ShopColossus 228 Judge Sums Up
November 11, 2010 by The Judge
Filed under The Judge Sums Up
The two top corners of the Baffler caused most trouble in this issue of Colossus. The ‘African machete’ was a PANGA and TOSH was the answer to ‘Reggae’s Peter …’.
Rastafarians Peter Tosh and Bob Marley both rose from the slums of Kingston, Jamaica to become international music stars. These pioneers of reggae formed the band the Wailers and their music was political as well as entertaining. Tosh had many run-ins with the police, usually over marijuana smoking. On leaving the Wailers, Tosh had a successful solo career with songs demanding equal rights for black people and opposing apartheid. He was shot and died during a home invasion in 1987.
The Stinker had two words starting with V which were hard to find. ‘Neighbouring’ at 56ac was VICINAL, related to the more familiar vicinity.
At 62ac ‘Spoil quality of’ was a bit harder, as the first and third letters were not crossed by other words. VITIATE was the answer. An example of its use might be; “The triumphant mood of the meeting was vitiated by the rowdy protestors in the audience.”
ARGOT, not ARGON, was the answer to ‘Group’s jargon’ at 150ac and at 201ac an ‘Enthusiastic film-goer’ was a CINEASTE.
For 202ac ‘Trudge’ we accepted both TRAIPSE and TRAMPLE.
A strange spelling at 212ac caught out a few. IQALUIT not IQULUIT was the ‘Capital of Nunavut’.
Everyone has heard of the Dalai Lama but less well known is the ‘Second-ranked Tibetan priest, PANCHEN Lama’. Panchen means ‘great scholar’ and was the answer at 232ac.
CABOCHON not CABACHON was the ‘Unfaceted gem’ at 268ac. Interestingly, this word is related to the French for ‘cabbage’.
LUCULLAN is a word you might like to add to your vocabulary. It appeared in the Stinker at 70dn in answer to ‘Sumptuous (feast)’. Lucullus was a Roman general known for his extravagance and love of luxury, which he funded with the spoils of war.
For 137dn ‘Shepherd’s pouch’ you needed SCRIP. It seems this one wasn’t in some dictionaries as SCRAP appeared in a number of entries. There is a herb with flat seed pouches, which is known as Shepherd’s Purse and sometimes also as Shepherd’s Scrip. Its Irish name, Clappedepouch, is an allusion to the beggar’s purse. The beggars rang a bell or used clappers to draw attention.
Xero is a prefix from Greek indicating dryness and phyte a suffix indicating a plant, so the ‘Desert plant’ at 119dn was XEROPHYTE.
There are many shades of blue and many wonderful words for the different shades; sapphire, azure, royal, cobalt, Prussian, periwinkle, cornflower and CERULEAN, the answer to 201dn ‘Deep sky-blue’. The word comes from Latin, probably related to caelulum, ‘heaven or sky’.
’Colour bar’ at 117ac had some of you on the wrong track. The answer we needed was RACISM but a few entries had CUBISM as a guess. This gave you ELUDE for 101dn but you needed EVADE for ‘Avoid’.
We had a query about the Giant Cryptic clue ‘Exposed to the breezes, snakes cried’ at 7ac. ‘Snakes’ referred not to the slippery creatures but to the movement and gave you WINDS. Cried was WEPT. Put them together and you got WINDSWEPT.
