Comments on: Financial Times N° 14,065 by Cinephile

By: Sil van den Hoek

Sil van den Hoek — Wed, 25 Jul 2012 21:45:51 +0000

Thanks, PeterO, I too thought this to be a very fine Cinephile.
Just like you, 21d (DECREE) was my first entry but, unfortunately, it didn’t open up that quarter of the puzzle (talking about grids …..).

My Astronomer no 1 was MARTIN REES (18ac), although, at that point, I didn’t have a clue who he was. After KEPLER (26ac) followed the penny dropped.
14ac was clearly an anagram and as the name of TYCHO BRAHE is quite familiar to me, the ball started to roll faster and faster.
When at University, I did study astronomy for a year or so, but I must say I don’t know much about it anymore.

The Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe died in Prague in 1601. I’ve been quite a few to this beautiful city and so I happen to know that there’s a plaque dedicated to him in the Tyn Chruch which dominates the central city square.
It’s perhaps interesting to read that there are some mysteries surrounding his death. Only two years ago they opened his grave again (and that of his wife) to get more insight what had happened: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tycho_Brahe

Lots of good clues, 9ac (LIVE RAIL), 11ac (MILANESE) and WARDROBE (6d) among the very best. Not so keen on TERYLENE (27ac), because of the order of the two components.

As you say, Peter, hardly any write-ins.
Good puzzle!

By: jmac

jmac — Wed, 25 Jul 2012 14:30:39 +0000

This was tougher than I had expected, but great fun. Thanks for explaining 10 ac – it had to be but I had no idea why.

The Tycho Brahe thing I suppose just depends on what your interests are. As one of the greatest of the early modern astronomers he easily holds his own (cosmologically speaking) in comparison with the other star-gazers in this puzzle.

By: PeterO

PeterO — Wed, 25 Jul 2012 14:12:08 +0000

Bryan

I was late getting to the blog, so had not looked up Tycho Brahe; thanks for posting the link. It is quite a tache, isn’t it? It kind of reminds me of Rowan Atkinson with pencils up his nose in Black Adder goes Forth.
And, as you may see from the article accompanying the moustache, some people other than his mother have heard of him – he is an important figure in the development of modern astronomy. As icing on the cake, Cinephile manages to come up with a great anagram for him.

Wot no Copernicus?

By: Bryan

Bryan — Wed, 25 Jul 2012 12:18:54 +0000

Many Thanks PeterO and Cinephile this was VERY enjoyable even though I had to Google for Astronomers’ Names after solving 21d HUBBLE.

Much tougher than the usual Cinephile but none the worse for that.

But has anyone (apart from his mother) ever heard of Tycho Brahe?

And he certainly had the silliest moustache ever:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tycho_Brahe