ShopColossus 229 Judge Sums Up
December 11, 2010 by The Judge
Filed under The Judge Sums Up
Interesting that Elizabeth I
went down in history as Gloriana, whereas the other Tudor queen lives on as ‘Bloody Mary’. Both queens ordered many executions of enemies so why does history remember them so differently?
Perhaps the reason is in religion. The Roman Catholic Mary ordered the deaths of Protestants and Elizabeth the deaths of Catholics, including the very notable Mary, Queen of Scots. The battle for religious dominance was fierce and eventually England passed a law so that no Catholic could ever again be monarch.
The name Gloriana came from Edmund Spencer’s epic poem, The Faerie Queen, a work written in praise of Elizabeth. The poem’s books had such titles as ‘Temperance’, ‘Chastity’ and ‘Justice’ and it connected the Tudor queen with King Arthur. At a time of political and religious upheaval Spencer’s poem helped confirm Elizabeth’s rightful place as queen. GLORIANA was the answer to Stinker clue 40dn.
Another borrowing from literature was found at 321ac. DEMI-MONDE means ‘half world’ and originated in Alexandre Dumas’ 1855 play Le Demi-monde. The demi-monde described those who inhabited a hedonistic world of drinking, gambling and promiscuity. Toulouse-Lautrec lived in Paris in the late 1800s, was known to be fond of more than a drink or two and associated with the world of dancers and prostitute; the subjects of many of his artworks. Our clue ‘Toulouse-Lautrec’s louche world (4-5)’ required a bit of detective work, so well done to all who found the answer.
‘Tour coach’ at 228dn was CHARABANC. This wonderful word comes from the French for ‘carriage with wooden benches’. Originally horse-drawn, these open-topped vehicles were popular with the wealthy for sightseeing before WWI. Post-war saw motor charabancs used to take factory workers on annual outings to the seaside.
PHISHING, the answer to ‘Internet fraud’ at 224ac, is a new word to many of you. In fact it is a very new word, only appearing in the latest dictionaries. It is thought to come from fishing and be influenced by another recent coinage connected with computer hacking, phreaking, a portmanteau of phone and freak. Luckily in our Stinker this answer was all crossed by other words going down and so it didn’t cause too much trouble.
In the Giant Cryptic 25ac had some of you scratching your heads. In ‘Badly suited detective first to have prepared for test’, the straight part of the clue is at the end. ‘Badly’ is an anagram trigger applying to ‘suited’ and ‘detective first’, or the letter ‘d’. Rearrange these letters and you get STUDIED.
‘He works in an underground group’ was an amusing clue at 28dn for COAL MINER. If you put GOLD MINER then 39ac was incorrect. ‘Difficult request that’s in high demand?’ was a TALL ORDER not TIDY ORDER.
In the Baffler ‘My Fair Lady director, George …’ saw some visiting the video shop or dusting off the film guide. George CUKOR worked from the 30s till the 80s directing over 60 films.
Another few words to prove elusive were PHO for ‘Vietnamese soup’, AGORA for ‘Hellenic forum’ and RYOKAN for ‘Japanese inn’.
We had a query that there was a square missing after the clue ‘Black’ but EBON was correct, a poetic form of ebony.
