Prize puzzle from the Weekend FT of March 16, 2014
For the first time since I started blogging here, I am moved to seriously criticise a puzzle. I do not mind one or two obscure words in a crossword and, with Bradman especially, I expect one or two. Sometimes I appreciate learning a new word and other times I immediately forget it, but in any case I have no problem with one or two. This puzzle however has nine: PLAIDMAN, ORRIS, TRANSSEXUALISM, OVERTRUST, ANDESITE, SHASTRA, PHILOMELA, EPEIRA and TSUBA. I have found it hard to find definitions for a couple of these, notably PLAIDMAN. I was able to guess a couple from the wordplay and crossing letters (TRANSSEXUALISM and EPEIRA) but I had to look up the lot. While they are well known to me, I imagine that, for some people, SPARGE and ROOTLED might also seem obscure.
There is one very excellent clue in this puzzle, 11d (SECESSIONIST), and I congratulate Bradman on that but the abundance of technical and rare terms is too much; it makes solving more a chore than a pleasure. One of the people I chat with about puzzles made what I think is a particularly apt comment, “If I want to have to look things up, I’ll do the Polymath!”
ACROSS
1 Hurried activity of the French after break (6)
BUSTLE – BUST (break) + LE (the French)
4 Odds against you capturing map that might provide enemy location (8)
SPYPLANE – SP (odds, i.e. Starting Price) + PLAN (map) in YE (you). Even though I suspected a SPY answer early on, I still found this difficult because I would write the answer as two words.
9 Spray reserve item good for storing (6)
SPARGE – G (good) in SPARE (reserve item)
10 Spooner’s constructed scheme for Highlander (8)
PLAIDMAN – Spoonerism of “made plan”. It is easy to guess what a plaidman might be but I could not find it in several dictionaries.
12 David’s wife, university arts graduate penning novel (9)
BATHSHEBA – BATH (university) + SHE (novel) + BA (arts graduate)
13 Plant right in the middle of round river island (5)
ORRIS – O (round) + R (river) + R (right) + IS (island). An orris is a type of German iris.
14 A stabber seen to reform and show remorse (4,4,6)
BEAT ONES BREAST – anagram of A STABBER SEEN TO
17 Extra-slim Susan transformed in what may amount to a denial of femininity? (14)
TRANSSEXUALISM – anagram of EXTRA SLIM SUSAN
21 Like sort of tournament or concert in which ace appears (3-2)
PRO-AM – A (ace) in PROM (concert)
22 Believe too much, open to corruption (9)
OVERTRUST – OVERT (open) + RUST (corruption). This clue does have a very good surface reading.
24 One leader beset by misfortunes is in a state (8)
ILLINOIS – I (one) + NO I (leader, i.e. number one) together in ILLS (misfortunes)
25 Like some ferocious beast left inert, head hidden (6)
LUPINE – SUPINE (inert) with L (head) replaced by L (left)
26 Rock from volcano to the west around side that’s molten (8)
ANDESITE – anagram of SIDE in ETNA (volcano) backwards
27 Groups of workers crossing English river (6)
GANGES – E (English) in GANGS (groups of workers)
DOWN
1 Primate, president and a bishop coming in through (8)
BUSHBABY – BUSH (president) + A (a) B (bishop) in BY (through)
2 Sacred text giving some of Elisha’s travels (7)
SHASTRA – hidden word. Shastra is a Sanskrit word meaning a field of study or a scholarly text.
3 Port delays with nothing given entrance (5)
LAGOS – O (nothing) in LAGS (delays)
5 Rex pallid and Rob turning a bright colour (6-3,3)
PILLAR-BOX RED – anagram of REX PALLID ROB
6 Nightingale is in a poem beginning with heart ill – roughly! (9)
PHILOMELA – anagram of A POEM H[eart] ILL. Philomela is a type of nightingale.
7 Applauds a daughter and son getting round difficult situation (7)
ADMIRES – A (a) + D (daughter) + MIRE (difficult situation) + S (son)
8 Male ruler requiring comfortable home (6)
ERNEST – ER (ruler) + NEST (comfortable home)
11 I sense Scot is possibly an SNP type? (12)
SECESSIONIST – anagram of I SENSE SCOT IS
15 Decorations consisting of yellow tags round holy books (9)
ORNAMENTS – OR (yellow) + NT (holy books) in NAMES (tags)
16 Small bits of substance smuggled aboard ship (8)
SMATTERS – MATTER (substance) in SS (ship)
18 Acted like a pig let loose in area of land (7)
ROOTLED – anagram of LET in ROOD (area of land)
19 Hardening within university clique (7)
INURING – IN (within) + U (university) + RING (clique)
20 Spider in gym, one descending in time (6)
EPEIRA – PE (gym) + I (one) together in ERA (time). Epeira is a genus of spiders that includes the European garden spider.
