Financial Times 15,010 by Cincinnus

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Prize puzzle from the Weekend FT of August 15, 2015

I was happy to find this Cincinnus puzzle; it is a rarer treat than it once was.  My clue of the week is the &lit. 22a (RESTFUL).  Other ones I like a lot are 10a (TUTSI), 11a (SPIDER-MAN) and 29a (PROPORTIONALLY).

Across
1 CONVERSATIONAL
Cavaliers not on form, it’s said (14)

Anagram of CAVALIERS NOT ON
10 TUTSI
Africans with Egyptian king? Yes, in Italy! (5)

TUT (Egyptian king) + SI (yes in Italy)
11 SPIDER-MAN
Superhero, doffing cap, reprimands vagrant (6-3)

Anagram of [r]EPRIMANDS
12 INFANTA
King’s daughter at home with drink (7)

IN (at home) + FANTA (drink)
13 MARXIST
Spoil team having gutted smart left-winger (7)

MAR (spoil) + XI (team) + S(mar)T
14 ABYSM
Bottomless pit used by baby’s mother (5)

Hidden word
16 ADDRESSES
A Democrat prepares info in mailing list (9)

A (a) + D (Democrat) + DRESSES (prepares)
19 ASCENSION
Dissonance died out, reuniting island (9)

Anagram of [d]ISSONANCE
20 TIMES
Herb’s picked up daily (5)

Homophone (“thyme’s”)
22 RESTFUL
Fluster-free? (7)

Anagram of FLUSTER
25 TRUFFLE
Mycologist’s last to put out fungus (7)

[mycologis]T + RUFFLE (put out)
27 UNINSTALL
Remove delay after loveless marriage (9)

UNI[o]N (loveless marriage) + STALL (delay)
28 TENET
Belief not affected by reversal (5)

Palindrome
29 PROPORTIONALLY
Expert helping friend with correspondence? (14)

PRO (expert) + PORTION (helping) + ALLY (friend)
Down
2 OUT OF SYNC
Having fun with Sooty, poor Corbett’s initially ill-matched (3,2,4)

Anagram of FUN SOOTY + C[orbett]
3 V-SIGN
Gesture at sea saving a cast (1-4)

Anagram of S[a]VING
4 RASTAFARI
Worshippers of emperor raised on a remote island (9)

TSAR (emperor) backwards + A (a) + FAR (remote) + I (island)
5 AXIOM
Cab heading off to the centre of Rome? That’s taken for granted (5)

[t]AXI (cab heading off) + [r]OM[e]
6 IN EARNEST
One close to home is not joking (2,7)

I (one) + NEAR (close to) + NEST (home)
7 NIMBI
Computer company in flipping clouds (5)

IBM (computer company) + IN (in) all backwards
8 LINCTUS
Medicine for Norman you found in Boston area (7)

TU (Norman you) in LINCS (Boston area).  While I am familiar with the word LINCTUS, I did not know precisely what it meant until I looked it up upon solving this clue.  It means a medicine that is taken by licking it with the tongue.
9 ATTICA
Room found by leader of Argonauts somewhere in Greece (6)

ATTIC (room) + A[rgonauts]
15 MANIFESTO
Declaration in Patent Office originally (9)

MANIFEST (patent) + O (office)
17 DONATELLO
Give lines to old sculptor (9)

DONATE (give) + LL (lines) + O (old)
18 SEMIFINAL
Midriff revealed during important match (9)

[r]IF[f] in SEMINAL (important)
19 AIRPUMP
State question that causes inflation (3,4)

AIR (state) + PUMP (question)
21 SWEATS
Casual dress for old soldiers (6)

Double definition.  ‘Sweat’ meaning old soldier is new to me.
23 SLIGO
Paintings put up around grand Irish town (5)

G (grand) in OILS (paintings) backwards
24 LEAST
Lowest rent? About a shilling (5)

A (a) + S (shilling) together in LET (rent)
26 ULTRA
Part lukewarm revolutionary, part extremist (5)

Reverse hidden word
*anagram

6 comments on “Financial Times 15,010 by Cincinnus”

  1. Thanks Pete & Cincinnus. I remember enjoying this, but the trouble with weekend prize puzzles is that I’ve rather forgotten the solving process by the time the blog appears. However I do remember that my take on 13a was mar (spoil) + XI (team) + S(mar)T (gutted).
    I was interested to learn that a linctus is licked! Thanks for that new nugget of info.

  2. Thanks Pete and Cincinnus.

    Nice to see Cincinnus back. His appearances (returning from the farm?) are all too rare.

    A gentle puzzle this with some excellent clues – I especially liked SEMIFINAL.

    I agree with Kettledrum on the parsing of 13ac.

    Thanks for clearing up SWEATS for me. It’s the one clue that remained pencilled rather than penned in. My dictionaries didn’t have the old soldiers definition so as soldiers’ casual dress SWEATS on its own looked barely cryptic.

  3. Thanks, Pete.

    Yes, great to see Cincinnus back – and you may like to know that he’s back, sporting his Orlando hat, in today’s Guardian.

    As Kettledrum says, there’s too long a gap between solving and commenting but, like him, I do remember enjoying it – many thanks, Cincinnus.

    [Hamish @2 – I think you’re thinking of Cincinnatus, the farmer-dictator: presumably he – or one of his ancestors – was curly-haired: Cincinnus is Latin for ‘curl’, the surname of our setter, Michael.]

  4. Yes, I had 13a described incorrectly and have now fixed it. Thank you Kettledrum and Hamish. Often that happens due to the gap between solving and blogging but, in this case, I saw it wrongly when I solved the clue.

  5. Thanks Cincinnus and Pete

    Only did this one over breakfast this morning and was able to finish it without having to buy a second coffee. :).

    Interesting clues throughout and particularly liked how he related the surface reading to the clue in both TRUFFLE and RASTAFARI. Thought the ‘loveless marriage’ to generate UNIN was very good. Clue of the day for me was SEMIFINAL.

    Although I got LINCTUS, I would have been here until Doomsday trying to parse it – not helped with my ignorance of the town of Boston, Lincolnshire. The use of Norman for French-speaking was also beyond me.

    SWEAT as a veteran soldier was new and was the last one in.

    Pete, I think that you might be one line down with 17.

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