Good stuff form Artexlen today. There was a mix of difficulty here, from the straightforward to the downright devious. Hopefully something for everyone. Thanks Artexlen.
Unrelated to the puzzle but I can’t get the image of ‘Artex Len’ out of my head. He is a miner from Yorkshire who, afetr taking early retirement in the seventies, has got to work on his home and brightened up all those bare ceilings and walls with swirly paterns. He reminds me very much of my dad (though he was neither a miner nor from Yorkshire).
| Across | ||
| 1 | FLABBERGASTS | Fat animals going round edges of rotting floors (12) |
| FLAB (fat) BEASTS (animals) containing (going round) RottinG (edges of) – definition is ‘floors’ | ||
| 10 | STINKER | Second fiddle is no easy thing (7) |
| S (second) TINKER (fiddle) – a difficult problem | ||
| 11 | ENAMOUR | Old island retreats, overwhelmed by European charm (7) |
| O (old) MAN (island) all reversed in (overwhelmed by) EUR (european) | ||
| 12 | AGLOW | Shining silver-blue (5) |
| AG (silver, chem symbol) LOW (blue) | ||
| 13 | IMPERIUM | Setter’s shattered umpire’s absolute sovereignty (8) |
| I’M (setter’s) UMPIRE* shattered=anagram – definition is ‘absolute sovereignty’ | ||
| 15 | LOW PROFILE | Lacking publicity, of little value for papers (3,7) |
| LOW (of litttle value) PRO (for) FILE (papers) | ||
| 16 | FRET | Worry about where editor puts this puzzle? (4) |
| RE (regarding, about) in the FT (where editor puts this puzzle) | ||
| 18 | SCAT | Bolt posed, hugging Olympic finalist (4) |
| SAT (posed) containing olympiC (final letter of) – to scat is to bolt, dart away | ||
| 20 | SCREWBALLS | Some sailors dance aboard ship, they’re not all there (10) |
| CREW (some sailors) BALL (dance) inside SS (aboard a steam ship) | ||
| 22 | MEDIATOR | Go-between made trio resolved (8) |
| (MADE TRIO)* anagram=resolved | ||
| 24 | LICIT | Not all felicitations acceptable (5) |
| found inside (not all of) feLICITations | ||
| 26 | NIRVANA | Blissful state, entering vehicle in driving rain (7) |
| VAN (vehicle) inside (entered into) RAIN* driving=anagram. I can’t think of a clear example where driving indicates ‘rearranged’. It feels right but I can’t justify this with an actual example. | ||
| 27 | RUN INTO | Having lost leader, art union arranged meet unexpectedly (3,4) |
| anagram (arranged) of aRT (losing leading letter) and UNION | ||
| 28 | ASTROPHYSICS | Fool coming over almost ill after award for science (12) |
| ASS (fool) containing (coming over) SICk (ill, almost) following TROPHY (award) | ||
| Down | ||
| 2 | LAID LOW | Hid away directive repressing former international uprising (4,3) |
| LAW (directive) containing (repressing) OLD (formaer) I (international) reversed (uprising) – definition is ‘hid away’ | ||
| 3 | BAKEWARE | Cooking equipment a king’s brought into cave (8) |
| A K (king) in BEWARE (cave) | ||
| 4 | EERY | Drunk going topless is strangely frightening (4) |
| lEERY (drunk) topless. Sil suggests bEERY which is better I think. | ||
| 5 | GREY MULLET | Dull hairstyle for swimmer (4,6) |
| GREY (dull) MULLET (hairstyle, slang) | ||
| 6 | SHAME | Girl, around morning-time, to show up (5) |
| SHE (a girl) contains (around) AM (morning time) | ||
| 7 | SHOWIER | Flasher, one getting wet? (7) |
| I in SHOWER (one getting wet, in the rain) | ||
| 8 | ESTABLISHMENT | Extravagant man’s belt is the business (13) |
| (MAN’S BELT IS THE)* anagram=extravagant | ||
| 9 | DRAMATISATION | A way to lift one after dull day, I love new version of story (13) |
| A RD (road, way) reversed (to lift) I (one) after MAT (dull) then SAT (day) I O (love) N (new) – definition is ‘version of story’. Phew! | ||
| 14 | AFICIONADO | A heartless falsehood, difficulty for ardent follower (10) |
| A FICtION (falsehood, heartless) with ADO (difficulty) | ||
| 17 | ABALONES | A fish with tail removed, sole’s filling seafood (8) |
| A BASs (fish, missing tail) contains (is filled by) |
||
| 19 | ANDORRA | Country a nationalist party runs with soldiers (7) |
| A N (nationalist) DO (party) R (runs) with RA (Royal Artillery, soldiers) | ||
| 21 | LACONIC | Extremely elusive black icon dancing with little expression (7) |
| bLACk (missing extremes) ICON* dancing=anagram | ||
| 23 | AWAIT | Look out for quintet central to Brit award broadcast (5) |
| anagram (broadcast) of the five central letters of brITA WArd – definition is ‘look out for’. A difficult clue. | ||
| 25 | ARCH | Chief scrapping first half of investigation (4) |
| reseARCH (investigation) missing the first half | ||
*anagram
Thanks Peedee for a neat blog and Artexlen for the grid. I found it to be an enjoyable solve as well.
