XIMENES CROSSWORD No. 464

STRAWED

1.  Mrs N. Fisher: With Dawn’s complexion aid, beauty culture’s up to you—spread over once (dew art’s (all rev.)).

2.  H. Rainger: Once spread on, clears skin blemishes up! (de-warts (rev.)).

3.  J. A. Fincken: What those old broadcasters did, wearing boaters, had a decidedly corny effect! (2 mngs; straw boaters).

H.C.

D. Ashcroft: Cast perchance a crust of bread upon th’ unruly waters (anag. + (brea)d).

F. D. H. Atkinson: Steward in trouble because (like his master) he hadn’t (anag.; ref. Matt. 25:24, “thou hast not strawed” (KJV)).

C. Allen Baker: Middle age spread gives rise to the first signs of decline—with noticeable protuberances! (de-warts (rev.); i.e. in middle ages).

T. E. Bell: Removes the excrescence from the superficies, so to speak, arising from scattered litter! (de-warts (rev.)).

J. M. Bennett: It’s chilly and damp in the old farmhouse which is thatched (raw in sted).

F. H. Bernard: Clytemnestra (Wednesday, Third) features old flat poetic version, rarely broadcast nowadays (hidden, a third of letters).

P. R. Clemow: Belt broken off at the end—get into double harness for middle-age spread (stra(p) wed; i.e. in middle ages).

P. Hobby: Wild oats were subjects of interest for raised brows—they’ve gone North to get married! (arts (rev.) + wed; i.e. highbrows).

Dr T. O. Hughes: Razed, in ancient use (raw in sted, & lit.).

A. L. Jeffery: The beginning of snow—cold and damp spread about—then Twickenham is this, perhaps! (s + raw in ted (vb.); straw spread on playing surface).

C. J. Morse: Spenser’s diffuse—but that’s natural in his period (raw in sted).

E. G. Phillips: What Moses did with the remains of the calf in the Sinai Desert, in brief, polluted water (anag. in S, D, & lit.; ref. Exod. 32:20, “strawed it upon the water” (KJV)).

R. Postill: You and I fiddle around: hence the Middle-Aged Spread! (we in Strad; i.e. in middle ages).

Maj J. N. Purdon: We fiddle about, the same as “The Unjust Steward,” broadcast some time ago (we in Strad, anag.).

L. E. Thomas: Although old-fashioned even in the past, this is an excellent pretext for much bowing and scraping about the royal person ((royal) we in Strad; even, vb.).

J. Thompson: Queen Elizabeth’s tossed about: steward sick (anag.; ref. Elizabeth I and liner).

A. D. Walker: Elizabethans may have said the Armada was as a result of a S.W. Trade blowing up (anag. & lit.; ref. Spanish A. scattered by storms).

RUNNERS-UP

R. B. Allnutt, C. M. Broun, C. O. Butcher, E. Clark, P. M. Coombs, G. H. Dickson, Cdr H. H. L. Dickson, Mrs J. O. Fuller, C. C. M. Giffin, A. N. Girling, G. P. Goddard, S. Goldie, E. Gomersall, S. B. Green, D. Hawson, Lt Cdr E. S. Irvine, V. Jennings, A. Lawrie, Mrs R. D. Lemon, H. Lyon, Dr S. L. Paton, H. C. S. Perry, N. Perry, E. J. Rackham, G. H. Ravenor, K. Reed, M. Rich, Rev E. G. Riley, T. E. Sanders, R. E. Scraton, Mrs E. Shackleton, Mrs E. M. Simmonds, P. F. Simpson, L. H. Stewart, L. T. Stokes, H. G. Tattersall, Miss D. W. Taylor, D. H. Tompsett, H. S. Tribe, J. F. N. Wedge, J. S. Young.
 

COMMENTS—241 entries, 209 correct. I seem to have been getting rather tough lately—I hope not too much so. I will deal first with the alternative TRIPODAL, which I felt I had to accept, though I am not quite so happy about it now as I was when I decided to accept it. It should really, I think, refer only to a tripod, whereas TRIPEDAL is more general and might, at least humorously, describe a yard. However, it would have been a little too fierce: to take a firm line and almost halve the number of solutions accepted as correct. The possibility of “pod” instead of “ped” in the subsidiary part of the clue had completely escaped my notice until solutions began to arrive. A few competitors took the set word to be STEARED, old spelling of “steered” = “directed” = “levelled.” But “level” surely only means “direct” in the sense of to level a gun at someone: “steer” can’t mean “direct” in this sense. I feel much more strongly about this than about “tripodal,” especially as the definition I gave of STRAWED came straight out of C., making the latter a definitely superior answer. Still, I regret the seeming possibility of an alternative, which I had carefully sought to prevent. There were one or other alternatives tried, but these were quite impossible.
 
The general standard of clues sent in was well up to average. I picked out two points to mention for competitors to bear in mind. References to parts of words must be clear and accurate to be of any value to a solver. “First shake it all about,” with the note “shake = trill,” was a very extreme example of an indication which no solver could possibly he expected to use as a means of finding TR with S.A. round it. “First shake” can’t possibly mean “the first two letters of ‘trill’.” The other point is that “this” in the clue would normally refer to the whole word required, not to a part of it. “It’s chilly and damp in this Elizabethan farm, but we do get a rare old spread” is an example. This clue should mean that the answer will be an Elizabethan farm. “The” for “this” would make it sound.
 
I hope you will like the Christmas novelty, which I owe to the suggestion of Mr. M. Woolf. As the next slip will reach you after Christmas, I offer you my best wishes now
 
P.S.—I notice that one or two of my solvers have been collecting prizes from the literary crossword series in The Twentieth Century, which I mentioned in a slip some time ago: I find these puzzles quite entertaining, and it occurs to me that more of you might do so. Two very neat clues that I have noted from them are:—“You can’t find this essayist without meaning to” (Montaigne), and “Author of Lapsus Calami—the pen’s at fault!” (Stephen). Both happen to be anagrams, though actually this setter doesn’t use them often. Many of the clues are of our type, though a certain amount of literary research is required as well as this sort of twistiness! This is a timely moment to mention it, as I see a new competition series starts in January.
 
Stop Press.—Apologies for misprint CLEUGH for CLEUCH in last Sunday’s solution. I hope the note “cle(r)uch” will have prevented worry about it.