XIMENES CROSSWORD No. 962

PALING

1.  Sir S. Kaye: Early stop in recurrent adverse balance of trade might well protect pound (lin in gap (rev.); pound²).

2.  R. Postill: Mate has an odd gin; so remains upright—unlike 10 ac (pal + anag., 2 defs.; upright, n.; opp. of ablush).

3.  C. O. Butcher: Each year women’s clothing (half unnecessary) is getting lighter (p.a. ling(erie)).

V.H.C.

Col P. S. Baines: Nothing in the way of a trespasser? Quite the reverse (nil in gap (all rev.), & lit.).

I. Cousins: Fencing is only half a recreation (paling(enesis)).

N. C. Dexter: Boarding post: experienced piper reqd. Apply head of Gordonstoun (Box 51) (LI in Pan G, 2 defs.).

J. Fryde: Nothing to fill the opening? Quite the reverse (nil in gap (all rev.), & lit.).

L. W. Jenkinson: Each year Heath is becoming less flamboyant (p.a. ling).

A. Lawrie: It should be sound round a pound (a L in ping, & lit.).

L. F. Leason: Nothing to stick in the stockade’s breach? Quite the reverse (nil in gap (all rev.), & lit.).

Mrs S. M. Macpherson: Withdraw me and a hole appears with nothing in it (nil in gap (all rev.), & lit.).

T. W. Melluish: Boarder, one with about nothing inside, becoming wan (a + nil (rev.) all in PG).

C. G. Millin: Examining board going grey (3 mngs.).

C. J. Morse: WHITING might be clued: “The first of playwrights and a cousin to the cod” (p + a ling; ref. John W., fish).

F. R. Palmer: Nothing to be put in the opening? Quite the reverse (nil in gap (all rev.), & lit.).

T. E. Sanders: You need lightening among the principal ingredients for making pasty (hidden, 2 defs.).

W. Spendley: Nothing to fill breach in fence? Contrariwise (nil in gap (all rev.), & lit.).

F. B. Stubbs: See the old man fish for whiting (pa ling).

J. Treleaven: Nothing in the opening? On the contrary, there’s a fence there (nil in gap (all rev.)).

H.C.

W. G. Arnott, J. A. Blair, E. W. Burton, D. P. Chappell, P. R. Clemow, Mrs M. P. Craine, J. Crowther, R. A. Dehn, Miss D. Fennell, J. A. Fincken, F. D. Gardiner, C. C. M. Giffin, H. J. Godwin, Mrs B. M. Halpern, Miss G. Halsey, R. E. Kimmons, A. F. Lerrigo, Mrs B. Lewis, D. W. Mason, Mrs E. McFee, E. L. Mellersh, D. P. M. Michael, Mrs K. Orr, Miss M. J. Patrick, Mrs N. Perry, E. G. Phillips, H. Rainger, Mrs K. M. Russell, N. E. Sharp, S. Sondheim, H. S. Tribe, M. E. Ventham, G. R. Webb, J. F. N. Wedge, B. C. Westall.
 

COMMENTS—About 325 entries—number reduced, as often, by hot weather and holidays, or by Rassendyll, who accounted for over 80 mistakes in the entry? I have said that I think a literary reference in a clue is perfectly fair with a clear subsidiary indication, unfair without it. In this case I maintain that I gave perfectly adequate help to those who don’t know their “Prisoner of Zenda” and “Rupert of Hentzau”—incidentally I am surprised that there are so many, but that isn’t the point. The all-important last letter but two was unchecked; but the wording of the clue should have compensated for that. I wrote “Prince come to unhappy erd, we hear”: note the position of “we hear.” “Ras” is a prince and sounds like “Rais”: “end-yll” sounds like “end ill”, i.e. “come to unhappy end.” If the correct spelling of the name were “Rassendill”, which many competitors wrote, I should have written in my clue “Prince, we hear, come to unhappy end”, because “we hear” would have been in appropriate to “end-ill”; this was the vital point. Why anyone should write “Rassendall”, “Rassendell” or even “Rassendoll” I can’t imagine; none of these can possibly fit “come to unhappy end”; “end all” comes nearest to doing so, but it doesn’t do it. The situation was aggravated, I gather, by the fact that the Oxford Companion to Literature, which several solvers evidently use, misspells the name “Rassendyl.” I can only say that this is a blunder, and anyway it could hardly cause a mistake, as the number of letters wouldn’t fit; it could, however, make people think I had blundered, which, I assure you, I hadn’t; I have known both books for 50 years and have them both at hand. I’m always sorry when there is a single cause of many mistakes; this time I really think it oughtn’t to have happened.
 
A few competitors were worried by my clue to IDEAED, saying that I hadn’t indicated the anagram. But it wasn’t an anagram: I meant “i” followed by “e” in “dead”; I hope that too is now clear. One more point; a few people queried SODOR; there is a Bishop of Sodor and Man.
 
There were many who used the “nil in gap reversed” idea: I have chosen those whose wording I liked best, eliminating from V.H.C.s those who used the actual word “gap”, which, I think, made the clue too easy. Too hot and sticky to write any more!