Financial Times 13,621 / Falcon

by

A straightforward solve with some fine clues, my favourites being 26A and 5D.

I’m not sure of 28A – there is either an error with my answer or with the clue.

Across

1 CROSSBAR C[ello] (OR BRASS)*; an easy start to the grid.
6 ODDS-ON ODD (rum) SON (lad)
9 MADRID MAD (senseless) RID (clear)
10 SHIPMATE (THE MAP IS)*
11 THAI sounds like ‘tie’ (neckwear)
12 BRIDESMAID cd
14 HIGH NOON dd; High Noon is a 1952 American Western movie.
16 KNIT N (small number) KIT (equipment)
18 FORM F (female) OR M (male)
19 OUTDATED OUT (abroad) DAD (father) around TE (note)
21 CHINCHILLA CHIN (feature) CHILLA (sounds like ‘chiller’ i.e. film that inspires terror).  Nice joint between “feature” and “film”.
22 PEAR PAR (mean) around [th]E
24 ORGANIST (ROASTING)*
26 GRATIS SITAR (instrument) G (good), all reversed. Great surface reading and “lift and separate” structure, a lovely clue.
27 BETHEL hidden in ‘EntebBE THE Lutheran’
28 EYE RHYME definition by example? I would have thought something like “great : neat” would be called eye rhyme – similar spelling but different pronunciation; “great : bait” seems to be just the opposite.

Down

2 REACH RE (about) A CH (church)
3 STRAIGHT MAN dd; a ‘straight man’ is an actor who plays stooge to a comedian ie sets up jokes so that the comedian can say the punch line.
4 BODY BLOW BODY (corpse) L (left) in BOW (prow)
5 RUSSIAN ROULETTE (TO INSURE A RESULT)*; another fine surface and clever use of anagrind “fixed”.
6 OLIVER O (old) LIVER (organ); Oliver is a musical play/film based on Dickens’ novel Oliver Twist. I wasn’t immediately convinced about “proves” as a link word, perhaps it works if interpreted as “establishes” or “shows”. I like the misdirection with organ = LIVER but also thought that since ORGANIST is an answer in the same grid, a second use of “organ” could have been avoided.
7 DIM DIME (coin) – E (English)
8 ON THIN ICE (IN HOT)* NICE (French city); nice work with the word “resort”. // Typo fixed. Thanks for noticing, Richard.
13 MAKE A SPLASH dd
15 IRON HORSE cd; the term ‘Iron Horse’ was used for early steam-driven railway locomotives. The “Union Pacific” is the largest railroad network in US.
17 STRANGLE L (line) in STRANGE (funny)
20 SHRILL SHILL (con man’s sidekick) around R (king)
23 AXIOM hidden in ‘fAX I OMitted’
24 ASH BASH (party) – B

13 comments on “Financial Times 13,621 / Falcon”

  1. Hi Shuchi
    Welcome back. I agree with your concern regarding 28ac. An ‘eye rhyme’ is two words that are similar in spelling but not in sound. Collins gives the example of stone and none.

  2. Thanks for the blog, Snuchi.

    AS you say, there were some nice clues here – but what a pity about 28ac. I don’t understand how such a mistake could be made. It’s called an eye rhyme because it looks as if it rhymes!

  4. Many thanks Schuchi

    This was very enjoyable but EYE RHYME was my last entry, after I had discounted everything else.

  6. Couldn’t get 17d, 26 & 28a.
    Neither sitar not gratis came to mind and while I noticed that great and bait rhymed, I’d never heard of eye rhyme.
    Otherwise enjoyable.

  7. Thanks shuchi – I wonder if 28a perhaps started life as ‘Great beat’ but somehow got misedited or misprinted along the way?

  8. Hi Steve

    That makes sense.

    I’ve been disappointed that there has been no feedback from setter or editor on this – a great idea that went sadly wrong.

    [I think I might have gone for something along the lines of ‘great feat’, if I’d been clever enough to think of the device in the first place.]

  9. But even if this went wrong – and it did – there is still much to admire in Mr Scott’s clueing.
    I particularly liked the surfaces of 1ac, 21ac, 8d and the RUSSIAN ROULETTE of 5d.

    This wasn’t a hard puzzle, but that’s not always what it’s all about.

    There are moments that I think: let’s start a campaign, somewhere else at this site, to make all these enthusiastic Everyman admirers aware of the fact that his alter ego does produce crosswords of a similar difficulty ánd quality.
    Maybe I am going to do it, this Sunday.

  11. Hi Sil

    I’d like to end on a more positive note.

    Your comment

    “But even if this went wrong – and it did – there is still much to admire in Mr Scott’s clueing. I particularly liked the surfaces of 1ac, 21ac, 8d and the RUSSIAN ROULETTE of 5d.”

    echoes my own at comment 2, but the other way round. I agreed with Shuchi that there were some fine clues and I agree with your choice, too [and would add 12ac.]
    RUSSIAN ROULETTE features in a handful of clues on this site [not least in an Everyman [!] puzzle only last week:”You’ll need to get a round in before playing this dangerous game (7,8)”] and this one is as good as any.

    I really did mean at comment 2 that it was a pity that one poor clue detracted from a good puzzle.

Comments are closed.