A minor typo for 1ac – you meant to write BEASTS instead of BEATS.
Thanks turbolegs, fixed now.
Shouldn’t the definition in 7d be Flashier?
Another splendid puzzle by Artexlen in which I had some trouble to complete the upper 25%.
My first one in was SCAT (18ac) and my last EERY (4d) (with some hesitation, as I thought the word was ‘eerie’).
I took the latter as BEERY without the B.
23d (AWAIT) is indeed perhaps a difficult clue.
Two devices for the price of one.
But it’s these kind of things that shows that Artexlen can be one level up compared to more mainstream setters.
Many thanks PeeDee for the blog (and the grid).
Now back to this setter’s alter ego (eXternal) whose also excellent IoS crossword I haven’t finished yet with four missing.
Corby @3 – I suppose as one can have either flash or flashy, then there will be both flasher and flashier to be more so.
There were some real stinkers in this one, and I didn’t get all of them. All the better for that, Artexlen, many thanks. And well done PeeDee, as usual.
Really enjoyed this one from Artexlen. For 17d I think it is LONE for ‘sole’ in A BAS. Thanks PeeDee.
Quite right Jam Jar, fixed now.
Nowt to do with this PeeDee but any idea why the last 2 and only times I’ve tried to show the grid it hasn’t shown up. Using win 8.11 and ie11.
26A I thought that ‘driving’ was a good anagrind in this case – driving rain is rain blown by the wind.
Thanks to PeeDee and Artexlen
Driving rain is being propelled along by the wind, but it is not implicit that it it being mixed up.
Flashling – I’m away from home this week and can’t get email. I will mail you about the grid issue when I get back.
Thanks Artexlen and PeeDee
My first one by this setter and was beaten all ends up by AWAIT – I had ABAFT with a very tenuous link to looking back (abaft) from a lookout on a ship and using the five letters of the BAFTA televised awards – desperate measures to finish it off.
I am glad to have started doing the FT puzzle, if this is the standard of the challenge!
Hi brucew – I guess you are in Australia! I blogged this two months ago. Just curious about where you get the puzzle from. Is the FT published delayed in an Aussie publication, or are you picking back numbers from the UK FT website?
Hey PeeDee
Yep, from Melbourne. Have been enjoying doing the Guardian crosswords for about two years now and been a follower of this site from then.
Got interested again in the FT when I discovered a pile of photocopied puzzles in the bottom drawer of a cupboard that I had made from my work in the late 1990’s. They used to have the physical paper delivered some one week after it was published.
I found them to be almost trivially easy and was interested in seeing how the modern version of them were. I downloaded them from the FT website and am happy to see the level of difficulty has indeed got harder. This setter was quite complex (and see that he is a lawyer, which would explain it!) with a number of clues requiring quite convoluted parsing. Enjoyed him all of the same.
I look forward to trying to catch up with the backlog – so you might see some more late posts :).
Cheers … Bruce
PS … I do like your blogging style … with the full grid and your very clear explanations !