Comments on: Financial Times 13,940 by Monk

By: Pelham Barton

Pelham Barton — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 14:28:20 +0000

Jon88@3 re 17ac: The definition is “First lady once”. Her name was Onassis when she died, so that is the correct name to use now to describe her, and she was once first lady.

By: Jon88

Jon88 — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 13:58:57 +0000

I raised an eyebrow at 17a — it’s very stretchy to link “first lady” and ONASSIS, given that she was clearly not the first lady when she was Onassis.

Thanks to PeeDee for clearing up my ?s.

By: togo

togo — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 20:53:45 +0000

Been busy and returned to 225 to see how people had responded to this puzzle, which I very much enjoyed (and thanks for the blog PeeDee). I agree with Pelham Barton that 1d was very good – in fact superb. I’m afraid that, possibly unlike PeeDee, I loved the audacity of 13a – in any case , Dr F went to the county town – and why not from his county practice?

By: Pelham Barton

Pelham Barton — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 13:35:57 +0000

Thanks Monk for a very enjoyable crossword and PeeDee for the blog. No complaints about the amount of cross-checking or linkage between sections in this grid! Favourite clue 1dn, with the "& lit" at 18ac a close second. 13ac: My last one in - second last was 16dn, and the ending in S-I-E made things clear. The link to the nursery rhyme is a bit weak, but I was happy with it. 7dn: I think "hit" here is a good deal better than a lot of the anagram indicators that we get these days. It works for me as past (or, rather, passive) participle of hit vt in the senses "to hurt, affect painfully (fig)" or "to murder (sl)", both from Chambers 2008. Two small typos in the blog as it stands at present - 17ac is N S in OASIS and the answer to 21ac is RAMESES. More substantially on 17ac, I do not think that you need to call N S "magnetic" poles.