XIMENES CROSSWORD No. 20

NIERSTEINER

1.  Maj A. H. Giles (Leamington Spa): This may be still escaping by the route through the long Rhine Valley bottleneck (cryptic def.; i.e. still wine; ref. POWs, etc.).

2.  W. J. B. Whittle (Yeovil): Look on the wine when it’s white; then try to invoke the nearest diner! (‘nearsht-’iner’).

3.  R. C. Macfarlane (Edinburgh): Disordered kidneys lead to entire change in choice of wine (anag. of reins + anag.).

H.C.

E. P. Barrett (Dublin): Wine, simply vinted by mixing resin with porter as delivered from the brewery (anag. of resin, entire).

Capt P. M. Coombs (Hove): Although control’s back on one type of hock (uniced), you can get this variety (rein (rev.) + Stein(berg)er; ref. rationing).

Cdr H. H. L. Dickson, RN (Fareham): Wine manufacturer takes one over the eight and retires (anag. of nine, retires).

P. A. Hall (Burton): The eccentric Sir R. Stephen French is bottled (anag. of Sir R. Étienne).

S. Holgate (Hucknall): Rein back at first, and steer round in the end. Got a bad hock? (rein (rev.) + in in steer).

A. Hoskin (Epsom): Not Moselle, though it may be seen in Trier (anag.).

Mrs L. Jarman (Brough): If a hock’s laid open, it can be roughly set between twisted reins (anag. of set in two anags. of rein).

C. Koop (Ferring): Something expressed as light, and still capable of making Einstein err (anag.; i.e. previously pressed; light, still wine).

M. W. Lowry (Birkenhead): When I bring the entrée in, sir, will you get out the wine? (anag.).

R. Macleod (St. Andrews): The entire resin content could go into a wine-bottle (anag.).

T. E. Sanders (Walsall): Rents in Eire are enough to make one drink (anag.).

Mrs Simpson (Cheltenham): Drink that made the ’90s err (anag. of nineties err).

F. L. Usher (Leeds): Are rents in Eire adjusted ad hoc in the black market? No, it’s still white (anag.; still white wine; pun on ‘Hock’).

Rev A. E. Wynne (St. Margaret’s-at-Cliffe): This German internee, Sir, is drunk and disorderly! (anag.).

COMMENTS:—This word produced a flood of anagrams; over eighty different ones were used in all. The first two prize-winners perhaps gained a slight pull through differing from the majority; both used clever and original ideas. Two unsuccessful clues may be quoted to illustrate the point that all parts of a clue should be made really useful: 1. “Is it characteristically German to make a superior drink out of a chopped-up mixture of a little bird and a gasteropod?” 2. “Rhine wine which easily leads to breach of peace.” Solvers would get the answer almost certainly from the definition part in each case, without seeing the too-much-disguised anagrams—serin-nerite, Irene-is-rent. If anagrams are disguised, the disguises should be penetrable: Ximenes hopes that he practises what he preaches!