I am beginning really to lose all pleasure in The Times crossword – culminating in my experience with that of Saturday 24 November, on which I made little progress – the first time this has happened in goodness knows how many years.
And I was not alone!
Then they go back to something more my style: one week later I finished the Saturday crossword in well under 20 minutes. And as a special treat there have been some very nice anagrams recently – three of them in one puzzle!
1. Sensed Kama Sutra might be very passionate? (2,4,2,7)
2. Haydn’s famous composition about not changing for ages (1,5,2,7)
3. Nutcase going mad about a horse that’s fallen (8)
4. Gay person so out of place in transport café? (6,5)
Answers below
First three from #25,349 Tuesday 18 December
Last from # 25,346 Thursday 13 December
Anagrams illustrate one of those puzzles about the human mind – given a clue, I usually find them very easy to spot & to solve in my head. On the other hand almost no amount of time & effort spent rearranging letters with pencil & paper makes it possible for me to devise a witty anagram starting from a phrase or name.
Just one of those attributes that divide the world into two kinds of people.
Note:
The title of this post comes from Samuel Butler’s Hudibras:
His body, that stupendous frame,
of all the world the anagram …
TR Nash thinks that ‘diagram’ might be better than anagram here, as in his gloss: The world in a state of transposition. Man is often called the microcosm, or world in miniature. Anagram is a conceit from the letters of a name transposed; though perhaps with more propriety we might read diagram.
Answers:
1. As keen as mustard
2. A month of Sundays
3. Unchaste
4. Greasy spoon
Link
Times for The Times: Saturday Times 25329 (24th Nov)
Related post
Crossword economy
