Comments on: Financial Times 13,825 by Mudd

By: Pete Maclean

Pete Maclean — Sat, 05 Nov 2011 14:49:35 +0000

Ah, yes, I just checked and found that on page 44 of James Lipton’s excellent book, “An Exaltation of Larks”. (That is, it names the two collective terms for geese and no more than one for any other bird.) I have not looked at my copy of this book for a few years but on revisiting it now I also note that the word “kindle”, as well as meaning to start a fire and referring to Amazon’s e-book reader, serves as a collective noun for kittens!

By: Cosafina

Cosafina — Sat, 05 Nov 2011 00:25:48 +0000

Skein is a group of geese flying. If they’re on the ground, they’re a gaggle.
As far as I know, geese are the only creatures to have two collective nouns (one for if they’re in the air, another for if they’re on the ground).
Unhappy with ovenbird, because, as already pointed out, the B wasn’t in the letters for what was otherwise clearly an anagram.
Not like Paul/Mudd to be so careless – maybe he was on his honeymoon when he wrote it?

By: Coffee

Coffee — Sat, 29 Oct 2011 13:06:04 +0000

FRABJOUS?! Good grief, no wonder that corner never got finished. Loved BUS DEPOT and NOVELIST though.
Thanks!

By: Pelham Barton

Pelham Barton — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 18:48:55 +0000

Thanks Mudd for the puzzle and Pete for the blog.

I have dug out my solution and see that I left 4dn incomplete.

By: Pete Maclean

Pete Maclean — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 02:17:05 +0000

Aha! SKEIN, eh? To me a skein is a ball of wool or yarn; I have not come across it in the sense you define but that is clearly the right answer. Thank you! It is curious how I managed to twist the clue to fit my answer to such a degree.

By: Sil van den Hoek

Sil van den Hoek — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 23:50:26 +0000

Many thanks, Pete, for your blog of a nice Mudd.
That is, except for 4d (OVENBIRD) which is clearly a mistake. Some mistakes are worse than others, but for me this one is not really a slip of the pen (as there is clearly no B involved) – wonder what happened.

My answer to 23d is SKEIN, being “a V-shaped group of geese or swans in flight”. Wordplay: SKIN (hide) around [hous]E.