BIG 220 Judge Sums Up

Smile or frown
You will be   if you got EMOTICON for ‘Text message symbol’ at 21ac in The Demon. This word was not in our 1998 Collins but is in the 2005 edition. Perhaps you are feeling   because you didn’t know this.
Records of using punctuation to indicate emotions goes back over a hundred years but they are much more common since mobile phone text messaging captured everyone’s imagination. Other favourites are (wink), (grin), (surprise) and <3 (love heart).
The word CIPO­LIN for ‘Green-streaked marble’ (36ac) comes from the Italian for ‘little onion’ because of the way the streaks look like the layers of an onion.
In Greek mythology a CHIMERA was a female fire-breathing monster with a body made up of bits of different animals; lion, goat and serpent. Because this uncertain creature was difficult to depict, it became a being of lang­uage and the word came to mean a ‘Fanci­ful conception’ (Demon 54ac).
At 76ac the ‘Samurai code of honour’ was hard to find and quite a few letters were not crossed by other words. BUSHIDO is one to make note of for the future. According to Collins it comes from the word for ‘warrior’.
‘Rather improper’ OUTRE, and ‘Alternate’ OTHER crossed at 108ac and 103dn but left some scratching their heads in bemusement. A few odd entries appeared including OBESE and REFER and OURIE and ORDER.
For ‘Sprucely’ at 105ac you needed NATTILY to fit with VERNAL for 81dn ‘Occurring in Spring’. If you put NIFTILY then VERNIL was incorrect.
I never cease to be fascinated and entertained by the tales from Ancient times and they are one of the joys of The Demon. In this case we had PERSEUS, the ‘Gorgon slayer’ at 89dn.
This Greek hero was the son of Zeus and Danae. When King Polydectes fell for Danae he sent Perseus on a quest to kill Medusa, the serpent-headed Gorgon, thinking Perseus would be killed in the attempt. Helped by Hermes and Athena, Perseus succeeded in cutting off Medusa’s head, which he later presented to Athena.
On the way home Perseus saves Andromeda and marries her.
A word sometimes mistakenly associated with Julius Caesar is CAESAREAN. For ‘Surgical birth’ we also accepted CAESARIAN.
In the Goliathon at 92dn the ‘Heated pool treatment’ was HYDRO­THERAPY not HYDRA­THERAPY. Coincidentally, Hydra was another many-headed monster from Greek mythology. She was slain by the hero Hercules.
‘Moving staircase’ at 76dn was ESCALATOR not ESCALATER.
4dn was TUBULAR not TUBALAR and 13dn was CHOLESTEROL not CHOLES­TOROL. We accepted both CAPITALISE and CAPITALIZE at 2dn and ANTAGONISED and ANTAGONIZED at 65dn.
In the Bigcash 44ac was DAUBS not DABBS for ‘Smears’.
Most of you got NAV for 107dn ‘Motorist’s sat …’ but a few blanks were spotted. Short for satellite navigation and also known as GPS, or Global Positioning System, these devices are standard in most new cars and are also a feature of many mobile phones. Not only will they tell you where to turn, but also where there might be a traffic jam and where to find a petrol station.
Luckily you don’t need a sat nav to find your way around BIG!

