Comments on: Financial Times 13,016 / Cinephile

By: John in USA

John in USA — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 16:10:56 +0000

The LXIV stuff was easy but I never heard of a “scent bag”. Must be the sheltered life I lead.

By: JamesM

JamesM — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 14:37:15 +0000

Having struggled horribly with the Times crossword today, I was pleased to complete this one in about forty minutes. Good puzzle: it restores my faith.

Thanks for the blog, Gaufrid.

By: smiffy

smiffy — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 13:51:45 +0000

As a product of the GCSE(albeit early vintage) rather than O-Level era – I have to admit that I was not overly familiar with the theme. Our history curriculum was skewed massively towards the 20th Century (all the better for TV-friendliness and primary evidence, don’t you know?).

However, all the sub-thematic answers were readily accessible from the wordplay, so no complaints here.

By: Eileen

Eileen — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 13:16:46 +0000

I didn’t think the theme was obscure, either, hence the quotation marks. I was simply trying to anticipate others’ possible objections, forgetting that I was on the less controversial thread!

By: Gaufrid

Gaufrid — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 12:47:55 +0000

Hi Eileen
I don’t think the theme was all that obscure. I didn’t study history beyond the second year in secondary school (we had to chose between history and geography for O-Level) but I was familiar with all of the thematic answers apart from, as indicated in my preamble, 4d and 6d.

4d was easy to obtain from the wordplay and only needed Wikipedia for confirmation. I had MAINT?N?N for 6d but didn’t equate ‘projector’ with ‘tenon’ until after a little research.

By: Eileen

Eileen — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 12:19:01 +0000

Hi Gaufrid – thanks for the blog.

This was lovely – right up my street! It was actually the themed clues which I found easiest. As you say, the 25,9 anagram was a giveaway but, for some reason, my eye was, unusually, drawn to the last clue before I even started and so it was the apostrophes [there's been discussion of them somewhere lately] that set me on the right road. This was an absolutely brilliant clue!

Others I liked particularly were all the themed ones, 28ac and 11 and 15dn. I don’t think there were even any dodgy ones today, unless, perhaps, the theme might be considered ‘obscure’.