Prize puzzle from the Weekend FT of March 12, 2016
It has been a while since we had a Wanderer in this space. I found this one challenging in a good way and had difficulty only with 22d (CAESURA). My clue of the week, and one of my favourite clues of all time, is 9,19d (SPIKE MILLIGAN).
| Across | ||
| 1, 5 | CHICKEN MADRAS | Yellow bananas artist’s used in curry (7,6) |
| CHICKEN (yellow) + MAD (bananas) + RAS (artists) | ||
| 10 | PASSER-BY | Potential witness placing king in “old hat” (Times) (6-2) |
| PASSE (old hat) + R (king) + BY (times, as in multiplication) | ||
| 11 | BIKINI | Costume no good for cycling, one concludes (6) |
| BIKIN[g] + I (one) | ||
| 13, 26 | KHMER ROUGE | Communists worked out Greek humour’s not for everyone (5,5) |
| Anagram of GREEK HUMO[u]R. Someone pointed out to me that Wanderer could have made this clue more succinct by using the American spelling ‘humor’ but that would probably be unacceptable in a British puzzle. Anyway, the surface reading is better as its stands. | ||
| 14 | SCRUMMAGE | Special constable having drink before game dealt with disorderly struggle (9) |
| SC (special constable) + RUM (drink) + anagram of GAME | ||
| 15 | SNAPPY | Smart, bad-tempered brief (6) |
| Triple definition | ||
| 17 | WING NUT | Fastener that’s easily tightened hairpiece around top of nun’s head (4,3) |
| N[un] in WIG (hairpiece) + NUT (head) | ||
| 20 | IDYLLIC | Scilly Diving’s offering is flipping wonderful (7) |
| Reverse hidden word | ||
| 22 | CURACY | Copper getting risqué in clergyman’s office (6) |
| CU (copper) + RACY (risque) | ||
| 24 | LEASTWISE | By implication, most stupid American anyway (9) |
| LEAST WISE (most stupid) | ||
| 26 | See 13 | |
| 27 | GIVE UP | Quit as play finished (4,2) |
| GIVE (play, in the sense of slack) + UP (finished, as in “time’s up”) | ||
| 28 | AUTUMNAL | 50% of almond nuts briefly turn gold, at first like falling leaves (8) |
| AU (gold) + anagram of ALM[ond] NUT[s] | ||
| 29, 30 | NELSON MANDELA | Hold person fronting up dodgy deal in Cape Verde airport (6,7) |
| NELSON (hold) + MAN (person) +anagram of DEAL. I was in Cape Verde last year and managed to remember that it has an airport named for Nelson Mandela. It also has one, that I was at, named for Cesarea Evora. | ||
| Down | ||
| 2 | HUSH MONEY | Bribe with some mushrooms cooked in nectar (4,5) |
| Anagram of MUSH[rooms] in HONEY (nectar) | ||
| 3, 26 | CLEAR ROUND | Equestrian’s aim is to jump over a given route (5,5) |
| CLEAR (jump over) + ROUND (a given route) | ||
| 4 | EMBASSY | English singer taken in by my diplomatic setting (7) |
| E (English) + BASS (singer) in MY (my) | ||
| 6 | ASIA MINOR | A former name for country home or area across Turkey & Armenia (4,5) |
| A (a) + SIAM (former name for country) + IN (home) + OR (or) | ||
| 7 | RAITA | Indian dish author mentioned in conversation (5) |
| Homophone (“writer”) | ||
| 8, 23 | STILETTO HEELS | He’s let toilets get out of order – they might make women look down on him (8,5) |
| Anagram of HES LET TOILETS | ||
| 9, 19 | SPIKE MILLIGAN | Hypochondriac speaking: “I’m ill, doctor!” (5,8) |
| Anagram of SPEAKING IM ILL. The reference is Spike’s own epitaph. Written on his tombstone (in Gaelic as it happens) is, “I told you I was ill”. I think this is a great clue and a masterful anagram find but I must note one problem with it: ‘doctor’ can be a fine anagram indicator but I question how acceptable it is when, as here, it follows the anagram material.
