The Sunday London Times Puzzle Number ST 4403 | |
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Publication Date in The Sunday London Times Sunday, October 17, 2010 | |
Link to Full Review Times for the Times [ST 4403] | |
Times for the Times Review Written By Talbinho |
Introduction
Although I successfully completed the puzzle, I did not fully comprehend the wordplay in a couple of the clues. For example, I didn't twig to the fact that "on" means RE in 9a and the wordplay in 14d was a bit unclear (and now that I understand it, I don't necessarily like it all that much). As for the bizarre clue 20d, Talbinho has said it all.
Today's Glossary
Selected abbreviations, people, places, words and expressions appearing in today's puzzle
Appearing in Solutions
boomer - noun informal Australian a large male kangaroo
bouncy castle - noun British a large inflatable structure, typically in the form of a stylized castle or other building, on which children can jump and play
chop-chop - adverb & exclamation quickly; quick: ‘Two pints, chop-chop,’ Jimmy called
if.... - a 1968 British feature film by director Lindsay Anderson satirising English public school life.
nutter - noun British informal a mad or eccentric person
Penny Black - noun the first adhesive postage stamp, issued in Britain in 1840; an imperforate stamp bearing the profile of Queen Victoria on a dark background
squaddie - noun British informal a private soldier
Commentary on Today's Puzzle
6d A second 60s cult movie is highly unlikely (2,2)
Thankfully, the clue was easy to decipher - even without having heard of if...., a 1968 British film. While the film is not on a list of The Top 50 Cult Movies that I managed to uncover, Wikipedia says of it "if... won the Grand Prix at the 1969 Cannes Film Festival. In 2004, the magazine Total Film named it the sixteenth greatest British film of all time."
14d Female student gets support when without means to send a letter (5,5)
Having (at one point in my life) been an avid stamp collector, I was quite familiar with a Penny Black (not that I ever personally possessed one).
Nevertheless, in today's clue, the wordplay does not completely resonate with me. Working from Talbinho's explanation, the wordplay would seem to be PENNY (female) + {L (student) contained in (gets ... when without) BACK (support}. The word 'gets' is sometimes used as a container indicator (as in BACK gets L = BLACK) and sometimes as a charade indicator (as in B gets LACK = BLACK). However, neither of these is the case here. In this clue, the word 'gets' appears to work in conjunction with 'when outside' to signify an "inverse" container operation.
Nevertheless, I find the wordplay to be awkward. To my mind, the cryptic reading would be improved (but perhaps not the surface reading) if the word "when" were to be eliminated.
Signing off for this week - Falcon
A propos of your comment re "if", I highly recommend it. (Although, giving it more thought, I saw it when I was in university and it probably doesn't fully stand the test of time passed since the radical-student late 60s / early 70s.) But it does feature Malcolm McDowell in a proto-Alex ("A Clockwork Orange") role and I recall the climactic scene as one that would warm the heart of anyone who ever had a slaved-over all-nighter marked unjustly low by a university professor. I've also read that it was a prequel to "O Lucky Man" but can neither affirm nor argue that, not having seen OLM.
ReplyDeleteAnd 20D sucked like a Filter Queen vacuum.