Many thanks to everyone who bought a quiz sheet and had a bash at the answers. On the whole, it was probably a bit harder than usual – there weren’t so many answer-sheets returned – but lots of people said how much they enjoyed the challenge. We raised £440 this time after printing costs and prize money were covered. A really useful contribution to the Schools Sanitation Project.
I’m afraid quite a few fell on nº 28 or (to my surprise) nº 32. There were seven who scored 70/70: Ray Foxell, Polly Helliar & Marilyn Fursey, Tim McDonald, Rebecca Bird, Clive Buddle, Patsy Watkins, Jim Phelan. Based on how much I enjoyed their tie-breakers, the winners are:
Clive Buddle – Earthquakes and tsunamis – all kinds of traumas here! (7)
Rebecca Bird – Emphatic order to demolish this monument (3,2,8)
Tim McDonald – Blooming good grounds for being anxious about Britain joining House of Fraser (9)
[Sumatra, Arc de Triomphe, Keukenhof. The first two are very neat. I’d given up trying to invent a clue for Keukenhof: Tim McDonald’s is a very impressive solution.]
There were more really good clues from Ray Foxell, Steve Greenhill, Eric Jackson, Geoff Howells (providing you can pronounce Welsh), with Chris Chantler getting the prize with a clever piece of misdirection: Villain takes off hat going into Los Angeles opera house (2,5): La Scala.
There were tons more near-misses. Sorry you can’t all have a consolation prize.
Here are the answers and explanations:
- Petra. Hidden in shape traditionally
- Pompeii. Sounds like Pom payee
- Carcassonne. Anagram: no acne scars
- Las Vegas. Anagram: save gas + l (‘head’ of word light)
- Gstaad. Anagram: a stag do minus ‘o’ (love)
- The Colosseum. Anagram: some hot clues (Sorry some early sheets had a wrong word-count)
- Acropolis. A crop + anagram of ‘soil’
- Parthenon. hen inside (Dolly) Parton
- Taj Mahal. Anagram: halt a major minus ‘or’ (= alternative)
- The Great Wall of China
- Angkor Wat. Anagram: rat gok wan
- The Louvre
- Versailles Verses around a + ill
- Neuschwanstein. Anagram: nine cashew nuts
- Flatiron Building (The Fuller Building, Fifth Avenue, built 1902) de-creases
- Bridge of Sighs. (sighs / size) (Another wrong word count of mine on some early sheets -sorry)
- The Met. (Metropolitan Opera House)
- Leaning Tower of Pisa. Anagram: swop angle of inertia
- Hermitage. Hermit + age
- Forbidden City. Ford + Biden. The Blues = (Manchester) City
- Sagrada Familia. Anagram of ‘a frail maid’ inside ‘saga’
- Alhambra. Hidden inside special ham bratwurst. (moreish sounds like maurish)
- Kinderdijk. Kinder + DI (detective inspector) + JK (Rowling). NL = Dutch
- Pyramid of Cheops. Pyramid (selling) + of (FO backwards) + Che (Guevara) + ops (operations)
- MoMA (Museum of Modern Art, NY)
- Burj Khalifa. Anagram
- Statue of Liberty. Anagram: to US life battery
- Cristo Redentor. Rio de Janeiro statue of Christ the Redeemer. Anagram: dottier corners. (Several people used the English name: but that wouldn’t explain “in dottier corners”)
- The Trevi Fountain.
- Venus de Milo. Anagram: unloved semi
- Mount Rushmore. Mount + rush + more
- Abu Simbel. Hidden in a bus I’m believably (I can’t see how The Sphinx explains the clue, which is, after all, cryptic.)
- The Terracotta Army.
- Michelangelo’s David. Anagram: has modelling advice
- Manneken Pis. (Little boy statue in Brussels)
- Burghers of Calais. (Rodin group of statuary. Burgher/ burger)
- Bermuda
- Crete. Hidden in epic retelling
- Corfu. Hidden in historic or future
- Bali. Anagram: bail
- Madagascar. Mad (keen) on a gas car.
- Philippines. Philip + pines
- Trinidad. nid (pheasant’s nest) inside Triad
- Bardados. Bar (except for) + bad + OS (Ordnance Survey)
- Corsica. Sic (= ‘I quote’) inside Cora
- The Bahamas. Anagram: shame abaht
- Galapagos. Gala (big party) + GAP (backwards) + OS (= one size fits all, on clothing labels)
- Tenerife. Anagram: fine tree
- Lanzarote. (Mario) Lanza (by) rote
- Grand Canyon. Anagram: canny dragon
- Norwegian Fjords. Anagram of ‘no swearing’ around first letters (openings) f,j,o,r,d
- Halong Bay. (Vietnam). Ha + long + bay
- The Niagara Falls. Anagram: rainhat sale flag
- Everglades. Glad (happy) inside anagram of ‘severe’.
- Blarney Stone. Beginning of lisp = l inside Barney’s tone
- Camargue. Cam (Mac backwards) + argue
- Paricutin. (Famous volcano in Mexico). Anagram: cairn up it
- Great Barrier Reef. Great (wonderful) + barrister minus st (saint) + reef (anagram of ‘free’
- Ayer’s Rock. (Aboriginal site, huge reddish stone) Hidden in taxpayer’s rocketing
- Disneyland. Anagram of insanely inside D.D.
- Graceland. (Elvis’s home). Race (people) inside ‘gland’
- Futuroscope. French science park. Anagram: troupe focus
- Yellowstone. Yellows + tone (icterus = jaundice)
- Parc Astérix. Anagram: six part race
- Yosemite. Yo = Hi! + semite
- Flushing meadows.
- Rock climbing. (Clock rhyming)
- Sky diving. (Die skiving)
- Land kiting. (Canned lighting)
- (Hot polling)
One more thing. Ray Foxell always produces a whole sheaf of cryptic clues of his own. Inspired by this year’s Q.18, Ray sent me a prize-winning poem he won a competition with some years ago. It leads to an amusing Spoonerism. I reproduce it here with Ray’s permission.
