Comments on: Financial Times no.14,120 by FLIMSY

By: mike04

mike04 — Fri, 28 Sep 2012 21:18:24 +0000

Many thanks Flimsy and Ringo.

I’m rather late to the party, but I notice that THROW IN THE TOWEL requires two Es.
I think 5dn must be an anagram of ‘ten(t) worthwhile to’ where ‘tent-almost’ means
drop the last letter of tent.

By: Pelham Barton

Pelham Barton — Fri, 28 Sep 2012 13:56:55 +0000

Thanks Flimsy for dropping in. So the one thing I said was certain about 3dn proves not to be true – I should know better. I like the intention, but do not think either “married” or “joined” really works as a hidden indicator. Mind you, I cannot think of anything better that fits without ruining the surface reading.

By: POS

POS — Thu, 27 Sep 2012 23:31:39 +0000

I thought 3D was fine although I was disappointed with the answer as I was expecting a witty homophone on the virtues or otherwise of married sex. Thanks Flimsy and Ringo

By: flimsy

flimsy — Thu, 27 Sep 2012 20:12:33 +0000

Thanks for the blog and the comments everyone. Re 3dn, the “of” was intended to be part of the definition, and “married” was intended to mean “joined” – i.e. the hidden indicator. Not sure how successful it was, but that was the intent!

By: Ilippu

Ilippu — Thu, 27 Sep 2012 17:09:31 +0000

Thank you, Pelham Barton.

By: Pelham Barton

Pelham Barton — Thu, 27 Sep 2012 15:45:54 +0000

Ilippu@2 re 19ac: Chambers 2008 gives "fly adj (sl) knowing; surreptitious or sly; stylish, fashionable (N Am)". That is easily good enough for me.

By: Ilippu

Ilippu — Thu, 27 Sep 2012 15:06:30 +0000

19 ac I thought ‘sly’ is cunning …not sure if ‘fly’ is cunning too though I guessed the answer.

By: Pelham Barton

Pelham Barton — Thu, 27 Sep 2012 12:26:57 +0000

Thanks Flimsy for an enjoyable crossword and Ringo for the blog. Favourite clues 7dn and 16dn – such lovely surfaces. I did not notice any synonyms close to breaking point when solving.

My only small grumble is with 3dn, where “of” may be doing double duty, and “married” appears to be redundant. My preference – and it is no more than that – regarding double duty is that it should be kept for cases where the whole clue can be read as at least one of definition or cryptic indication. Here I think you need “of” as the last word of the definition, but I would be very happy to be persuaded otherwise. Certainly “of” is the first word of the cryptic indication. It is technically correct to allow redundant words in hidden clues, but still in my view undesirable. Here the clue would still make sense without the word “married”, although the surface sense would be somewhat differen. Finally, I should stress that the length of this paragraph does not indicate serious dissatisfaction with the clue – it is at worst a minor blemish on a very good crossword.