Prize puzzle from the Weekend FT of June 3, 2017
I found it difficult both to finish this puzzle and to identify the anniversary involved. Turns out the latter is the first anniversary of the death of Muhammad Ali, a man I happened to meet once when he visited Glasgow in the late 1960s. The anniversary is celebrated by [the] GREATEST (4ac), MILLION DOLLAR FIGHTER (15ac, 16ac, and 20dn) and possibly more subtly by other words in the grid.
My clue of the week is Gaff’s cryptic definition for COCONUT (21a) and I also think his hidden-word ARMADILLO (2dn) and his T-SHIRT clue (8dn) are very clever. I am less satisfied with 27ac (GRILL) and 6dn (ATMOS CLOCK) — although I might be missing something in each case.
| Across | ||
| 1 | SNATCH | Grab-bag mostly packed with nutrition first (6) |
| N[utrition] in SATCH (bag) | ||
| 4 | GREATEST | Most outsanding rates get adjusted (8) |
| Anagram (adjusted) of RATES GET. There is presumably a typo in the clue. | ||
| 10 | HAMMER OUT | Successfully negotiate what one gets for fixing nails (6,3) |
| Double definition | ||
| 11 | See 19 | |
| 12 | LIDO | Reverse into crocodile pool (4) |
| Reverse hidden word | ||
| 13 | SPORTSWEAR | Played worst in sort of mint Lycra, perhaps (10) |
| Anagram (played) of WORST in SPEAR (sort of mint) | ||
| 15 | MILLION | A lot of factory is only half working (7) |
| MILL (factory) + I[s] + ON (working) | ||
| 16 | DOLLAR | Back staff keeping 100% of the money (6) |
| ALL (100%) in ROD (staff) all backwards | ||
| 19, 11 | WORD OF MOUTH | Speaking of how to drum excitedly (4,2,5) |
| Anagram (excitedly) of OF HOW TO DRUM | ||
| 21 | COCONUT | Fair target for shy person (7) |
| Cryptic definition | ||
| 23 | LEVERAGING | Middle England furious about first lady exerting influence (10) |
| [eng]L[and] + EVE (first lady) + RAGING (furious) | ||
| 25 | BULL | Lies about flight’s destination, maybe (4) |
| Double definition | ||
| 27 | GRILL | Roast? Yes and no (5) |
| I do not understand how “yes and no” works here. See comments below for more. | ||
| 28 | TETRARCHS | Four kings start to abuse charters (9) |
| T[o] + anagram (abuse) of CHARTERS | ||
| 29 | THESAURI | References unfinished dissertation about a Biblical city (8) |
| A (a) + UR (Biblical city) together in THESI[s] | ||
| 30 | HYBRID | Cross at being taken in by trophy bride (6) |
| Hidden word | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | SO HELP ME | Passover – when pulpit lament centres on my oath (2,4,2) |
| [pas]SO[ver] [w]HE[n] [pu]LP[it] [la]ME[nt] | ||
| 2 | ARMADILLO | Being slightly car-mad, I’ll opt for small armoured one (9) |
| Hidden word | ||
| 3 | CREW | Short cut for hands (4) |
| Double definition | ||
| 5 | RETIRED | Turned in tradition, turned in revolutionary (7) |
| RITE (tradition) backwards (turned) in RED (revolutionary) | ||
| 6 | ATMOS CLOCK | Environmentally operated a time-piece from Russian city bar (5,5) |
| A (a) + T (time) + MOSC[ow] (piece from Russian city) + LOCK (bar). An Atmos clock is one powered by differences in ambient temperatures. And “environmentally operated” seems both inadequate as a definition for it and a wrong part of speech. I suppose one could claim that “time-piece” gives a hint but not in a way that I would consider proper cluing. Or maybe Gaff was reaching for an &Lit here although I think it does not work. | ||
| 7 | EXUDE | River full of a lot of mud and discharge (5) |
| [m]UD in EXE (river) | ||
| 8 | T-SHIRT | Fancy this mid-thirties garment? (1-5) |
| Anagram (fancy) of THIS + [thi]RT[ies] | ||
| 9 | COUPON | Slip up in supplement to bill on opening night (6) |
| UP (up) in COO (supplement to bill) + N[ight] | ||
| 14 | CINDERELLA | Black singer captures wanderers’ hearts in fairy tale (10) |
| [wa]NDERE[rs] in CILLA (Black singer!) | ||
| 17 | ANNOUNCER | In a river, heartless Nelson has what he needs to weigh anchor (9) |
