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A Shag in a Motor-Car

March 6, 2008
15:38 PM

It is a privilage of the elderly, or at least the middle aged to spend a portion of their day doing crosswords, not something one would associate with anything in the least racy.
One of the reasons I enjoy the (English) Independent, and get it every morning is that they have a good crossword, one that I don’t always get out.
One of this morning’s clues caused my eyebrows to raise a little in alarm.

I will quote you the whole of 19 across:

Bit of nookie in broken down motor-car – a shag, maybe? (9)

Not at all the sort of clue a respectable crossword doer of a certain age wants to read.
But then a line of a poem, learned about fifty years ago in school came back to me;

And, as into the tiny creek
We stole beneath the hanging crag,
We saw three queer, black, ugly birds–
Too big, by far, in my belief,
For cormorant or shag–
Like seamen sitting bold upright
Upon a half-tide reef:
But, as we near’d, they plunged from sight,
Without a sound, or spurt of white.

The poem was Flannan Isle, written by one Wilfred Gibson and the mention of shag in the poem inevitably reduced the entire class to helpless laughter, despite having been patiently explained to us that in this case it meant cormorant.

That was it of course that gave me the answer to the clue; Cormorant

As any cryptic crossword doer will now instantly see this is composed of an anagram of the words motor-car (clue; broken down) with the letter n (clue; bit of nookie).
I also acknowledge that Morph, the compiler of the crossword was having a little fun.

Comments

  1. Isabel healy

    on March 8, 2008

    The common cormorant or shag
    Lays eggs inside a paper bag
    The reason you will see no doubt,
    Is to keep the lightening out.
    But what these unobservant birds
    have never noticed, is that herds
    Of wandering bears might come with buns
    And steal the bags to hold the crumbs

  2. padraic

    on April 16, 2008

    Pedantry increases with age and/or is a symptom of a compulsive obsessive disorder. The shag and the cormorant are separate species.

  3. Martin

    on April 16, 2008

    Mea Culpa,cher beau frere, and you are quite right AND on two counts; they are separate species (don’t ever fight with a dictionary) and pedantry does increase with age.

The comments are closed.


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