Prize puzzle from the Weekend FT of October 1, 2016
This puzzle took me a while to solve with the top-right quadrant proving the most challenging. My clue of the week is 27a (LYNDON) and I also would pick out 6d (EASTERLIES) which had a nice deceptive definition and 16d (SIXTH SENSE).
ACROSS
1 Call in the established church shrink (6)
CRINGE – RING (call) in CE (the established church)
4 Waterbridge, as queues halved, said to be avoided (8)
AQUEDUCT – A[s] QUE[ues] + homophone (“ducked”)
9 Catch lover almost turning (6)
ENTRAP – PARTNE[r] (lover almost) backwards
10 Carnage in the service area (8)
MASSACRE – MASS (service) + ACRE (area)
13 Audacity to kiss in a congested place (10)
BOTTLENECK – BOTTLE (audacity) + NECK (kiss)
15 At first, Gorbachev led young Stalinist movement into inertia (7,5)
STAYING STILL – anagram (movement) of G[orbachev] L[ed] Y[oung] STALINIST
18 Perhaps that hat needs to stay in the kitchen? (5,3,4)
STAND THE HEAT – anagram (perhaps) of THAT HAT NEEDS
21, 22 Hear (but not listen or eavesdrop) passage 4 about note (10,4)
TRANSITIVE VERB – TRANSIT (passage) + IV (4) + BREVE (note) backwards
24 Neat girl, flexible of figure (8)
TRIANGLE – anagram (flexible) of NEAT GIRL
25 She retorted in part to this document (6)
HERETO – hidden word
26 Splendid vision as the fringes of erotica delight you (5,3)
EAGLE EYE – E[rotic]A + GLEE (delight) + YE (you)
27 Johnson & Johnson’s city not known for first love (6)
LYNDON – LONDON ([Boris] Johnson’s city) with the first ‘O’ (love) changed to ‘Y’ (not known). I like this clue very much but still have a quibble about it. X, Y and possibly Z can well be clued by ‘unknown’ but ‘not known’ is subtly yet distinctly different.
DOWN
1 Contents of article are strong and most lucid (8)
CLEAREST – hidden word
2 Neat girl, flexible of figure (8)
INTEGRAL – anagram (flexible) of NEAT GIRL
3, 12 Jokes about boy having right smart clothes (4,4)
GLAD RAGS – LAD (boy) + R (right) together in GAGS (jokes)
5, 20 Making more money by virtue of being unclothed until mocking held up musical (12,6)
QUANTITATIVE EASING – QUA (by virtue of) + [u]NTI[l] + EVITA (musical) backwards in TEASING (mocking)
6 Trades festival stories (10)
EASTERLIES – EASTER (festival) + LIES (storied)
7 Pawnbrokers with unicycles not very cool (6)
UNCLES – UN[icy]CLES (unicycles not very cool)
8 Eliot is open to delicate adjustments (6)
TWEAKS – WEAK (delicate) in T.S. (Eliot)
11 In a friendly manner accepting the end of entitlement by birth (12)
CONGENITALLY – [entitlemen]T in CONGENIALLY (in a friendly manner)
14 Isn’t she sex-mad by intuition? (5,5)
SIXTH SENSE – anagram (mad) of ISNT SHE SEX
17 Dogged objections raised and delivered (8)
STUBBORN – BUTS (objections) backwards + BORN (delivered)
19 Figure in state uniform (6)
STATUE – U (uniform) in STATE (state)
23, 16 Dean’s right at all times in final conclusion (4,8)
VERY REVEREND – R (right) + EVER (at all times) together in VERY END (final conclusion). ‘Very reverend’ is the appropriate way of addressing a dean of the church.
Now, the INTEGRAL / TRIANGLE anagram (24ac, 2d) is well-known to me (being a mathematician).
But I am not 100% convinced by an integral being a figure.
Meanwhile, this was indeed once more a good puzzle.
21, 22 is a nice idea, however it is spoilt by the fact that ‘hear’ can be intransitive.
You can’t have it all, can you?
Thanks Goliath and Pete.
On solving time, this was by far my quickest Goliath puzzle – although it didn’t feel
particularly easy at the time. It’s a strange game: on other occasions a straightforward
puzzle takes me far too long!
I agree with your point about ‘not known’ and ‘unknown’. The letters x, y and z are
accepted symbols for unknowns in algebra and I can’t see how ‘not known’ could fairly indicate any of them.
In the same clue, there are two Os in LONDON – and y replaces the first one.
Sil, You say you are not convinced by an integral being a figure. I suspected that Goliath’s idea was the integral sign ? which, I think, could be called a figure.
mike04, Thanks for your input. That was rather dense of me not seeing the very necessary purpose of ‘first’ in 27a!
An integral is not the integral sign.
A definite integral has as its outcome a number, indeed.
And a number is a figure.
But there it ends.
As I said, not 100% convinced.
I actually think Goliath thought it would be nice to write a clue that would give us two different solutions.
Using the well-known anagram couple.
In my opinion, he failed doing so.
Others may think differently.
Thanks Goliath and Pete
I think for 2dn we can take “of figure” as the definition, and the answer INTEGRAL as an adjective.
25ac: This is just hidden, not reversed.
That’s a good point about 2dn. And I have corrected the explanation of 25ac. Thank you, Pelham.
INTEGRAL taken as an adjective to mean ‘of figure’?
An interesting thought.
Still not convinced, I’m afraid.
Perhaps, I will be if someone gives an example in which the two are interchangeable.
Or at least come very close.
That’s how it normally should work in crosswordland, isn’t it?
Re INTEGRAL, Collins has ‘figure’ = “… esp a whole number”, INTEGER a member of the set “..-2,1.0,1,2..* and INTEGRAL as adj “involving or being a integer”. So I think ‘of figure’ for INTEGRAL is OK.
OK, fine then.
INTEGRAL can indeed be ‘of an integer’ and an integer is a number.
It does feel a bit like A=B and B=C and therefore A=C.
But, as I said, OK then.
Thanks Goliath and Pete
Didn’t get to this one until yesterday and it kept me busy until the end of the day with a number of sittings. Was happy to be able to work out a couple of the more complicated parsing tasks – with QUANTITATIVE EASING, AQUEDUCT and TRANSITIVE VERB.
Had no issue with INTEGRAL meaning ‘of numbers’.
Finished down in the SE corner with HERETO (cleverly hidden), VERY REVEREND (another complex parsing task) and LYNDON (which was by far the pick of the lot when it finally dawned on me what was going on with the two Johnsons).