MEGA 10 Judge Sums Up

Wow salty fret!
John Cleese made his name in Monty Python, but ensured his place in comedy history with his world-wide hit sitcom, Fawlty Towers. With only 12 episodes ever made, the series is a classic that has stood the test of time, however the main error in the Mega Mix was the spelling of Basil’s wife, SYBIL FAWLTY. A few entries had FAULTY.
You may remember that each episode began by showing the sign outside the guesthouse, with the letters scrambled and some missing, to spell out such wacky labels as Fatty Owls and Watery Fowls. My attempt at a title for episode 13 is above. (I won’t give up my day job!)
Another misspelling of a name popped up at 22ac. Harry Potter is played by Daniel RADCLIFFE not RATCLIFFE.
At 28dn there was a cryptic clue. ‘Pet lovers upset (this is an anagram trigger) they missed alarm call’. You needed OVERSLEPT and not OVERSLEEP. This allowed for PEDANTS at 42ac for ‘They fuss about pets and disguises’ – another anagram clue.
The Mega Stinker had a few challenges to test your research skills and most of you met the mark. Well done!
‘Foreshadow’ at 76ac was ADUMBRATE, not ABUMBRATE. The word is related to two others we sometimes use in our Stinkers, UMBRA for ‘Darkest part of eclipse shadow’ and PENUMBRA for ‘Partial eclipse shadow’. Umbra is Latin for ‘shadow’.
At 87ac quite a few entries had DULCE but we couldn’t find this spelling for the ‘Edible seaweed’. The word DULSE comes from Scottish and Irish Gaelic. It is a red alga also known as dillisk or creathnach and is a good source of many minerals and vitamins. It is found in North America and Northern Europe and is a common snack in Iceland, Ireland and parts of Canada. It can be eaten straight off the rocks or in dried form from health food shops.
Dulse might be very nice with some UDON noodles. UDON and not UXON or UTON was the answer to ‘Japanese wheat pasta’ at 160dn.
AEOLUS (not AEOLIS) was the ‘Greek god of winds’ at 34ac. The Aeolian harp was named after him as were the Aeolian Islands, a volcanic archipelago north of Sicily. The Aeolian harp is a wooden box with strings that is hung or placed by an open window and is played by the wind blowing on it. How delightful!
144ac saw a few incorrect spellings. SERAGLIO and not SERAGLEO was the answer to ‘Harem’. It is the segregated part in a Muslim house for women. Both words are also used to denote the women themselves.
A thane was an Anglo-Saxon man of rank who had a land grant from the king or a Scottish feudal lord. Shakespeare described Macbeth as THANE of Cawdor. A couple of entries had TWANE at 174ac.
Our judges had a bit of discussion over Mighty Mega clue 24ac ‘Small bell sound’. Quite a few entries had TINGLE where we had TINKLE. We could find ‘tingle’ as a prickling sensation and in a couple of references as an informal way of saying a phone call, but sadly, nowhere did we find it to mean a bell sound.
A few other errors were spotted. The ‘Army rank’ was CORPORAL not CORPOREL at 144ac and ‘Infrequent’ at 140dn was OCCASIONAL not OCCASSONAL – Oops!

MEGA 9 Judge Sums Up

Gentle giants or portents of evil?
A clue that comes up from time to time is ‘Symbols of evil, … & Magog’. It was in the Mega Stinker at 186dn and the answer was GOG. But who or what are Gog & Magog?
They appear in various mythologies and religious texts, including the Bible and the Koran. In the Old Testament book of Ezekiel, Gog is named as the ruler of the kingdom of Magog, which is hostile towards Israel. The text prophesies that Gog will be defeated by God.
In the Book of Revelations Gog & Magog are two kings who are to attack the people of Israel but will again be defeated by God.
In Islam Gog & Magog or Yajuj and Majuj, are evil and destructive human beings who will cause widespread corruption. Their presence is a sign of the final battle with evil.
In British mythology Gog & Magog are the only two surviving giants of a race that lived in Britain before Roman times. The giants are guardians of the City of London and images of Gog and Magog are carried in the Lord Mayor’s Show in November each year.
Our judges spotted a few errors in contest entries. The ‘Medieval Scottish infantryman’ at 55ac was a KERN not KERR. The word comes from the Irish word ‘Ceithern’ and as the Middle English kerne, was used to refer to soldiers from Ireland and the Scottish highlands.
At 153ac a small negative clue caused trouble. ‘Not’ was NARY (not NARE or NERE). Ne’er is slightly different, coming from and meaning ‘never’.
At 179ac the answer to ‘Postulated comet reservoir, … cloud’ was OORT not OURT. Jan Hendrik Oort was a Dutch astronomer, who suggested that comets originated in a cloud orbiting the sun at a great distance.
At 150ac the ‘Killer whale’ was ORCA not ORBA or ORRA. Orca comes from the scientific name Orcinus orca. The term orca has become used very widely, perhaps because the killer whale is more closely related to dolphins than whales and ‘killer’ is such an unpleasant name for such a beautiful creature.
At 122dn ‘Brooks’ needed RILLS and not RULES or ROLLS. If we think of a babbling brook, what sort of rill can we imagine? A rippling rill, perhaps!
Huguenots were Protestants who were persecuted in France in the 16th-17th centuries, so that many of them fled to safety. They were inspired by John Calvin and so the answer to our clue 193ac ‘French Calvinist’ was HUGUENOT. A few misspellings appeared.
The Huguenots became quite a strong political force, however the forces against them were more powerful and many Huguenots were slain in the Wars of Religion. In 1572 Catholics killed many thousands of Huguenots in Paris and surrounding villages. Some 40-50,000 fled to Britain, mainly the areas around London and they proved a great asset to their new country.
In the Mighty Mega the main error spotted was at 126dn. For ‘Enchanting’ you needed IRRESISTIBLE and not IRRESISTABLE.
A couple of entries had LAZE at 36ac but for ‘Tardy’ you needed LATE. At 120ac ‘Repeat subscription’ was RENEWAL and not RENEWEL.
‘Wildlife guardian’ (143dn) required GAMEKEEPER not GATEKEEPER. If you had the latter, this made 153ac incorrect as well. ‘Signify’ was MEAN not THAT.
Just a couple of errors in the Mega Mix. 16ac was OBEDIENCE not OBEDIANCE and 22ac was TRICKILY not TRICKELY. You have to watch those tricky spellings!