23 Japanese sword guard shown up in a piece of sculpture (5)
TSUBA – A (a) + BUST (piece of sculpture) backwards. A tsuba is guard at the end of the grip of bladed Japanese weapon. Some examples are ornate.
You can add bathsheba to that lot . What was the FT crossword editor doing in allowing this in the Weekend FT?
Good point, bamberger — thanks. I happened to know that this one was a name ending in SHEBA but I do often get stumped by biblical references.
Yes, a lot of what some would call ‘obscure words’.
But when the cluing is so scrupulously fair I won’t complain.
Solutions like TSUBA (23d) or BATHSHEBA (12ac) were eminently gettable from their clues.
There should always be room for learning new words, in my opinion.
And, bamberger, when you say “What was the FT crossword editor doing in allowing this in the Weekend FT?” I do not agree with you.
This is a prize puzzle and for many solvers Weekend puzzles should be more of a challenge that the Dailies.
That’s mostly not the case at the FT, true, but this crossword was for once a real teaser. And I liked it.
For which thanks to Bradman.
Learning new words was maybe the reason why I started to do crosswords in the first place so I don’t mind if there are lots of them. To me this is preferable to lots of old chestnuts.
From a setter’s point of view it may be that he did not set out deliberately to include all the ‘obscure’ words but found that they were the only ones that fitted in. If he didn’t want to use them he would have to go back endlessly on himself to get rid of them.
Thanks to Pete for his blog.
With over 70000 clues in my database and (that only goes back 12 years) and much of the low-hanging fruit already picked I find that I am always looking for new juicy possibilities for my harder puzzles! This will always divide opinion, but better to do that maybe than be bland all the time — and surely there’s a fair bit of TRANSSEXUALISM around! Thanks to all for feedback.
Sil –it’s a difference of opinion that makes a horse race but I disagree with you. On a Saturday morning I want a crossword that I have a sporting chance of solving unaided within about 90 minutes. For me that rules out the Independent, Guardian and Times and leaves the FT and Telegraph . I don’t live near a paper shop but I can download the FT crossword . If anyone finds the FT too easy then they have the choice of the Independent, Guardian and Times . Similarly on a Sunday, I do the Everyman because I know that I am unlikely to finish the ST or the Independent. That is not to say that I won’t try the Independent, Guardian and Times but very rarely do I finish them. If the FT wants to have harder Saturday crosswords then I (and I suspect others) will just stop attempting it and I’ll do the Telegraph in the afternoon. During the week, the FT can have very hard crosswords –Aardvark this week or easier ones –Jason. I don’t see why the Saturday one must be harder just because it is a prize puzzle-Everyman isn’t.
I have been giving this matter some thought over this weekend. I appreciate that it must be difficult for setters to maintain originality in clues especially when they have been in the business for several decades as Bradman has. And I want to make it clear that I have no objections to any of the clues — indeed I especially liked the TRANSSEXUALISM one because it allowed me to solve an anagram successfully for a word I did not know! I also appreciated the EPEIRA clue because I was able to put it together from the wordplay.
More than for learning new words, I enjoy crosswords for sharpening my knowledge of words I already know but not well. SPARGE and SMATTERS would be good examples. I do also like coming across new some new words like TSUBA here. One I could have done without was ORRIS (which is so obscure I have no interest in knowing it and had to use a pattern-lookup tool to get it because the clue’s wordplay is very ambiguous — not that that’s any bad thing in general of course but it does distinguish it from EPEIRA).
There must be plenty of ways of making puzzles harder, when that is intended, other than including obscure words. But then I think that balance is called for. A couple of obscure words is fine; a slew of them is not so good when that is not something people are primed to expect. I think I would enjoy tackling a crossword in which every answer is a made-up word — but only when there is some indication that that is the case.
I can’t really see why Bradman is so keen to introduce us to unknown words. Surely what is important is the quality of clueing: we want tricky and amusing clues. And we got that, and with the difficult words very clear wordplay that led us to the answer (in what way was the clue for ORRIS ambiguous?). I solved this crossword in a reasonable time for me, although some (but not all) of the words were unfamiliar.