Huh 6
Premature, I realise, but here’s my latest resolution: No Tough Crosswords At Bedtime.
Unless I can guarantee a complete grid-fill before Morpheus comes knocking, I’m plumping for an old New Yorker or a novel. (Like the excellent American Rust by Philipp Meyer, which takes free indirect narrative another notch.)
But facing too many elusive clues on the brink of Nod only makes for midnight sweats, blind semiconscious guesses, anagram babbling, lockjaw….The remedy, of course, is the clarity of morning light, where a brand-new strain of insight falls on the puzzle.
Yet even if I obey my new diktat (and I don’t like this diktat’s chances), there remains that ungraspable clue among the thousands I tackle every year, the true head-raker, the grandmother among mothers, despite the solution being revealed. Observe this lot, drawn from a mix of Guardians and Times. Any clues?
Type of fabric, check one? Not so CHINO [Times 8360]
Where Mozart’s works might be filed in turn, as child prodigy WUNDERKIND [Paul]
City on Rhone river in which placard’s top has come off AVIGNON [Times 8381]
Firmly mould with a tongue-lashing LOCK INTO PLACE [ditto]
Lacking sensible thought, nursing sickness in the head? INSANE [Times 8384]
Only nutcases need apply.
June 12th, 2009 at 1:05 am
check = ch (in chess), one = i, not so = no, so that type of fabric = chino = check one? not so.
Avignon is a good one: river = avon, placard’s top has come off = sign – s = ign and city on rhone = avignon = river in which placard’s top has come off.
June 12th, 2009 at 3:05 am
Mozart’s works are commonly filed “UNDER K” (the letter K is used before a number for all his compositions) in ”turn” = “WIND” ( as in winding a handle) gives W UNDER K IND. A child prodigy , which he most certainly was.
June 12th, 2009 at 3:09 am
Check.
Check.
And check. (Your musical savvy is A-sharp.)
Thanks both for your prodigious insights. Got me out of a clef stick.
June 12th, 2009 at 6:41 am
Is the INSANE clue an &lit clue? If it is, it might go like this:
Lacking sensible thought = INANE
nursing sickness in the head = nursing S
So the wordplay gives IN S ANE
And the whole clue is the direct definition for INSANE
June 12th, 2009 at 6:54 am
Are you sure about the answer LOCK INTO PLACE? I think it might be LICK INTO SHAPE, or even WHIP INTO SHAPE?
June 12th, 2009 at 8:18 pm
Well done, RB – you’ve solved the last 2 mysteries.
IN[S]ANE is an elegant &lit, where wordplay doubles as definition. Though the customary etiquette asks for an exclamation mark as an added signal, at least in my neck of the cryptic woods.
And LOCK INTO PLACE, which always struck me as a contrived phrase – shades of the great LB’s ESKIMO MENU – is clearly meant to be LICK INTO SHAPE, which all your contributions have helped to achieve with Huh 6.
June 12th, 2009 at 10:09 pm
Just a thought on LOCK INTO PLACE: there surely has to be some wordplay here, after all we are talking cryptic, no? TONGUE-LASHING has to play a part and I am thinking shoes here. LOCK INTO PLACE can easily become LOCK IN TOP LACE , the “tongue” (of the shoe, which is usually under the lace on top) would be given a “lacing” or “lashing”.
June 12th, 2009 at 10:20 pm
Thinking door-wise, can tongue be deemed a lock of sorts? At least that’s one line of thought.
But LICK INTO SHAPE seems the surer bet, combining the idea of mould [shape] and tongue [lick]. Lock it into place, Eddie!