Comments on: Financial Times 13,226 / Styx

By: Richard

Richard — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 07:57:17 +0000

Gaufrid,
I assumed 3D referred to a surgical suture, which is a thread to join tissue, rather than an anatomical suture.

By: verbose

verbose — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 02:18:13 +0000

I enjoyed some of the clues very much, particularly BIRD OF PASSAGE and THEORISERS, but I agree with Gaufrid that 1D and 6D don't work. On the whole, though, I liked this crossword a whole lot better than yesterday's, even though this one is not completely satisfying either.

By: Paul B

Paul B — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 00:46:09 +0000

OTOH I think Gaufrid is right to point these, um, idiosyncrasies out: what else could you expect here at 15/2?! And in the FT, to me at least, it seems quite important to be unequivocal, as English is not always the first language for solvers. A couple of potentially controversial enries too, which were a surprise.

By: Raoul

Raoul — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 23:14:25 +0000

Gaufrid

I thought you a little hard on Styx in this puzzle!

I had no qualms with PERK and REDRESS at the time – I can only find perk equating to vomit in Macquarie, but it appears in very regular usage in that context? Chambers et al under Redress have every synonym in the world for help – except the word help; I thought it a logical connection.
I put in SUN DANCE but just thought I was stupid. Thank you for confirming that it was in fact a typo.
And with SUTURE and PROS, I think you are just being pedantic.

I thought BEAN COUNTER and HERBAL TEA excellent clues.

I, for one, would like to see another Styx.

Raoul

By: Macca

Macca — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 22:48:13 +0000

Apart from 6dn, which is pretty clearly an error, I don’t think it’s all as gloomy as you assert.
What’s the difference between options in the 3dn definition anyway ? One’s lifted directly and the other’s an interpretation.
Possibly ‘expressed’ is part of the defn of ‘prose’ and doesn’t need to be a homophone indicator.

I think it’s a pretty fair effort with good attention to surface reading.