Comments on: Financial Times no.14,048 by GAFF

By: Gaff

Gaff — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 08:49:31 +0000

I can understand Keeper’s complaint about ‘Harbour’; we Brits are quick to criticise American spellings of ‘our’ words.
In my defence, I think most would accept ‘Florence’ rather than ‘Firenze’, and I’d have probably got a lot more flak from Disgusted pf East Grinstead for ‘Harbor’.
As a defence, however, this is rather weakened by the fact that the issue never actually occurred to me when setting the puzzle, so apologies to Keeper and other US friends for the pallor I brought to their cheeks.
(I suppose I could have used ‘Pu’uloa’ which no-one could have complained about, but which would not have worked quite so well with the theme!)
Gaff

By: Keeper

Keeper — Sun, 15 Jul 2012 20:34:39 +0000

Thanks, Gaff. Ditto what Ernie @2 said about 9a. I’d never heard of Nim.

As for 6,24a, there’s nothing pedantic about noting that the correct spelling is Pearl Harbor. As a Yank, I am often forced to embrace various British spellings, slang and idioms when doing the FT crosswords. I don’t think it’s asking too much for the UK setters/editors to reciprocate when referencing places in my native land.

By: JollySwagman

JollySwagman — Fri, 06 Jul 2012 06:19:50 +0000

Nice one again Gaff. Cracked the theme about midway.

Thanks for the blog R. Needed you for 19d – well I got it but without the Alice link it didn’t fully make sense.

By: Ernie

Ernie — Thu, 05 Jul 2012 20:52:31 +0000

Dare I say that this was a ‘little gem’ of a puzzle.
I particularly liked 10A (in) arrears.
Thanks to Ringo for helping out with part of the word-play for 9A.

By: crypticsue

crypticsue — Thu, 05 Jul 2012 12:02:50 +0000

I agree Ringo, took a while to find the theme and then had to work to sort it all out. Nice puzzle, thank you Gaff.