◀  No. 261 Clue list 20 Dec 1953 Slip image No. 265  ▶

XIMENES CROSSWORD No. 263

We think so then and we thought so still! (Anagram)

1.  Brig W. E. Duncan: That Owl, winking, hoots: “He! He! Ted L.’s nuts!” (Ted L. = Edward Lear).

2.  E. Sunderland: What we, Dell’s kin, sing to the hot, hot sun.

3.  Lt Col P. S. Baines: Wet hosts—should know the Nile at night.

H.C. (extra prizes)

A. Aaron: “The Dong’ll sink with that nose” we shout.

S. Doidge: We show loud thanks to the “silent night.”

W. J. Duffin: How stalks the Dong with The Nose unlit?

W. Eite: What hint to lost who seeks light? Dunne? (J. W. D., ‘An Experiment with Time’).

J. A. Fincken: Do we tell Hunt what shook this Tensing? (Holman Hunt, friend of E. Lear, and Everest).

Mrs N. Fisher: Who taught Nile host tenses? L. doth wink!

S. Goldie: Who knows not that the Nile delights us?

S. B. Green: “Silent night”? We two thus shook the land!

T. E. S. Jobson: Song ends thus—with hot walk to Nile?

L. Johnson: Len Hutton’s high hits won’t do last week! (cricket).

A. F. Lerrigo: We laugh (not loth to) when Ned’s skittish (Ned = Edward Lear).

J. P. Lloyd: How Dell’s won—“Taste thou,” hints the King.

T. W. Melluish: “Look,” I told Hunt, “shews the Tensing, what?” (Holman Hunt, friend of E. Lear, and Everest).

S. L. Paton: Hit news—Dell has IT! (Oughtn’t she to know?).

Capt W. H. W. Ridley: Hell knows who taught this tense—I don’t!

W. K. M. Slimmings: Tosh? Whew, I think that old E. L.’s gone nuts!

T. L. Strange: We should think Hottentot was English!

J. A. L. Sturrock: Has lilt, wit, though don’t know the sense.

C. T. Tulloch: The old Sun—she winks at the Owl to-night (with suggested transposition of “Sun” and “Owl”).

 

Relevant passages of The Pelican Chorus, referred to in the above:—

Owl—ref. The O. & the Pussycat.
 
Dong—ref. The Dong with the Luminous Nose.
 
RUNNERS-UP—E. S. Ainley, M. Anderson, F. D. H. Atkinson, C. Allen Baker, Miss A. W. Baldy, P. C. Barclay, J. W. Bates, T. E. Bell, H. Bernard, Miss F. C. Bond, C. M. Brown, Maj H. L. Carter, G. H. Clarke, D. L. Clements, Capt B. P. Connors, W. W. Cove, J. McI. Cruickshank, E. Davies, G. E. Davies, F. E. Dixon, P. A. Drillien, J. Duffill, Miss B. Grant, C. P. Grant, Maj Gen C. G. B. Greaves, Miss B. Griffith, W. W. D. Hale, R. J. Hall, J. D. Hayhurst, S. Holgate, P. Holliday, P. E. Holmes, P. Holtby, W. Islip, Mrs L. Jarman, A. L. Jeffery, J. W. Jenkins, L. W. Jenkinson, W. I. N. Kessel, H. R. King, J. D. Lockett, J. I. Mason, E. L. Mellersh, G. M. Mercer, J. J. Moore, P. H. Morgan, C. J. Morse, A. Neale-Dowswell, F. E. Newlove, E. G. Phillips, E. R. Prentice, E. J. Rackham, A. R. Read, D. W. Reed, W. Rennie, J. S. Rioch, A. Robins, C. Rosebourne, P. W. Rundle, T. E. Sanders, J. Saunders, Mrs E. Shackleton, Mrs E. M. Simmonds, A. E. Smith, L. R. Smith, O. Carlton Smith, G. J. St. J. Steadman, A. Thomas, Mrs J. E. Townsend, H. S. Tribe, M. A. Vernon, W. H. Weightman, T. G. Wellman, R. Wells, J. B. Welman, M. Winterbottom, M. Woolf, A. H. Wright.
 
COMMENTS—291 entries, 265 correct, and much ingenuity, leading to great difficulty in choosing. A few people misinterpreted “appropriate”: surely an appropriate anagram of a sentence means an anagram whose contents are appropriate in some way to the contents of that sentence, without need for further specification? However, in the Christmas spirit I have included some of the most ingenious Christmas ones and other irrelevant ones among the immense list of runners-up. I didn’t regard it as essential to run the quotation to earth: it was perfectly possible to produce a good, appropriate anagram without doing so, and I think it likely that some of the H.C. prize-winners achieved this. There were too many similar anagrams in the vein of “Who thus with nonsense delight to talk?” to get more than a mention among the runners-up. I have fully checked the anagrams of all prize-winners for accuracy: many of the runners-up I am taking on trust.
 
Very many thanks for all the Christmas cards and good wishes, which I greatly appreciate. A happy New Year to all solvers!
 

 
Ximenes Slips by year
19451946194719481949
19501951195219531954
19551956195719581959
19601961196219631964
19651966196719681969
19701971