| A (a) + N[elso]N + OUNCE (what he needs to weigh) + R (river). “What he needs to weigh” seems to me to be an odd way to clue OUNCE. | ||
| 18 | STYLISED | Lid with stye’s treated artificially (8) |
| Anagram (treated) of LID STYES | ||
| 20 | FIGHTER | Tomcat maybe one having scraps (7) |
| Double definition | ||
| 21 | CANUTE | Subject of legendary royal waves (6) |
| Cryptic definition | ||
| 22 | ALIGHT | Burning the 4 Gospels helps terrorist leaders (6) |
| ALI (the 4, as in 4 across meaning “the greatest”) + G[ospels] H[elps] T[errorist] | ||
| 24 | VOICE | Second in command boards wrong express (5) |
| O (wrong?) in (boards) VICE (second in command). How does ‘wrong’ clue O? Or am I seeing this Oly? | ||
| 26 | BABY | Degree next to minute (4) |
| BA (degree) + BY (next to) | ||
Thanks Pete for another fine blog.
This was a puzzle that took a more than average share of my Saturday time.
A few things.
I think in 27ac (GRILL) Gaff tells us that ‘to grill’ and ‘to roast’ are different ways of preparing food.
But also that both words can describe a similar thing: ‘to interrogate severely’, although ‘to roast’ is more to criticise.
In 24ac (VOICE) the explanation is: [c]O[mmand] inside VICE (wrong).
As to the boxing references, I assume that Gaff gives us MILLION DOLLAR BABY (a Clint Eastwood film) and FIGHTER just as a separate entry.
Moreover, in the 11th row we can read RAGING BULL, another film about boxing.
I didn’t see anything else.
Agree with your reservations about 17d and, in particular, 6d.
Quite a challenge, this crossword.
For which many thanks to Gaff.
Thanks Gaff and Pete
I agree with Sil on 24.
However, in 27, I think the “Yes and no” comes from (Yes) if you interrogate/grill someone, you could be said to be giving them a roasting [ie as with Sil] and (no) grilling isn’t roasting when you’re cooking.
Thanks Gaff & Pete.
The anniversary was easier to identify in the UK as it was marked by a television programme.
Four kings in 28 across may be a reference as there was a film called “When We Were Kings” about the 1974 Rumble in the Jungle fight with George Foreman.
I failed to solve a few clues and tried to find butterfly and bee as solutions. And I “solved” at least one clue by misunderstanding it: Ella seemed to be the obvious black singer for example!
Thanks Gaff and Pete
Spent much longer than normal on this puzzle and was eventually defeated by ATMOS CLOCK which I’d not heard of before and after I trawled Google for way too long in search of different A-M-S clocks. Pretty obscurely clued for a relatively obscure answer, I thought – but sour grapes are always like that !
Thought SO HELP ME and CINDERELLA were both cleverly clued – I did go down the Ella Fitzgerald path for a long time though and took ages to find the right singer and the extended heart of ‘wanderers’. Did have a light bulb moment after finally seeing ‘anchor’ as anchorman at 17 and didn’t mind the cheeky definition of OUNCE.
Didn’t know of the ‘Tomcat’ FIGHTER jet plane until I looked it up at 20d. TETRARCH and the cleverly hidden HYBRID were my next to last in before failing at 6d.
Never heard of an atmos clock so 6dn defeated me. Thought the clueing there was less than helpful.
My main criticisms were of 23ac and 9dn. Middle England doesn’t mean the middle of England and opening night doesn’t mean the opening of night.
Agree with Simon S about 27ac.
I notice a question mark in the explanation of 22d, so at the risk of stating the obvious: “the 4” (as in 4 across) gives “the greatest”, a nickname for Muhammad Ali.
Thanks Pete and Gaff.
Steve, Thanks for pointing that out. Since I had failed to identify the theme when I wrote the original blog, I did not then understand the relevance of ‘4’ in 22d so put the question mark in there. Once I understood the anniversary I should have corrected that and will do so now.