Comments on: Financial Times 13,925 by Mudd

By: watch

watch — Mon, 10 Sep 2012 08:01:45 +0000

Really nice, we need to contemplate! Namaaz is important than anything in the world!

By: Pete Maclean

Pete Maclean — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 17:37:48 +0000

I don’t know how to state a dividing line between Asians and Arabs. Probably people think of Oman as being part of the Middle East or part of the Arab world more than of being part of Asia, but part of Asia it certainly is. Then, while many Arabs are Asians, plenty more are (North) Africans. Maybe using ‘Arab’ in the clue would make it a little easier, I think it does not make it any more precise. It could even be argued that it makes it less precise since there must surely be a few Omanis of other ethnic groups.

By: Bamberger

Bamberger — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 17:22:07 +0000

7d I thought that an Omani would be an Arab rather than an Asian. What is the dividing line between Asians & Arabs , please?

By: Pete Maclean

Pete Maclean — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 09:52:38 +0000

I was a bit uncertain how to classify those two clues. They are cryptic definitions in some sense but not in the usual sense. What particularly distinguishes them is that they do not have solutions that are obviously unique.

I missed that connection between BACKTRACK and LIAR. Well spotted!

By: scchua

scchua — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 01:43:33 +0000

Thanks Pete and Mudd.

Interesting puzzle. My favourites were the 2 reverse clues, 24A and 2D with their aha! moments, even though they had no direct definitions. I thought, as you implied with “cryptic definition”, that there was a connection between BACKTRACK and LIAR, as the latter often does the former, or, to do the former makes the latter out of you.