XIMENES CROSSWORD No. 171

SERINGAS

1.  E. L. Hillman: Trees naturally provide a little bird with something to step on (serin, gas; “step on the gas”).

2.  E. S. Ainley: Cut, they produce a sort of resin coagulated with (e.g.) smoke (anag. of resin + gas, & lit.).

3.  J. W. Bates: When the substance of the elastic fails, down come our trunks! (cryptic def.).

H.C.

J. A. Blair: They may concede the rubber, but you can hardly make South Africa resign! (anag. incl. SA; ref. 1951 Test series).

F. A. Clark: Their constituents are used for erasings (anag. & lit.).

P. M. Coombs: Exemplary bridge players, sound as they are, may give you the rubber (S, E, ring, as).

J. H. Dingwall: They provide the raw material for erasings (anag. & lit.).

Mrs N. Fisher: See an ass reign in our stead! We have the juice to obliterate such errors (anag. of ass, reign; ref. MND: Oberon, Bottom, love-in-idleness potion; erasers).

C. E. Gates: We supply material for erasings (anag. & lit.).

S. B. Green: Signs are game and rubber—we’ll give it to you! (anag.; game = crooked; ref. bridge).

W. E. Green: Raw materials for erasings (anag. & lit.).

D. S. Johnson: Trees that provide the wherewithal to make erasings (anag. & lit.).

T. W. Melluish: Original producers of elastic shows reassign the characters in a different order (anag.).

P. M. Newey: An undulating siren heralds gas: get your masks from us! (anag.; rubber gas masks).

D. A. Nicholls: Cut a circle from the bark and see the floods around the rubber-trees! (ring, vb., in seas).

E. G. Phillips: For trees yielding india-rubber, one has to cut away the bark in rough places (ring, vb., in seas).

H. C. Pilley: Tired? Our milk preparation will keep you going. One round in plenty of water is all you need (ring in seas; i.e. rubber tyres (tire²)).

M. C. T. Reilly: To reassign ground a conveyance may be drawn up on an understanding of their product (anag.; ref. rubber tyres for conveyances (vehicles)).

A. E. Smith: Such a quantity of india-rubber comes from these trees, one could always be erasing (i.e. erasing = anag. of seringa).

L. E. Thomas: Partition makes South Ireland talk a lot: the substance of their effusions makes one tire easily! (S Erin gas; tire²).

H. L. Tinkler: Their product will naturally make erasings for you (anag. & lit.).

Capt C. Tyers: From these trees we get the means to make erasings (anag. & lit.).

H. D. Wakely: Shady sources of profit brought to light when a trade combination gets into deep waters (ring in seas).

RUNNERS-UP

A. C. Angel, C. A. Baker, T. Bilsborough, M. L. Booker, Rev B. Chapman, D. L. L. Clarke, F. L. Constable, T. G. Cordes, G. N. Coulter, E. W. Cumbers, F. E. Dixon, W. J. Duffin, E. H. Evans, Mrs J. O. Fuller, F. D. Gardiner, Rev J. G. Graham, Mrs K. N. Graham, Mrs E. Green, Mrs L. Jarman, L. W. Jenkinson, C. Koop, G. G. Lawrance, D. P. M. Michael, R. Mizel, F. E. Newlove, Rev E. B. Peel, B. Peile, G. H. Podmore, Mrs M. G. Porter, E. R. Prentice, C. P. Rea, R. C. Reeves, N. G. Renshaw, L. M. Row, T. E. Sanders, A. J. C. Saunders, E. T. Smith, O. Carlton Smith, J. Thomas, J. Thompson, G. R. Webb, J. F. N. Wedge, W. D. Wigley, C. E. Williams, M. Winterbottom, J. S. Young.
 

COMMENTS—Only 230 correct in quite a large entry and a very big crop of mistakes. There were four roughly equal causes of disaster: — MAUL (rugger scrum), BOGGARTS (larvae being both grubs and ghosts), EGLAMOUR (e.g.-Lamour & e.-glamour) and JAUP (ja-up). None of the versions submitted came near to fitting the clues. Other scattered mistakes swelled the total.
 
These failures still left a wide choice for awards, the word being an easy one. Of several obvious methods of treatment, the anag. of “erasings” was by far the most popular. I chose what seemed to me the neatest versions, preferring plural forms to the unnecessary singular and both to those which gave “erasing’s” = “erasing is” with omission of the verb for the anag. sense: it was so very easy to avoid this. I ruled out all clues which gave no hint that a plural word was required. It is questionable whether a “straight” clue should be accepted for such an unfamiliar word: such a clue to SERINGAS can only lead as far as “rubber trees”: then the solver has another search before him with little chance of an immediate reward for penetrating the clue. If it were not for this, Mr Bates would certainly have won the first prize. No other “straight” clue was brilliant enough to compensate for this unsuitability.
 
I apologise for my woolliness in writing “scran” instead of “scram.” One or two solvers mentioned this and suggested a misprint: it wasn’t—it was just incompetence and misplaced trust in my recollection of American slang! Fortunately it caused no errors.
 
Don’t miss the notice warning you that the competition for No. 172 closes a day early. I’m sorry about this, but I’m off to a remote region on the Saturday for a week and can’t trust the posts.