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Posts Tagged ‘Craft’

Listener No 4745: Linebacker by Craft

Posted by Dave Hennings on 29 Jan 2023

Just one previous puzzle from Craft (no 4704 Movement) about nine months back, and that gave some background to our habit of fiddling around with the time every few months. This week seven clashes greeted us (thanks for being nicely specific), and we were told that each clash generated just two letters so not as tricky as some clashfests that we’ve had recently. Mind you, we had to enter the cashing letters in a specific order. Eight clues had an extra word and someone (7,7) had to be highlighted in the final grid..

Not too much to say here but everything fitted together smoothly. I noted that there were a lot of geographical locations in the clues, from Holland and Italy to Australia and Ontario, but unlike Yorick’s recent puzzle they purely helped with the wordplay.

It was spotting CHARLES PEARSON rather prominently located in the top and bottom rows that caused a quick google to reveal his involvement in the development of London’s Metropolitan Line, the first underground railway in the world.

The extra words to be dropped from the clues — tub ef romp addington Tonto far Ring Don — told us that it ran from Paddington to Farringdon. The clashes were the initials of the stations it ran through: Paddington (Bishop’s Road), Edgware Road, Portland Road, Gower Street, King’s Cross, Farringdon Street.

Finally, we had to circle the stations and draw a line passing through relevant cells. Twelve cells contained the letters for METROPOLITAN that could be seen linking the stations and thus required a very specific line to be drawn. Nearly missed that!!

Thanks, Craft, a very pleasant start to the year.

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Movement by Craft

Posted by shirleycurran on 15 Apr 2022

I believe we have encountered one compilation by Craft in the Magpie where we had to use pinyin – so we were mildly daunted to see his name at the head of this crossword as we prepared to join the gang of Listener setters and solvers at the Inn in Bridge of Allan for the first gathering of the annual Listener dinner in Stirling. We were driving through southern Scotland in glorious sunshine which lasted for the whole event, and managed to complete most of the grid before the festivities began.

We were in the Stirling Court Hotel, on the University campus but it was UNIAT that held us up. Our solution could only be UNHAT or UNIAT, ‘One may use non-Latin form for moss mixing word order up (5)’ We found the mOss/mAss misprint and UNIAT had to be the solution, but it wasn’t until breakfast the following morning that we understood that ‘AT UNI’ was mixing up the letters. How clever!

SPRING FORWARD – FALL BACK appeared in those corrected letters and we realized that we were being told to highlight FALL in reverse. We had realized, early on, that GREENWICH MEAN was appearing down the centre of our grid and BRITISH SUMMER very nicely slotted in with all real words. (Sadly it was the morning after the dinner that we lost our hour and had to get up promptly – and there is a tradition that continues the ‘post-dinner’ celebrations until the early hours, or even until the sun rises.)

It was a relief to have a gentle but polished crossword to solve on this special Listener weekend, so many thanks to Craft.

Did I forget something? Craft is a new Listener setter. Can we admit him to the Listener Setters’ Oenophile Elite? Oh dear, oh dear! I scoured the clues rather gloomily. Craft will have to ‘pull his socks up’ or fill a glass or two. Not a drinkable drop! It wasn’t until I filled out a grid to mail to Mr Green that I saw that VINEW had changed to VINES. Well there’s great potential there. If he cultivates his garden there should be positive results by next year.

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Listener No 4704: Movement by Craft

Posted by Dave Hennings on 15 Apr 2022

Although this was Craft’s first Listener, there was a Magpie last Autumn. Here, across clue misprints would give us a reminder. I sometimes wonder whether I should give more thought to what the preamble might be telling me, especially if there’s a potentially topical theme in the air. Mind you, that probably wouldn’t have helped this week since I didn’t solve this one until the Monday after publication, by which time I no longer needed reminding.

Unlike some, I do enjoy misprints and here we had them only in the definitions of across clues. I was lucky to get off to a good start with 1ac, having solved a clue the day before that used GABON and that helped me get One residing in country, making wire basket (6) for GABION which needed a quick thumb through Chambers as I don’t think I’d come across it before. Bypassing 5ac (the relatively simple G + LAZING), I was helped at 11ac In wonderment, call after a Teletubby (6) by knowing (don’t ask me how) that one of those little creatures was called Po, and PORING went in the grid after confirming that ponderment was actually a word.

And so the grid gradually filled, with a mixture of straightforward and slightly tricky clues. Two favourites were 12ac Oz’s shooter for such wild cats (6) for OUNCES (misprint being shooter for shorter) and 8dn Aside from the bottom, wearing loose kimono for Craft’s part (8, three words), where I liked the use of from the bottom to give IN MY BOOK [BY< in KIMONO*].

After one pass through the clues, I had enough misprints identified to see that we were dealing with the clocks springing forward in March and falling back in October. Exact dates and times apply in other parts of the world, if indeed at all. It didn’t take long to fill in the four empty squares in 5dn to give GREENWICH MEAN, and then promptly erase it all to give BRITISH SUMMER. That was the springing forward bit, and highlighting LLAF in row 10 gave the falling back.

Finally, we had to complete the 6-letter unclued entries in the first and last columns. (Sorry that I forgot to include that aspect in the animation.) It turns out that a scientist named GEORGE HUDSON, born in Britain but moved to New Zealand in his teens, came up with the idea of moving time forward and back to help him with his etymological studies in the summer evenings after work. He was also awarded the HECTOR and the HUTTON medals, two New Zealand science awards.

I’m glad that Craft didn’t reference Daylight Savings Time which I always have a problem rationalising, although it is supposed to relate to more time for work and play in the evenings. I think Evening Lighter Time and Evening Darker Time would be far better!

Thanks for an enjoyable and informative puzzle, Craft.

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