XIMENES CROSSWORD No. 161

TILLER

1.  D. A. Nicholls (Chester): Keep your head, cox, or I’ll show you who’s master (i.e. (c)ox, & lit.; t. of boat and t. = master of ox).

2.  S. B. Green (NW10): Director (crafty?) manipulates shares (2 mngs.; tiller¹, share²).

3.  F. H. W. Hawes (Dagenham): This share-pusher should be taken in hand by a director (2 mngs.; share², tiller¹).

H.C.

G. Bowness (N3): With tafferel lit up, he comes into view (hidden rev., & lit.).

Mrs N. Fisher (Stroud): He cultivates the girls with a handle to their name (2 mngs.; ref. Tiller Girls dance troupe).

S. Goldie (S. Shields): Director pushing shares? He might come a cropper here (2 mngs.; tiller¹, share²; come = become).

J. P. Lloyd (Swansea): A handy guide to Piers Plowman! (2 mngs.; piers, i.e. moorings).

Mrs A. M. Osmond (Richmond): He who cultivates John Haig, for example gets an infernal head in excess! ((Dis)tiller; ref. John Haig & Co. Ltd.).

H. Rainger (NW10): There’s a row about fair shares, but Attlee sticks to it! (LL in tier; i.e. 50-50; “hand on the tiller” = in control politically; ref. Clement A., PM, 1945-51; post war demand “fair shares for all”).

T. E. Sanders (Walsall): Comes a cropper at the finish after clearing the field (cryptic def.).

O. Carlton Smith (Bognor Regis): What some “Pretty maids all in a row” were called—yet not quite all in a row ((a)ll in tier; ref. T. Girls).

A. J. Souter (Pevensey): He digs, with Pluto in the spirit world ((Dis)tiller).

J. S. Young (Beckenham): You could see what he produced at the Windmill (double mng.; ref. John T. and T. Girls, W. Theatre, grain in mill).

RUNNERS-UP

Mrs M. Anderson, C. A. Baker, J. A. Blair, M. L. Booker, Mrs Caithness, A. N. Clark, F. A. Clark, D. Connell, Rev B. Foley, A. B. Gardner, P. A. Harrow, F. Jackson, Mrs L. Jarman, L. W. Jenkinson, C. Koop, G. G. Lawrance, A. F. Lerrigo, D. P. M. Michael, W. L. Miron, A. C. Norfolk, E. G. Phillips, R. Postill, G. W. Pugh, E. J. Rackham, D. W. Reeds, H. B. Ridley, E. O. Seymour, G. A. Shoobridge, Miss R. E. Speight, H. G. Tattersall, L. E. Thomas, D. L. Tuckett, J. Ward, E. Whaley.
 

COMMENTS—167 correct in a smallish entry. It was a hard puzzle, containing more unusual words than usual, and some pennies that were evidently slow to drop. GOOLE caused a lot of trouble: my encyclopaedia tells me there are iron foundries there: go = shot, and to ’ole is a golfer’s verb. A good many wrote “holla” for HOLLO, missing the point of the subsidiary part of the clue—(hollow).
 
Many goodish clues were sent in, but not many outstanding ones. Mr. Goldie’s “share-pusher” clue was a little spoilt by the archaic use of “come” in a modern expression. That was why the 2nd and 3rd prizewinners were preferred to him. There was a suspicion of “clue to a clue” in Mr. Rainger’s “fair shares” as well, but the difficulty would not be great so it just passes.
 
The requests for a “Playfair” shall be attended to in due course: its more ecstatic adherents should remember that it isn’t everybody’s meat, but another one will be due before long—in August, I think.
 
[Archive Note: the slip was prepared from a very poor copy of X’s original. Some clues and one H.C. name were virtually unreadable, and may not be correctly transcribed.]