last TWO letters of the two PRINCIPAL words. So say it.]
No getting out of it? = LIFE SENTENCE [Paul falls short of a punny definition. This sounds like the real thing.]
Have more significance than dated fashion statement = OUTWEIGH [Fashion = way, meaning statement is an audio signpost? Ten lashes for the setter of Times 9721]
Welcome hug = EMBRACE [Nasty hookworm from Times 9725. We embrace embracing, or am I being prickly?]
File your verdicts, and your upgraded clues, below.
For a bit of midweek mischief, no prize involved, let’s play publishers at Random House. To keep with the company name, who can best reshuffle the word sequence in any well-known book title, so making a very different synopsis? No anagrams. No deletions or additions, just a jumbling of syntax. Here are some kick-starters:
The Day of the Remains – when a family gathers to disperse gran’s ashes
The History Secret – Harold Holt was kidnapped
Where the Things are Wild – gonzo expose of schoolies week at Surfers
The Spirits of the House – where Daddy keeps his brandy
Can you work at random – in tandem?
Belated, but Salon posts can be like that. A tad hot-&-cold. This is the Monday order of business, where I tell you the newsy, possibly conjure a puzzle, or share what’s going down in Puzzle Town. And come the forum, there’s also the chance to spread the word about the best in British crosswords, where over at The Times I see they seek a new puzzle ed.
First up, congratulations to our Kiwi correspondent, Rupert (alias RM), for winning his signed Cluetopia in the rhyming Storm, one of the year’s last.
Second, if you know a thing or two about web security, especially in regards to filtering out forum trolls, then let me know. The good people across at DA Trippers are eager for advice.
Third, despite its current lack of notice, My Bookshop in Hawksburn will be hosting a Cluetopia powwow on Tuesday, December 3. The session commences at 6.30. To book, try 03-9824-2990.
Then again, if you live in Newcastle or Lake Mac, look for my gigs in your precinct on Wednesday and Thursday of the same week. Free, and brain-freeing too.
Your puzzle this time round is to figure which letter (A,X or R?) belongs with F,S,M,L,N – and why? [And can you conjure any other letter-logic strings in the same vein?]
Your invitation, as with any Salon, is to share the best of British, like Paul’s Friday Guardian, which offered this original clue: Gait that’s broken at high speed? (5,7) Have a wordy week.
Sweet-tooths will find today’s puzzle a piece of cake, where you have to name each cake (or dessert) from only a small slice (like VL is taken from PAVLOVA).
- PONG
- MING
- DEI
- RIF
- DE-DO
- RULE
- LLAB
- RJA
- BAG
- EMB
- KF
- CM
SOLUTION NEXT WEEK
BB436 SOLUTION: Narrow/wide, terse/wordy, major/minor, attic/cellar, cool/warm, valley/ridge, rest/work, sow/reap, destroy/build, arrive/depart (Other pairs are possible.)
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Thanks to Paul Power, a former Letters & Numbers contestant, for relaying this nifty idea, via the Washington Post. Pick a word, any word, and add one letter to coin something new, with a comical twist.
Their best example is ERRUDITION, being the droll misuse of big words. But I’m hunching we may concoct a few stronger stowaway samples. Here’s my kick-off:
PLANTITUDE – the gardener’s mindset
LOATHARIO – romantic lead you love to hate
IMPRESSARIO – smooth-talking entrepreneur who usually fails to deliver
LUMBRICATE – oil the sundeck
Care to add this glosscary? (Excitingly, comment #25000 is likely to clock over in this post’s forum. Thanks for all your play and input over the time.)
Perhaps you own Cluetopia already. (Thank you. Tell others. Buy more.) But here’s the Storm that promises a signed copy to the overall winner. The challenge is to create a clue that rhymes – two clues. One for a word, and one for a name, brand or proper noun.
The usual elements need to be there – the wordplay and definition – with just one extra twist: the whole shebang rhymes. For example:
Resent row producing blow = NORWESTER
Broadcast interviews a man who ran zoos = STEVE IRWIN
Fearful symmetry here in this Singapore beer = TIGER
Note the answer is not part of the rhyme, though that could be possible. This Storm will reward imagination and invention, in both categories. Pick a lyrical alias to keep the game anonymous, and come Thursday afternoon, submit your best clue for each category in shortlist form on the forum.
As for voting on Friday – email your pick of top two in each lot (worth 3/1 points) before 6pm – and I will declare the Cluetopia conquerer on the weekend. Simple enough? Do your clue-crafty stuff.
GAMES magazine is another indulgence of mine. This puzzle periodical, first appearing back in 1977, has given me untold inspiration and anguish, a bi/monthly that promised outre ideas, inventive formats, game-play history and talk of frontier software. Before the net, GAMES embodied the puzzle community.
I own about 120 of the 200 issues (and desperately seek to fill the gaps). The title is still around, though in shadow form, often reproducing old articles and puzzles.
This year, I tracked down three issues from the first year. And the earliest, Nov/Dec 1977, has a neat game we could well extend. If a logger comedian is Lumberjack Benny, and a typical governess is a Customary Poppins, then who are these people:
- Spectral Scientologist (7,6)
- Smoothie chemist (10,5)
- Clone actress (9,9)
- Nomadic Irish singer (7,8)
- Horn-blowing quickie (9,6)
- Undecided actress (7,6)
Blab your answers in the Comments. And set us your own examples, using byline and number. (And don’t forget to share the peaks and gullies of the week’s crossword landscape. Have a wordy week.)
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