Comments on: Financial Times 13,004 / Cinephile

By: Gaufrid

Gaufrid — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 23:30:41 +0000

Hi again Agentzero

Araucaria is somewhat liberal with his clueing so anything is possible. However, as indicated before, I think your parsing is correct.

By: agentzero

agentzero — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 22:31:34 +0000

Gaufrid: I figured Araucaria wouldn’t likely have given us an indirect anagram. I thought those were frowned upon?

Also, sorry, I left out part of my earlier comment. FL can be an abbreviation for “floruit,” which is Latin for flourished and is used in the sense mentioned in my earlier comment.

By: Gaufrid

Gaufrid — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 16:24:50 +0000

Hi Agentzero

I hadn’t considered your parsing but it works well and probably better than mine. I took the ‘has’ as a joining word and equated ‘flash’ and ‘flourished’ in the sense of ‘ostentatious’.

By: agentzero

agentzero — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 16:16:41 +0000

Gaufrid,

Coming late to the game, but:

You give 4a as “*(FLASH) (flourished) in COW (milk supply).”

Did you mean *(HAS) + FL (flourished) in COW.

(FL = Latin, “flourished”, used to indicate periods when a person, organization, or species was influential)

By: Paul B

Paul B — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 01:04:31 +0000

Um, as Mick says.

By: Paul B

Paul B — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 01:03:40 +0000

Are not derivatives seen as pivotal in the unfolding of the financial crash? In that sense, they could be the ‘villains’ of Araucaria’s piece.

By: Gaufrid

Gaufrid — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 22:45:20 +0000

Hi Mick H
Regarding 14d, you may well be right but I’m still not 100% convinced that there isn’t another interpretation.

By: Mick H

Mick H — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 22:39:58 +0000

Don’t normally do the FT, but I swiped the office copy at lunchtime after reading the first line of your blog, so thanks. Maddeningly, the one I didn’t get, 20ac, turned out to be my team! A clever clue, but hard with 3/7 checking.
As for 14dn, I’m sure Cinephile was referring to the role of derivatives trading in creating the mess we’re in.

By: Gaufrid

Gaufrid — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 12:32:08 +0000

Hi Persephone
I had a similar thought regarding a reference to the current financial situation but decided that this was too obscure even for Cinephile. However, I have been unable to come up with anything more plausible.

By: Persephone

Persephone — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 12:26:27 +0000

Hello Gaufrid
I had to go to Chambers for 14d, derivatives being “any financial instrument giving rights or obligations to an underlying asset or liability (stock exchange)”, leading me to the conclusion that it was a clever (if somewhat veiled) reference to those who have created our current national state of financial turmoil.