Monday Prize Crossword / Dec 4, 2017
Falcon gave us perhaps the easiest puzzle of the FT week (as intended) but very well written it was.
Definitions are underlined wherever possible and/or appropriate.
| Across | ||
| 7 | FREE | Not busy on the house (4) |
| Double definition | ||
| 8 | CHAIN STORE | Restrictions damaged retail enterprise (5,5) |
| CHAINS (restrictions) + TORE (damaged) | ||
| 10 | CHARGE | Awful rage after church makes accusation (6) |
| CH (church) + (RAGE)* [* = awful] | ||
| 11 | HAY FEVER | Play that may bring tears to one’s eyes? (3,5) |
| Double definition Hay Fever is a 1924 Noel Coward play, more about it here . |
||
| 12 | STRIDENT | Small spear, sharp (8) |
| S (small) + TRIDENT (spear) | ||
| 13 | ON TIME | Sharp, tiny boy wearing one (2,4) |
| TIM (tiny boy, Tiny Tim) inside ONE | ||
| 15 | POSTMAN’S KNOCK | Maybe “Pass the Parcel” can be played after this! (8,5) |
| Kind of cryptic definition I liked this one. |
||
| 18 | CLERIC | Member of the clergy in vicious circle (6) |
| (CIRCLE)* [* = vicious] | ||
| 20 | HOT PANTS | Shorts all the rage? Nonsense! (3,5) |
| HOT (all the rage) + PANTS (nonsense) | ||
| 22 | AVE MARIA | A very English mass, with song and prayer (3,5) |
| A + V (very) + E (English) + M (mass) + ARIA (song) | ||
| 24 | UNLOAD | Get rid of university don, almost all moved (6) |
| U (university) + (DON + AL[l])* [* = moved] | ||
| 25 | LEADING MAN | Principal actor directing staff (7,3) |
| LEADING (directing) + MAN (staff) | ||
| 26 | TAKE | Capture bear (4) |
| Double definition | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | ARCHETYPAL | Classic art cheaply reproduced (10) |
| (ART CHEAPLY)* [* = reproduced] | ||
| 2 | NEAR MISS | Tight young lady narrowly avoided collision (4,4) |
| NEAR (tight) + MISS (young lady) | ||
| 3 | SCHEME | Second note about revolutionary plot (6) |
| S (second) + ME (note), together around CHE (revolutionary) | ||
| 4 | IN MY BOOK | Popular novel I wrote gets to me (2,2,4) |
| IN (popular) + MY BOOK (novel I wrote) | ||
| 5 | ATTEST | Most obese female ignored evidence (6) |
| FATTEST (most obese) minus F (female) | ||
| 6 | BRIE | Half of Conference with cheese? (4) |
| Half of BRIEFING (conference) | ||
| 9 | A SHOT IN THE ARM | Booster, perhaps? (1,4,2,3,3) |
| (Not so very) Cryptic definition …. …. unless I missed something. |
||
| 14 | MAKE TRACKS | Record an album and leave? (4,6) |
| The various numbers on an album are called ‘tracks’. Therefore ‘make tracks’ could perhaps mean ‘record an album’. |
||
| 16 | MACARONI | A pasta; sculptor feeding husband with one (8) |
| CARO (sculptor) inside MAN (husband) + I (one) Sir Antony Caro (1924-2013), British sculptor . |
||
| 17 | ON A PLATE | A polenta prepared with little effort (2,1,5) |
| (A POLENTA)* [* = prepared] A surface nicely in line with the literal meaning of the answer. |
||
| 19 | REMEDY | Put right about me, extremely doughty (6) |
| RE (about) + ME + D[ought]Y | ||
| 21 | TRUANT | Absentee, not wholly faithful worker in colony (6) |
| TRU[e] (faithful, not fully) + ANT (worker in colony) | ||
| 23 | VIEW | Struggle with belief (4) |
| VIE (struggle) + W (with) | ||
*anagram
Thanks Falcon and Sil
Certainly on the easier side of this setter’s puzzles !! Still, one new point of learning for me with the British sculptor whom I’ve not come across before. Not so with HAY FEVER which I’ve seen numerous times this year – clued similarly to this.
Did like the clever parsing of AVE MARIA and thought that IN MY BOOK was quite clear too.
BRIE was last in.