Yesterday I shared ten unsolved crossword clues; each Saturday we try and tackle the puzzle set by Kate Mepham in the newspaper. It’s really tricky and I thought I did well yesterday only missing ten answers out of 114 clues.
I shared my ten fails… how did you get on? 10 out of 10?!
- anthropologist who coined the genus name Australopithecus; a missile thrown from behind the oche; or a tapered tuck in dressmaking – dart
- from the Malay meaning tie or bind, a traditional Indonesian resist-dye method and cloth used for cushions, lampshades, rugs and dresses – ikat
- apochromatic lens inventor who established the Carl Zeiss Foundation – Abbe
- Napoleon’s brother-in-law who served as King of Naples 1808-15, a flamboyant cavalry leader shot following a failed attempt to regain his throne – Murat
- bird of prey with a forked tail – red kite
- auction house that sold da Vinci’s Salvator Mundi for $450.3m in 2017 – Christies
- Roman general written about in a book by his son-in-law Tacitus – Agricola
- Spanish word for a promenade between rows of poplars – alameda
- first name of Effi Briest author whose surname Fontane features on the Berlin Walk of ideas book-stack sculpture – Theodor
- book by Benedict Spinoza – Ethics
When I saw the answers there were a few I did know and should have worked out, dart, red kite, Christies a couple I knew but would never have thought of them, Agricola and Ethics, and the rest I have never heard of, could never have guessed and am in admiration of people who knew – ikat, Abbe, Murat, alameda and Theodor.
I am intrigued by Professor Dart who came from a very ordinary family but achieved so much in his life. He was born in a suburb of Brisbane, the middle one of nine children; his father was a farmer and the family had a shop in Toowong where they lived when not on the farm. tradesman. He was born during Brisbane’s Great Flood in 1893 – it was also known as the Black February flood and when we were in Brisbane last year we saw an exhibition about it at the museum. Raymond Dart’s family home was flooded during this dreadful event…. You learn so much from crosswords!
Lois Elsden 