Financial Times 14,759 by ALBERICH

10 comments on “Financial Times 14,759 by ALBERICH”

1. Thanks PeeDee and Alberich. A good one! 22a was my last one in – the answer seemed reasonably obvious but I struggled to parse it. Eventually I settled for SWEEt plus PI and G (both goods) containing N (pole). I wonder what Alberich intended?

2. Didn’t like 22ac very much but all the rest were good. Liked 10ac very much.

   Thanks both

3. Thanks, Peedee.

   I struggled with 22ac, too, and didn’t understand your G = goods. I agree with Mike C’s parsing [now].

   I don’t fully get 8dn, either.

   Otherwise, a thoroughly enjoyable puzzle, with some very nice constructions and witty surfaces. Many thanks to Alberich.

4. I go along with MikeC’s parsing of 22A (not that I got it) as I have never seen g = goods before.

   Not all that happy about 9D as ‘Constable’s condition’ would lead to ‘state of the artist’.

   I’m afraid that I cannot throw any further light on 8D.

   Thanks to PeeDee and Alberich

5. Mike C is correct about 22ac. I was getting confused – not good enough.

   Re 8dn – “Its just not cricket” means unsporting, so the opposite is SPORTING, and sporting can be playing sport/being fair for other sports than cricket. A bit of a Rufus/Dante clue I thought where the challenge is not to solve it but to figure out why it is cryptic.

   Re 9dn “A Contstable” could be a picture by Constable as well as the artist himself, so I think 9dn works OK.

   Thanks all.

6. Hi PeeDee

   “A bit of a Rufus/Dante clue I thought where the challenge is not to solve it but to figure out why it is cryptic.”

   Hmm, yes, that’s what I had concluded – not really Alberich, is it? Unless I’m [more than probably] missing something.

7. Yes, PeeDee, 9d would have worked better if it had said ‘A Constable’s condition’ but it didn’t.

8. Ernie – re 9d, crossword clues frequently omit articles before nouns, especially proper nouns. For example in 1 across it really should be “a bob” to mean a shilling not someone’s name, in 10 across it should be “The River Po” or “The Po” to be a river, “Po” on its own doesn’t make sense.

   Why is Constable any different?

9. Only because there is a difference in meaning.
   To me ‘Constable’ refers to the artist whereas ‘a Constable’ would refer to a painting by Constable.
   Thanks for your input on this, PeeDee

10. Thanks Alberich and PeeDee

    Another from the backlog pile … and what a gem this was !!!

    It was one of those puzzles that you had to just keep chipping away … and generally admiring the answers when they yielded and then needing to do further work on the parsing with a number of them.

    Agree with PeeDee that all of the clue stand up on there own, including both of the long down lies at 8 and 9.

    Loved POTABLE as a clue and liked the complexity of MAESTRO and SWEEPING (which was my last in).

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