MEGA 8 Judge Sums up

Spinning around in the Stinker
Young children like to whirl around because of the heady feeling it gives them – perhaps this is something you did yourself as a child. You can send yourself and the world spinning on what feels like different orbits for a short time.
Some Sufis of the Mevlevi order in Turkey, whirl as a way to spiritual transcendence. The dance may look chaotic, is in fact quite structured, with the whirling increasing in speed, as the music and accompanying chanting change from sombre to rapturous. This is a ritual of worship going back many centuries.
In the West these religious dancers are known as Whirling Dervishes. In the Mega Stinker at 116ac the clue ‘Whirling Muslim ascetic’ needed DERVISH. I also found DARVISH as an alternative but could not find DURVISH.
The ‘Roman goddess of the hearth’ at 106ac was VESTA. Her Greek equivalent, Hestia, translates as ‘fireside’ or ‘hearth’. Vesta was an important goddess and was wor­shipped in all Roman homes, as maintain­ing the house­hold fire was essential to cooking and living. Her temple in Rome was attended by the Vestal Virgins and the fire only allowed to be extinguished once a year, on March 1st, the ancient New Year’s Day. VESPA, on the other hand, is an Italian motor scooter and also a type of wasp. I do like the idea of the goddess of the hearth riding around on her motor scooter!
A couple of entries had DANTE for 2dn ‘Metaphysical poet, John …’ but you need­ed DONNE. Dante Alighieri was from Flo­rence in the Middle Ages and wrote The Divine Comedy, a story about journeying through hell, purgatory and paradise.
John Donne was an English poet of the 1600s. He and other poets of the time including Andrew Marvell and George Herbert were labelled Metaphysical Poets because of their imaginative wit and unusual metaphors. Perhaps you might be inspired to read a little Dante or Donne to find out more.
For ‘Indian loincloth’ at 3dn a few feared the error was ours, but no gremlin here. The answer was LUNGI and not DHOTI, as a few of you thought. I tried to find out the difference between the two but there was some ambiguity. The main difference seems to be that a dhoti is longer which allows it to be pulled up between the legs making a kind of trousers.
At 191ac ‘Diatribe’, which is a long, abusive speech, needed INVECTIVE not INFECTIVE, which means ‘able to infect’.
A few spelling notes; 196ac ‘Brazenly’ was BLATANTLY not BLATENTLY, 6ac was SYMPOSIUM not SYMPOSIAM but at 21ac both ADVISOR and ADVISER were okay for ‘Counsellor’.
We always consider alternative answers but for 155dn ‘Search thoroughly’ we wanted TRAWL and did not accept TRAIL.
Confusion at 81ac was evident as RICOTTO appeared instead of RISOTTO for ‘Italian rice dish’. Ricotta is the cheese you were thinking of.
A couple of spots where wrong answers made double trouble were 138ac LINIMENT not OINTMENT for ‘Embrocation’ and 47ac GEOID not HELIX for ‘Our planet’s shape’.
If you had OINTMENT then 123dn was also incorrect. The ‘Military band instrument’ was a MELLOPHONE not MELOOPHONE. If you had HELIX for ‘Our planet’s shape, then you had HYRE instead of the correct GYRE for ‘’Rotating ocean-current system’ at 47dn.

