In DA we trust.
No doubt, this week’s is awesome.
(No spoilers till Monday on this post)
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In DA we trust.
No doubt, this week’s is awesome.
(No spoilers till Monday on this post)
DA Trippers 
Not entirely, but it was O.K.
Solved fairly quickly. Just as well, as I have a list of chores for today! 1A-21A and 6D the picks for mine.
DA is becoming more like DH. I had never heard of a “Denarii” although word play options ultimately revealed. I have also not brewed “Bohea” or subscribed to “Genet”. Google is becoming an essential aid detracting from DA’s usual quirky crypsis. A challenging puzzle nonetheless
Jean Genet is reasonably well known – Bohea I needed a dictionary for (easier than Google once you had Bo and h. Presumably Denarii is plural. Good puzzle agree but the real beauties are the themed ones.
Nice one this week, reasonably easy. Bohea was a Google lookup for me too, but one or two a week is OK IMO. Favourite clues were 1A/21A and 19A.
I’m back in Germany for two weeks, so had no trouble with Bohea (a name of some tea shops here), and Denarius should be well known except we haven’t had much Latin in school in for yonks. I enjoyed the jokes, but mom had trouble with it and gave up (I think she swore a few times, according to dad!).
Jokes? There are jokes hidden in there? I must be too nerdy to see past the word play …
Overall a good crossie, not too difficult. Some nice clues.
But, I agree with PMc about DA –> DH re obscure words, and we’ve had lots more since this crossie appeared. Here we had:
24D: BOHEA. Google no use to me here as I didn’t have the H from 25A.
7D: DENARII. Google/dictionary not instantly useful here as there were six possible combinations of the three vowels E A I. Peter, your memory is better than mine – I did Latin at school for a few years (many decades ago) and did very well, but it didn’t help me here.
12A: Is this GRIPPA? If so, how does it work? OK, sounds like “gripper” (pliers) but it doesn’t seem to be a bone fide word. Couldn’t find any suitable hip hop artists with Google.
20D: DECAPOD – I did find Google useful here.
I have two more queries (not mentioned in the Confusions thread):
22D: GENET – this one was just within my memory banks. But the wordplay seems very weak – is it just the first five letters of “gene therapy”? Full clue is “French playwright leading in DNA field? (5)”.
18D: Is this ANT FARM? Full clue is “Where workers are exposed to man at sea across capsized vessel (3,4)”. I think I can see the definition, but the wordplay escapes me.
RB, what was the 12A clue? (4th/5th June is long gone!)
18D: ANT FARM = RAFT backwards inside an anagram of MAN.
Dunno re. 22D.
MF, thanks for 18D enlightenment.
12A was joined to 11A by ellipses like this (the quotes are DA’s, not mine):
11 “Tools who try to get you sozzled … (6)
12 … with this?” grand hip-hop artist uttered (6)
For 11A I have PLIERS
For 12a I have GR_P_A
And whilst I’m typing this in, I have just seen the light!! It’s GRAPPA, not GRIPPA. No explanation required – I see it now!