ShopColossus 230 Judge Sums Up
January 11, 2011 by The Judge
Filed under The Judge Sums Up
We seem to get more and more entries to the Giant Cryptic all the time. Perhaps you are all honing you lateral thinking skills by doing the crosswords in our Christine’s Cryptic Crosswords magazine which is now on sale every two months.
While most of you are successfully unravelling the devious clues, a few errors did occur in Colossus 232.
The first across clue, ‘Stories related when Nat arrives unexpectedly’, wanted the answer NARRATIVES, which is an anagram of ‘Nat arrives’. A few entries had NARRATIONS and one had NARRATATES. In cryptics you have to look for the trigger words. In that clue ‘unexpectedly’ was the trigger to say you needed an unexpected mix of the letters in the previous two words.
Another clever clue to catch out a few of you was at 34ac. ‘A little butter?’ was KID and not BIT, as some had. I’m sure if you got this one out it made you smile at the thought of that little baby goat attempting to butt!
At 9dn ‘Luggage item in which to store diamonds, for example?’ needed you to think of a pack of cards and the suit diamonds. That led you easily to the answer SUITCASE. A couple of entries had SLIPCASE.
Finally for the Giant Cryptic, at 57dn ‘Wild about mad tune’ was another anagram clue with ‘about’ as the trigger word. The answer was UNTAMED and not ENRAGED.
In the Cashwords there were only a few spelling errors to note.
‘Hurdle’ at 49dn was OBSTACLE, not OBSTICLE; ‘Hors d’oeuvre’ at 124dn was APPETISER, not APPATISER; ‘Spotted dogs’ at 160dn was DALMATIANS, not DALMATIONS and ‘Rind’ at 188dn was PEEL not PEAL.
In the Baffler some had trouble finding RAGWEED for ‘Allergy-triggering plant’. Those who are allergic to it suffer sneezing, itchy eyes and congestion – not pleasant at all. I assume those who couldn’t find the answer are lucky not to suffer from its effects.
The ‘Mythical wise Swedish king’ was DAG (not FAG). Legend has it that he could understand the speech of birds and that sparrows gathered information for him from far and wide.
Down at the bottom right-hand corner of the puzzle ‘Hip hop’ was RAP and not RAD.
The ‘Albanian kilt’ at 20ac in the Stinker was a FUSTANELLA. FUSTANELLE and FUSTANELLI both appeared in entries. The garment has its history in the attire of ancient times and it is now mostly worn for ceremonial dress in Greece and Albania.
‘Licentious’ at 136ac was LASCIVIOUS not LISCIVIOUS and ‘Animosity’ at 157ac was MALICE not MALACE.
The ‘Colliery slack’ was CULM – a few guesses appeared here. The word possibly comes from Middle English colme, from Old English col or coal.
The most common error in the Stinker was down at the bottom at 295ac. ‘Gaffer’s assistant (4,3)’ needed you to know that a gaffer is an electrician or lighting expert on a film set, not just an affectionate name for an old man. The BEST BOY is the gaffer’s right-hand man. We didn’t take BUSH BOY or BUSS BOY. A bus boy is the assistant to a waiter.
