Independent 8,797 by Hieroglyph

All the time that I was doing this the answers seemed to be clear enough, all of a piece with 9ac, and I was telling myself that the meaning of CA would eventually appear. But it wasn’t until quite long after finishing that I realised that CA was 100 Acres, 100 Acre Wood, the place where Pooh and his friends live. I’m not an expert on W-the-P, having unfortunately missed out on it in my childhood, but over the years all the names have become familiar — except for 6dn.

I’ve only just realised (after writing a long paragraph saying that I couldn’t understand ‘would say’) that ‘CA would, say’ is a homophone of ‘CA wood’. Why 6dn has commas but the others don’t is a mystery, though.

But I still can’t see the connection with today. It doesn’t seem to be any significant Pooh anniversary. Is it a non-Christmas crossword? Or, which is far more likely, am I missing something?

A nice crossword from Hieroglyph. Perhaps there are rather a lot of letters indicated by the first or last letters of words, but then perhaps that is the devilish intention.

Definitions underlined.

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Financial Times 14,805 – Crux

Monday Prize Crossword/Dec 15 Crux was clearly in a double and, to a lesser extent, cryptic definition mood. As ever, elegant surfaces and medium level of difficulty. Merry Christmas everyone! Definitions are underlined … Read more >>