Comments on: Financial Times 13,831 by Cincinnus

By: Pete Maclean

Pete Maclean — Sat, 05 Nov 2011 14:52:05 +0000

Ah, yes, I looked up the list of characters in Finnegan’s Wake on Wikipedia before the penny dropped for me!

By: John Newman

John Newman — Sat, 05 Nov 2011 07:30:28 +0000

Thanks as always Pete. I got it out but it took me twice as many days as you. Well perhaps I didn’t get it out because although 17D had to be swallows I couldn’t understand the clue. Why I don’t learn anymore is beyond me. There was the use of W for With the other day. I completely missed it here.

I thought 23A (rouse) one of the best I have seen for a long time. I suppose because I spent a day or more researching Finnegan’s Wake until the penny dropped.

By: Pete Maclean

Pete Maclean — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 04:18:09 +0000

Hi Bamberger, TISANE and PALMETTO were very well known to me. I had come across ORISON before but still had to look it up to check. LYNX-EYED as I mentioned was a complete unknown to me too.

By: Bamberger

Bamberger — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 19:25:00 +0000

The electronic helpers were brought on stream much earlier than usual and even with them found it very hard, tisane, orison, palmetto and lynx eyed all being unknowns.

Thanks for the blog

By: Pete Maclean

Pete Maclean — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 01:09:03 +0000

Ah, that’s much better. Thank you, Sil.

By: Sil van den Hoek

Sil van den Hoek — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 00:30:10 +0000

This was indeed not a 20-minutes-crossword, but good it was.
Splendid surfaces as ever, a real delight.

In my notes I wrote re 20ac: “also a hidden”.
That is because I saw TISANE as: T (that, at first) + IS AN + E (eye-opener, ie the first letter of ‘eye’).

Thanks Pete, and Cincinnus for an exceptionally good puzzle (methought).