Comments on: Financial Times 13,879 by Cincinnus

By: Wil Ransome

Wil Ransome — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 01:12:08 +0000

But as you say, Pete, if a musical passage is played ritenuto it gradually decreases in tempo. Why then does the clue say ‘coming to a sudden slowdown’? Ah, I see from Chambers, and obviously Cincinnus has used this, ‘… a sudden slowing-down of tempo’. Is this really true? Yes, it seems to be: The Oxford Companion to Music’ says that it is immediate, not gradual like rallentando. One lives and learns.

By: Pete Maclean

Pete Maclean — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 15:28:05 +0000

Here in the US and, if memory serves, especially back in the 1970s, one often heard the Vietnam war referred to as ‘Nam. I can believe this abbreviation is not so well know elsewhere and when. I fancy Henry=Hank is also primarily an American thing.

22A (ANNELIDS) was difficult. I knew that there were worms called something ending in “lids” but had to do a word search (“*lids”) to get the answer.

I managed to dredge RITENUTO out of my memory. Such musical terms often crop up in crosswords and are handy to know.

By: Bamberger

Bamberger — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 09:07:07 +0000

The electronic hlep was sought much earlier than usual.Without it I would never have got:
12a Knew it was an anagram of tune and trio but even with r?t?e?t? I had no idea where to put the i,u & o.
22a I wonder how many wrote that straight in.
4d I didn’t know Henry=Hank.

Thanks for the blog.

By: John Newman

John Newman — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 07:41:36 +0000

Thanks Pete as usual. I agree with you that this was a brilliant Cincinnus, but some of the brilliance was lost on me because apart from 9A I could not get any of the top left corner. 1A and 11A were too clever for me. I am surprised that as an Australian and in view of my recent visits to Vietnam that I have never heard of the Vietnam war being called the NAM.

I didn’t realise Hank was a version of Henry – I was looking at HAL for the solution.

I should have got 4D because the word is a favourite one in crosswords isn’t it?

17D made me laugh and I really liked 7D. It is nice to feel smug about what one read and learnt at school. When I watch shows like “How to be a Millionaire” on BBC World, I wonder what young people learn in schools these days.