◀  No. 525 Clue list 1 Mar 1959 Slip image No. 534  ▶

XIMENES CROSSWORD No. 529

BUTTY-COLLIER

1.  F. D. H. Atkinson (Claygate): In t’pit an acquaintance forced by t’cruel toil (anag. & lit.).

2.  A. Robins (Manchester): You bet till limited credit is dissipated: 1 help to keep mine going with a pony or two on the track (anag.; cr. = credit).

3.  H. Rotter (Edgware): My mate’s product helps to avert a freeze-up: Bluecol—try it, it’s revolutionary! (anag.; anti-freeze).

H.C.

Lt Col P. S. Baines (Chatham): Underground Collaborator Perverts T.U.C.—Tory Libel (anag.).

Capt A. S. Birt (British Forces PO 53): “Our Mutual Friend” (Pitman’s Edition)? Well, yes, but try a shorter book first with a new slant on toil and cruelty (b + anag.).

C. O. Butcher (E4): A cover with a setting of black diamonds in the shaft: what a cute brolly it would make! (anag.; cover = confederate).

F. E. Dixon (Rosslare): He and his mate are liable to get silicosis; and he’s utterly riddled with B. coli! (anag.).

K. Gibson (Hucknall): Your little Companion of the Bath, after the shift (anag. incl. CB, & lit.).

P. Graystone (Harrow): A friend of the miner, who’d readily have conversion to oil cut trebly (anag.).

F. G. Illingworth (Worcester): Ship after ship after ship makes one a friend of the deep! (butty (= towed barge) + collier).

Mrs L. Jarman (Brough): Cutter working like billy-o, pal of mine (anag. & lit.; work = ferment).

B. G. Palmer (Saffron Walden): What upsets the normally matey miner? B…y cruel toil! That’s it to a T! (anag. incl. T).

R. Postill (Jersey): Found in the galleries drawing, perhaps, works by Utrillo, etc. (anag.; hewer and drawer).

E. O. Seymour (Gerrards Cross): There’s a friendly hand in mine after presenting a mongrel cur to an excited little boy (anag.).

Mrs E. M. Simmonds (Cookham Dean): A fellow hand in mine may give a coy little rub (anag.).

M. C. Souster (Felixstowe): Reform Club Lottery! I must enter. Where shall I find a partner? Mine will be just the ticket (I in anag.).

M. J. Venning (Harpenden): As a mixture try Bluecol, it is a friend to those who keep radiators going (anag.; anti-freeze).

M. A. Vernon (Nl4): Underground helper makes City tube roll disconcertingly (anag.).

G. C. West (Ipswich): Sure friend below the surface—cert till buoy gets adrift (anag.).

RUNNERS-UP

C. Allen Baker, J. W. Bates, T. E. Bell, H. Bernard, H. J. Bradbury, Mrs J. Chalkley, Flt Lt J. Cook, J. Cordery, R. P. Crawley, Dr W. M. Easther, T. R. Eve, J. H. Eyre, Mrs N. Fisher, F. D. Gardiner, C. E. Gates, G. P. Goddard, E. Gomersall, S. B. Green, V. L. Harrison, D. Hawson, W. Heaton, F. B. Hooper, G. Kirsch, A. F. Lerrigo, J. P. Lester, R. K. Lumsdon, D. P. M. Michael, J. J. Moore, P. H. Morgan, C. J. Morse, Plt Off L. W. G. Oxley, H. Perry, S. Plumb, Brig J. J. Purves, E. J. Rackham, Mrs J. Robertson, T. E. Sanders, J. R. Scarr, Mrs E. Shackleton, W. K. M. Slimmings, J. F. N. Wedge, C. E. Williams, M. Winterbottom, M. Woolf, J. S. Young.
 

COMMENTS:—336 entries, 318 correct—and about half these few errors were single squares (inadvertently?) not filled in at all. As often happens with a long word, and a not very easy one to clue, anagrams predominated: this makes the list above a little monotonous, but there was a pleasing variety of appropriate anagrams. I have chosen what I thought the best worded of the most popular ones—T.U.C. Tory Libel, your little C.B., club lottery I, city tube roll: these four appeared wish about equal frequency. I was soon sure about the first prize, but there was close competition for the other two. One or two good ideas were spoilt by punctuation difficulties, especially those ending with “mate” (vocative). In these the misleading sense calls for a comma after “mine” which makes the definition hardly fair; yet without the comma, as in “To curb telly I smashed mine, mate!”, the game is given away and the clue is not very effective. There seems to be no satisfactory solution to this problem.
 
In spite of all my protests in slips, there are still many competitors who will insist on sending in hopelessly unhelpful indirect anagrams. One was “A comrade, but beware, he’s made of entirely harmful microbes!” This is the same anagram as Mr Dixon’s: why, oh. why not use it as Mr Dixon did and make it of some value to a solver? Another was “Archaic townsman involved in smash with front portion of trolleybus—that’s a mate of mine! “Cit” is far too little known for this sort of treatment, and incidentally 9 letters out of 10 can hardly be described as “front portion”. The first 7 might, as they do form a separate portion, or perhaps, but less well, 3 or 4 might; but not nearly the whole word. One more protest I must repeat as its object keeps reappearing: I cannot pass “I’m in some sort of club lottery” for “I is …”: the letter I cannot have a 1st person verb. It’s so easy to write “I’ll be …,” etc., and be accurate! But apart from indirect anagrams, which I will not allow unless their solution is very easy, unsoundness is certainly on the wane.
 
A competitor asks about “up” and “back”. In indicating reversals competitors should observe whether the word is an “across” or a “down” word and act accordingly: this seems to me much the most satisfactory arrangement, because with it we shall be saying what we mean.
 

 
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