AZED CROSSWORD 1052

AGANIPPE

1.  J. R. Beresford: Did I poetically inspire a lovelorn Pope? (gan I in a P(o)pe, & lit.).

2.  F. R. Palmer: First three essentials for Wimbledon champion – agility, extremes of pace, inspiration (Aga(ssi) + nip + p(ac)e; ref. Andre A.).

3.  D. F. Manley: Old verse composed with —— may be seen as Palgrave is opened (comp. anag. & lit.).

VHC

M. Barley: For this one’s forlornly appealing, if a bit of lyricism’s lacking (anag. less l, & lit.).

Mrs F. A. Blanchard: When in love a squeeze is something to spark off a sonnet (nip in Agape).

R. M. S. Cork: Fountain pen I redesigned with a gap that’s let the ink flow freely (anag., 2 defs.).

N. C. Dexter: For aping a poet, dash to this (comp. anag. & lit.).

V. Dixon: It could give a lift, and power, in Antiquity; one needs to open wide, drink in deeply (a nip + p in age, a + nip in gape, & lit.).

C. M. Edmunds: What lists ‘gap’ with ‘nap’, i.e. aid for the uninspired poet (anag.).

Dr I. S. Fletcher: What’s replaced gap in English poet’s head (anag. incl. E, p, & lit.).

S. Gaskell: A smart head for pentameters fleshes out mature poetic inspiration (a nip p in age).

P. R. Giaccone: It did poetically start to inspire Pope, wanting beginning ode (a gan i P(o)pe, & lit.).

P. F. Henderson: Source of spirits invoked in Marvell-ing? (nip in agape, & lit.; ref. Andrew Marvell).

R. J. Hooper: A rare visitor to Henley, am I to catch a crab in boat race initially? (i.e. (b)ag a nippe(r); ref. W. E. Henley, minor poet).

I. Isaksen: An inspirational runner, a nag Pipe trained (anag.; ref. R. Pipe, race-horse trainer).

M. D. Jones: What’Il inspire Aegean pipes? Try it and see (comp. anag. & lit.; try = sift).

F. P. N. Lake: Whence poetic inspiration runs free, appearing in liquid form (anag. less r).

H. W. Massingham: A jigger and piano, in time – that got the old feet going (a nip p in age).

T. J. Moorey: Systems started from this spring must gain a PEP (anag.; must⁴ adj; system = group of Greek verses; ref. new savings product).

R. S. Morse: Take a drink from this and you could find page flowing (a nip in anag., & lit.).

T. W. Mortimer: No ——? It could lead to gap in an unfinished poem (comp. anag. less m, & lit.).

P. G. O’Gorman: Forest are on the way back, getting one in – Clough’s inspiration? (a in Epping a (rev.); ref. A. H. Clough, English poet and Brian C., Nottingham F. manager).

Ms M. Stokes: Frost inspires only a yawn; it’s the spring that kindles the imagination (nip in a gape).

D. H. Tompsett: Poetically did I – page by page – infuse G. W. Russell (gan I p, p in AE, & lit.; ref. poet known as ‘Æ’).

D. Williamson: You could make this inspirer ape Pierian spring! (comp. anag. & lit.).

HC

C. J. Anderson, W. G. Arnott, D. Ashcroft, G. M. Barker, E. A. Beaulah, R. C. Bell, Mrs A. Boyes, C. J. Brougham, Rev Canon C. M. Broun, W. S. Brownlie, E. J. Burge, B. Burton, E. Chalkley, E. S. Clark, C. A. Clarke, F. H. Cripps, E. Dawid, J. Dromey, Rev G. Floyd, F. D. Gardiner, N. C. Goddard, S. Goldie, R. G. Gray, R. R. Greenfield, J. F. Grimshaw, C. R. Gumbrell, D. V. Harry, J. Horwood, G. Johnstone, R. E. Kimmons, J. F. Levey, J. C. Leyland, H. R. Lockhart, A. Logan, D. J. Mackay, J. R. C. Michie, Dr E. J. Miller, W. L. Miron, C. J. Morse, R. F. Naish, Mrs E. M. Phair, R. Phillips, D. Price Jones, Rev E. H. Pyle, H. L. Rhodes, A. Rivlin, D. R. Robinson, W. Rodgers, L. G. D. Sanders, M. Sanderson, W. J. M. Scotland, A. D. Scott, N. G. Shippobotham, W. K. M. Slimmings, A. P. Vincent, Mrs M. Vincent, A. J. Wardrop, M. J. E. Wareham, R. J. Whale, Mrs H. D. Williams.
 

