Comments on: Financial Times 13,209 / Alberich

By: shuchi

shuchi — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 04:33:43 +0000

@Sil van den Hoek: You’re right about 17Dn – I’ll fix that – thanks!

By: Sil van den Hoek

Sil van den Hoek — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 21:30:08 +0000

A late reaction to this wonderful (but difficult) crossword.
Alberich is certainly not a representative of the “FT being easier than the Guardian
or The Times”.
My God, so many extremely clever clues.

However, 8dn is not quite right, me thinks, because “consciousness” lost the “i” (so just the other way around, and I can’t read it differently).

The only thing I would like to add, is that 17dn (in the blog) should be seen as (MATCH S + L)* , with “could be” being the anagrind.

By: shuchi

shuchi — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 09:40:11 +0000

@verbose: These come from standard abbreviations for these words. They aren't necessarily their initial letters, like E can be Spain (from Espana) or I can be electricity (from the symbol in physics). These can be found in dictionaries like Chambers. I agree this can get annoying when all it needs to solve a clue is a knowledge of such codes, but one gets used to the common ones after a while. You might want to read my article about crossword abbreviations for more.

By: verbose

verbose — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 07:23:10 +0000

The only clue that had me completely stumped was SIEGE. (I got the others quite easily, having found Aardvark’s 13,208 much more difficult.) Is there a system to how certain words get their initial letters into the solution? Why, for example, is Special S, Good G, or European E? I do not find clues of that nature particularly satisfying, perhaps because I don’t understand how they work.

By: Jake

Jake — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 13:29:08 +0000

Top stuff here, I found this a little different from the usual Alberich xwds I’ve tackled in the past. Quite a few letter drops here and Scots words.

I couldn’t figure out 12, 14, 19 ac & 6 dn. Not actually knowing how the entire cluing worked. So thanks for explanations shuchi.

Cheers.

By: shuchi

shuchi — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 13:26:59 +0000

Thanks for your comments, nmsindy and Anax.

It is always a delight to solve Alberich.

This was one of the rare cases where I didn’t get any of the anagrams in the beginning. CRESTFALLEN came only after a few crossings, and for a long time I was expecting 3d to be an anagram of (a prison yet). With 2d (BAGUETTE) I didn’t even realize this was an anagram till the very end.

TESTY and MAGI fell quickly, SIEGE had me confounded till the end. I haven’t seen the LARD device before, and thought it made for a nice surface. Also liked how cleverly the play’s name ‘Measure for Measure’ was used in the BUSHEL clue.

By: anax

anax — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 12:16:47 +0000

Blimey! I know Alberich is a top setter and I expect a challenge, but this very nearly did for me. There were a couple of spots where it was my own general knowledge that failed, but everywhere else it was a case of being utterly fooled.

As usual, hearty ticks all over the place:
CRESTFALLEN – Superbly crafted bit of wordplay to force the theme into place. I can promise you, from my own experience, this is a mightily difficult trick to pull.
SIEGE – Great use of the containerind to make a totally convincing surface.
TESTY – Unexpected but very nice treatment; simple in retrospect but it had me tearing my hair out.
PERNICKETY – Beauty!
LARD – I have a nagging feeling I’ve seen similar before, but you know what they say about the best jokes.
MAGI – Like TESTY, so simple when you see it.
SCHMALTZ – Not really for the clue, just for the sheer balls in tackling such a rotten set of letters. And there’s other stuff but I’ve run out of lines. Top job Alberich!

By: nmsindy

nmsindy — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 11:41:09 +0000

Some very good clues in this, which I found quite hard by FT standards, favourites, like the blogger, HARRY POTTER, also WATERTIGHT.

By: shuchi

shuchi — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 09:30:42 +0000

Thank you, Gaufrid!

By: Gaufrid

Gaufrid — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 09:22:03 +0000

Hi shuchi
18a Chambers gives ‘saag’ or ‘sag’ as a Hindi word for spinach.

29a ‘communist finally gone’ is TRO[t]