Comments on: Financial Times 13,942 by Alberich

By: susan

susan — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 21:01:07 +0000

a semester is a term in (the)u.s.

By: Alberich

Alberich — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 14:37:28 +0000

I’m off out soon so an early thanks for the blog and the nice comments.

The answer to 8 down is SCREEN as Thomas suggests – double def as in to televise and to check for suitability.

Have a good weekend!

By: Thomas99

Thomas99 — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 14:19:27 +0000

Thanks for the blog and to Alberich for a very satisfying solve.

I don’t see how “survey” would work and also had “screen” for 8d
I agree with Mike04 about Terminus (28a), possibly my favourite clue. I had it wrong (“Terminal”) until I finally got the 11d anagram – the natural world is not my forte and I was hoping for inhabitants of a town in Bedfordshire – which probably made it even more rewarding to crack.
I also really liked 2d, even though that misleading town-in-France thing has been done (probably by Alberich?) before. I completely fell for it again.

By: Wanderer

Wanderer — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 13:36:08 +0000

Thanks Jed and Alberich, I found this difficult but v enjoyable.

Held myself up by putting Saul BELLOW at 7 (“Writer makes painful condition heard”) – well, if you had an accident you might bellow ‘to make painful condition heard’… seemed convincing at the time. DUBLINER soon put me straight, and this was my favourite clue for the clever Joyce/Grenfell misdirection. I also had SCREEN at 8dn.

Thanks also to mike04 for explaining TERMINUS, which I got but couldn’t parse.

By: mike04

mike04 — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 13:13:03 +0000

30ac held me back for some time. If TAMARISK is correct, then the whole of the river TAMAR is in the solution!

Re 2dn: In Nancy, they would say ‘pere’ for ‘dad’.

By: mike04

mike04 — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 12:47:43 +0000

Many thanks Jed.

This took me ages today and I failed on NIAMH for 24ac. Thanks for your explanation.

In 28ac, I think the wordplay is TERM IN US (a semester).
I have SCREEN for 8dn.