COMMENTS
465 entries, very few mistakes. A toughish puzzle, it seems. One regular commented that my ‘flair for incorporating words of slight everyday application is becoming acute!’ Not a deliberate trend, I assure you, though I always like to include a modicum of lexical oddities. Hunting for them keeps me amused. A few were puzzled by my clue to HATABLE (TAB in HALE), which depended for it to work on ‘borrowing’ the first word of the following clue (‘penetrating’, the definition part of the second clue but part of the cryptic indicator of the first). The pair of three dots was intended to indicate this and it seems a legitimate device, if a little devious.
 
Ximenes used AGANIPPE as the competition clue-word in his puzzle No. 259, some time in 1954 by my reckoning. A handful remembered the earlier occasion, but most forbore from reusing their old clues (if they recalled them). I must say, looking at X’s slip, that clues nowadays seem on the whole a bit cleverer and less wordy, but then I’m biassed. The first prize-winner then was the late D.P.M. Michael with ‘What eases the strain and restores pep again? Spring.’ As a clue-word it seems to offer plenty of scope. There were rather too many instaeces of ‘a little drink in a love-feast’ or variations thereon, a bit too obvious (and uninspired!) as a treatment. But there were plenty of other excellent clues to choose from and I had the greatest difficulty picking the top three. (I found myself wondering whether Mr Beresford’s would have been even better if he’d replaced ‘Pope’ with ‘poet’, and whether he’d considered this himself. It would have become more difficult, certainly, but not, I think, unfairly so in present company. It all depends on how friendly the setter is feeling towards his solvers, I suppose.)
 
A geographical footnote on AGANIPPE from another regular: ‘In the course of working on this, I wondered what, if anything, Aganippe had to do with the Pierian spring (as in Pope) – ‘A Pierian spring’ does after all contain all the letters of Aganippe. But Aganippe, Heicon and Parnassus are apparently in Boectia, whereas Pieria seems to be in Thessaly. But the muses seem to live in both places, and in the OED one 15th-century writer has the Pierians living on Parnassus. Either the Greeks weren’t too worried about geography, or...?’
 
I said I would list some books I find useful when constructing clues. I won’t mention individually the many subject dictionaries I consult from time to time to check on factual details. Good clue-writing is often (at least in part) a question of finding the right word for a given meaning, and here thesauruses can be a great help. The ones I use most often are Chambers Twentieth Century Thesaurus (1986) and Longman Synonym Dictionary (1986, based on the American Rodale Synonym Finder). I rarely use Roget (Longman 1987) because of its unfriendly arrangement and indexing system There are two large US crossword dictionaries (not, I think readily available over here) which are quite good on thematic groups (clothes, weaponry, food, deities, etc): Baus: The Master Crossword Dictionary (Doubleday 1981) and Random House Crossword Puzzle Dictionary (1989). The best English equivalent to these is still The Hamlyn Crossword Dictionary (1978, but subsequently reprinted by other publishers under different titles, I believe). On the technique of clue-writing, Ximenes on the Art of the Crossword (Methuen 1966) and Robins: The ABC of Crosswords (Corgi 1981) are both classics but both, alas, out of print. The best available guide is Manley: Chambers Crossword Manual, a new and expanded edition of which is due for publication shortly.