Financial Times 13,011 / Bradman
Posted by Gaufrid on February 26th, 2009
I always enjoy one of the Don’s crosswords and this was no exception. Some clever clues and I particularly liked 28a even though it went in on the first pass. 19a, 22a, 5d, 7d and 20d are also worthy of a special mention.
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Across
1 COUNTERBID COUNT (noble) *(BRIDE)
7 CORE homophone of ‘corps’ (division of army)
9 DONG DON (Bradman) G (good)
10 ON THE CARDS *(HOT DANCERS)
11 BARSAC BAR (pub) homophone of ‘sack’ (another, white wine)
12 LOCATION AC (bill) reversed in LOTION (skin preparation)
13 CALLISTO CALL (name) I (one) ST (way) O (round)
15 IOTA O (nothing) in ITA (child’s alphabet)
17 PANG PAN (face) G[rimace]
19 TOILETTE TOIL (hard work) TT (avoiding booze) in EE (middle of week)
22 BURNOUSE BURN ‘OUSE
23 PADAUK PAD (home) AUK (bird)
25 SEPARATIST A RAT (a deserter) IS in SEPT (clan)
26 BLIP B[looming] LIP (cheek)
27 STAY ST[r]AY (wander off not right)
28 TREE-HUGGER both ‘Thelma’ and ‘Sasha’ contain the name of a tree
Down
2 ODONATA O (nothing) N (new) in O (old) DATA (information)
3 NEGUS hidden in ‘oNE GUSty’
4 EXORCIST ORC (monster) in EX (no longer) IS [pries]T
5 BATTLE OF THE NILE *(THEN LET LIFEBOAT)
6 DRENCH R (river) in DEN (haunt) CH (children)
7 COASTLINE C[hallenge] *(TO ALIENS)
8 REDCOAT *(OR CADET)
14 LEGENDARY *(LAD ENERGY)
16 DISPATCH SPA (spring) in DITCH (desert)
18 ACUTEST A CU (copper) TEST (ordeal)
20 TAURINE TA (army) URINE (water)
21 MUTANT MUT[e] (almost nothing to say) ANT (little creature)
24 DEBUG DEB (girl) UG[ly] (not half unattractive)
February 26th, 2009 at 12:30 pm
Hi Gaufrid
Thanks for the blog and the explanation of 28ac -brilliant! I agree with you about the other great clues.
I got as far as PAD with 23ac but I hadn’t heard of the tree and, to my shame, TAURINE was the other one I hadn’t put in. In defence, I’ll say that ‘going over’ often means ‘going round’, so that’s what I was looking for but it was, after all, a down clue, so I should have known.
February 26th, 2009 at 12:45 pm
Thanks guys!
February 26th, 2009 at 12:48 pm
Hi Eileen
Like yourself, I had not heard of the padauk tree and had to resort to searching Chambers for PAD???. Fortunately the bird began with an ‘a’ so I didn’t have to go through many entries (only two in fact).
I also needed Chambers to confirm TAURINE (bull-like) and an on-line reference to verify CALLISTO (Jupiter’s second largest satellite).
February 26th, 2009 at 1:55 pm
G’day folks.
Am relieved to see that I’m in good company with today’s consensus; in terms of both getting a kick out of 28A (and 19A) and of having to look up the second half of 23A online.
I think this puzzle is a great example of the philosophy “a battle of wits, which the setter aims to lose gracefully”.
February 26th, 2009 at 10:52 pm
Is it reasonable that we should need to know Mr. Bradman’s first name?
February 26th, 2009 at 11:03 pm
Tony
Don Bradman is/was a famous cricketer, hence the reference in the clue. This setter uses various famous ‘Don’s as his pseudonym (eg Quixote and Pasquale) but it was not relevant in this instance.