Financial Times 13,496 / Phssthopk
Posted by Agentzero on September 21st, 2010
Nothing too tough here, except that the explanation for 3 down eludes me. 5 down was amusing, and many of the clues had fine surfaces.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | MARSHLANDS MARS (alien planet) H (hard) LANDS (touches down) |
| 7 | BUST dd |
| 9 | GAME MEGA (fantastic) with the first and last halves switched |
| 10 | MEMBERSHIP MEMBERS (legs) HIP (joint) |
| 11 | MIASMA ASM (air-to-surface missile) in MIA (missing in action) |
| 12 | NARRATOR RAN reversed + RAT (traitor) OR |
| 13 | WEBSITES *(WISE BETS) |
| 15 | OPEC OP (work) EC (City) |
| 17 | BAAL BAA (make sheepish noise) L (front of Lucifer) |
| 19 | NUISANCE hidden in parveNU IS ANCEstral |
| 22 | SMIDGENS *(MESSING + D[ead]) |
| 23 | TEA SET TEASE (rag) T[ime] |
| 25 | PARAPHRASE PARA (soldier) PHRASE (homophone of FRAYS (unravels)) |
| 26 | TRIG dd; TRIG[onometry] |
| 27 | ODDS OD (excessive drug use) DS (detective sergeant, so police officer) |
| 28 | WIDE-SCREEN CR (credit) in WIDE (extra) SEEN (viewed) |
| Down | |
| 2 | AVARICE *(CAVIARE) |
| 3 | STETS I’m unsure about this one, but can’t think of what else fits Thanks, Gaufrid: this is STETS[on] (the hat, with “off” = “not ‘on’”) |
| 4 | LAMBASTE LAM[b] (carve end off meat) BASTE (pour over juices) |
| 5 | NO MAN IS AN ISLAND d&cd. Is Man a peninsula? “No, Man is an island.” Chuckled at this. |
| 6 | SWEARS S[uccess] WEARS 9causes friction) |
| 7 | BOSSA NOVA BOSS (manage) A NOVA (star) |
| 8 | SKI POLE SKIP (bound) OLE (encouraging word); the definition is “support on the run” |
| 14 | SALAD DAYS d&cd |
| 16 | DISTRESS IST (first) in DRESS (women’s clothing). Like the surface here! |
| 18 | ARMBAND ARM (distribute weapons) BAND (corps) |
| 20 | CHEMISE CHEMIST (scientist) substituting E[nergy] for T[ime] |
| 21 | NEPHEW P (quietly) HE in NEW (young) |
| 24 | ATTAR AT (about) TAR (contaminate) |
September 21st, 2010 at 4:29 pm
Hi Agentzero
I too had SHEDS for a while at 3dn but also couldn’t justify it. The answer is STETS. The wordplay is STETS[on] (hat off, with ‘off’ being read as ‘not on’) and ‘stet’ is an instruction not to delete something previously indicated for deletion, in other words ‘leave’.
September 21st, 2010 at 6:04 pm
Thanks, Gaufrid. That’s quite clever. I’ll fix the blog.