MEGA 7 Judge Sums Up

A round of applause, please.
English has an amazing number of words for things that don’t make sense. Poppycock, baloney, claptrap, tomfoolery, hooey, malarkey, bosh, blah, gibber and flapdoodle are just a few, as is ‘Twaddle’, which was our clue in the Stinker at 87ac.
The answer needed was PIFFLE, which like most of these words is of unknown origin. Claptrap, however, can be traced back to the theatre in the 1700s and the rhetorical and stage devices designed to elicit applause – or trap claps. Clever, isn’t it?
A couple of entries opted for RIFFLE, which means ‘turn over (pages)’ or ‘shuffle’ (cards)’. Others tried WAFFLE or TRIFLE, both of which made 79dn incorrect. ‘Candidate selection votes’ needed PRIMARIES.
The Stinker obliged with another delightful word of unknown origin at 68ac. ‘Gawky adolescent’ was HOBBLEDEHOY, not HOBBLEDEBOY.
‘Agent of fate’ at 19ac, or NEMESIS, resulted in a few misspelled answers including NEMESES, NEMISIS and NEMESUS.
In Greek mythology Nemesis was the goddess of retribution. Her mother NYX was to be found at 30ac in answer to ‘Daughter of Chaos’. Nyx was the goddess of the night and mother also to Hypnos (sleep), Thanatos (death), the three Fates and Charon (the ferryman across the River Styx). Sounds like quite a family!
UNGULATE comes from the Latin for ‘nail’ and means ‘hoofed mammal’. It was the answer to ‘Goat or cow’ at 96ac. UNDULATE, on the other hand, means ‘move with a wave-like motion’.
For 44dn ‘Prehistoric gravestones’ you needed the plural form of stele, STELAE and not STELES. If you put STELES you couldn’t fit SUE for ‘Take to court’ at 69ac.
Encyclopedia Britannica online notes that recent scientific studies have suggested that humans are more closely related to orangutans, gorillas, chimps and bonobos than previously thought, so that the zoological family of hominids now includes humans and the great apes. Most dictionaries list only humans and our now extinct ancestors.
Whatever the case, for ‘Man-like primate’ at 109dn HOMINID was the answer and not HUMINID or HOMONID, though these misspelled answers are understandable, one suggested by human, the other by homo sapiens.
The crossing of tricky clues at 98ac/dn and 107ac had some of you stuck. Clue 98ac was ‘Explorer, Juan Ponce de LEON’, the Spanish conquistador who colonised Puerto Rico and also explored and named Florida. Having the initial L helped, but for ‘Graphic’ you needed LURID and not LUCID, which means ‘clear, rational or transparent’. Because of the C from LUCID, COIGN and CAIRN both appeared at 107ac, as they fitted the space – if not the clue! REIGN was the answer to ‘Incumbency’.
Quite a few of you slipped up at 134ac where ‘Computer’s temporary storage (1,1,1)’ was RAM for Random-Access Memory, not ROM, RIM or REM.
In the Mega Mix, some of you are still getting used to the cryptic twists. One cryptic technique is to combine two meanings of the answer, and ‘Bach composed air on a skimpy garment (1-6)’ at 54ac was such a clue. The answer was G-STRING and not A-STRING. This fitted with 46dn ‘Doomsayer’s cry, “The end is NIGH”’ not NEAR.
Just a few things to note from the Mighty Mega. ‘Interjectors’ were HECKLERS at 4dn not HASSLERS. 35dn ‘Tremendously’ needed HIGHLY (not HUGELY), to fit with HAD for 53ac ‘Was compelled (to)’ and finally, ‘Brown (meat) quickly’ at 129ac was SEAR not SEER. Now on with the fun!

BIG 220 Judge Sums Up

Putting on the brakes
I’m starting my column this month with mention of the BIG Tougher, for a change. This puzzle has become a puzzle-lovers’ favourite with its trickier clues – the grid words are not as devilish as in The Demon, but the clues really stretch those
grey cells.
In February BIG we had a few queries about the clue ‘Beat (track record)’ at 96dn. Many of you thought you had spotted a gremlin and that we had misspelt BREAK as BRAKE – but if you altered one vowel in your answer you ended up with BROKE, which worked perfectly well. ‘Beat’ can be either present or past tense. This type of ambiguous tense clue can often catch readers out. Is ‘Put’ a clue for PLACE or PLACED or ‘Shut’ a clue for CLOSE or CLOSED? Similarly ‘Trilled’ could be SANG or SUNG. It always helps to try and put a clue and answer into a sentence to see if they are interchangeable.
The answer to Demon clue 1ac ‘Stocking support band’ was GARTER – GAITERS are not the same thing. Gaiters are a protective covering for the lower leg worn by hikers and horse riders, whereas garters were a band tied just below the knee and were used, before elastic replaced them, to keep stockings up.
The Most Nobel Order of the Garter originated in medieval England. The Companion’s motto is Honi soit qui mal y pense or ‘Shame to him who thinks evil of it’. Legend has it that King Edward III uttered these words after retrieving the Countess of Salisbury’s garter, which had slipped while she was dancing. Another suggestion for the origin of the name of this Order is that Edward recalled Richard I
tying garters around the legs of crusading knights, who were then victorious in battle.
Garter is thought to come from an Old French word for ‘bend
the knee’.
At 55ac KOTO was the answer to ‘Japanese zither’.

