Prize puzzle from the Weekend FT of July 30, 2016
Maybe Cincinnus will be appearing here more often again; I hope so. My clue of the week in this puzzle is 19a (OVERSPENT) and I also especially like 8d (NOTEPAD).
| Across | ||
| 1 | EMPIRE OF THE SUN | Prometheus – and fine cast in film (6,2,3,3) |
| Anagram (cast) of PROMETHEUS FINE | ||
| 10 | GOYAS | Spanish paintings possibly brought back by George Orwell initially (5) |
| G[eorge] O[rwell] + SAY (possibly) backwards | ||
| 11 | INSOLVENT | Very little admitted by audacious bankrupt (9) |
| V (very little) in INSOLENT (audacious) | ||
| 12 | THEREAT | That clothing before or after that (7) |
| ERE (before) in THAT (that) | ||
| 13 | STOOD UP | Rose made to wait in vain (5,2) |
| Double definition | ||
| 14 | SATIN | South African leaders can provide material (5) |
| S[outh] A[frican] + TIN (can) | ||
| 16 | NURSEMAID | Tender marshal is unarmed (9) |
| Anagram (marshal) of IS UNARMED | ||
| 19 | OVERSPENT | Doctor proves hospital department was extravagant (9) |
| Anagram (doctor) of PROVES + ENT (hospital department) | ||
| 20 | NIMES | House martin finally going round French city (5) |
| SEMI (house) + [marti]N backwards | ||
| 22 | TOPMAST | Brown keeps high post for tall ship’s constituent (7) |
| PM (high post) in TOAST (brown) | ||
| 25 | EMENDED | Corrected crossword setter turned over (7) |
| ME (crossword setter) backwards (turned) + ENDED (over) | ||
| 27 | FISHGUARD | Perhaps sole protector for Welsh town (9) |
| FISH (perhaps sole) + GUARD (protector) | ||
| 28 | RILKE | Poet put out about weekend (5) |
| K (weekend) in RILE (put out) | ||
| 29 | THE LAST EMPEROR | Film’s false teeth – premolars? (3,4,7) |
| Anagram (false) of TEETH PREMOLARS | ||
| Down | ||
| 2 | MAY BEETLE | Insect could be market leader, essentially (3,6) |
| MAY (could) + BE (be) + [mark]ET LE[ader] | ||
| 3 | ISSUE | Bone to pick with sons and daughters? (5) |
| Double definition | ||
| 4 | EXISTENCE | Being in river, is fish no closer? (9) |
| IS (is) + TENC[h] (fish no closer) together in EXE (river) | ||
| 5 | FUSES | Song and dance about ultimate in coffee blends (5) |
| [coffe]E in FUSS (song and dance) | ||
| 6 | HALLOWEEN | Greeting Little Nell primarily in annual celebration (9) |
| HALLO (greeting) + WEE (little) + N[ell] | ||
| 7 | STEED | Children holding tail of draught horse (5) |
| [draugh]T in SEED (children) | ||
| 8 | NOTEPAD | Writer’s block – and poet is worried (7) |
| Anagram (is worried) of AND POET…with a nice cryptic definition | ||
| 9 | AGATES | Marbles provided by a wealthy American philanthropist (6) |
| A (a) + GATES (wealthy American philanthropist, i.e. Bill) | ||
| 15 | NOSTALGIA | Looking back, vagrant lost again (9) |
| Anagram (vagrant) of LOST AGAIN | ||
| 17 | ROTTERDAM | Scoundrel heading for distant American port (9) |
| ROTTER (scoundrel) + D[istant] + AM (American) | ||
| 18 | ARMADILLO | Nothing by a stream to shelter wild animal (9) |
| MAD (wild) in A RILL (a stream) + O (nothing) | ||
| 19 | OUT OF IT | Not knowing what is happening about old clothes (3,2,2) |
| O (old) in OUTFIT (clothes) | ||
| 21 | SADDER | More blue snakes bottom up (6) |
| ADDERS (snakes) with the ‘S’ (bottom) moved up to the start (UP) | ||
| 23 | POSSE | Endless drink for law enforcement group (5) |
| POSSE[t] (endless drink) | ||
| 24 | TRACT | Short treatise followed in recital (5) |
| Homophone (“tracked”) | ||
| 26 | EYRIE | First of youngsters in country, raised in nest (5) |
| Y[oungsters] in EIRE (country) backwards | ||
Thanks Pete Maclean and Cincinnus.
Good puzzle but required 2 sittings and still had to see parsing here for TOPMAST and MAY BEETLE. (Btw, ‘be’ is missing in your explanation of 2d)
Thanks Pete and Cincinnus.
Enjoyable solve although I still don’t get the second part of the definition to 19dn – about old clothes?
1ac was also of course a book by J G Ballard – now commemorated in his home town of Shepperton by a retirement home (c’est la vie).
I remember RILKE only from a previous puzzle.
By the way, your intro has OVERSPEND for 19ac rather than OVERSPENT.
Hamish I think that you will find that the latter part of 19d is “outfit” (clothes) about “O” (old) giving outofit
Found this my best effort yet; did on the second run through.
I don’t get the second part of 2D: “[mark]ET LE[ader]” ; what make four letters out of the twelve the “essence” of those two words?
I made several little mistakes in the blog. Sorry and thanks for pointing them out. I have corrected them now.
I wondered too about the second part of 2D. I cannot remember seeing such vague cluing from Cincinnus before and was surprised by this example.
Re #4, I think what is intended is that four-letter section is in the centre of the two words in question.
That’s how I read 2dn.
Malcolm – thanks for that. Makes sense.
Thanks Cincinnus and Pete
Interesting puzzle that took a few shortish sittings to get completed. A good variety of devices were used throughout and particularly liked the misdirection that he was able to conjure up with the adjectives in the wordplay.
Missed with the parsing of MAY BEETLE, but quite clever when it was explained. Had not heard of the Welsh town of FISHGUARD before and the clever wordplay was quite clear that is what it was.
Those two were my last couple to go in.
Almost a year and a half has passed since this puzzle, which happens to be the last Cincinnus we have had in this space, was published. As far as I know, Michael Curl is still setting puzzles elsewhere but he seems to have completely disappeared from the FT. I miss him.
Hi Pete
Yep …. have about another 30 puzzles that I had downloaded from this time that I didn’t get to when I was moving house and doing some other stuff in mid 2016. I am slowly working through them, but only get to them when I have finished all of the current ones – typically doing about 1 a week … so should have caught up by mid year 🙂
I also enjoy the puzzles of Michael Curl – he apparently set a puzzle as Orlando in the Guardian at about the same time as this one which had a theme of ‘goodbye’ and notice that he had commented on the blog of that puzzle that it was not a swan song. He has since only set a few Quiptic puzzles and one other normal cryptic in November last year for the Guardian, so he has obviously slowed down a lot – more is the pity. Looking at his bio he is over 70 now so maybe he is ‘working to retirement’.