Neo provides this morning’s mental exercise in the FT.
On my first read-through I answered a few across and a few down clues, but I hit a bit of a wall, so had my morning coffee, and on my return, the rest of the grid filled quite nicely. Parsing took longer than solving in some instances, eg ELF.
Generally, the clues are fair and the surfaces sound, although I think that the clue for AGENT ORANGE needs a dash after “weapon”.
I didn’t like the homophone at 16dn, as John Buchan would certainly have pronounced the CH as a velar fricative, not a hard C, but then maybe I’m biased, being a Scot myself. I don’t eat nuts, but thought that the nutshell was what was hard to crack, so I don’t think 4dn works either, but happy to be corrected.
Thanks, Neo.
| Across | ||
| 1 | FRONT LINE | Top rank in most advanced military units (5,4) |
| FRONT (“top”) + LINE (“rank”) | ||
| 6 | PACED | Maestro in Palladium set tempo (5) |
| ACE (“maestro”) in Pd (chemical symbol for “palladium”) | ||
| 9 | NICOSIA | Ionic as translated reveals historic location (7) |
| *(ionic as) | ||
| 10 | FAUX PAS | Enemy broadcast old man’s blunder (4,3) |
| Homophone of FOE (“enemy” broadcast) + PA’S (“old man’s”) | ||
| 11 | LOUSE | Leonardo’s outside to exploit rotter (5) |
| L(eonard)O [outside] + USE (“to exploit”) | ||
| 12 | ULAN BATOR | Jerk ran about investing money for capital (4,5) |
| *(ran about) investing L (£, so “money”) | ||
| 14 | CUE | Handle finally attached to copper pot with this (3) |
| (handl)E [finally] attached to Cu (chemical symbol for “copper’) | ||
| 15 | EASTER BUNNY | Folkloric figure relaxed to catch bird eating cake (6,5) |
| EASY (“relaxed”) to catch TERN (“bird”) eating BUN (“cake”), so EAS(TER(BUN)N)Y | ||
| 17 | EUROSCEPTIC | Whose reservations on the continent may be confirmed (11) |
| Barely disguised cryptic definition | ||
| 19 | CUR | Coward taking short cut (3) |
| CUR(t) (“short” cut) | ||
| 20 | POTBOILER | River worker penning book – one that shows little merit (9) |
| PO (“river”) + TOILER (“worker”) penning B (book) | ||
| 22 | AVAIL | Use excellent line with King James Bible (5) |
| Ai (“excellent) + L (line) with AV (Authorised Version = “King James Bible”) | ||
| 24 | TOCCATA | Feline in mangy coat gives touching display (7) |
| CAT (“feline”) in *(coat) |
||
| 26 | NEEDLES | Unnecessary loss of one point irritates (7) |
| NEEDLES(s) (“unncecessary” with loss of S (“one point” of the compass)) | ||
| 27 | ARENA | District to accommodate new stadium (5) |
| AREA (“district”) to accommodate N (new) | ||
| 28 | CLEARANCE | Green light in spare room (9) |
| Double definition; for the second, think “room to spare” | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | FINAL | Decisive force in Argyll vacated (5) |
| F (force) IN A(rgyl)L [vacated] | ||
| 2 | OCCLUDE | Obstruct commander and law lord entering church (7) |
| OC (Officer in Command, so “commander”) + LUD (“lord” in law (think m’lud)) entering CE (“Church” of England).
