Comments on: Financial Times 13,394 / Neo

By: Neo

Neo — Wed, 26 May 2010 00:42:21 +0000

Many thanks, as ever, for superb blog and kind comments. I am a bit 24 ac after a particularly awful gig in sunny W1, but I think you’ve dotted the Is and crossed the Ts with great aplomb.

I shall now most unsteadily to bed, to sleep off all the nonsense I’ve just said.

By: Sil van den Hoek

Sil van den Hoek — Tue, 25 May 2010 20:01:00 +0000

Er, btw, the “how can we give a short solution a quite complicated clue” phrase is referring to 23ac (ERNST).

By: Sil van den Hoek

Sil van den Hoek — Tue, 25 May 2010 19:57:31 +0000

I’d like to join the Chorus singing that this was a fine crossword.
But, indeed, slightly easier than usually for a Neo.
In our AWS (After Work Session) we first completed Gordius, but couldn’t resist the Temptation of Neo [nice film title ].
Some (almost) giveaways today like 5d (MINUTE), 12ac (BETTER OFF) or 27ac (GENESIS), but still enough inventive clueing to make this puzzle enjoyable.
Like others, we were Laughing With The Lambs at 20ad [another nice film title ], but also very impressed by the appropriate surface of 16d (DAUNTING), the anagrind in 11ac, the “how can we give a short solution a quite complicated clue” and the misleading use of ‘filthy’ [could have been a anagrind for 'drain' leading to, for example, Indra].

Of a recent Crux I said that it was a happy marriage between clever construction [you can see that there's some thought put in the clues] and accessibility.
This Neo was another fine example.
Good puzzle!

By: Scarpia

Scarpia — Tue, 25 May 2010 17:43:07 +0000

Thanks again Gaufrid.
I thought this a very good puzzle with some very clever wordplay,especially liked 20 down.
Didn’t spot the cricket reference in 8 across,somehow thought that Number Ten might be the second last house in Downing Street!
Ichneumon is actually named after a mythical beast,as mentioned in Pliny the Elder’s Natural History.It would cover itself in layers of mud,letting each bake hard before applying the next,so forming a kind of armour.Thus protected it would wait for a chance to grab it’s foe(a snake or a crocodile) by the throat.

By: walruss

walruss — Tue, 25 May 2010 15:19:01 +0000

This crossword sat very nicely somewhere between the other two, Guardian and Independent, I’ve managed to complete today. Clues read well and were often funny. Favourite bit of clueing is ‘Lamb’s comments’!

By: Gaufrid

Gaufrid — Tue, 25 May 2010 14:59:20 +0000

Hi smiffy
Your assumption regarding ‘barking’ is correct. Chambers defines it as “adjective (slang) barking mad” and Collins gives “ADJECTIVE mad; crazy ADVERB (intensifier) barking mad”.

By: anax

anax — Tue, 25 May 2010 14:57:29 +0000

Indeed smiffy it can. Like many colloquialisms “barking mad” has been (or often is, at any rate) shortened to just “barking”. It shouldn’t be long before “end of story” appears in a puzzle in its “end of” form.

By: smiffy

smiffy — Tue, 25 May 2010 14:47:55 +0000

Agreed that this was a fun puzzle – even allowing for the exotic voyage of discovery into the realms of mongoose-hood.

One question, on something that I’ve now seen crop up several times in recent months. Is “barking” really a valid anagrind? i.e. can it still mean crazy, as a standlone word, when not accompanied with the suffix “mad”. I’m increasingly out of touch with UK vernacular usage, so maybe the two words of the phrase are now synonymous…

By: nmsindy

nmsindy — Tue, 25 May 2010 12:52:17 +0000

Enjoyable puzzle that was quite tough, I thought. I took esp liked TIRED, also MAIDEN, UGLY AS SIN, BANANAS. 6D was most definitely new to me, but got it when I’d established it looked like an anagram, and I had most of the crossing letters.

By: anax

anax — Tue, 25 May 2010 12:39:59 +0000

Thanks for another excellent blog Gaufrid. Like you I found this (mostly) easier than the slightly naughty one’s usual fare although the SW corner held me up; glad I solved it though for the delicious 24a.

6d would have been a sticking point too had it not been for one of my own (recently abandoned) puzzles where this was a possible answer for a 9-letter slot; I kept looking at it thinking “You’d never get away with it – too obscure”. Damn instinct, wrong again.

Great puzzle, Neo old bean.