Comments on: Financial Times 13,869 / Neo

By: Neo

Neo — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 17:25:37 +0000

Ah yes, sorry about 18D which should have been another ‘capital’ joke.

ADELAIDE OTOH was intended to be defined as a capital, esp for purposes of this puzz. Mystery @ ADRIENNE: she’s French, that’s all it is, so notice nothing but her, kind of thing. In SCRIBES, ‘unemployment benefit is’ (i.e. UB’S) is what’s denied. TENDRIL is a CD about bits of plants that attach to walls etc.

ASS/ AS/ SIN is correctly parsed by Eileen: Collins says an assassin is ‘a member of a secret sect of Muslim fanatics operating in Persia and Syria from about 1090 to 1256, murdering their victims, usually Crusaders’. Does this mean they all lived to be 166 years old?

By: duncanshiell

duncanshiell — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 10:11:07 +0000

Mike @ 1 – I think me and ADRIENNE go together if we accept that ADRIENNE is a French name, but I agree that there is some doubt.

Eileen @ 2 – Yes, I think your explanation of ASS as ‘holy mount’ is better than my rather tortuous link to Middle Eastern 11th century religious orders, and I agree that taking UB [I]S out of SUBSCRIBES is better than dropping SUB.

By: Eileen

Eileen — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 10:04:04 +0000

Thanks Duncan – and Neo, for a stunning puzzle, I thought.

I share MikeC’s puzzlement over ADRIENNE and Duncan’s re ATLANTA.

I read 14 ac as ASS ['Holy Mount' - Jesus rode into Jerusalem on an ass: I've seen a similar clue quite recently but can't find it!] + AS [when] + SIN [commit offence]

and 6dn as SUBSCRIBES excluding UB’S [Unemployment Benefit is].

By: MikeC

MikeC — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 09:41:15 +0000

Thanks Duncan and Neo. I’m still a bit puzzled by 16. Your explanation of the word play makes sense but I’m not sure about the definition. It seems as though ADRIENNE should somehow fit “but me”. Apparently (Wikipedia) the name literally means “dark one”. Is that supposed to be a connection to “Neo”, do you think?