This ancient instrument has found favour with some western pop performers including David Bowie and Queen, who both featured the instrument
on albums.
At 12dn ‘Motley’ didn’t refer to multi-coloured, but to an incongruous mix, or RAGTAG. A few of you queried this as you only found ragtag as a noun meaning the common people, but Oxford also lists it as an adjective. Raggle-taggle is a similar term.
Clue 112dn caught out a few of you. ‘Incentive’ required SPUR, but perhaps because spur is more often considered a verb in this sense, a few entries had STIR or SOAR.
Finally for The Demon, 43dn ‘Discrete’ wanted DISTINCT not DESTINCT and 134ac ‘Guarantee’ wanted SURETY and not SURELY.
There were not many errors spotted in the Bigcash. At 103ac a couple of entries had EYREE instead of the correct EYRIE for ‘Eagle’s home’ and at 131ac the ‘Self-absorbed person’ was a NARCISSIST not a NARSISSIST. For 120dn ‘Nifty’ we wanted AGILE and
not ALIVE.
In the Golia-
thon, the ‘Large strong dogs’ at 11ac were MAS­TIFFS not MASSIFFS and 27ac ‘Narrow fissure’ was CREVICE not CRAVICE, which also made ‘Animal type’ at 7dn incorrect as BREAD instead of the correct BREED. How easy it is to put in a wrong letter or two!
At 155dn was a word that doesn’t crop up very often in our crosswords. SPADEWORK an old-fashioned term for our clue, ‘Digging’, is perhaps more usually heard in its metaphorical sense of ‘routine preparations’.

MEGA 6 Judge Sums Up

A spike in the graph

Our Mega Stinker clue ‘Graph peak’ at 174ac cofounded many of you competition lovers. The clue was not looking for a mountain called ‘Graph’ but was referred to graphs. If you ever watch or listen to finance reports they often talk about the latest oil price spike making our petrol more expensive. SPIKE was the answer we were looking for and not SPIRE, SLIDE or SPINE.

Another word that caught out some of you was at 37ac where ‘Palm-reading fortune-teller’ had you wishing you could see the answers in a crystal ball! CHIROMANCER was the answer but various other guesses at letters to fill the gaps appeared in entries.

The ‘Camargue delta waterway’ at 93ac was RHONE but RHINE fitted the space and many of you opted for that. The Camargue delta is Europe’s biggest and is in the south of France. The Rhine River is a major waterway in Germany.

At 1ac most of you put the correct WEDLOCK for ‘Matrimony’ but if you tried to fit WEDDING you found yourself in quite a pickle. Similarly at 114dn ‘Quite recent’ needed NEWISH but if you put NEWEST you were again in all sorts of trouble with the surrounding words.

A couple of tricky words of foreign derivation trapped some. At 96ac the ‘Japanese zither’ was a KOTO not KITO or KUTO and at 57dn the ‘Judo novice grade’ needed KYU not KOU.

Only one letter was not crossed by another word at 51dn but still it proved a headache for some. ‘Surgically remove’ was not REJECT but was RESECT.

A Stinker is supposed to be tough, but sometimes our puzzlers look for a challenge that is not there. ‘Hurtled’ at 152ac was ZOOMED and not ZEOMED as one entry had.

Finally for the Stinker, 13dn was ‘Robert Burns poem’ and we were surprised that quite a few entries had TOM O’SHANTER instead of the correct TAM O’SHANTER. This epic poem is the tale of a man who stays too long at the pub and sees frightening visions on his way home. It concludes with:

No, wha this tale o’ truth shall read,
Ilk man and mother’s son take heed;
Whene’er to drink you are inclin’d,
Or cutty-sarks run in your mind,
Think! ye may buy joys o’er dear -
Remember Tam o’ Shanter’s mare

Over to the Mega Mix and 19dn proved too cryptic for some of you. ‘Leave to create contrast with trigger (3,3)’. This was a clue which combines three different meanings of the answer. SET OFF means ‘leave’ but also ‘create contrast’, as a brooch might set off an outfit. You also use a ‘trigger’ to set off an explosive. Unfortunately GET OFF, POP OFF and LET OFF didn’t match these clue parts.

