Apologies to all — I filled in the grid to this last night, posted it as a draft meaning to complete the blog this morning, got busy at work and forgot all about it until tonight. Herewith a belated entry.
Dante does not often appear in the FT on Tuesdays, more usually taking the Monday prize spot. This offering had several of his usual cryptic definitions, some delightful, as well as quite a few double definitions.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | PURCHASE dd |
| 5 | ASSENT *(N[orth] + S[outh] + EAST) |
| 9 | IN FLIGHT dd. Does “by air” really = “in flight”? |
| 10 | TAKE ON dd |
| 12 | SPRAT dd |
| 13 | SOLITAIRE dd |
| 14 | ANIMUS I’M (I am) in AN US (American) |
| 16 | GAROTTE dd Generally a dd involves two senses of the defined word. Only one sense of “garotte” is at work here, but the attraction of “choke” and “throttle” is that in addition to both meaning “garotte”, their other senses are related (engine controls). Not a reverse dd exactly, but there ought to be a name for this. |
| 19 | OVERDUE OVER (competed) DUE (fitting) |
| 21 | ADDERS dd Liked this. |
| 23 | IMPARTIAL I’M (I am) PARTIAL (not altogether fair). The definition apparently is “fair.” Not really a fan of “partial &lit.” clues like this. Thanks to Eileen for the clarification |
| 25 | LISZT homophone of LIST[en] |
| 26 | ORNATE N[orth] (point) in ORATE (to hold forth) |
| 27 | EGGSPOON with the benefit of the next day’s paper, I can see this is EGGSPOON, but it is still lost on me. It’s a cd — see comment by oldham below |
| 28 | SHODDY ODD (rum) in SHY (attempt) |
| 29 | PORRIDGE dd |
| Down | |
| 1 | PRIEST P[iano] + *(TRIES) |
| 2 | REFERENCE dd |
| 3 | HEIST *(IS THE) Nicely misleading. |
| 4 | SCHISMS cd |
| 6 | SHATTERED SH (mum) + *(TREATED) |
| 7 | ELEMI *(EMILE) |
| 8 | TENDERED *(D (five hundred) ENTERED). “Hopeless” is a new anagrind to me. Why is the definition “finally submitted”? |
| 11 | FLAG dd |
| 15 | MODERATED MODE (fashion) RATED (criticised) |
| 17 | THRESHOLD cd, and a good one! |
| 18 | DOMINOES cd |
| 20 | EDIT TIDE (current) reversed |
| 21 | ALLEGRO *(OR LEGAL) |
| 22 | STANCE *(ASCENT) |
| 24 | PINTO PIN (attach) TO |
| 25 | LOSER *(ROLES) |
Eggspoon is used for removing the shell from an egg before the soldiers (fingers of bread) are put in.
Thanks, Agentzero.
In 23ac, it’s ‘partial’ in the sense of ‘not total’, i.e. ‘not altogether’.
Thanks for the blog, Agentzero.
The word ‘tender’ is often used in the phrase ‘to tender one’s resignation’.
I thought that might justify the use of the word ‘finally’ in the clue.
On second thoughts, it’s always used!
Thanks Agentzero. 16ac seemed very familiar – a bit of searching found the puzzle by Puck in the Guardian that I blogged recently, which had the clue:
Choke or accelerator? (8)
Thanks to all for the assistance.
Andrew, I like that clue better!
By the way: 10 double definitions in 31 clues! A record?