Comments on: Financial Times 13,747 by Mudd

By: Pete Maclean

Pete Maclean — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 15:18:02 +0000

Sil, “A bar or two” refers to a fragment of a piece of music which is often referred to as a snatch.

By: Sil van den Hoek

Sil van den Hoek — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 14:19:39 +0000

SNATCH (1ac) was our last entry, but I’m afraid that I still don’t fully understand the clue. I know that a ‘snatch’ is a weighlifting move, but what about the first part of the clue? According to your blog, Pete, it is a double definition. Can you please explain?

BTW, in the end we decided that it was a cryptic definition, the clue suggesting that one had to eat a couple of (eg muesli or Marts) bars to gain in weight.

By: Pete Maclean

Pete Maclean — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 12:51:17 +0000

Bryan, I never did weight-lifting but in my youth I did buy a chest expander device called a Bull Worker. It did not do much for me and I remain to this day a nine-stone weakling — and now very contentedly so!

Jan, Ah I never thought about whether chows bark or not.

By: Jan

Jan — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 10:05:45 +0000

Thanks, Pete, I agree, the puzzle lacked Mudd’s usual sparkle.

I was going to query CHOW, thinking it was the dog which doesn’t bark but I remembered that’s the Basenji.

By: Bryan

Bryan — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 04:45:54 +0000

Many thanks Pete for a wonderful analysis, as always.

However – unlike you – I did enjoy this puzzle which only proves different strokes for different folks. Many thanks Mudd.

I thought BOTTLE OPENER and WATERING HOLE were good; I didn’t understand how ELOQUENT worked – until now; and I struggled in the NW corner after entering SCALES for 1a. There’s nowt like a mistake to make things interesting!

When I finally unravelled SNATCH, it took me way back to my own weight-lifting days when – age 20 – I bought a set of weights with the hope of developing a Charles Atlas-type physique. At the time, I was very disappointed when I started losing weight, as if I wasn’t thin enough … Now, I’m glad because I’ve stayed slim whereas all my beef cake buddies has seen their muscles transformed into fat and, fortunately, I sold my weights at a profit.