Comments on: Financial Times 14142 Alberich

By: anax

anax — Thu, 25 Oct 2012 09:07:17 +0000

Slightly late into the fray as yesterday evening was my first opportunity to print off and solve. Top quality stuff as always, and perhaps this is a decent point at which to mention a particular skill Alberich has applied to this puzzle.

It’s ‘one of those grids’, a real Marmite job. Its design creates four distinct, almost separate quarters, and many solvers hate it because getting stuck in one quadrant can leave you helpless as there’s no way to get cross-checking letters from longer, interlocking answers.

The setter’s real art – displayed superbly here – is to make each segment solvable with a bit of thought and without sacrificing the entertainment value of the clues. It’s a tough trick to pull. I had the right-hand side done fairly quickly and, for 10 minutes or so, ground to a halt on the left, but the answers gradually fell into place. What could have been a nightmare turned into a very satisfying solve.

By: Alberich

Alberich — Wed, 24 Oct 2012 21:10:11 +0000

Re that pesky Klingsor at 6 – only just realised my mistake. That’s the problem with having a split personality…

Thanks Sil and to answer your question about 15 across, I was wondering about the capitalisation of IS too. The version I sent off had no capitalisation so either it was a last minute editorial change or more likely, as you suggest, a typesetting error.

By: Sil van den Hoek

Sil van den Hoek — Wed, 24 Oct 2012 20:52:35 +0000

Finished this puzzle only tonight. Since I have a new job, my rhythm of the day has slightly changed – no time for Guardian + FT + Indy [the ones I can't do now, I save for a rainy day].

Another top crossword from Alberich.
Immaculate constructions, executed with great precision.
And, as ever, a musical reference, Franz Lehar (of whom my late father was a big fan, especially in combination with the tenor Richard Tauber).

I found this crossword somewhat harder than recent puzzles by this setter (who seems to be fully back after a break), so it was not really surprising that I failed on two clues.
The one you mentioned, scchua, HIVE – I tried to make MINE work but it didn’t make sense.
And just like for MikeC, SAMSON was one step too far for the non-biblican in me.

I had hoped to find an explanation for the capitalisation of IS (in 15ac), but perhaps it was just a slip of the typographer.

Good value.

By: Klingsor

Klingsor — Wed, 24 Oct 2012 07:13:15 +0000

Just to add my thanks for an excellent blog and the kind comments which follow.

I’ve been called an old (insert abusive word here) many times but never an old dear before. I rather like it!

By: scchua

scchua — Tue, 23 Oct 2012 22:48:57 +0000

Thanks for your comments. (Before I went to bed last night, I thought I was going to set the record for the 15sq. blog with the least number of comments, viz. Zero.)

[[Steve, you're right about SAMSON. The marsupial is a red kangaroo whose scientific name is Macropus rufus. Dante, Rufus and ICARUS are pseudonyms of crossword setter Roger Squires. One of the central characters in Tolstoy's War and Peace is NATASHA Rostova.]]

By: MikeC

MikeC — Tue, 23 Oct 2012 22:28:52 +0000

Thanks scchua and Alberich. Those (50 year) old dears Alberich and Anax have done us proud today. Must confess that I failed on 22d: my biblical knowledge was just not up to the challenge.

By: Eileen

Eileen — Tue, 23 Oct 2012 19:40:56 +0000

Thanks, scchua, for the blog, and Alberich, for a lovely puzzle, as always.

I’ve seen both ESTHER and ROCOCO clued several times, I think, but never better. [I liked DIAPASON, as my late husband was an organist.]

I also loved the ingenious ‘window cleaner’in 17dn – I’m a fan of ‘lift and separate’ clues, so spent some time on this! – but my favourite has to be PENZANCE – wonderful!

By: POS

POS — Tue, 23 Oct 2012 19:00:34 +0000

I must admit that I found this slightly easier than the Guardian today but it was still tough. I had “Samarian” for 8D thinking that “amas’ was some sort of European bird I had never heard of . Seeing the actual bird was an emu is somewhat annoying considering I am an Aussie.

Thanks scchua and Alberich.

By: Steve

Steve — Tue, 23 Oct 2012 18:04:14 +0000

Thanks scchua – like you, I was apprehensive when I saw that Alberich was the setter. And I wasn’t ‘disappointed’ – this was a real return to earth (in terms of my solving ability or lack thereof) after the straightforward weekend and Monday prize crosswords! As for your picture puzzle, I’m not doing too well there either other than that the female is Hedy Lamarr who starred in ‘Samson (22d) and Deliah’. I realize that the other pics are Dante, a kangaroo (or is it a wallaby?) and Tolstoy but not sure of the links to the puzzle.