Colossus 225 Judge Sums Up

Switched on
with Nora
In Woody Allen’s Oscar-winning film Hannah and Her Sisters, a film about the rocky paths in relationships and marriage, Hannah is congratulated by her family on her performance in A Doll’s House. Her mother says, “I played Nora , I hate to tell you what year….. and it’s difficult ….. I think that Ibsen would have been damn proud of our Hannah”.
In our Baffler ‘Ibsen’s A Doll’s House heroine’ needed the answer NORA not NINA, as some entries had. This, Ibsen’s best-known play, opened the doors on domestic life looking at the roles of men and women in marriage. At the time it was first performed in 1879 it caused quite a scandal.
Further down in the Baffler was the ‘Flash lamp element’ which has the chemical symbol Xe for XENON not ZENON. ‘Fetid air’ was FUG not FOG, which is mist or haze but not stale and musty.
Dr Robert Moog (pronounced to rhyme with ‘rogue’) was a pioneer of electronic music and changed the way popular music sounded forever. When Switched-on Bach was recorded in 1968 listeners were amazed at this futuristic sound and the instrument was taken up by many musicians – techno was born! Baffler clue ‘First name in synthesisers’ was MOOG not MORG or MONG.
In the Stinker the ‘Loopy lace pattern’ at 21ac was PICOT not PIVOT and at 24ac ‘Pathogenic’ wanted MORBIFIC not MORTIFIC.
In Italian, polite forms of address include Signor, Signorina and SIGNORA, which was the answer to ‘Italian Mrs’ at 48ac – not SINNORA.
A circlet is a simple crown without arches or a cap covering the top. At 65ac the ‘Consort’s crown’ was a CIRCLET not CIRCLES or CERCLET. If you put the latter then you also had 38dn incorrect. The ‘Explorer, … Vespucci’ was AMERIGO not AMEREGO. A couple of answer also had the incorrect AMERICO. The Americas are thought to have been named in honour of this Italian adventurer.
For 97ac, ‘Grim’, you needed DOUR not DOOR or DOAR. ‘Wrinkle’ was RUCK not RICK at 126ac and the ‘Clergyman’s land grant’ should have been GLEBE at 190ac not GREBE, which is a diving bird.
If at 215ac for the clue ‘Beijing’s … Square’ you put TIANAMMEN instead of the correct TIANANMEN you also had 218dn incorrect as MEMESES – ‘Agents of fate’ should be NEMESES, the plural of nemesis. Nemesis was the Greek goddess of retribution and vengeance. She avenged crimes and punished arrogance before the gods. She was the one you couldn’t escape from, which is perhaps how nemesis came to mean an archenemy; one who is opposite to you but somehow familiar at the same time.
There is an old tale about a monkey who persuades a cat to pull chestnuts out of the fire using its paw. The cat gets burnt paws and the monkey gets a delicious fill of hot chestnuts. It is from this tale that the meaning of ‘Cat’s-paw’ for clue 266ac derives. The answer was DUPE not DOPE.
NUMMULAR means ‘Coin-shaped’ and was the answer to 269ac (not NUMNULAR) and at 200dn GIOCONDA not GIACONDA was needed for ‘Da Vinci’s La …’.
We have had lots of positive comments on the addition of The Knowledge to Colossus, but this time a couple of entries had PARADISE LEST for the mystery answer, which should have been PARADISE LOST. This came about from confusion over the spelling of the answer to 39ac. AOTEAROA is ‘New Zealand’s name translated as ‘the land of the long white cloud’’ – not AETEAROA.