Comments on: Financial Times no. 13,703 by Flimsy

By: Ringo

Ringo — Thu, 26 May 2011 16:27:22 +0000

Bamberger:

1a. I figured out ‘cake’ and worked backwards from there, to be honest. ‘Abel’ at 3d. is a device that’s been knocking around for years – very tough, it’s true, if you’ve not come across it before. But personally I’m not averse to a bit of General Knowledge in a puzzle.

13a. I suppose you could ‘write off’ a debt, which would be the same as cancelling it, maybe?

‘Mullet’ (in the heraldic sense) and ‘capsular’ were both new to me, too.

By: bamberger

bamberger — Thu, 26 May 2011 16:21:07 +0000

Got most of the rhs out but the lhs was untouched.
1a Book=ecclesiates is I think too hard
3d Ditto for Abel -I was looking for body or corpse.
11a Mullet did come to mind for a bad hairstyle but couldn’t see any connection with star so din’t write it in.
13a Surely this is wrong? If I write off a car, I wreck it. If I go on the beer at luchtime I can write off the entire afternoon -but there is no element of cancellation.
22a Never heard of it
27a Agree with you Ringo

4d Wonderful clue -though didn’t get it

Somehow I feel annoyed when answers require biblical, art,plays or literature knowledge. Only biblical applying here.

By: Sil van den Hoek

Sil van den Hoek — Thu, 26 May 2011 12:29:46 +0000

Nice puzzle.
“Agreeable old school”?
Well, surely a well-written crossword with a lot of fine surfaces (which I always like).
Maybe, one car too many, but I enjoyed this puzzle.
Not very hard, but also not one for which Flimsy used the automatic pilot.
Elegant, I thought.

Thank you, Ringo.

By: Bryan

Bryan — Thu, 26 May 2011 10:19:40 +0000

Many thanks Ringo, you really are a Star.

However, as I’ve pointed out before, Flimsy is so Robust as to be guilty of misrepresenting himself.

SPITTOON was my favourite in a very enjoyable exercise.