Comments on: Financial Times 13785 Neo

By: Neo

Neo — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 09:50:27 +0000

Bank Holiday suggestion makes sense. It may also account for why it took me 5 1/2 hours to get from South London to Newcastle-under-Lyme on Friday. That’s an average of 30.9 mph according to the Ambleside Schools Calculator (thanks Google). And thanks Anax too: don’t be ashamed! I now feel like Muttley with a medal (not that you’re necessarily Dastardly).

By: scchua

scchua — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 03:59:44 +0000

Late posting due time difference. Thanks for dropping by Neo, always good to see what the setter’s thinking is. Thanks too to Pelham, Steve and Anax for dropping a line on a dry day like this.

By: anax

anax — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 23:28:21 +0000

A little late to the fray – and always nervous about appearing to suck up to a much-loved colleague – but I really enjoyed this, full of characteristic cleverness as in 9a, 19a, 1d (brillo) and the lovely 18d. Major kudos for finding something original for EASEL too; whenever I end up with that in a grid I feel like it’s a struggle to find anything that isn’t a raging chestnut.

As PB himself says, a shame to see so few comments, but I notice even the Graun review has attracted (at this time) a measly 17 comments, so I’m guessing many are using this Bank Holiday for a last summer week’s fling in the rain. Hopefully we’ll be back to normal, and covered in mildew, next week.

By: Neo

Neo — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 22:58:54 +0000

Well thanks, scchua, for the excruciatingly pleasant and pictorial blog, not to mention Pelham and Steve for their comments, but I’m left wondering whether this work of art of yours possibly deserved a few more comments. Maybe your tribespeople frightened them off: maybe I frightened them off with Caligula and his (probably very perverted and violent) sex? Who knows. But I’ll go with more or less all of what you said, with the possible exception of

7dn Rude Posh attends dance club, sure to get thrown out

which is DISCO/ U/ RTEOUS* with plural usage for (there being no need in this case to resort to ‘strings of letters’) the two anag fodder words. Thus the tense is maintained for the whole clue.

VILLAGE GREEN is intended to be read as V plus anag, but I do, since old habits (with many of mine having been picked up via Guardian crosswords) die hard, occasionally use what might be considered to be ‘indirect’ elements in anagram fodder (v for very being a case in point, though not here).

Many thanks,
PB.

By: Steve

Steve — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 21:02:32 +0000

Thanks Neo and scchua. As you say, excellent misdirection on 1ac and 1dn. I wasted a lot of time trying to make something of REVENGE -R-E- from the anagram fodder before the penny dropped on 1dn making me rethink 1ac.

By: Pelham Barton

Pelham Barton — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 12:49:34 +0000

Thanks Neo for an enjoyable puzzle and scchua for the blog. My favourite clues were 2dn and 6dn.

A small point about 19dn: all the sources I have just checked give CH as from the Latin Confoederatio Helvetica rather than the French. As well as being the IVR code, “.ch” is also the top-level internet domain code.

I have one minor quibble with the crossword itself: I am not entirely happy with “during” as an inclusion indicator in 13ac. Would not “in” have given as good a surface?

Finally a point about 1ac. The clue could also be parsed as V + (LARGE IN GLEE)*, keeping the abbrevation away from the anagram. Normally I prefer such parsings, to avoid any hint of an indirect anagram, but in this case I prefer your reading, because of the quotation marks. Note also that R for right is an essential part of the anagram fodder at 3dn.