Comments on: Financial Times 13,689 / Hamilton

By: flashling

flashling — Tue, 10 May 2011 22:50:06 +0000

Hey I’ll have start claiming royalties. Do you use any software to help in the blog as my method is still a bit labour intensive? Let me know privately please, Phil. Wish I’d tried this now but there’s only so much free time in my working day.

By: mike04

mike04 — Tue, 10 May 2011 20:00:34 +0000

Thanks for the feedback, Hamilton. Good to hear from you.
Now we know that you are slightly Libertarian!

By: scchua

scchua — Tue, 10 May 2011 18:58:59 +0000

Thanks for dropping by, Hamilton. Always a pleasure to hear from “the horse’s mouth”, if you know what I mean. Look forward to your next puzzle then.

By: Hamilton

Hamilton — Tue, 10 May 2011 18:38:29 +0000

Many thanks for the blog scchua, and mike04 and bamberger for your comments.

mike04 – I did mention the dual spelling to my editor when I submitted the puzzle, but concluded that as Chambers gives “posy” as a rare usage I could get away with a homophone clue. A liberty maybe, but a slight one!

bamberger – I hope one day to have a puzzle where you get 100%, but it won’t be yet, I fear, as I haven’t had time to set any since this one!

By: bamberger

bamberger — Tue, 10 May 2011 17:06:48 +0000

Got about 90% of this out -thanks Hamilton -the four letter words did for me-failed on stir, rile, posy and gant. As Graham Taylor said “Do I not like homophones”

By: mike04

mike04 — Tue, 10 May 2011 13:44:31 +0000

Thanks for the blog, scchua. Yes, I agree, an enjoyable puzzle.

When solving two of the down clues, I had thoughts about the spelling.

1: Chambers gives POSEY or POSY (affected), so I wonder if this is a fair word to use in a Homophone Clue. Well it threw me for some time!

23: “though changeable at the close”
I read this (perhaps wrongly) as meaning that the word for dry could be changeable – either SEAR or SERE.