XIMENES CROSSWORD No. 37

MISLABEL

1.  Mrs W. J. Couper (Thurso): Der tag—Sunday, Nov. 11, 1946 (tag = label / day (Ger.); date of puzzle Sun 10 Nov 1946).

2.  Mrs A. L. Stevenson (Kilmacoim): Put on the wrong tab and you may get slim and able to be seen in it (anag.; tab = flap joining sides of coat).

3.  Rev C. Trevor (Birmingham): Were the chemist to treat his bottles so, there would be confusion for miles around his workshop (lab in anag.).

H.C.

C. Allen Baker (Wishaw): “Lamb’s ‘Eli’ Miscellany.” To call the essays so would be to do this (anag.; ref. Charles L., ‘Elia’).

K. Bower (Epsom): Mark wrong? Same with Bill, confound it! (anag.).

F. A. Clark (Croydon): Lamb’s lie has toned down to diffuse terminological inexactitude (anag.; ref. Churchill speech 1906).

W. E. Green (Ulverston): You may give a false address, but you’ll get the same bill (anag.).

V. H. M. Gunyon (Woodhall Spa): Basil seems to have got potted again—in the honey this time. Don’t do this to the pot! (anag. of basil in mel (L.); ref. Keats’ ‘Isabella’ buried her lover’s head in a pot of basil).

C. H. Hudson (Oxford): Put mud in Monsieur’s honey and describe it as pure! (slab (= mud) in miel (Fr.), & lit.).

Mrs M. Kidner (Seaford): Describe inaccurately the distance the crooked man travelled to get round the mud (slab (= mud) in anag. of mile; ‘crooked mile’).

C. Koop (Ferring): Put a wrong construction on and you may find ulterior aims’ll be used in evidence (anag.).

R. H. Lemon (Cheltenham): Disguise Bill as me, and give him a false name (anag.).

J. I. Logan (Edinburgh): I’d go for miles to a bal masqué to give a false impression (anag. of miles, bal).

D. S. Milford (Marlborough): Careless manuscript liable to direct coals to Newcastle (anag. incl. MS).

W. B. O’Hanlon (Wembley): No wonder the mails went astray, only half way to Belsen! (anag. + Bel(sen), & lit.).

H. T. R. Twyford (Sheffield): Even if you this your luggage, you can still make the L.M.S. liable (London excepted, of course) (anag. less L; London, Midland and Scottish railway).

W. Watts (Westcliff-on-Sea): In Keats’ poem is La Belle Dame put in the wrong category? (hidden; ‘La Belle Dame Sans Merci’).

W. H. J. Wheeler (Wembley): I’m back with Bella’s mixture; you have put the wrong directions on (I’m (rev.) + anag.; ref. Bell’s cough mixture).

Comments: 345 correct. The only mistake to reach double figures was YAWP (“up” in clue disregarded). Many treated “mislabel” as a noun, for which X. can find no dictionary support. But perhaps dictionaries are loose on this point: Chambers gives “miscue” as a noun only, whereas the verb is certainly current. So it seemed fairest to be lenient, and, once this objection was out of the way. Mrs. Couper went straight to the top of the poll and one or two suspects into the H.C. list. Some of the best clues were rather long. An equally good short one will always beat a good long one; an almost as good short one may do so; but a definitely less good short one, of course, won’t. Still, loquacity is treated as a fault. More clues than usual were spoilt by loose wording, the soundness of the defining part being sacrificed for the sake of the misleading sense; e.g. “As the new chemistry master unstoppered the vital bottle, a wry smile went round the lab”. The last part is good: the first part completes the picture, but does it really help one to find “mislabel”? “Bill Ames, c/o. M.C.C., Australia,” was attractive, but failed because there was no indication that B.A. is an anag. Mr. S. Bell’s amusing sally, though hardly a clue, may entertain solvers. He had written before in a friendly way saying he found anags. too easy: this time he seized a unique personal chance and wrote “I am S. Bell (still mildly protesting against anagrams)”! ! Finally, Mr. Gunyon nearly lost his mention for not hinting at his use of Latin; the clue was so good otherwise that it just passed.