Financial Times 13,207 / Cinephile
Posted by Gaufrid on October 14th, 2009
On the first pass through I thought this was going to be very tricky as I only had a few entries, mainly in the SW corner. However, completing this corner helped to open up the rest of the grid and I made steady progress thereafter. An enjoyable puzzle with many occasions of “why didn’t I see that during the first pass!?”.
The asterisked clues had no definition but they were all games that involve the use of a round object (ball, bowl or boule). Another game appeared in the grid (22a) but as this is played with cards it was not relevant to the theme.
Across
1 PROPAGANDIST PAGAN (heathen) DIS (hell) in PROT (reformed Christian, abbrev. for Protestant)
10 RECITAL CIT[y] (town detailed) in REAL (authentic)
11 SNOOKER SNOOK (offensive gesture) ER (monarch)
12 SIMON hidden reversal in ‘ecoNOMISe’ – a reference to ‘Simple Simon met a pieman …..’
13 CLASSICS dd
15 LACQUERING homophone of ‘lack a ring’ (seem unmarried, say)
16 PERU PERU[sal] (reading)
18 POOL dd
20 SWEETIE-PIE TIE (bond) in SWEEP (lottery) IE (that is)
22 CRIBBAGE RIBB[on] (on removal from strip) in CAGE (prision)
24 IONIA I in IONA (Scots island)
26 EPICURE EPIC (extended work) U (turn) RE (about)
28 ETERNITY RING [p]ETER (boy not starting) NIT (fool) [s]YRING[a] (heart of orange blossom)
Down
2 RACEMIC RACE (people) MIC[e] (endlessly cowardly ones)
3 PETANQUE PET (favourite) [b]ANQUE[t] (feast missing first and last) – another name for boules
4 GOLF FLOG (sell) reversed
5 NASAL INDEX NA (sodium) D (500) in SALINE (salty) X (times)
6 IRONS d&cd
7 TEKTITE homophone of ‘tec tight’ (sleuth intoxicated)
8 FRESHLY PICKED FRE[e] (almost free) *(PESKY CHILD)
9 PRESSURE GAUGE *(URGES URGES APE)
14,27 CROWN GREEN BOWLING CROWN (hit) GREEN (environmentalist) BOW (fiddlestick) LING[o] (cut his tongue)
17 CIVIL WAR *(VICAR WIL[d])
19 ORIFICE OR (gold) IF (provided) ICE (diamonds)
21 PENSION PENS (writers) I (one) ON
23 BOULE dd
25 ABET A (one) BET (speculate)
October 14th, 2009 at 10:19 pm
For today’s After Work Session, we decided to do the Cinephile and not the Guardian one by Arachne (sorry).
Normally we find Cinephile a kind of Araucaria-lite (and more Ximenean than Mr Graham’s alter ego), but today’s delivery of the Rev was more Araucaria-like – with fine storytelling clues like 1ac, 28ac and 14dn+27ac.
Apparently, Cinephile was in a cut-off mood.
There were 9 clues (out of 27) with that technique – a bit of an overkill.
We didn’t get 7dn (TEKTITE), but guessed it might be TEKTIVE, a ‘detective’ being intoxicated (cut-off again …).
We still don’t fully understand 6dn (IRONS).
At one point we even thought that ‘Fetter’ was an anagram indicator for S (of Fetters) IN OR. What is the link between IRONS and ‘after fire’?
Some cut-offs we didn’t like – we thought PERU was rather weak.
In 17dn cutting off ‘wild’ was not really elegant.
And we had some trouble with anagrinds, like in the aforementioned 17dn: ‘sends’?
In 8dn: ‘that’s how … would (like)’ as the anagrind?
Although we understand that it reads better that way, we found ‘cuts his tongue’ for LING[o] rather misleading: ‘his’?
But, in the end, we enjoyed it (Greatest: 1ac because of the surface, and 15ac (nice homophone)).
And certainly a lot better than last Saturday’s Araucaria which wasn’t really up to the normal standard of this setter.
But more about that later.
October 14th, 2009 at 10:53 pm
Hi Sil
Yes, I did this one today, too – I can never resist a Monkey-puzzle, wherever it appears. I did do the Arachne, too: a strange mixture of very good clues and some surprisingly weak ones.
I share your admiration of the story-telling clues and your puzzlement over the second part of IRONS. I was hoping that this might dawn on me while typing, as often happens – but it hasn’t!
Re 17dn: you’re most probably too young but I remember, as a teenager, claiming to be ‘sent’ by a film / pop star: Collins: ‘send: to move to excitement or rapture’, so I thought that was acceptable as an anagram indicator – but I share your reservations re 8dn.
But – like you, I enjoyed it!
October 14th, 2009 at 11:19 pm
Hi Eileen,
Didn’t hear/see you that often in the last few weeks.
I am ‘probably too young to remember’?
Well, to be honest, I am far beyond 50.
But indeed, I don’t know the word ‘send’ in this context, for, as you can guess, the obvious reasons – not being a Brit.
By the way, I forgot to mention in my post the fact that I am pretty sure
that Our Friend did the ‘games’-thing before.
Wasn’t it something with EG (English Games) or BG (British Games)? Also in the FT.
October 14th, 2009 at 11:39 pm
Hi again, Sil
I was on holiday last week.
I don’t recognise the puzzle you refer to but, at eighty-odd, He’s bound to have repeated some themes, isn’t He?
[And I could still give you a few years - but not so many as Rev John.
]
October 15th, 2009 at 1:52 pm
Sil & Eileen
I read the ‘in or after’ in second part of 6d as being that you can have ‘irons in the fire’ and also ‘fire irons’.
October 15th, 2009 at 9:00 pm
Thank you, Gaufrid, that seems to make sense.
But, although ‘irons in the fire’ is of course an expression on its own , aren’t these two kinds of irons not physically identical?