Comments on: Financial Times no.13,871 by REDSHANK

By: Huw Powell

Huw Powell — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 22:02:53 +0000

This one went rather oddly for me – after scanning the clues lightly and drawing arrows all over the place between clues that depended on each other, on a puzzle like this, I would usually try to fill in as many “non theme” words as possible to get a running start. But here I had penciled in NOWEL, then happened to look at the clue for 5, and penciled in the answer without even being sure of the cryptic part. So I worked this one backwards – pretty much got all the themed answers quite quickly, which then set me up to break into the rest.

I found the intricate inter-cluing to be quite witty, by the way.

Failed to parse 8, although I had the correct meaning of “invalid” (an ill person) figured out. I’m in the (f)AIR HEADS camp. Thanks for the blog, Ringo, I needed help parsing a few other answers, as well.

And thanks for the puzzle, Redshank!

By: Eileen

Eileen — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 16:58:13 +0000

Sorry, Redshank, I can’t help the pedant in me – but it didn’t spoil the puzzle! Many thanks.

By: Redshank

Redshank — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 16:50:08 +0000

Eileen, your quibble is quite justified. Apologies. Careless of me.

By: Pelham Barton

Pelham Barton — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 13:37:10 +0000

Thanks Redshank for an enjoyable crossword and Ringo for the blog.

19ac: I had this the same way as Ringo, but Gaufrid’s comment @1 prompts a rethinks. On reflection, I think it works best as “nuts with 1″ = FAIR HEADS taken as a phrase.

By: Eileen

Eileen — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 12:25:40 +0000

Thanks, Ringo and Redshank / Crucible / Radian for the third treat in less than a week – we are doing well!

I enjoyed this a lot more than Ringo appears to have. It certainly wasn’t too taxing, once 5dn was in, but it was fun unravelling the various threads.

There were some very nice clues – too many to single out, in fact.

I do have one quibble: what Tiny Tim actually said was, ‘God bless us, every one’, which means something rather different from [and more sensible than] ‘everyone’. [I found this even more frustrating because the enumeration in the clue itself ['the very one'] was actually correct!]

By: Ringo

Ringo — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 12:13:24 +0000

Thanks for tidying up after me Gaufrid!

I’m sure you’re right on 19ac. And of course, it’s ‘loo’ and not ‘logo’ in 2dn. Meant to go back to 25ac., having passed warily over it in the fear that my incredibly limited command of French might be called upon (a groundless fear, it turns out).

As for 8dn… temporary brain failure is my only excuse.

By: Gaufrid

Gaufrid — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 12:08:18 +0000

Thanks Ringo
In 19ac I read ’1, but not leader’ as being [f]AIR.

You’ve missed out the wordplay for 25ac which is O (nothing) in *(THE FRENCH).

You’ve too many Gs in your explanation for 2dn, the container is simply LOO.

In 8dn, ‘invalid 16′ is the definition and TINY TIM PLEA can be anagrammatised (‘may be rendered’) into ‘impatiently’.