Comments on: Financial Times 13,990 by Cincinnus

By: fearsome

fearsome — Tue, 15 May 2012 19:45:18 +0000

As a Ballymena man it was a pleasure to find my home town mentioned in my experience for the first time in a crossword. Thanks as ever for the blog

By: Pete Maclean

Pete Maclean — Fri, 11 May 2012 17:11:22 +0000

Hi John, I had trouble seeing how NARROWS worked as well. The BLIND clue works as a double definition because a screen (as, say, on a window) can be called a blind and something that is closed on one end can be termed blind (as in a blind alley). I agree that 1D was unfortunate but I assumed that it was a mistake and not intentionally ambiguous. If I am wrong then I would agree that it was a poor choice.

I happened to know EVERT from another crossword puzzle.

By: John Newman

John Newman — Fri, 11 May 2012 07:35:38 +0000

Thanks Pete. I couldn’t work out 11A and couldn’t see why Narrows worked.

I had many difficulties with this crossword and I became annoyed. Not my favourite Cincinnus. I don’t like “plead” as a synonym for “sue”. I still need you to tell me how “blind” works and as you point out there are two answers for 1D (maybe more). Having put “madam” in it was impossible to get 9A and 11A. Changing it to Mabel got blind without my knowing why but I was never going to get 11A. When the setter sets a really difficult clue he shouldn’t have an ambiguous intersecting clue.

I didn’t like the use of sandwiches to point to a hidden word.

I also did not know the word “evert”.

But 8d was for me almost saving grace. Let’s hope this Saturday’s is a bit more enjoyable.

By: Bamberger

Bamberger — Thu, 10 May 2012 16:20:53 +0000

I didn’t know that evert meant turned out and I couldn’t see the wordplay for 19d so thanks for that.
Solver needed for 14d & 25a.