Comments on: Financial Times 13,569 / Cinephile

By: scarpia

scarpia — Wed, 15 Dec 2010 23:40:46 +0000

Thanks Gaufrid.
A quick solve due to the fairly obvious theme – I seem to remember Araucaria(or possibly another setter) using it before.Parsing the clues was definately harder than filling the grid and there were certainly some liberties taken!
I couldn’t come up with anything plausible for 1 across,so was pleased to see your explanation.
I have come across “All one’s geese are swans” somewhere before(Swift?) but it’s not an expression in common use these days.

By: verbose

verbose — Wed, 15 Dec 2010 23:29:42 +0000

Personally, I found 24ac delightful. I got it pretty easily and it elicited a chuckle. But I did find a number of the across clues difficult to parse: 1, 13 and 14, even 19. Thanks for the explanations, Gaufrid et al.

By: Sil van den Hoek

Sil van den Hoek — Wed, 15 Dec 2010 22:29:40 +0000

Well, Abu Amaal, yes, that’s a possibility too.
However, it is more a Guardian thing to split up words in a clue nowadays rather than an FT ‘device’ [that is, if you want to call it a 'device' - I am not very keen on them, as people might know by now (because I think that these tricks could lead to a kind of cryptic anarchy in the negative sense of the word)].

Even though Cinephile is capable of doing it, I do not think that this explanation is how it is.
I’ll stick to Gaufrid’s hidden answer, knowing that Cinephile/Araucaria uses the word ‘of’ regularly to indicate a hidden solution.

By: Gaufrid

Gaufrid — Wed, 15 Dec 2010 22:29:16 +0000

Hi Lisa
Yes, part of each clue is a reference to the carol and the rest of the clue to 14ac is easily explained. My problem with the rest of 13ac lay with the fact that I had never heard the saying “All one’s geese are swans”. Fortunately Eileen pointed me in the right direction.

Hi Abu Amaal
Yes, knowing Cinephile’s liberties, that is a valid parsing, but I still think I prefer the ‘of’ as a ‘hidden in’ indicator.

To both
I think this is your first post at 15². If so, welcome and please continue to add your valuable input.

By: Abu Amaal

Abu Amaal — Wed, 15 Dec 2010 21:50:47 +0000

22d might also be parsed as “start [ed war deliberately]“

By: Lisa

Lisa — Wed, 15 Dec 2010 20:21:49 +0000

Explanation for 19AC, GEESE: On the 6th day of Christmas, the gift was “6 geese a-laying.”
Explanation for 14AC, SWAN: On the 7th day, the gift was “7 swans a-swimming.”
I don’t understand the confusion, once you know the puzzle’s theme.

By: Tony Welsh

Tony Welsh — Wed, 15 Dec 2010 17:24:55 +0000

Finished this one in near-record time and without looking up the carol! I had no idea why BACKBITE but put it in anyway. The last clue solved was CRETE, an awful clue imho.

By: smiffy

smiffy — Wed, 15 Dec 2010 14:39:15 +0000

Thanks for the blog Gaufrid. Particularly for shedding a beam of (multiply refracted) light on 1A. The answer was obvious enough, but I gave up trying to parse the wordplay before coming here. Like you, I had 24A flagged as pretty outlandish but, in comparison, that clue now seems almost orthodox! I thought that 25A provided a rather generous opening into the theme - tantamount to a neon-lit front door. After spotting that, it all fell into place in a "By George (i.e. autopilot!), I think I've got it!" kind of way.

By: Sil van den Hoek

Sil van den Hoek — Wed, 15 Dec 2010 12:48:44 +0000

Thanks, Eileen, got it now.
Only last week I ‘had to’ sing this carol, in which there was “calling” – didn’t know that it came from “colly”/”collie”.
Now the ellipsis makes more sense, too.

By: Gaufrid

Gaufrid — Wed, 15 Dec 2010 12:44:51 +0000

Hi Sil
The ‘and some say’ in 2dn is an indicator that ‘collie’ is a homophone of ‘colly’. Depending one which version of the carol is being sung, the line is either ‘four calling birds’ or ‘four colly birds’. I was tought the latter but the former seems to be more prevelant these days.

In 22ac I took the ‘of’ as the ‘hidden in’ indicator.