Financial Times 13,632 / Phssthpok
Posted by smiffy on March 3rd, 2011
This one of those puzzles that appeared quite daunting at first pass, but ended up being plainer sailing than initially feared. Mr/Mrs/Ms Phssthpok can usually be relied upon to inject more than their fair share of clue-writing originality into proceedings, as is the case today. However, I did feel that several of the clues were a little less polished than is usually the case.
Across
1 SOCIAL NETWORKS - work (=’have guts’, in the mechanical sense) in coastline*.
10 ONION – on + I + on. Purist couldd justifiably query the appearance of ‘under’ in an across clue.
11 GOALMOUTH - go + {F}almouth. A clue of Kinnockesque verbosity, where both the surface and the definitional sub-component still seem a little unsure of themselves.
12 TWITTER – w[ife] in titter.
13 SANCTUM - (man’s cut)*.
14 SCALE – double def’n. The ‘need’ is purely for surface padding.
16 THRESHOLD – thresh + old.
19 PREFORMED - performed, with the second and third letters swapped (i.e. a ‘single exchange’).
20 RABID - b[lack] in raid. Anyone else remember the character “Johnny”, from The Fast Show, who would always end up painting over his artistic works-in-progress with black? I hadn’t for years, but the ‘Crazy black…’ intro to this clue, somehow sprang him unexpectedly from the junk-pile recess of my brain.
22 GUFFAWS – guff + w[icket] in as.
25 ARRAIGN – a + homophone of “reign”.
27 SUMMING UP - double def’n.
28 LEAST – homophone of “leased”.
29 SURGE PROTECTOR - double def’n; each related to a different kind of current.
Down
2 ORIGINATE - (I + gin) in orate. A tricky looking clue, that turned out to be a fairly oft-deployed wordplay combo.
3 INNIT – inn + it. One of those marmite (“love it or hate it”) clues, I suspect. Personally, I give it the thumbs up.
4 LOGARITHM - log + a + homophone of “rhythm”. The definition is admirably innovative, as we rarely see mathematical answers clued as anything less banal than ‘function’ or ‘constant’.
5 EXAMS – axe< + MS (‘manuscript’).
6 WOMANISER - (0 + man) in wiser. Not a meaning of the word ‘wolf’ that I’d encountered before, but it makes perfect sense, given that such individuals are often referred to as being “on the prowl”.
7 ROUST – US in rot.
8 SCHEMED - s[uccess] + chem{ist} + e{scape-po}d. Stylistically, this one fell into the same camp as 11A for me.
9 MONTHS – N in moths.
15 EVOCATIVE - (Evita + cove)<. Neat and tidy, tidy and neat.
17 RED CARPET - D[iamond] in re-carpet. I think… although that interpretation is dependent on ‘with’ being an insertion indicator.
18 OBBLIGATO -(bal{l} + too big)*.
21 DONATE - don + a + te.
23 FEMUR - em in fur.
24 SUGAR - initial letters of ‘solution unblocks gastric and renal’.
26 RELIC - Eli in RC (Roman Catholic).
March 3rd, 2011 at 6:01 pm
This appeared dauntign and remained daunting. I only managerd 12a,27a,28a 17d,24d& 26d. Had flood protector for 29a which , lacking checking letters, didn’t seem unreasonable.
1a Sorry I still don’t follow works=has guts.
10a Count me a purist here -and I assumed illuminated =lit.
11a Too convoluted for me.
19a I haven’t seen this trick before.
3d Where does sex appeal come into the answer, please?
15d Too hard for me, I’m afraid
18d I guessed it would a musical term that I’d never have heard of and I wasn’t wrong.
19d Answer must be pegasus from the checking letter.I wouldn’t have thought of peg=stop.
March 3rd, 2011 at 8:37 pm
It’s coastline* + works, not work inside, obviously (two esses.
What kind of note is “te”?
March 3rd, 2011 at 11:48 pm
My problem with 3d was not the clue but the answer. I got it early on but could hardly believe it. Not exactly a real word imho.
Abbey, te is the 8th note in the tonic scale “doh re me” etc.
March 4th, 2011 at 12:26 am
Thanks smiffy.
Quite a tough puzzle from the unpronounceable one.
A few clues were perhaps a bit iffy,but generally I enjoyed this puzzle.
3 down could have done with some indication of being a colloquialism.
Not over keen on 17 down, decorate = carpet,I suppose it’s o.k. but I doubt if it’s given as a synonym in dictionaries.In fact I’d offer 3-1 that it’s not!
Bamberger(copied from Chambers) – IT 2, old use, colloq sex appeal.
Turns up quite often in crosswordland!
March 4th, 2011 at 1:21 am
‘Is it not’ at least gives the correct grammatical case for this strangely prevalent (not to mention ubiquitous) usage. People these days appear to be using it most frequently as a substitute for something like ‘don’t you see?’, as in (on the phone, as ever), ‘I’m in here right now so I can’t talk to you innit’.
You get me?