Taupi 2 (and Huh 10)
Garment made by exploited worker? (7) SWEATER
Overseas race? (5) SPEED
Every second letter an ‘a’ – bananas? (9) ALTERNATE
Pop singer’s first love is chopped crumbs! (2,6) BY GEORGE
Boats that finish in Madagascar, start there too (6) ARMADA
Above are the answers to the sublime Taupi clues, as posted last week. (ALTERNATE is truly a thing of beauty.) Even from this five you can see how much a mind his is to miss.
As a tribute to the man (alias Albie Fiore), two other Guardian compilers – Paul and Enigmatist – assembled a crossword last week in his memory. Scattered among the answers were Taupi’s favourite team (WEST HAM UNITED), a touch of punk (IGGY POP) and jazz (INTROS) and highbrow (GRAND OPERA), with some IMPUDENCE as well.
There also happened to be four clues I can’t quite unpack, despite having solved them on the homeward tram. So put your own minds to the grindstone, and treat these four (all drawn from Taupi’s chequered eulogy) as this week’s Huh Session:
One genius on vacation getting into picture puzzles = JIGSAWS
What’s triple-layered? The answer’s somewhat coincidental = THREE-PLY
Perfect clothes on a fighter = MILITANT
Puzzle for the scary one to write up = PROBLEM
August 26th, 2009 at 5:14 pm
I’m drawing a long bow, but could the first one be:
one = i
genius = gs
on vacation = stretch out, relax
getting into = jaws
Three-ply is a goodie.
That’s answer = reply, which is coincidentally inside “the”, giving three-ply.
August 26th, 2009 at 6:07 pm
MILITANT is
perfect = MINT
‘clothes’ on = (contains within it) LIT (as in flame or light is “on” or “lit”)
a = A
August 26th, 2009 at 6:38 pm
AS is close with the i, gs, but Jaws is the picture that ‘i gs’ gets into.
I’ll have to think a bit longer about the others.
August 26th, 2009 at 6:52 pm
Garment made by exploited worker? (7) SWEATER
Could be related to sweat shops, which are small businesses (especially clothing manufacturers) notorious for their exploited workers.
August 26th, 2009 at 7:11 pm
For = Pro
The scary one = Scary Spice = Mel B, up …
gives us Puzzle = PRO B LEM
Bit rough making a reference to the Spice Girls!
August 26th, 2009 at 7:40 pm
Re JIGSAWS:
As per AS and JD above, plus I think “genius on vacation” = genius vacated i.e. empty genius i.e. GS
August 26th, 2009 at 10:06 pm
Just learned via a tribute site to Taupi [http://albiefiore.wordpress.com/] that 3 entries in the recent Guardian crossword recognise the bloke’s children, namely Iggy, Theo and Mili (think IGGY POP, THEORY and MILITANT), and more than likely those 3 angels you see in the rowboat snap at the wordpress site.
Anyhow, a sad thing. As for JIGSAW PROBLEMS etc, I’ll wait for any more insight, then put in tuppence on the morrow. Thanks for the brainstorms.
August 27th, 2009 at 2:51 pm
Well worth posting these four clues, if only to highlight two new cryptic gadgets on the market.
The first – ON VACATION. In other words, once emptied, as RB rightly figured. Tres devious, and worth us all tabbing to guard against future impasses.
The second – COINCIDENTAL. Less a ‘sandwich’ or ‘container’ clue, but a signal to suggest a verbal dovetail, where two words partially coincide. Think of CAPTAIN – which is APT inside CAIN. But coincidentally, the same skipper can be seen as CAT overlapping (or coinciding?) with PAIN.
Sheesh. Talk about Pandora’s box. (That’s PAD splicing NORA to you!)
As for Mel B – a lovely piece of pop-gotcha. Thanks Haiku. And MILITANT is aptly neat too. Till next Huh.