Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26145
Take a Bow, Gilbert Burrows –
a full analysis by Tilsit
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ***
This was more the sort of puzzle that I like to tackle on a Saturday with some good cluing and unusual words and Cephas certainly seems to have upped the ante on recent weeks. That said, the only clue I would have an issue with as unfair is probably the one that some will enjoy the most – 15 down. To me the answer is what I would describe as one step away from the definition, and that makes it too clever for its own good. Had the answer been “Sleep Music”, if such a thing existed, I would be raving about it, but the real answer “sheet music” is one step from that and in my book unfair.
However, I really liked 21 down, 6 down and 11 across. My Latin master at school, Gilbert Burrows used to expound upon unusual words and their origins and meanings and one of them was “peculator” meaning a sinner, derived from the Latin verb ‘pecco’, meaning to sin. It’s taken almost 40 years for the word to be needed, but there it was last Saturday. I am sure if GSB was doing the Telegraph puzzle on his cloud up above, he’d have had a wry smile.
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