(I solved the answers in red, the Saturday Age solved the answers in black)
Another tough one; DA is making us hurt. I flew the flag solo on Friday because the weekend was gonna be hectic. I made reasonable progress and got about a third of it done, but when I went through it again on the Saturday and found myself making no further progress, I gave up and checked the answers. The answers, however, often didn’t help me in figuring out how the clues were constructed; DA was in a nasty mood again, and this time around he seemed to be making the direct clues particularly cryptic.
To make up for my lack of success, a couple of tram rides over the weekend were spent doing a Thursday NS that I had scrounged from an old newspaper. Success was quickly forthcoming; that sense of cryptic-solving satisfaction, however, was not.
An aside: Does a lack of DA success cause me to use the non-commital semi-colon more often? Does the semi-colon reflect my sense of confusion? Does a tough DA make me less declarative? Is this uncertainty a good thing? Should I be happy that I’m not Hemingway?
Spoiler warning for those still working on this one.
Another toughie for sure. By Sunday evening I had eight to go, but was making no progress, so I threw in the towel.
Of the eight, there were three I possibly should have got:
Sadie, element, twerp.
The other five (Tonto, Limpopo, ombre, droob and vodcast) I would have had Buckley’s chance.
This one was particularly cryptic in parts.
Painful.
I just made a surprising discovery!
I enlarged the image of the Friday Age above and could not believe my eyes when I saw the answer to 12 across: Katich’s bat smothers odd turn in Test highlights (3-6) was HAT-TRICKS.
I had HIT-TRACKS.
Works the same way, of course. Anagram of Katichs on the outside of tr (the odd letters of turn). Hat-tricks is a much better answer of course, but I can just about persuade myself that hit-tracks is acceptable too.
I was thinking in terms of a DVD package consisting solely of boundaries and sixes struck in cricket Test matches over the years :)
I think you are really tuned into the zeitgeist with this semi-colon thing, AS.
There seems to be a wave of interest and controversy over this humble punctuation mark in 2008. For instance, the article in Slate
http://www.slate.com/id/2194087
And this rather unsettling piece linking semi-colons with sexuality
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2008/08/10/sex_and_the_semicolon/
I guess one semi-colon doesn’t make you gay, but if you find yourself using them more and more… ;)
What does is it mean if not only do I enjoy the semi-colon, but also want the interrobang to make a comeback?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interrobang
That and the irony mark would be wonderful.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irony_mark
I’m also a fan of hyphenating as much as possible, even when not strictly necessary. In my mind, “deeply-troubling situation” is easier to read than “deeply troubling situation” and for that reason the hyphen should be added even though it is not required (“deeply” never goes with “situation”, but my eye does not know that until I read “situation”).
I also argue, and have almost come to fisticuffs about it, that compound modifiers should really be considered one word; “back-of-the-envelope calculations” is two words, not five.
I am *all* for the interrobang. I’ve been trying to work out a way to integrate it into the mag for quite some time.