My last Tuesday FT blog … standard Armonie fare
This is my last FT Tuesday blog before I start blogging Guardian puzzles instead (still doing the Thursday FT shift).
It was a typical Armonie puzzle with some long anagrams, and fairly straightforward cluing. No major quibbles, although I thought the solution to 26ac was out of character with the rest of the puzzle in terms of difficulty (easy enough to guess from the wordplay and crossing letters though).
My favourite clues were 4ac, 21ac and 11dn.
Thank, Armonie.
| Across | ||
| 1 | FLAMBE | Method of cooking meat in iron container (6) |
| LAMB in FE | ||
| 4 | ESCARGOT | Is in Paris holding shipment of French food (8) |
| EST (“is” in French) holding CARGO | ||
| 9 | RUNWAY | Fugitive loses article at airport (6) |
| RUN(a)WAY | ||
| 10 | AESTHETE | Connoisseur ate these uneasily (8) |
| *(ate these) | ||
| 12 | LASS | Female section of the National Assembly (4) |
| “section of” nationaL ASSembly | ||
| 13 | TINTORETTO | Dye old predator in retreat of old master (10) |
| TINT + O + <=OTTER | ||
| 15 | COINCIDENTAL | Unplanned confrontation with American during depression (12) |
| INCIDENT + A “during” COL | ||
| 18 | TRENDSETTERS | Trustee to destroy dogs? They lead the way! (12) |
| Tr. + END SETTERS | ||
| 21 | EVENING OUT | Trip in the dark when just at home with complaint (7,3) |
| EVEN (“just”) + IN (“at home”) + GOUT (“complaint”) | ||
| 22 | TROT | Run as a communist (4) |
| Double deifinition | ||
| 24 | GRADIENT | Incline to stop in allotment (8) |
| DIE in GRANT | ||
| 25 | LESSOR | Landlord’s short of gold (6) |
| LESS + OR | ||
| 26 | TIRESIAS | Fatigues one like a blind prophet (8) |
| TIRES + 1 + AS | ||
| 27 | ITALIC | Character with inclination for one toiletry containing iodine (6) |
| I + TALC containing I (“iodine”) | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | FORELOCK | Be careful fastening hair (8) |
| “FORE” (“look out” on the golf course ~ “be careful”) + LOCK | ||
| 2 | AGNOSTIC | Sceptic acting so badly (8) |
| *(acting so) | ||
| 3 | BEAD | Drop one in the garden (4) |
| A in BED | ||
| 5 | SWEET-AND-SOUR | Bears entertaining dwarf with our kind of food (5-3-4) |
| STANDS “entertaining” WEE” + OUR
“kind of food” is a bit loose as a definition in my opinion |
||
| 6 | AFTERTASTE | Fattest are prepared for a sensational finish (10) |
| *(fattest are) | ||
| 7 | GREATS | Greek devours the classics (6) |
| Gr. + EATS | ||
| 8 | TREMOR | Quake in Turkey – upheaval of capital (6) |
| .tr (domain name for “Turkey”) + <=ROME | ||
| 11 | HIDDEN AGENDA | Dad had engine modified showing ulterior motive (6,6) |
| *(dad had engine) | ||
| 14 | SCARCITIES | Shortages damage urban areas (10) |
| SCAR + CITIES | ||
| 16 | REPRISAL | Priest is buried in concrete for revenge (8) |
| Pr. IS buried in REAL (“cement”) | ||
| 17 | ESOTERIC | Inscrutable Tories assembled in the city (8) |
| *(tories) in EC (“the City” in London) | ||
| 19 | WEIGHT | Responsibility of Welsh rowing team (6) |
| W + EIGHT | ||
| 20 | REPAIR | Condition of soldier’s mate (6) |
| R.E. + PAIR | ||
| 23 | BENT | Inclination to be dishonest (4) |
| Double definition | ||
*anagram
Thanks, loonapick. My only complaint is that, even more than usual, the anagrams simply gave themselves away without much brainpower being needed. A pleasant sunny stroll, though: thanks, Armonie.
Thanks Armonie and loonapick
It’s a pity that the Guardian and FT seem to have this setter programmed for successive days of late … so we get two together and then 2-3 weeks until the next one.
I like the style of Armonie – quite straightforward, usually, but they hold one’s interest all of the same. This one had two people whom I had never heard of – TINTORETTO and TIRESIAS – but both quite derivable from the word play.
Finished in the SW corner with TIRESIAS, EVENING OUT (with its nice surface and well disguised wordplay) and REPAIR the last one in.
Thanks loonapick and Armonie.
An enjoyable jaunt through crossword land with no real hold ups.
It was interesting to see two uses of Tr in the puzzle – for “trustee” in 18ac and “Turkey” at 8dn.
I remember Tiresias mainly from the song Cinema Show from the Geneisis album “Selling England by the Pound” – still a favourite.
I actually enjoyed what seemed to be (to me) slightly off definitions: at 15 I always thought COINCIDENTAL to mean a little more than just unplanned and at 17 I always thought ESOTERIC was more related to something that only has meaning to the initiated. But as I say, that added to the challenge for me.
I’ll look forward to your Guardian blogs loonapick.