Comments on: Financial Times 13,931 by Cinephile

By: Wil Ransome

Wil Ransome — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 21:55:39 +0000

One or two good clues as always from Araucaria, but also as always a few loose things. Apart from those already mentioned I didn’t think much of 19ac (Way with bone for lamb dish? — TRACK): The definition is ‘Way’, so the ‘with’ is less than elegant, although it does appear occasionally. But, much worse, what is the ‘for’ doing? It links ‘T’ and ‘rack’, but how on earth?

Nor did I like 1dn (Set fare provided with onshore mist — SEA FRET): The answer is easy enough to see, but how can anyone justify ‘provided’ or ‘provided with’ as an anagram indicator?

By: Pete Maclean

Pete Maclean — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 17:06:59 +0000

Hi Lenny, thanks for your comments. Ah yes, Catch-22; I remember now that that is the true title. And I should have caught that off-definition of OVERDUE. That is, I think, another example of a liberty frequently taken by Cinephile these days and one we have to accept — although it still deserves a comment in the blog.

By: Lenny

Lenny — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 14:11:28 +0000

Thanks Pete. When I did this a couple of days ago I thought some of the clueing was a bit loose but, looking at it now, most of it seems just about justifiable. I agree with you about Donizetti. Using random chunks of words as wordplay seems to be a trademark of late-period Cinephile and to make it worse he splits an alleged homophone in two. It also appears to me that the adjective Overdue is the wrong part of speech for the clue at 25.

Pedants’ corner: Joseph Heller’s book is quite popular amongst crossword setters. Unfortunately for them he called it Catch-22.