Monthly Archives: December 2010

DA Confusion for the New Year (31st December, 2010)

Posted on December 31, 2010 by AS| 64 Comments

The theme looks full of the recondite.

Methinks this confusion thread will be getting quite the workout.

DA for the New Year (31st of December, 2010)

Posted on December 31, 2010 by AS| 10 Comments

DA reappears in The Age after a week’s hiatus and ushers in the new year with a themed crossword. I assume he’s still there in the SMH, same as he ever was.

Have my sneaking suspicions about the theme and looking forward to breaking the crossword’s back.

Enjoy.

Update: Jonathan delivers again with a blank and filled-in grid:

I was willing to let this one go through to the keeper after what I considered a bewilderingly boring theme and the number of rarities DA confessed to, but a late-night rendezvous with RC had us cracking it out.

RC proclaimed it, I think rightly, as reminiscent of an overly recondite DH. Nevertheless, I have a sneaking suspicion that excellent words such as seersucker, nainsook, hopsack, whipcord and winceyette, all of which we had never heard of before, will deliver joy to us for the rest of our lifetimes. I also suspect that DA chose the theme because he too noticed how excellent these words indeed are.

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Posted in DA Reports

Confusions for the Christmas DA on the 24/25th of December, 2010

Posted on December 24, 2010 by AS| 43 Comments

Here’s where you have all your questions sorted out — so that you can return to socialising rather than cruciverbalising.

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Posted in DA Confusion

The Christmas DA for the 24/25th of December, 2010

Posted on December 24, 2010 by AS| 21 Comments

Will we find something as sublime as the noel crossword gnawing at us throughout Christmas day, begging to be taken out after a hefty lunch, just like we had last year?

Last year’s efforts have raised the bar — here’s hoping DA can deliver once more.

(No spoilers on this thread until Monday)

Update: Melbournites, it seems, don’t have a DA available for the Christmas break. That surely won’t do, and thanks to Jonathan, the situation is rectified below (click on the image to get it in its full glory):

Further update: And again, thanks to Jonathan, we have a completed crossword:

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Posted in DA Reports

DA’s Wordy Book Recommendations

Posted on December 21, 2010 by AS| 2 Comments

GAT has kindly sent me the following snippet from The Week. It features DA’s word-obsessed book recommendations that would surely be of interest to many of you:

And we DA Trippers have also made a list of recommendations, a list that everyone is welcome to add to, as I will do forthwith: Le Ton Beau De Marot: In Praise Of The Music Of Language by Douglas Hofstadter is an ridiculously erudite book well worth reading, even if skimming over certain sections is well advised.

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Posted in General Cryptic Talk

The Motherlode Expands

Posted on December 20, 2010 by AS| Leave a comment

Rob has been good enough to send to me some DA puzzle files all zipped up from 26/9/2003 through to 12/12/2003.

This expands the original DA Motherlode by eleven, concomitantly expanding by a factor of eleven how much time you will devote to solving some of DA’s finest.

What would be best, though, is if it were possible that every spare minute of every day were devoted to DA, so if you’ve got any of DA’s cryptics stashed away somewhere in whatever format, please send them over to the address at the sidebar and I’ll publish them here.

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Posted in DA Motherlode

DA Confusion for the 17/18th of December, 2010

Posted on December 16, 2010 by AS| 68 Comments

This week’s DA probably won’t be as mind bending as last week’s, nonetheless I bet there will still be questions.

And here’s where you ask those questions freely.

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Posted in DA Confusion

DA for the 17/18th of December, 2010

Posted on December 16, 2010 by AS| 12 Comments

Here we go with another week of hijinx.

Comment below, but be sure not to post any spoilers before Monday on this particular thread of conversation.

Update: Here’s Jonathan’s fine DAs:

RC, one of the three original DA Trippers, is back in town from an extended hiatus overseas, and we got together to stumble through this week’s before jet lag got the better of the recently-arrived Tripper and the crossword was put away.

I didn’t continue with it over the weekend, but by the sounds of things, it was another fine, difficult and funny DA.

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Posted in DA Reports

The Pantheon Updated

Posted on December 14, 2010 by AS| 4 Comments

Last week we discussed which crosswords deserved to be inducted into the DA Pantheon, and, almost as if he knew we would be discussing the topic, a few days later DA delivered a classic which shall be duly inducted undisputed into the highest of ranks.

So as of today, 14th December, 2010, the DA Pantheon features these hallowed members:

the McCrossword;
the footnote crossword;
the marriage crossword;
the noel crossword;
the money crossword;
the Zimmerman crossword (published on the 24th of September, 2004); and
last week’s loop-de-loop crossword.

Not quite hitting the same heights, in the DA Para-Pantheon sit the following still remarkably good members:

the AC/DC crossword;
the Simpsons crossword;
the George Orwell crossword;
the bobbing-message-in-a-bottle crossword;
the Where’s Wally crossword;
the indigenous crossword;
the two-letter crossword;
the portmanteau crossword;
the product placement crossword (published on the 27th May, 2005);
the no-animals crossword (published on the 11th March, 2005).

Other DA crosswords have also been spoken of in hushed tones yet remain unrecognised. These include:

the taboo crossword on the 19th August, 2005, which featured DA breaking all known cryptic conventions and can be found in the motherlode;
the Muralidaran/nong’s rumba/red-handed crossword, which dates from 2007 or so, and is more than likely somewhere in the motherlode;
the pool crossword (as in at a pub), which is dated to around 2007 or earlier and should be in the motherlode;
the everything-is-an-island crossword, which is dated to around 2000/2001;
the six kings crossword, which goes undated; and
the do-re-mi crossword, which is also undated.

Thus stands the DA Pantheon; thus stand duly recognised the glories of DA’s bounty.

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Posted in The DA Pantheon