Crossword Help Forum
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When Mrs mog asks a question I ask her for the right answer before replying.

Just having a giggle at Pipesmoker and mog.
I knew Mrs P would have kept the RT safe somewhere. Maybe sending your entry in late will result in it being picked from the top of the pile as the winner ?
Good luck Mr P.
Almost time for RT42. :)

A good idea,jazzgirl. Just picked up another prize from the Catholic Herald. Now, as I have explained on this forum, I am not Catholic, so I hope The Joker will continue to keep my secret, or next week's headline might be Dirty Proddy Cheats Mother Church Out of Prize.

Time for a coffee, methinks.

P

Hi Pipesmoker,

Does the Catholic Herald require the answers to be in Latin? Sorry! I remember some years ago [supposedly] bingo had been introduced in some Catholic churches and the Protestants didn't stand a chance of winning because the numbers were called out in Latin...

My father was a Reader in the Church of England but he concurred with Dave Allen's philosophy which was, "May your god go with you."

Kind regards,

Caravaggio

Hi, Caravaggio.

Yes, indeed, some clues do appear in Latin, and some answers have to be given in Latin. Now, when I was at school, clever people were taught Latin, and those less gifted, were taught commercial subjects. I can still type. I still have a reasonable understanding of double entry book keeping. My shorthand left me within months of leaving school.

The Catholic Herald crossword is quite fun. It comes with two sets of clues for the one grid, one cryptic and the other not. Usually, the answers can be found using a Bible, a Concordance and a Dictionary of the Christian Church, together with a little bit of crossword understanding.

The sticking point this week was the clue: 'Saul's derviant in Jerusalem, seen half-cut with sailor, falling over. (4)

I had ?i?a. Reference to a sailor meant that the third letter was likely to be B, but what the first might be, could be found by trawling through a Concordance. Happily, we only have 26 letters in our alphabet. I started at A (strangely enough), and worked my way through to Z. The answer was Ziba. Still, it kept me away from the dishwasher.

Best wishes.

P

Pipesmoker
You well know that your secret is safe with me.
I don't begrudge you winning yet another prize (the 31st.??)
I do hope that you are reading the very uplifting material contained therein. It can only do you good.
Please give my congratulations to your Glasgow Archbishop on the stance he is taking
re the same sex marriages,and I hope to see your signature on the petition.
Personally I am thinking of emigrating to Australia,before they make it compulsory.

TJ

Pipesmoker:

I'm impressed! Not for one minute did I think that some of the answers would actually be in Latin in the Catholic Herald and now I find that some of the clues contain Latin too.

That particular clue which you quoted caused me to use some of the five dictionaries I have here and none of them had a definition for 'derviant'. So, I went another way and discovered that it would appear to be a synonym for 'servant' as Ziba was a minor Biblical character who was a servant to Saul and, later, Saul's grandson Mephibosheth.

Now, as Zion is often used as another name for Jerusalem, half of Zion would be Zi and sailor would be ab backwards. But I confess that I would never have got there without your having provided the answer and I doff my cap to you in admiration.

As the skies here are gunmetal grey and it's raining, I may well have to amuse myself by making an early start on the Radio Times crossword...

With kind regards,

Caravaggio

Thank you, The Joker for your discretion. I think the prize total must be over fifty by now. The same half dozen names keep on appearing. Yes, I will be happy to sign that particular petition.

Caravaggio, my sincere apologies. It seems that creating new words is a talent I didn't realise I possessed. It should, of course, have been servant. Perhaps I should learn to read what I have typed. Sorry.

Best wishes to all. Will get on with RT42 when I have replaced the ink cartridges in the printer.

P