Lovatts July Demon

Hi somesac.

I had trouble with those two words. I knew that 'dragon' HAD to be correct and 'iffy' seems to be the only word that fits. Also, there's no two ways about 118A being 'cygnets.

In the end I went for 'VENT' for 106D and 'FUGUE' for 110A - at least for now, until confirmed or otherwise by someone else!

Plenty of time to alter them if wrong. I received my copy of Big on Monday and had most puzzles done by Tuesday night. Except the Starhunts which I usually leave until last and the FindaWord which I hardly ever do - they give me the irrits. I only have about 1/5th of the Goliathon to do and five StarHunts (done #1).

Won't be doing Memory Lane this month as I can't stand Rod Stewart but have completed about half of the Do It Yourself - only my second ever attempt (don't know why).

Have to win another $50 cheque or voucher so I can continue my subscription to Big for another year (adding only $20-odd)

Good luck with your entries and lets hope someone can confirm 'fugue' and/or 'vent'.

Re: Lovatts July Demon


Number of letters? Have you any already?

Hello Francis,

The block of squares in this crossword is something like this:

The base word (118a) is CYGNETS ("baby swans").
94d, ending as the 'N' of that is DRAGON ("St George's foe").
There are 2 4-letter words - 105 and 106 down - that end with the 'Y' and 'T' of 'cygnets'. The clues for those are 'chancy' and 'flue', respectively.

The clue for 110a is "Altered state of consciousness" The 5-letter answer begins with the 2nd letter of 105d, the middle letter is the 'G' of 94d's 'dragon' and ends with the second letter of 106d.

If 105 and 106 down are 'IFFY' and 'VENT' that gives us F _ G _ E for 110a. Any other suggestions other than 'fugue'?

Does it look like this?

Sorry for the delay, Francis. Been browsing other things.

It looks exactly like that EXCEPT for the word "FUGUE" not 'fogie'.

I typed 'fugue' into dictionary.com and found that it is DEFINITELY the correct answer. A very interesting condition to be in - I hope I never am! One of the entries had almost the same wording as the crossword clue.

Thanks for your help and time. Hope the weather in France is better than here. Raining on and off and VERY windy! (But anything is better than the 40C it sometimes gets to here in 'summer'. How you can have summer at Christmastime is beyond me and after 42+ years here I'll never get used to that)

Hi all

Completed the July Big earlier this week, and my copy shows:

106d = vent
110a = fugue

Very easy puzzles this month.

Good luck with your entry.

Lovatts July Demon

Hi somesac

I don't know if you were talking to me, but 62d = DUMP

Hope this helps.

Thanks Dutchy. Only just seen somesac's response.

somesac, it couldn't have been "leap" because to jettison something means to get rid of it (I always imagine something thrown from a ship). The clue was 'Jettison' not Jettisoned. Must be careful of the tense.

I do the Big puzzles in slightly different ways each issue. Sometimes I begin with the actual crosswords, doing as much as I can, then coming back to them if needed after doing all the small puzzles. This time I did everything except the Starhunts first, then the crosswords. Haven't really done much else in this issue since my last post. Been doing pixel puzzles and other things from the Conceptis website.

Hi All, Dutchy is, as ususal, spot on.
fugue:a dreamlike state of altered consciousness that may last for hours or days. Cheers

Hi Dutchy. My wife thought it was a bugger . Has given me about 20 to find.
Oh well such is life. Glad I'm good for some things. Lol.