Financial Times 14,097 by Gurney
Posted by Jed on August 31st, 2012
Smashing puzzle from Gurney
Across
1 CAMSHAFT (engine part) MAC< (Scot returned) SHAFT (small handle)
5 ÉCLAIR (cake) (CAL[o]RIE)*
10 SCAMPER (run) S (second) CAMPER (van)
11 UKRAINE (country) UK (country) RAIN (wet weather) E[nter]
12 AMOUR (secret love) A M (male) OUR (of us)
13 IRON OXIDE (compound) (INDOOR EXI[t])*
14 MIND-BOGGLING (astonishing) MIND (object) BLOGGING moving L[abour]
18 FRANKINCENCE (gum) (FREE INN SNACK)*
21 UNINSURED (having no cover) (NUDE IS RUN)*
23 ALTER (make changes) sounds like ALTAR (church table)
24 TBILISI (capital of Georgia) BIL[l] in IS IT<
25 PRIVATE (whispered) IV (4 in Roman) in PRATE (talk)
26 RATHER (prefer) RAT (pest) HER (that woman)
Down
1 CASUAL (relaxed) AS (when) U in CAL
2 MEADOW (rural location) hidden in [bla]ME A DOW[nturn]
3 HYPERLINK (web feature) (IN REPLY)* in HK (Hong Kong)
4 FORBIDDEN FRUIT (not allowed) (RUB OFF DIRT DINE)*
6 CARGO (it’s carried) oCeAn ReGiOn
7 AB INITIO (Latin from the beginning) AB (seamen) IN (at home) IT (computers) IO (moon)
8 RE-EMERGE (appear again) REE[l] MERGE (join together)
9 OUT OF ONES DEPTH (at sea) (THE E FOOT POUNDS)*
15 GESTATION (development over time) (AGE ITS NOT)*
16 AFLUTTER (nervous) A[bandon] FL (Florida) UTTER (state)
17 PACIFIST (non-fighter) IF (provided) I (island) in PACT (agreement)
19 AT EASE (not worried) A TEASE (guy)
20 GREEDY (very eager) ERG< (work over) ED (editor) Y[ell]
22 SEINE (river) (I SEEN)*
( )* = anagram [ ] = omit < = reverse
August 31st, 2012 at 11:15 am
No 14ac clues today! Thanks, Gurney, this was great fun.
Although not a full “& lit.”, I thought CARGO at 6dn was quite brilliant.
It’s so simple: has it been done before?
When solving, I stopped for a moment at 26ac. PREFER and RATHER are
easily interchangeable in sentences (so fine) – and yet one is only a verb
and the other is only an adverb. Does this happen often in crosswords?
In 1ac, I went for S + HAFT for ‘small handle’.
August 31st, 2012 at 11:18 am
Thanks Gurney for a nice gentle end of week puzzle, and Jed for the blog, not 9d today
August 31st, 2012 at 2:41 pm
Many thanks, Jed, for the excellent blog and to you and the commenters for the kind remarks. Re RATHER, I guess that the inclusion of ‘would’ might be regarded as understood in the case of ‘rather’ with “I’d rather A to B” = “I prefer A to B”.
August 31st, 2012 at 2:43 pm
Comment #3 should have had the by-line Gurney.
September 7th, 2012 at 5:01 pm
for completeness
27a Chancery (court) chancer (one exploiting any opportunity) + y (end of the day)