Financial Times 13,574 / Dante
Posted by Agentzero on December 21st, 2010
A very nice seasonal offering from Dante/Rufus. Favourite clues were 15 across and 5 down.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | WREATH *(THE RAW) |
| 4 | BREAKS UP I see that school holidays are a “break,” but beyond that I’m not sure how this works |
| 9 | OUTSET OUT (open-air) SET (party) |
| 10 | HANGOVER cd |
| 12 | CAROUSAL USA (America) in CAROL (Christmas song) |
| 13 | GLANCE dd |
| 15 | THAW *(WHAT) |
| 16 | SANTA CLAUS cd |
| 19 | CINDERELLA cd |
| 20 | ROMP PM (afternoon) OR, all reversed |
| 23 | ASSIST ASS (a wise man’s transport) IST (first) |
| 25 | OSCULATE OS (big) CU(copper) LATE (ex) |
| 27 | KNEES-UPS KNEE (joint) SUPS (drinks) |
| 28 | NOTICE skaters should avoid anything that is NOT ICE |
| 29 | RELISHES dd |
| 30 | WALNUT dd |
| Down | |
| 1 | WOODCUT d&cd |
| 2 | ENTERTAIN dd |
| 3 | TIED UP dd |
| 5 | REAP RE (about) A P[iano]. Very nicely misleading! It took me a while to stop seeing “about” as a container indicator |
| 6 | ANGELICA ANGELIC (very good) A (article) |
| 7 | SEVEN *(EVENS) |
| 8 | PARCELS L (a number) in *(CAPERS) |
| 11 | CANAPES CAN (tin) + *(PEAS). I liked “mushy peas” = *(PEAS). |
| 14 | STYLIST STY (pen) LIST (names for Christmas presents) |
| 17 | ADORATION A DO (party) RATION (helping) |
| 18 | PERSISTS S (end of Christmas) in *(PRIEST’S). What is the “A” at the beginning of the clue doing here? It led me to believe for a while that the answer was S in *(A PRIEST) = TRAIPSES, until I solved the crossers. The clue makes perfect sense without the “A;” it should have been omitted. |
| 19 | CRACKER dd, enhanced by the double sense of “pulled” |
| 21 | PRESENT dd |
| 22 | CUPOLA *(UP COAL) |
| 24 | STEEL *(SLEET) |
| 26 | APSE hidden in reverse in CuratES PArty |
December 21st, 2010 at 9:46 am
Thanks, Agentzero.
4ac is a double definition – Chambers ‘[of a school] to close for the holidays’. Our local ones do it today.
I agree about the A in 18dn and was also bothered by the ‘is’ in 3dn.
Otherwise, some lovely Dante / Rufus touches, eg CINDERELLA, which is also an anagram of RECALLED IN – and I liked the mushy peas, too!
December 21st, 2010 at 12:20 pm
Yes, a nice seasonal offering: but two clues from yesterday’s Guardian are here repeated word for word (ANGELICA and PRESENT), and that can’t be a good thing. We are told that Rufus is ‘meticulous’ in compiling his clue-indexing system: that’s fair enough (if you’re that keen on recycling your output), but surely a little more care, especially in clueing sister puzzles with such a particular theme, is called for.
December 21st, 2010 at 4:37 pm
Thanks. Finished it but I got 14d for the wrong reason; thought “pen names” was somehow “styli” though that did not really work, and hence did not get the wordplay for the final 2 letters!
I thought there were a couple of places where there were redundant words in the clue, as in “under the mistletoe” in 25a.
Had never heard of “cupola” as a fireplace, but looked it up
December 21st, 2010 at 4:52 pm
I think the seasonal context and the jokey nature of ‘osculate’ fully justified the ‘under the mistletoe’ in 25A so I can’t entirely agree with you, there, Tony (comment 3).
December 21st, 2010 at 5:07 pm
Thanks Eileen — there was more to 19 across than I saw!
Paul, agreed — I hadn’t seen yesterday’s Guardian, but if I had I would have been a little disappointed.
December 21st, 2010 at 5:24 pm
Since I blogged yeterday’s Rufus, I wasn’t unaware of the duplications – but this is the season of goodwill, so I decided not to mention it.
This is my third Christmas with 15² and I know this is the third time Rufus has come up with a puzzle in which practically every clue and / or solution had some festive reference, which is no mean feat and some replication is inevitable, I would think. However, I agree that it’s unfortunate that the interval was so short – and, if Dante had had his usual Monday slot, it would have been non-existent!
December 21st, 2010 at 8:19 pm
After 3 weeks of no internet misery, I thought I might struggle but got it all out unaided in the end. Cupola was dredged up from somewhere- O level Latin?
December 21st, 2010 at 8:30 pm
Well, replication wasn’t unavoidable in such a situation for Nimrod et al for instance, who on the occasion of their marriage to the wonderful Jane managed to compile similarly-themed puzzles, on the same day, in each of the dailies without a single clash.
I’m trying hard not to say that anyone’s getting away with murder every week here, which is my nod to goodwill.
December 22nd, 2010 at 5:43 pm
This puzzle surprised me in two ways.
Firstly, it was used on a Tuesday rather than a Monday where I have been for almost 30 years.
Secondly it was a Christmas puzzle. The FT crossword editor used to use a Christmas puzzle from me every year until 2004 when he stated that he thought the idea rather passé and would in future prefer a normal puzzle. This was the puzzle set for the FT in Christmas 2004 and not used. 6 years later I thought I could repeat some of the clues from a puzzle I imagined would never see the light of day! Caught again!
December 22nd, 2010 at 5:52 pm
Well, there you go!
And we have something of a hat-trick – in today’s Indy puzzle:
“Very good cake decoration in short supply [7]”
December 23rd, 2010 at 9:50 pm
Lucky it wasn’t one of mine, I guess.