Comments on: Financial Times 14,218 by Gaff

By: PeeDee

PeeDee — Sat, 02 Feb 2013 22:10:44 +0000

Keeper: indeed! I solved the American Pie clue early on before I had got the theme. I thought of the song immediately and looked for some deeper meaning but at the time I couldn’t think of anything.

By: Keeper

Keeper — Fri, 01 Feb 2013 21:49:06 +0000

The clue for 14a contains the name of a song (“American Pie”) by one Don McLean — strikingly similar to Donald Maclean. I wonder if that was intentional or not.

I agree with Wanderer @2 re: 4a. Hajis are pilgrims (i.e., ones having made the haj). Pilgrimages would be hajes.

By: fearsome

fearsome — Wed, 23 Jan 2013 14:14:35 +0000

Thanks Gaff and PeeDee
I was unaware of their codenames so thanks for the clarification
I also enjoyed labyrinths, and was left one short c/o Blackpool pleasure beach
the spying / spy ring led to a good surface

By: PeeDee

PeeDee — Wed, 23 Jan 2013 13:49:14 +0000

I looked at spellings, meanings and plurals of Haji/Bhaji for a while but in the end it just made my head spin. It seems as though any random combination of similar letters makes a word.

By: Wanderer

Wanderer — Wed, 23 Jan 2013 13:20:08 +0000

Quite an experience indeed. CAMBRIDGE was my first themed solution, which, with some useful crossing letters, led me quickly to KIM PHILBY and then SPYING, but I still had a long way to go. I couldn’t begin to see a connection between PHILBY and STANLEY, so I entered the two words in Google. The first page which came up listed ‘Philby (cryptonym: Stanley), MacLean (cryptonym: Homer)…’ etc, thus rather giving the game away. My fault for resorting to help too soon.

Loved the ‘Hothead Tony Blair’ anagram. Puzzled by BHAJIS — I have only ever come across HAJI as ‘one who has made the Haj’; cf Tolstoy’s novel Haji Murat (more commonly Hadji Murat), or ‘Murat-who-has-made-the Haj’. No doubt someone will say HAJIS is a valid plural of HAJ but I think of them as pilgrims rather than pilgrimages.

Many thanks to PeeDee and Gaff.

By: MikeC

MikeC — Wed, 23 Jan 2013 12:38:33 +0000

Thanks PeeDee and Gaff. Good stuff! The codenames passed me by completely, so I wasn’t too sure of the cross-references. Was Blake supposed to be part of the same ring? Btw, you have a typo in 26a.