Financial Times 13,930 by Flimsy
Posted by Jed on February 17th, 2012
I shall be most interested to see what others make of this puzzle
ACROSS
1 BACKGAMMON BACK approve GAMMON nonsense
7 SCAB scoundrel C caught in SA + B bishop
9 BIRO IR irish in BO
10 DISCOMPOSE anagram of COPS SOME DI[e]
11 COGNAC hidden clue reversed (on reflection)
12 PROFOUND anagram of PROUD OF
+ N (last letter of lagoon)
13 SEAWATER main source of wetness, anagram of TEAR WAS + E (middle letter of cheek)
15 ITCH [b]ITCH
17 PEEL PEE leak L liberal
19 PLAYGOER anagram of LEG PLAY + O oxygen
22 GRAFFITI GRAF tennis player FIT tantrum I one
23 SLOGAN catchphrase SLOG work hard AN a new
25 FUTURISTIC anagram of FRUIT IS CUT but it doesn’t mean newest or up
26 AVID greedy AVOID duck minus O nothing
27 FEUD F fellow DUE directly reversed (returning)
28 RED HERRING double definition?
DOWN
2 ADIPOSE fatty A anagam (doctor) of SPIED with O nothing
3 KNOWN NOW immediately in KN outer letters of KowlooN
4 ABDICATE surrender anagram of CID BEAT after A
5 MISAPPROPRIATED pinched MIS[s] girl almost APPROPRIATE deserved + D[erriere]
6 NEOCON right wing politician, anagram of NO-ONE and C conservative
7 SUPPOSING fancying SUP drink POSING setting out
8 ARSENIC poison ARSE behind NIC first letters (lids) of narcotics in chemist
14 WELL-FOUND fully equipped WELL small vessel FOUND discovered
16 MASSACRE destroy MASS total ACRE area of land
18 EN ROUTE double definition
20 ELATION delight [r]ELATION next of kin
21 TIDIER more neat?, anagram of (scotch) I TRIED
24 ON AIR broadcast, hidden in barcelONA I Recorded
February 17th, 2012 at 11:07 am
Thanks for the blog, Jed. I found the puzzle very straightforward; a nice contrast to some of the others this week.
You don’t mention 28d – I have RED HERRING (dd) but don’t understand ‘cover’ as a definition. Chambers gives the example of misleading the dogs in a hunt by dragging a fish across the trail.
I did worry about WELL as a small vessel, in 14d, until I thought of an ink well.
February 17th, 2012 at 1:15 pm
Thanks Jan for pointing out 28across – now added – have just found this definition in Chambers under ‘cover’ – an apparently genuine identity, job, etc used as a front, especially by spies – still not sure
February 17th, 2012 at 1:28 pm
Thanks Jed – apart from 6d for which I thank you, I found this one very straightforward, possibly the most straightforward of all today’s six cryptics. Seemed to be a lot of anagrams as I was solving it, but now I look again, perhaps there weren’t as many as I thought. Thanks Flimsy – a nice bit of lunchtime diversion.
February 17th, 2012 at 1:43 pm
Thanks Flimsy for an enjoyable puzzle and Jed for the blog.
11ac: I think this is just CAN GO C[old] reversed. I can see no “hidden” indicator.
12ac/13ac/19ac: Are you using “+” to mean “containing”? In each case here I would take the single letter as indicated separately from the anagram, with an inclusion indicator (around/around/is involved) as well as an anagram indicator (swimming/weaving/to fix).
25ac: I took “newest” as the definition and “up” as the anagram indicator. I was happy with “up” but less so with “newest”. The best I can get from Chambers 2008 is futuristic so modern (in design, concept, etc) as to appear to belong to some future time.
February 17th, 2012 at 11:07 pm
8d made me laugh out loud.
February 21st, 2012 at 11:57 am
Jed
You asked what others thought. Well I thought that a reasonably good puzzle was spoilt by the plagiurism of 23A. Falcon had virually the same clue in 13,919.
I didn’t like some words. Futuristic as you say just doesn’t work. Discompose is a dreadful word. Does Gammon mean nonsense?
Was Peel a Liberal Prime Minister? What I can find on Wikipedia is that he was Conservative. What has en route got to do with march? Does Due = Directly? Does mass = total? I thought it was weight. I have heard of moviegoer and theatregoer but not playgoer.