Those who think Azed is beyond them might like to try this puzzle.  I solved it in pretty short order, and I’m due to blog it on Sunday.  I’m going to mention points I might normally skip, to help Azed beginners towards understanding and enjoying these puzzles.

A mixed week for me here. A handful of very good clues, some others (especially the dds) which I could take or leave, and a few I can’t fully explain. There’s a “cattle” theme going on too, of course. Over to you.

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It has been some time since I have had quite as many quibbles about clues in an FT crossword. These made the solving process, for me at least, somewhat protracted and, in places, difficult. There were several questionable parts of clues, as indicated below, and one definition (23a) is simply wrong. Having said that, there were some enjoyable clues as well. I particularly liked 5d and 7d.
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Across
1 ROOM AT THE TOP  MATTHE[w] (apostle endlessly) in ROOT (source) OP (work)
8 SET FAIR  SET (prepared) FAIR (just)
9 POINTER  dd
11 ORIFICE  OR (a precious thing) IF ICE (Arctic seals under it) – I am not particularly happy at having ‘or’ defined as ‘a precious thing’. Collins only lists it as an adjective (of the metal gold) and COED indicates it is a colour used in heraldry (gold or yellow) though it can just about be justified in Chambers if one uses one of the less common definitions of ‘tincture’.
12 REIFIED  DEIFIER (godmaker) reversed – the word ‘godmaker’ does not appear in any of the standard references.
13 DRAFT  [toddle]R in DAFT (potty) – ‘bottom of’ to indicate the last letter of a word might have worked had this been a down clue.
14 EMMENTHAL  *(MAN HELMET) – many things have holes so is it fair to use ‘which contains holes’ as the definition for a cheese?
16 SUBEDITOR  BED (bottom) in SUITOR (lover) – does the subeditor write the headlines?
19 CACAO  CA CA (twice state) O (love)
21 OFFLOAD  OFF (abroad) LOAD (a lot) – does ‘abroad’ equate to ‘off’ and surely ‘a lot’ would be ‘loads’?
23 AQUATIC  AT in A QUIC[k] (tailless swift) – ‘aquatic’ does not mean ‘water’! Edit: Thanks Paul B for pointing out my error (see comment #1)
24 DIALECT  DIAL (face) *(ETC)
25 INSTALL  INST (this month) ALL (everyone)
26 LONELY HEARTS  dd

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This was far from straightforward with some quick tricky decoding.  Still not convinced by some of my efforts. Read the rest of this entry »

Solving time, 19 mins

* = anagram < = reversed

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Monday Prize Crossword on 2 March 2009
dd = double definition
cd = cryptic definition
rev = reversed or reversal
ins = insertion
cha = charade
ha = hidden answer
*(fodder) = anagram

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Prize puzzle from the Weekend FT of February 28
A typically fine Cincinnus puzzle is what we have here.

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