Comments on: Financial Times 13,723 by Cinephile

By: Pete Maclean

Pete Maclean — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 11:58:45 +0000

Susanna, D’oh! Of course. Not sure if that was a typo, a brain fart or what but I do know how to spell thirst. Thanks for the tip.

By: Susanna

Susanna — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 10:59:09 +0000

22 THIRST – it’s Damien HIRST not Hurst. Just a typo?

By: Pete Maclean

Pete Maclean — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 13:41:00 +0000

Well I am inured to dealing with marginal anagram indicators and the like from Cinephile but, even though my assessment of the clue has been boosted somewhat by the commenters here, I do agree with you that the AUTOCRAT clue is a mess.

By: Wil Ransome

Wil Ransome — Sun, 17 Jul 2011 21:01:35 +0000

Perhaps I shouldn’t be too scathing about this crossword, for Cinephile was a totally delightful guest on his recent Desert Island Discs appearance (Pete this is a long-running radio programme that may or may not be available from the BBC website: if it is I heartily recommend it to you).

But really one can’t have ‘hardly’ as an anagram indicator; nor ‘maybe having’ (as in 19dn). And the clue for AUTOCRAT is highly dodgy in my opinion: there might be some justification for it if the surface was good, but it isn’t (Cars — abbreviated crashed model — for despot) and hardly makes sense. And if “Artist — with upper class roll, possibly” is as Sil says (which I’m sure it is), then it’s an &lit. of sorts, for otherwise where is the definition? A pretty hopeless &lit., it seems to me (what on earth is it all about? Upper-class roll indeed).

Yet I’m sure the Araucaria/Cinephile-worshippers will all say (at least by now have all said) what a wonderful crossword.

By: Pete Maclean

Pete Maclean — Wed, 06 Jul 2011 15:19:56 +0000

Thanks fearsome, I have amended the blog in light of your explanation.

By: fearsome

fearsome — Wed, 06 Jul 2011 07:42:06 +0000

Pete, I’ll try to be clearer.
I think that Cars = 2 Cars;
1 abbreviated car = AUTO, 1 crashed car = CRA then model (possible 3rd Car??) = T
to give Autocrat

By: Pete Maclean

Pete Maclean — Tue, 05 Jul 2011 21:44:04 +0000

Hi fearsome, Thank you for commenting. Are you suggesting that “abbreviated” applies to both “cars” and “crashed”? That would make the wordplay work but it does not seem clean to me at all.

By: fearsome

fearsome — Tue, 05 Jul 2011 19:45:07 +0000

my understanding for 18d is
Cars – abbreviated (AUTO) crashed (CRA) model (T) – for despot
= autocrat

By: nmsindy

nmsindy — Sat, 02 Jul 2011 19:28:53 +0000

The clue for SILAS MARNER was “Converted miser also ran when love came to him”. I think this anagram is OK because I think it is saying you add O (love) to ‘him’ (SILAS MARNER) to get ‘miser also ran’. Re Bryan’s comment at #5, I note he has not read the book, I think he might have not have made that comment if he had and I can only recommend that he reads it, it is quite a short book by the standards of George Eliot. Her other works are very good too of course, Middlemarch my own favourite but they are all worth reading.

By: Pete Maclean

Pete Maclean — Sat, 02 Jul 2011 18:57:26 +0000

Sil, Thanks for explaining ILLUSTRATOR.

Rishi, I recall now that Billy Bunter was renowned for exclaiming, “Oh lor’!”.

>> Can indications such as ‘short’, ‘shortened’, ‘abbreviated’
>> be used for removal of more than one letter from the tail
>> of the following word? What is the general convention?

There are some conventions about wordplay that are generally held to pertain to the removal of a single letter. I cannot say authoritatively but I feel strongly that this should not be one of them.