Monthly Archives: August 2012

DA Confusion for the 31st of August/1st of September, 2012

Posted on August 30, 2012 by AS| 82 Comments

Have your DA confusions sorted out here.

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Posted in DA Confusion

DA for the 31st of August/1st of September, 2012

Posted on August 30, 2012 by AS| 4 Comments

It’s either your last winter or first spring DA of the year!

Report on what you found here.

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Posted in DA Reports

LR is the Best Non-DA Compiler of the Fairfax Week

Posted on August 27, 2012 by AS| 13 Comments

I can never keep track of when The Age will publish an LR on a Monday (I think it’s every fourth week), so it’s always an especially good surprise to luck out and find one, like I did today.

This is only the third LR I’ve attempted, but they’re easily the pick of the non-DA week.

Clever clues, a wide range of tricks and some great wordplay. They’re pretty easy (I assume they have to be for a Monday publication), but they’re pretty fun.

Pick one up if you have the time for a jolly romp through a cryptic. Definitely recommended as an entree to a DA as well.

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Posted in General Cryptic Talk

DA Debate for the 24/25th of August, 2012

Posted on August 26, 2012 by AS| 15 Comments

Maybe it’s just because I didn’t do very well, but I feel very grumbly about this week’s DA and feel the need to vent. So I hereby call open a DA Debate, and let’s hear your views:

1 across: Cavalier exhausted freak (4, 3)
Cavalier as a synonym of flip was very poor in my book

5 across: Alternative medicine beginning in country? (7)
I really liked alter native, but I really disliked the in that’s left hanging. In is not a valid linking word and the question mark doesn’t excuse it either. To make matters worse, in is an instruction, and I spent a very long time trying to put m inside a country to get some kind of alternative.

10 across: Boogie clobber (4)
I quite liked this one, but it seems controversial on here. Feel like venting?

15 down: Meat course all but tainted Italian white (9)
While Lambrusco can be a white, it is customarily a red, and cluing this as white just seems nasty.

17 down: American migrant puts central locking on urban train (3)
I think this clue is so bad that I fear I have completely misinterpreted it.

How does American migrant mean elk? Am I missing something here, because that seems ridiculous. I can handle the el for an urban train, just, but k is on el, which should mean kel, never elk.

20 down: Even worsted cut cloak (7)
Worsted is a noun — how can it be an anagram indicator?

29 across: Game on horseback doomed (2, 3, 2)
Doomed means for it? Huh?

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Posted in DA Debate