|
||
| 3 | TASTELESS | Bland column suppressed by news agency (9) |
| STELE (“column”) suppressed by TASS (Soviet “news agency”) | ||
| 4 | IN A NUTSHELL | Something hard to crack here to be concise (2,1,8) |
| Double definition, although isn’t it the nutshell that’s hard to crack rather than what’s in it? | ||
| 5 | ELF | Mischievous being lines up female (3) |
| EL (elevated railway, so “lines up”) + F (female) | ||
| 6 | PLUMB | Dead plant gone missing (5) |
| PLUMB(ago) (“plant” with AGO (“gone”) missing) | ||
| 7 | CAPSTAN | Turner eclipses Brown (7) |
| CAPS (“eclipses”) + TAN (“brown”) | ||
| 8 | DESTROYER | Vandal sacked city in endless wasteland (9) |
| TROY (“sacked city”) in DESER(t) (endless “wasteland”) | ||
| 13 | AGENT ORANGE | Weapon one with power to act on Royal house (5,6) |
| AGENT (“one with power to act”) on ORANGE (“Royal house”)
Agent Orange is a herbicide, used to defoliate forests to so that enemy fighters can’t use them for shelter, but its side effects cause illness to humans, so it could be considered a weapon. |
||
| 14 | CLEOPATRA | Damaged pectoral area does for tragic royal (9) |
| *(pectoral) + A (area) | ||
| 16 | BUCCANEER | Pirate thriller writer discussed always (9) |
| Homophone of (John) BUCHAN (“thriller writer” discussed) + E’ER (“always”)
BUCHAN and BUCCAN are not homophones, though, as Buchan was Scottish and therefore the “ch” is pronounced as in “loch”. |
||
| 18 | RETICLE | Heretic left to pen lines for reference (7) |
| Hidden in “heRETIC LEft” | ||
| 19 | CHAPLIN | Clown takes place in company (7) |
| Pl. (place) in CHAIN (“company”) | ||
| 21 | OSAKA | Extremely obvious alias used in Honshu port (5) |
| [extremely] O(bviou)S + A.K.A. (also known as = “alias”) | ||
| 23 | LISLE | Fine fabric in transport leaving Cumbrian town (5) |
| (car)LISLE (“Cumbrian town” with CAR (“transport”) leaving) | ||
| 25 | ARC | Electrical discharge from Joan’s place (3) |
| Double definition | ||
*anagram
A bit of a mixed bag for me. Did like the surface for 14a (CUE).
Didn’t mind IN A NUTSHELL. I didn’t consider ‘in’ to refer to ‘inside’ but, say, ‘concerned with’.
Ones I didn’t care for include: FRONT LINE where the cryptic bit is barely any different from the definition; EUROSCEPTIC (barely cryptic, as you say); NEEDLES (too much of a chestnut); and I wasn’t keen on ‘plumb’ for ‘dead’. Ok, ‘plumb on’ means ‘dead on’, but does that count?
Thanks to Neo and loonapick.
Just thought – seem to remember people saying, for example, “I’m plumb/dead tired”, so I guess 6d is ok. My Collins says this is chiefly US usage.
Not too difficult, but a few unknowns such as RETICLE and the STELE bit of 3d kept me thinking. Maybe 4d was a bit imprecise, but I wasn’t too fussed. My sloppy pronunciation doesn’t include a Scottish “ch”, so the 16d homophone passed by without a thought. PLUMB for ‘dead’ seems OK to me.
My favourite clue was for was CLEOPATRA. It almost qualifies as an &lit given the circumstances of her death.
Thanks to Neo and loonapick
Thanks to Neo and loonapick. I enjoyed this one, partly because for a change I parsed just about everything (I missed the “lud” in OCCLUDE). RETICLE, my LOI, was new to me (and to my spell-checker).
Loved it
FOI NICOSIA, LOI PACED. FT crosswords have been harder than usual in the last three days, IMO.
Thanks all, esp for guidance on Scots Buchans. Homophones are a bit of a minefield for compilers, as you may have noticed.
Can I defend my IN A NUTSHELL clue? First def is ‘something hard to crack here‘, so what’s ‘hard to crack’ (the nut) is ‘here’ (i.e. in a nutshell).
Many thanks to loona at al.
Thanks Neo and loonapick
Late to do this one and found it the third puzzle on the tougher side for the week. Strangely enough was right on the wave length with ELF, being the second one in (and the US elevated railway close to top of mind).
Knew that I was looking for the capital of Mongolia at 12a after getting the U, but can never remember what it is without looking it up – and notice that it is properly known as “Ulaanbaatar”.
Did like FAUX PAS. The last few in were AGENT ORANGE (surprised to see it referred to as a weapon – just knew it as the odious herbicide that caused all sorts of deformities in babies afterwards), CLEARANCE (took a while to see the ‘spare room’ bit of it) and the cleverly constructed POTBOILER as the last one in.
This was ok, apart from 6, 18, & 19, which were hopelessly poor.