In my original posting of this blog, I referred to “I told you I was ill” as coming from a joke that Spike was known for. Being a great fan of the man, I now find myself ashamed that I had it wrong and that it was actually his own epitaph. Thank you very much to Eileen for setting me straight and giving us a link to an article about it (see comment #3 below). |
||
| 12 | PROW | Start of Plimsoll line? It’s at front of ship (4) |
| P[limsoll] + ROW (line) | ||
| 16 | POLITBURO | Communists managing to blur boundaries of ownership around Italy (9) |
| I (Italy) in anagram of TO BLUR O[wnershi]P | ||
| 18 | NOCTURNAL | Go into city with prisoner, given lift during the night (9) |
| TURN (go) IN LA (city) + CON (prisoner) backwards | ||
| 19 | See 9 | |
| 21 | CLIP | Trim cuff around the edge (4) |
| C (around) + LIP (edge). With two definitions. | ||
| 22 | CAESURA | A trick a conjuror started up in short break during poetry recital (7) |
| A (a) + RUSE (trick) + C[onjuror] + A (a) all backwards. Caesura, a word I did not know, means a break or pause (usually for sense) in the middle of a verse line. | ||
| 23 | See 8 | |
| 25 | ANVIL | Bone buried in Cuban village (5) |
| Hidden word | ||
| 26 | See 3 | |
Thanks Pete.
“I told you I was ill” was apparently voted in nations favourite epitaph in the early noughties.
It took a while to work out the meaning of “given route” in 3/26 until I thought of Paper or Milk round (delivery route).
The fodder for 28 also took a while to unravel.
CAESURA was a new word for me – but elegantly clued.
All in all a good challenge that I was pleased to have completed.
A great puzzle
Thanks, Pete.
A great puzzle, the gem in the crown being the wonderful SPIKE MILLIGAN. But, Pete, it wasn’t a joke he told – it was his own epitaph – see here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/southern_counties/3742443.stm
Many thanks to Wanderer.
Eileen, Thank you so much for correcting me on this. I have rarely been so happy to learn that I was wrong!
Hi Pete
I’m thrilled to be the one to enlighten you! You can’t be expected to keep up with every bit of news from over here. I’m a great fan, too – since schooldays! I forgot to say that I saw nothing wrong with the indicator following the fodder. Here, the punctuation, which so often misleads, actually justifies it, I think, with the comma and then the exclamation mark making ‘Doctor’ an imperative. It’s certainly one of my all-time favourite clues.
What a pity that, so far, only three people have commented on this great puzzle by one who’s become one of my favourite setters.
I’d love to know more about Wanderer. Michael Curl, in his updated ‘Best for puzzles’ still lists him / her simply as ‘Wanderer is a setter of crosswords in the Financial Times’. I’ve been chuffed at outing Redshank, Rosa Klebb and Goliath but this one still has me intrigued. 😉 Any ideas?
Re comment 6
Apologies for that – one of those late-evening posts that shouldn’t have been posted! I should have said ‘spotting’, not ‘outing’ – that’s not for me to do. And, of course, I wasn’t asking for outright suggestions – just wondering if anyone else was wondering.
Ok Eileen. Well, I failed to answer six of the clues, and for a number of the other answers I did not understand why I had the correct answer until Pete, as ever, explained them. Quite enjoyed it though.
Defeated by 11a and 22d but found it at my level.
Thanks Wanderer and Pete
Enjoyable challenge which was my Good Friday treat ! Started in the morning before heading down to the West coast at a little resort on the Great Ocean Road for an Easter break. Managed to finish it off in bed that night.
A couple that I did not parse properly – ASIA MINOR and NOCTURNAL.
Liked all four of the perimeter clues – none of which was simple so no easy gateways into the rest of the puzzle. Both SPIKE MILLIGAN and NELSON MANDELA providing aha moments!
Finished in the NE corner with BIKINI, SCRUMMAGE and STILETTO HEELS being the last few in.
It is a pity that there are not more folk who do or comment on the FT puzzles – they provide a great variety with the extra setters available.
Bruce, Yes I was thinking the same about it being a pity that so few people comment on FT puzzles here. Just in the last few weeks we have had two clues that should go down in the annals of cruciverbalism (Wanderer’s SPIKE MILLIGAN clue here and Rosa Klebb’s NOAH clue from FT 15,169). I have a memory from a few years back that the FT typically receives four to five hundred entries for its Weekend prize puzzle and, I figure, that must be a fairly small proportion of the number who actually tackle it. So probably a good number have a go at it but I also expect there are many solvers around the world who would enjoy it but don’t know about it, don’t know it is available on-line, or don’t appreciate what a high standard it holds to.
I’ve only just discovered the FT puzzle. I’d been wary about adding another on top of the Guardian’s offering but too late now. I thought this puzzle was pretty much perfect. A very nice way to spend an Easter Monday afternoon in New York recovering from flu.
Oh and thanks Pete for the excellent blog. Which I needed.
Xjpotter, Thank you for commenting and welcome to the FT Weekend blog. I have been doing this puzzle fairly regularly for around 30 years. I look forward to doing more after I retire and the first of those will probably be the Guardian's.