XIMENES CROSSWORD No. 150

CAPILLAMENTS

1.  C. A. Baker (Wishaw): They’ll be unco pliant camels that can pass through the eye of a needle! (anag.).

2.  Mrs F. Castle-Knight (SE20): Pliant camels performing contortions could easily go through the eye of a needle (anag.).

3.  R. Postill (Jersey): Baffled camel’s plaint: “They can go easily through a needle’s eye” (anag.).

H.C.

G. H. Clarke (S. Croydon): Use the switch to check up on these filaments—lamps can’t lie! (anag.).

F. L. Constable (Ludlow): The right treatment of scalp ailment can produce some really fine hairs (anag.).

J. H. Dingwall (N12): Cover diseased and unsound stamen; expose sound ones (cap ill + anag., & lit.).

J. Duffill (Ickenham): Fibres in your canapé, Monsieur?—Still, they are of the finest type (anag. incl. M).

H. H. Elliott (Dublin): Meagre crinal tissues, produced by untoward scalp ailment (anag.).

C. E. Gates (Kettering): Can camels go through the eye of a needle? Pliant camels can, but they must be very pliant! (anag.).

R. W. Hawes (Dagenham): Thin hairs perhaps result from disfiguring scalp ailment (anag.).

J. Hardie Keir (Galashiels): Plans upset by a fickle climate get you down (anag. of plans, climate).

G. G. Lawrance (Harrow): A scalp ailment requires treatment when the hairs fall out (anag.).

G. M. Mercer (Blackburn): Falling hairs? A form of scalp ailment is responsible. Put it right and get a fine crop (anag., 2 defs.).

E. G. Phillips (Bangor): Cries of grief follow when the disease of plica starts and fine hairs are all matted together (anag. + laments; see plica Polonica in C.).

H. Ingram Rees (Edgware): Produce of Manilla, etc. (p.s. Jolly fine stuff!) (anag.).

H. B. Ridley (Leigh-on-Sea): Ruinous scalp ailment—it makes fine hair so thin! (anag.).

W. O. Robertson (Marlow): What an unnatural alliance: politician and saint! The threads are indeed slender (anag. of alliance, MP, St).

Capt C. Tyers (Elstead): Certainly there is more than just fine fibre in the constitution of all men past one hundred (anag. incl. I, C).

COMMENTS—224 correct: a certain amount of havoc was wrought by ABACI and DIXIE. As for the former, many of those for whom the penny dropped—summer = one who adds—seem to have enjoyed the clue: perhaps those for whom it didn’t drop are kicking themselves—or are they wanting to kick me? The latter, “cooking-pail or camp-kettle,” is common military slang. I thought it reasonable to expect that most people had heard of either this or the song: if not, the Chambers Supplement was a last resource. There were hardly any other mistakes.
 
Two ideas stood out in a naturally very anagrammatic entry—camels + needle’s eye and scalp ailment. The former, I think, has more sparkle, and after some hesitation I have given it all three prizes, deciding the order by my preferences as to treatment. I liked Mr. Constable’s clue best of the versions of scalp ailment. Other versions of both these ideas failed to get H.C.s through various weaknesses of wording. e.g., “If camels plan it properly they can easily pass through the eye of a needle”: I can’t make the syntax of this work to my entire satisfaction.
 
I was fairly liberal as to definitions, but strictly I don’t believe the word means anything but botanical fibres; clues should not therefore definitely imply other kinds, though they may, of course, misleadingly suggest them. One has to beware of the sequence “A = one sense of B: another sense of B = C: ∴ A = C.” This may be allowed to pass muster, if the two senses of B are sufficiently close together, but often it really can’t.
 
Comments on last time’s awards again show widely divergent views, but tend on the whole to show that the winner’s effort was less popular than his predecessor's: what about the present one?
 
RUNNERS-UP—As competition for H.C.s was close, I give two lists, the first of which contains the names of those who came nearest to H.C.s:—
 
(1):—J. C. Chavasse, Cdr H. H. L. Dickson, B. Donne-Smith, Miss R. Le S. Filleul, S. Goldie, S. B. Green, C. D. Harding, B. J. Iliffe, Mrs L. Jarman, I. A. H. Munro, G. W. Pugh, B. Rowbotham, G. A. Wain (2):—Sir R. Broomfield, Mrs Caithness, H. P. Chubb, A. N. Clark, W. Darby, F. E. Dixon, Mrs J. O. Fuller, P. G. W. Glare, W. E. Green (Beverley), P. A. Harrow, D. Jones, D. P. M. Michael, F. E. Newlove, J. D. P. O’Leary, T. E. Sanders, E. O. Seymour, E. T. Smith, K. H. Smith, Mrs E. B. Stevens, L. E. Thomas, J. Thompson.