The other place to slip up in the Mega Mix was 22ac. The former Serbian president was Slobodan MILOSEVIC. Many different guesses at the spelling were noted by our judges.

There was magic in the Mighty Mega but the incantation was tricky to spell. ABRACADABRA was the answer to 65dn. We did accept ABRAKADABRA but not ABBACADABRA (a song from Mamma Mia?) or ABRADACABRA where the consonants are mixed up. The word dates back to the 2^nd century when the Gnostics used it to ward of illness and misfortune.

A couple of other words to note, 11dn ‘Adding (up)’ was TOTTING not TOTEING, 124dn ‘Hebrew holy day’ was YOM Kippur not YUM Kippur and one which made us smile, at 5ac for ‘Kisses lightly’ we had PECKS but one entry had PASHS!

Well done to you all. Very few errors showing your word knowledge and research skills are firing.

Colossus 230 – gremlin

 

Pg 21 the Baffler

The clue  ‘Cellist, Paco …’ should have read ‘Guitarist, Paco …’.

With thanks to Jayne  Sullivan, of St Helens, Merseyside.

Colossus 230 Judge Sums Up

Kidding around with cryptic
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.

BIG 218 Judge Sums Up

BIG Christmas Bonanza
We were thrilled to receive mountains of mail telling us how much you loved the Christmas edition of BIG with all the extra contests. We hope to bring you another bumper issue later in the New Year.
Perhaps the Christmas Demon was a little easier than usual, or you were all inspired by the seasonal good cheer, as there were not many errors noted by
our judges.
For ‘Anglo-Saxon freeman’ at 18ac some of you found this as CHURL, which we found as an alternative spelling. We found CEORL in the Oxford and Collins dictionaries.
Most of you put WASSAIL for 24ac ‘Mulled wine at Christmas’ but do you know the origin of this word? It comes from a Middle English phrase meaning
‘good health’.
Wassailing was a ceremony held in autumn to ward off evil and to drink to the health of the cider apple trees, so that they would yield
good crops.
A couple of incorrect vowels were noted in answers to 56dn and at 62dn. ‘Exuberant’ was EBU­LLIENT and ‘Palaeozoic marine crea­ture’ was TRILOBITE.
In the Bigcash we spotted a couple of entries with ACCUSED for ‘Whipped up’ at 40dn. Our clue would perhaps have been easier with (interest) after it, as the answer we needed was AROUSED i.e. whipped up /aroused interest. This fitted with PHOBIA for ‘Anxiety disorder’ at 50ac.
At 136ac the answer to ‘Aromatic burning stick’ was INCENSE not INSENSE.
A similar error occurred in the Goliathon where ‘48ac ‘Authorising’ was LICENSING not LICENCING.
The ‘Predecessor’ at 60ac was a FOREBEAR and not a FORESEER.
‘Mistreat’ was ABUSE and not ACUSE at 179dn and ‘Unknowing’ was UNAWARE not UNAWAKE
at 192ac.
Since Christine’s Cryptic was a competition in this issue I thought it timely to pass on a few tips to help those who are unsure of the tricks in these addictive puzzles.
Clue 1ac ‘Take a bow when Dora leaves courtyards transformed’ required you to remove ‘Dora’ from ‘courtyards’ and then ‘transform’ the letters left to make CURTSY, the answer to ‘take a bow’.
For ‘Extremely choosy apprentices have options’ at 5dn the straight part of the clue was ‘options’. ‘Extremely’ was a trigger to look at the extremes of ‘CHOosy apprentICES’ to find your answer.
The clue at 23dn, ‘Girl often found with fool following march’, was a play on the girl’s name April. April Fool’s day follows the month of March.
We had a couple of queries about our Diamond clue 21ac ‘Wind instrument’. Our answer was TUBA and a few readers called to say that the tuba is a brass, not wind instrument. The truth is that we are both right. Wind instruments are those where sound is made by a vibrating column of air. In the orchestra the wind is made up of woodwind and brass. Many woodwind instruments, such as the flute and piccolo, are now more commonly made of metal. The Oxford describes a tuba as a’ large brass wind instrument’.

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