Comments on: Financial Times 13,774 by Gozo

By: quodlibet

quodlibet — Wed, 17 Aug 2011 17:58:48 +0000

A “down-easter” is someone from Maine. I was born and raised in the northeastern US and have never heard “easter” used to refer to a human being.

By: PeeDee

PeeDee — Wed, 17 Aug 2011 17:48:33 +0000

Chambers dictionary gives ‘easters’ as having the same meaning as ‘Easterners’, which it gives (among other definitions) as residents of the NE USA. I’m not convinced that easters refers specifically to this particular definition, but I give Gozo the benefit of the doubt (simply because I liked the crossword).

By: verbose

verbose — Wed, 17 Aug 2011 17:31:26 +0000

Re: 20a, I’ve lived in the US for more than twenty years now and have never heard anybody refer to folks living in the eastern US as “easters.” The usage isn’t documented in the online OED either. How common is it?

By: Eileen

Eileen — Wed, 17 Aug 2011 16:24:58 +0000

Thanks for the wise words, Tom. I’m throughly chastened, especially after missing the ‘Holtby’ reference.

I remember John Graham choosing his sister’s poem / hymn but didn’t register / remember her name. Today, the only ‘Holtby’ I recalled was ‘South Riding’ Winifred but,like Andrew, I admired the rest of the clue’s surface. Pure serendipity, as you say.

By: PeeDee

PeeDee — Wed, 17 Aug 2011 15:46:23 +0000

Tom, my apologies for claiming your views on preambles and special instructions. I am getting confused with an earlier blog of a Monk crossword, where he informed us that the preamble was added by the editor, not by him.

By: Tom Johnson

Tom Johnson — Wed, 17 Aug 2011 15:27:18 +0000

Thanks to the favourable comments. I do not recall actually “stating” my views about preambles, by the way, though many of my puzzles do include a preamble, especially in the Spectator series. True, though, that some of my FT puzzles do include a preamble, if that is what was meant by the comment.
Conrad, as always, is very positive in what he writes.

One of my moments of serendipity when compiling the clues has been missed by everyone so far. The “HOLTBY” reference is to Cinephile’s sister, Mary Holtby, whom he mentioned in the DID programme and whose poem/hymn was another of his eight choices of music.

PeeDee’s comment about those of us in “Crossword world” knowing everything about the edition of DID, who Cinephile is and which records he chose is spot-on. As a compiler I had to tread a careful middle-ground when compiling and cluing the puzzle. Don’t forget than many FT solvers live abroad anyway and will not automatically have heard of the broadcast, or been able to receive it, if they had known of it. You only have to look at the names of prize winners in each Saturday’s edition of the newspaper to see just how far afield our solvers live.

By: walruss

walruss — Wed, 17 Aug 2011 15:14:22 +0000

I thought Gozo’s last puzzle a bit in your face about its theme too! The clues had no definition, but were anagrams of twop Shakespeare characters that we had to enter into the across grid spaces. Not the most skilled handling of a theme I have ever seen, and today is clumpy as well. (But don’t worry Gozo, I am off to Asia tomorrow and it might be for a veryu long time!)

By: mlega

mlega — Wed, 17 Aug 2011 14:12:25 +0000

I didn’t find the DID references a problem: it just told me that we needed some pieces of music. And I had no idea who Cinephile actually is.

But I couldn’t do 19ac (and am not that impressed with the answer), nor 20dn.

Rest I thought fair play. And I found out that saki is a monkey!

Thanks for the blog.

By: Eileen

Eileen — Wed, 17 Aug 2011 13:57:29 +0000

Fair point, PeeDee. I know not everyone’s as obsessive as me / us!

I was probably being overly grumpy. It’s just that I prefer the Indy and Guardian policy, where, on the whole, setters / editors give us the satisfaction of gradually seeing the theme for ourselves. [I don't remember seeing that comment of Gozo's.]

[I'm actually being rather ambivalent here, as I have been known to say how frustrating it must be for setters to have a theme and no one see it - as [nearly] happened to Puck in the Guardian yesterday! I suppose it’s a question of a happy medium.]

Since others have obviously thoroughly enjoyed this crossword, I’ll stop now! [I hope Gozo realises that my 'rant' was really a kind of backhanded compliment. ]

By: PeeDee

PeeDee — Wed, 17 Aug 2011 13:34:58 +0000

Hi Eileen,

I recall Gozo commenting on a previous blog that the preambles were not always his idea. I had not heard of the DID appearance by Rev J Graham (which made the crossword more interesting I think).

Regarding ‘Crossword Land’, I suspect many FT solvers live in the real world and have busy jobs to do. Many will have never heard of Fifteensquared let alone hang out here, listen to Desert Island Discs or read the crossword news. It’s probably not so much common knowledge as you suspect.