i Prize Cryptic Crossword 1517 by Phi
December 26, 2015
Saturday 19th December 2015
Having been at a reunion all day last Saturday I completely failed to obtain a newspaper until, at 3am in the Exeter service station, I illegally excised the corner of page 52 from a returns bundle under the very noses of what looked like a police convention. Is that where our taxes go, I wonder?
Anyhow this was pretty much the enjoyable, standard fare we’ve come to expect from Phi on a Saturday – a bit of astronomy and classical music, a neologism or two and some nice clues, of course. My last one in was 16d ‘kettling’, which was quite topical back in 2011 but has subsequently been abandoned as a police practice, what with all the service station crime to monitor, presumably.
COD: 4d A new sport is ignored by a broadcaster (7)
For the Fifteensquared blog with all the answers click here.
batarde
flashling
jonofwales
Cornick
sprouthater
uiytjhgmj
This one sticks in my mind for 1D FACEPALM which is a new (and irritating) one on me, and which apparently does not need a hyphen as I would have presumed. Quite a ready solve as I remember, a sprinkling of scientific and geographical items which came to me quickly.
Kettling caused me some head scratching too: maybe someone discovered the rather unfortunate historical resonance and decided it wasn’t such a good word to use after all. 1d got a laugh when the penny finally dropped.
Will you be blogging the jumbo next week, Cornick? I read the first few clues and decided it was infra dignitatem, but no doubt I’ll change my mind once the festive boredom really takes hold.
Verily it is written that jumbo general knowledgers shall be solved as a group effort, round at the in-laws.
I may well refer to it next weekend, but with the solutions being given on page 55 today, I reckon it’s really just a bit of fun, as opposed the affairs of state which are the clues given over the page by (this week) the seemingly immortal Don.
The immortal Don didn’t last long, and had to be topped up with a Mephisto, which did. I fear that, if anything, the in-laws are even less likely to know about boy bands, recent Swedish Eurovision winners and Cuban long jumpers than we are.
Ah yes, I wondered if you’d approve of the Don getting the prize Saturday slot. 😉