The Daily Mail is a rightwing British tabloid for whose hawkish views I have nothing but contempt. The same goes for that glorified bhaav copy that masquerades as a business newspaper- the Economic Times. But the Daily Mail crossword, duly reproduced by the ET, has become an addiction over the last 2 years, especially during my frequent aerial excursions around the country.
Unlike the Hindu crossword, overloaded with anagrams and clues that are often ridiculously obscure or downright incorrect, the ET crossword has no more than a smattering of jumbles - just as many as are required to tackle more challenging clues. Tougher, but infinitely more interesting. And almost always accurate.
Anyway, to cut a long story shot, the crossword was finally completed today. Hmmm, not quite...'Gun holding firm in Wales' was cracked only after a google search for a list of cities in that country (?). Brecon is (hopefully) the answer . "Woman who takes the cake" should be "Crumpet" but that does not quite fit in with " Feature funny fellow in talk"...so that's at least one incorrect although I've taken a wild guess for the sake of completion after changing crumpet to trumpet!
A small pat on the back, nevertheless, for filling all the squares in the grid for the first time even if a perfect solution is still elusive. Well, there's still a lot of flying time left this year!
Post Script (26/4/07)
A fevered consultation of the solution in the Economic Times crossword this morning led to the frustrating realization that the copy of the paper I received on the flight from Bhubaneshwar was the Kolkata edition. In the meanwhile, the evasive clue has been nailed down so it was probably just as well:
"Woman who takes the cake" should indeed be "Crumpet" and " Feature funny fellow in talk" could be "Chinwag", which agrees with the clue but is not a term I am very familiar with. However www.allwords.com assures me that it is a perfectly legitimate, albeit colloquial, word.
Vici!
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