Financial Times 13,645 / Styx
Posted by shuchi on March 18th, 2011
This was a gentle ride with a few pleasant pauses to smile, my picks of the day being 12a, 25a.
Across
1 CABOTAGE CAGE (confined space) around (BOAT)*. A new word for me.
5 SPICES SP (special) ICES (treats popular on a hot day)
9 I DARE SAY I, ARES (Greek god of war) in DAY (age);’day’ could be ‘age’ in the sense of ‘in this day/age’.
10 ENSURE E (party drug) (NURSE)*
12 GOOD SENSE GOOSE (foolish person) round (ENDS)*; good surface!
13 HABIT H (hard) A BIT (to some degree)
14 IDOL I (one) DOL[l] (attractive woman, almost)
16 DIOCESE (CODE IS)* E[ncryption]
19 STARDOM ST (street), DO (party) in ARM (branch)
21 SELL sounds like ‘cell’ (phone)
24 WAIVE WAVE (outbreak) around I
25 REGISTRAR GIST (substance) R (right), in REAR (back); in UK, a registrar could be a hospital doctor.
27 ORIGIN O (ring) RIG (engineer, as verb) IN (concerned with)
28 RESORTED (SET ORDER)*; interesting that each word in the clue be an anagrind in its own right.
29 EMERGE [performanc]E MERGE (mingle)
30 OTOSCOPE SO (in due course) TO reversed, COPE (carry on)
Down
1 CRINGE RING (group) in [ni]CE; ‘quail’ as verb.
2 BLAZON BLAZ[e] (fire, not fully) ON
3 TREES (DESERT)* – D (died)
4 GRAPNEL (ANGLER)* around [dro]P. Nice surface.
6 PUNCH-BOWL PUNCH (bore), L (left) after BOW (bending)
7 CRUMBLED RUMBLE (deep, resonant sound) in CD (recording)
8 SHEATHED HEAT (part of race) in SHED (building)
11 LEAD dd, ‘heavy metal’ and ‘guitarist‘ are the two definitions.
15 DODDERING DING (sound of a bill) around ODDER (stranger)
17 AS A WHOLE A SAW (cutting tool) HOLE ([a saw] may be responsible for one)
18 MARITIME MAR (ruin) I (one) TIME (season)
20 MART After its “opening” i.e. its first letter, the word SMART (attractively neat and stylish) gives MART.
21 SEGMENT SENT (transported) around EG (say) [co]M[mand]
22 GROTTO (GOT)* around ROT (rubbish)
23 DREDGE DR (drive, as used in street names) EDGE (border)
26 SPOTS STOPS (arrests) reversed
March 18th, 2011 at 1:25 pm
I came on here expecting to have a comment of “tough workout” or similar so maybe I just wasn’t on the setters wavelength or tired after 3 days of Cheltenham.
Gave up after an hour only having completed 14a,16a, 21a,28a 3d & 11d.
1a This may have been gettable if ‘d had 1d,2d&4d but I didn’t so it wasn’t.
5a It remains one of the mysteries of crosswordland to me as to what 1 letter and 2 abbreviations can be used. I would never have guessed that sp could be used for special. SP=starting price surely?
9a I haven’t heard of Ares.
10a I thought that party and drug were distinct and so was looking for do + e .
12a I have heard of soem expressions for a folish person but never goose. Perhaps its regional.
30a Perhaps if i’d had 21d,26d,22d& 23d I might have guessed this but would never have got this “cold”.
1d I thought a quail was a bird and I haven’t come across it as a verb.
2d Blazon is not a word I’ve come across.
4d Ditto
6d Punch=bore didn’t occur to me
8d Is a heat part of a race? To win the 100m final you have to get through several heats but isn’t each heat a race rather than part of a race?
22d I should have got this.
Ah well back to the racing.
March 18th, 2011 at 2:26 pm
No thoughts on 27a?
March 18th, 2011 at 2:40 pm
@bamberger: About 5a, an abbreviation listed in a standard dictionary is fair game. SP could also be sine prole i.e. without issue.
@Thomas99: Missed that one while blogging. My apologies. Post updated.
March 18th, 2011 at 4:53 pm
Hi shuchi and thanks for the blog of a nice crossword, as we’ve come to expect from Styx.
My Pick of the Day would surely be 4d (GRAPNEL) with its fully appropriate surface.
But I have one question.
Maybe I am missing something or perhaps I have been staring too long at the clue of 20d (MART), but I cannot see why the S must be deleted (?) or otherwise.
I would be happy if someone could/would enlighten me.
March 18th, 2011 at 5:06 pm
Hi Sil van den Hoek,
After its “opening” i.e. its first letter, the word SMART gives MART. I’ll add that to the main post as well. Thanks!
March 18th, 2011 at 9:35 pm
Yep, shuchi, that’s what I already thought.
But after reading the clue again and again I still had the feeling that there was something not completely right.
Maybe it is the fact that SMART is clued too (read: unnecessarily) wordy, although thinking about it again it is probably the use of both ‘is’ and ‘after opening’ that doesn’t feel clean enough.
When you read the clue as: MART is what you see in SMART after its opening, then it’s OK.
But in my opinion, one has too much to read around it.
I see the construction and in the end it can be justified, but I don’t like it.
March 18th, 2011 at 9:45 pm
I found this tough. Finished eventually, after looking at it on and off over a total of about 4 hours elapsed, but was guessing 24a. Still not sure I get why WAVE is outbreak.
Also, quite a few words I had to look up: cabotage, otoscope, and grabnel come to mind, and I note that this site’s spell checker shares my ignorance!
March 18th, 2011 at 11:41 pm
Thanks shuchi.
A very good puzzle but I didn’t find it a gentle ride.It took me quite a while to make much headway but once a few check letters were in most of the rest fell quite quickly.The bottom half seemed a lot easier than the top with the NE being the last to complete.
CABOTAGE was new to me as well,derived from French I see and nothing to do with the 15th/16th century explorers!
17 down was my favourite clue.
March 19th, 2011 at 12:31 pm
Hi shuchi
Have you seen the published solution to 26dn? Another example of an ambiguous clue?
March 19th, 2011 at 1:06 pm
Thanks for pointing this out, mike04.
I had just like shuchi (and you?) SPOTS, but re-reading the clue (“result of outbreak, possibly, brought up arrests”) I must say that STOPS is probably more likely as the solution. It is more natural to connect ‘brought up’ with the first part of the clue than with ‘arrests’.
Ambiguous? I would say: yes.
March 19th, 2011 at 2:41 pm
Hi Sil
Yes, I also plumped for SPOTS, having considered both possibilities when solving.
Now, confronted with ‘The Solution’, I agree that STOPS is more likely.
I still can’t explain my sudden change of mind!
March 19th, 2011 at 3:27 pm
Hi mike04
Thanks for mentioning this, I hadn’t spotted the ambiguity when solving. With hindsight I agree with you and Sil that STOPS is the better answer but a fair case can be made for SPOTS too.