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:
It looks like the SMH is publishing both the Friday and Saturday crosswords in its Friday paper. Very annoyingly, The Age does not appear to be publishing DA’s crossword, and I can’t get hold of the SMH. Anyone know how I can get a copy of DA’s crossword? (without having to subscribe to fairfax?).
I could upload it for you but I fear that would incur the wrath of Fairfax?
Something weird in today’s DA which I’ve just started. 7,11 Across is shown as 7 letters but it’s two words? Maybe all will reveal itself as I work my work through it……
It does seem a shame that Melbourne is DA-less for the holidays… now there is only the cricket on Boxing Day to distract us!
In the past, I’ve made sure of only posting the DA grid a few days after the newspaper has been published, but if it’s not going to be published at all, stuff that.
Send me the grid if you like and I’ll definitely post it.
That’s the (Christmas) spirit! Will send in a mo…..
The 7,11 across thing is allowed by cryptic conventions if the two words are separable.
So something like BACKDRAFT, for instance, could be split on the grid into two spots 4 and 5 spaces in length, whereas something like SMASHING can’t be split at all.
Many thanks for uploading the crossword – now I’m looking forward to doing it on XMAS day!
thanks also – do you think this will mean they will start publishing them out of sync?
I think both papers will just publish the Monday crossword as normal, except with the Age giving the answers to DS’s Friday crossword, and the SMH giving the answers to DA’s. Melbournites will just miss out on DA. I suspect there may be a few letters to ED.
Enjoyed this week’s gracious crossword – especially the 14d Russian doll of a clue – stuck on 3d and not sure of the word play in a couple… enjoy the holidays all!
Yes, I enjoyed it too. Quite a few good ones, including 12A, 20A, and my favourite – 8D.
Got it all except for 3D. How frustrating. And thanks to those who put the grid on the web, the Age last week published DS/DA in the same issue but yesterday we got only DS – and the TV programs for only yesterday. Maybe the reindeer ate my paper.
Thanks Heaps for providing the crossword Jonathan. Thought I was going to be without this week. Merry Christmas!
Thanks very much for posting the crossword here, I’d have hated to miss my Christmas DA. Quite a good one, too.
What a wonderful relaxing way to spend Christmas (and it was a white one here).
Another grateful Melbourne DA addict here. So glad I discovered DA trippers recently. Not only for solutions, but now for providing my fix when The Age doesn’t!
Mark, for future reference, you can buy a digital copy of a single newspaper from smh.newspaperdirect.com/ for $2 a time. Or, even better, from http://www.pressdisplay.com/ for 99c US (search for sydney Morning Herald). As a Melbournian who likes his DA on a Friday, it’s what I do every week
THANK YOU JONATHON! Just looked at this site today, and found Last weeks ( The one we didn’t get – being mexicans!!)
The Age had better not give us this one on Saturday, or there’ll be tears!
Thanx from another Melbournite