NG 34

New game 34 is up.


Round 1: T C N A A S B U N

I had CANT ("a secret language or jargon formerly spoken by the criminal class in England in order to deceive, consisting chiefly of invented words of unknown origin") and SCANT.  After time I found dubious potential sixes of UNBANS and UNCAST (neither is valid) and finally a solid one of SUNTAN.

Six is the best to be done; the others are ABACUS, CANTUS ("a song; melody"), CANNAS (CANNA being a type of plant), and SANCTA (one plural form of SANCTUM: "a sacred or holy place").


Round 2: T S R A E R P O O

I had STAR, ASTER, an uncertain RATERS (not valid -- STARER would have been the way to go), a similarly uncertain PARTERS (turns out to be acceptable, while PARTERS is not), and then recognised the first eight letters as PRORATES.  This was significant for two reasons: Firstly, because I knew that PRORATES was not listed in the Macquarie, but more importantly because I knew (from Countdown recaps) that any vowel added to it would allow a full monty.  Fortunately the last letter was a vowel and I soon had OPERATORS for nine.

(The other potential nines were A: SEPARATOR; E: PERORATES; I: PRIORATES; U: PTEROSAUR.  Good thing it was not a U, as I was not able to recall that last one and had to look it up.)

The eights are OPERATOR, TROOPERS, and SORORATE ("marriage with a wife's sister").  The plausible-looking PRAETORS is not valid.


Round 3: Target 499 from 100 6 1 1 10 3

The idea is pretty clear, especially with a 1 handy, and I soon had 499 = (6 - 1)*100 - 1.


Round 4: O M P D O I I R C

I had DOOM, IDIOM, and CRIMP.  I kept getting distracted by the almost-PERIODIC there, but could not better five.  After time I considered MICROPOD (presumably a very small foot, or something a bit large than the iPod Nano), but no joy on that front.

There is a six here, though: OPIOID.


Round 5: R A A E L S C N L

I had AREA, REAL, LASER, CLEARS, LANCERS, and CALLERS.  I also wondered about CANALLERS, but correctly decided against it; although the Macquarie does list CANAL as a verb ("to make a canal through") with participles CANALLED and CANALLING, there is no associated agent noun of CANALLER.

There is one possible eight here: CANELLAS (CANNELLA: "the cinnamon-like bark of a West Indian tree [...] used as a condiment and in medicine").  There's a case to be made for that being a mass noun, though.

The other sevens are CANELLA, CELLARS / RECALLS, SCALARE (another name for the angelfish), ARSENAL, and ANLACES (ANLACE: "a medieval dagger or short sword, worn in front of the person").


Round 6: Target 341 from 100 50 2 10 9 5

Although I spotted the factorisation of 11*31, working with 350 - 9 was the more tempting option.  I started with 341 = 5*50 + 100 - 9 and spent the rest of the time unsuccessfully trying to use that factorisation.


Round 7: K B T I E E D H U

I had BITE, DEBIT, and BETIDE.

That was it for me, and BETIDE does seem to be the only six.  There's a few other fives to be had.


Round 8: Target 190 from 75 100 5 8 10 4

I started with the obvious 190 = 100 + 75 + 10 + 5, then switched to 190 = 100 + (5 + 4)*10, then found a way to make it as 19*10: 190 = ((4*75/100)*8 - 5)*10.


Round 9: EMIT GRUNT

The -ING fragment is usually worth a look, and in this case it led me to MUTTERING some 2.2 seconds in.