Financial Times 13,834 by Cinephile

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A varied crossword from Cinephile with a few liberties thrown in to spark the usual heated debate ( ‘heated debate’ on the FT blog being a post with more than 2 comments).

I’m not sure if 4 down is my most or least favourite clue.  It is either inspired or just plain rubbish, I can’t decide which!

Hold mouse over clue number to read the clue.

Across
1 OVER THE TOP OVERT (obvious) HE (man) TO Provide (first letter of)
7, 9 DOOR KNOB DO (party) ORKNey (most letters of) OB (obit, date of death, died) – turn this to go into a room
10 GLENROTHES New Philip ROTH inside GLEES (songs) – new town in Fife, Scotland, planned in 1942 originally as housing for miners in the local coalfield
11 ULSTER RESULT*
12 PREDATOR anagram of RAPTOR and EDited – an indirect anagram and no anagram indicator either, unless ‘edited’ is to be used both as indicator and part of the anagram, which is a bit naughty.
13 PARMESAN (SPARE MAN)* – cheese typically used grated
15 TEST Double definition – internation cricket match
17 AGOG GO (to leave) inside AG (silver, chemical symbol)
19 LEAD ROLE ROAD* (structure=anagram) inside LE LE (‘the’, the definite article in French, twice)
22 SUPEREGO US reversed and PER (by) EG (say) O (love, zero tennis score)
23 EASTER English ASTER (flower)
25 SOLICITUDE SOLICIT (request) DUE* (anagram indicator ‘to excercise’) – definition is ‘care’
26, 27 MOON BEAM MO (doctor) ON BEAM (board) – I don’t think ‘board’ really means ‘beam’ (beyond them both being pieces of wood) but I can’t think of any other explanation
28 FINALISING FINAL (last) I SING (it’s not over until the fat lady sings)
Down
2 VANILLA AN (indefinite article) in VILLA (house)
3 ROBOT ROB (nip, to steal) and TO reversed – definition is ‘programmed servant’
4 HIGH-RISE “HI G, RISE” could be an informal greeting to Mr Grey fom a very eminent person. Put Heroin (drug) inside and you get high-rise=skyscraping. Puts me in mind of the famous greeting “Yo, Blair” from George Bush. Is this really right, or can anyone do better?   An ‘émminence grise’ is French expression for a powerful person who operates behind the scenes, so we get HI (greeting)+ Herion inside GRISE (‘grey’ when used with ’emminence’).  Thanks to David A and Stuart for this.
5 THE SPINAL COLUMN THESPIAN with ‘AN’ reversed (twisted tail) and Left on COLUMN (pillar) – the spinal column is like a pillar in one’s body. Selectively re-using ‘pillar’ like this is a bit too libertarian for my liking.
6 PORTER Definition and cryptic definition
7 DETRACTOR sounds like “the tractor” (maybe in a West-Indian accent? hmmm…)
8 ONEROUS O (zero, nothing) NERO (Roman emperor) and US
14 MAGNESIUM AGNES I (first) inside MUM (mother) – definition is ‘flammable element’
16 HAREBELL REBEL (insurgent) inside HAL (Prince Harry) – a small flower (something that blooms)
18 GLUCOSE COS (lettuce) inside GLUE (something that sticks)
20 LIE DOWN LIED (song) and OWN (to confess)
21 RELIEF Double definition – ‘burden lifted’ and ‘new person on duty’
24 SAMOS Southern AMOS (Hebrew prophet)

*anagram

5 comments on “Financial Times 13,834 by Cinephile”

  3. Thanks PeeDee and congratulations to those who got GLENROTHES. I stared at it for ever, with all five crossing letters in place, but came nowhere close to seeing it. So a did-not-finish today.

    Otherwise it seemed more straightforward than usual for Cinephile, with the clues for (among others) VANILLA, TEST and ULSTER requiring not too much effort. I liked LEAD ROLE and HIGH-RISE, which I interpreted as DavidA and Stuart.

  4. Thanks PeeDee and Cinephile. I loved 28 – haven’t seen the “fat lady” device before. In 12, is “to” the anagram indicator (as in becomes, turns into)? I like the clue but I have to agree with you that its construction seems to be towards the libertarian end of the spectrum.

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