Comments on: Financial Times 13,836 /Styx

By: Pelham Barton

Pelham Barton — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 16:41:30 +0000

Thanks Gaufrid @4. I shall try to make sure that the information sticks (Styx) in my mind, and the (quite deliberate) pun will remind me where to look if it does not.

By: Gaufrid

Gaufrid — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 15:34:21 +0000

Hi Sil
In Chambers, definition 2 under ‘light’ is “of incorrectly low weight” so I was happy with the ‘weighing less than expected’.

By: Gaufrid

Gaufrid — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 15:30:33 +0000

Hi Eileen
An interesting thought re 6dn and one which I hadn’t considered.

Hi Pelham
Yes, you can use superscripts in comments if you have a separate numeric keypad on your keyboard. Make sure the Num Lock is on. Holding down the Alt key whilst entering 251 on the keypad gives you ¹, 253 gives ² and 252 ³.

I’ve no idea why the originators didn’t make it easier to remember by reversing 253 and 252.

By: Sil van den Hoek

Sil van den Hoek — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 15:29:03 +0000

I enjoyed this Styx very much.
Even simple clues like 7d (MEANT), 16ac (SWINGER) and 28ac (RESIST) read so well.
Most of the cluing was not complicated, yet very thoughtfully worded – extremely elegant, in my opinion.
For some reason, I did not like ADELAIDE (9ac), but smiled at THRONE (26ac).
Maybe THATCH (1d) was my Clue of the Day, because it could just as well have been “a material” around T plus S[mall], giving a word for ‘door’. Which was what I thought for a while.

Well done, Styx!
Many thanks, Gaudfrid.

BTW, is (in 23ac) LIGHT really “weighing less than expected”?

By: Pelham Barton

Pelham Barton — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 13:00:51 +0000

Thanks Styx for the puzzle and Gaufrid for the blog. Favourite clue 26ac. I had 6dn the same as Eileen @1. 12ac: This highlights a problem with double definition clues. In fact, the intended meaning is my preferred type, with two genuinely different meanings of the word given under separate headwords in Chambers. In the 1998 edition which I have to hand as I am typing this, "Follow" is under chase[1] and "groove" under chase[3]. However, as Gaufrid says in his preamble, TRACE and TRACK (and also TRAIL) are plausible (though less satisfying) alternatives. Note: I am using square brackets to represent superscripts. Is there an easy way of putting superscripts directly into a comment?

By: Eileen

Eileen — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 10:37:31 +0000

Thanks, Gaufrid.

I read 6dn as NUR [run back] + SERIES [run forth]