Monthly Archives: August 2008

Il Fornaio was this time the scene of what is becoming the weekly ritual DA slaughter.

Conveniently for me, TH rode into my side of town and there was only a short walk between my front door and the venue of choice for DA smashing. And when we found ourselves almost instantaneously putting away 1 down and 1 across, the latter coming with confirmation from the Tasmanian waitress who rather handily happened to be on hand, convenience seemed to be the order of the day.

1 down: Bludge some bread (4)

Nice and easy double meaning, with bludge = loaf = some bread.

1 across: Keep jogging in run around Tassie reservoir (4, 6)

Run = ladder (think stockings), keep jogging = kepe and keep jogging in run around = lake pedder = Tassie reservoir.

With that, we found ourselves staring at the first letters to many of the solutions for the other clues and we were beginning to think the rest would be a breeze. Nothing, however, is that simple with the DA, so although we managed to get this one out, and in quick time, we found ourselves often stuck. But as soon as the stuck became unstuck, a flurry of answers would issue forth before resolving into a state of stuck yet again.

All in all, though, not much longer than an hour was spent vanquishing this particular DA, which was much the same amount of time we needed to vanquish last week’s. Nevertheless, we definitely had the impression that this week’s was much more difficult than the previous week’s, and that maybe, just maybe, we are getting to the point where we no longer need fear DA, for we have gotten to the point where we can be DA.

Empty braggadocio? Hubris? Only time will tell if consecutive vanquishings can be parlayed into a hat-trick, and only time will tell if this new-found self-assurance is justified.