Comments on: Financial Times 13,806 / Loroso

By: MikeC

MikeC — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 14:41:10 +0000

Thanks Loroso and shuchi. Great fun and an excellent challenge. I’m in pretty much the same boat as Lenny: hugely pleased to have finished, though I needed shuchi to explain the parsing of pervasion. A minor quibble: is entry a good definition of the (rare) noun “pervasion”?

By: Lenny

Lenny — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 12:35:36 +0000

I’m feeling very pleased with myself, having finished a Loroso for the first time. On the four other occasions that I have tried I failed miserably. Strangely, I seem to find them harder than Anaxes.

Often, the hardest part of a Loroso clue is finding the definition but they did rather stand out today in the across clues, albeit as antonyms so our task was made that much easier.

It was touch and go at the end before I got Pervasion, the only word in the English language that fits the checked letter pattern. For a long time I was fooled by the old A/Per trick. Thanks to Shuchi and Loroso.

By: Pelham Barton

Pelham Barton — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 11:50:20 +0000

When I saw the name Loroso in the left-hand column (from another page on this website) I started to expect a good and pleasant puzzle. The reality was far more than this. Thanks Loroso for a wonderful puzzle and shuchi for the blog.

Having been understandably baffled by the across clues, I got a start with the excellent clue at 13dn, followed by another good clue at 17dn. This gave me 20ac from which the theme became apparent, confirmed by 25ac.

By: crypticsue

crypticsue — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 11:43:08 +0000

Very enjoyable, particularly when I had worked out the significance of the instructions. Thanks to Anax for the fun and to Schuchi for the explanations (some of which I did need today).

By: anax

anax — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 11:26:39 +0000

No worries Brenda XXX

By: Eileen

Eileen — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 11:21:11 +0000

Oops, sorry, Loroso, for the misnaming!

By: shuchi

shuchi — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 11:13:12 +0000

Thanks everyone. wrong = UP is new to me, but I should have seen retiring = SHY and worked it out backwards.

Loroso probably intended 13a as Gaufrid parsed it, the double-duty didn’t look convincing when I posted it. Will update that too.

By: Eileen

Eileen — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 10:52:26 +0000

Thanks, suchi, for the blog, and anax for a highly entertaining puzzle. I really did lagh out loud when I saw what you were up to.

As usual, too many excellent clues to mention but I think 3dn has to be my top favourite.

Not having heard of the river in Pakistan, i read 13ac as Gaufrid did.

By: Gaufrid

Gaufrid — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 10:33:27 +0000

Thanks shuchi
18ac is UP (wrong {as in ‘what’s wrong/up’}) reversed (about) SHY (retiring).

I had a different parsing for 13ac which avoids the double duty: IN (current) in FAL (river).

By: Bhavan

Bhavan — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 10:30:46 +0000

18 A
Retiring = x = pushy
What’s wrong = up (amiss as per chambers)
about = pu
retiring = shy