Alberich provides this morning’s FT puzzle.
A straightforward puzzle from Alberich with only a little general knowledge required an no particularly difficult vocabulary to contend with.
Thanks, Alberich.
| Across | ||
| 1 | MAJESTIC | Scotsman restricts fun one August (8) |
| MAC (“Scotsman”) restricts JEST (“fun”) + I (“one”) | ||
| 6 | INDENT | I study boring books to impress (6) |
| I + DEN (“study”) boring NT (New Testament, so “books”) | ||
| 9 | EVADER | One who avoids commercial breaks always (6) |
| AD (“commercial”) breaks EVER (“always”) | ||
| 10 | LEINSTER | Irish province’s city requiring name for church (8) |
| LEI(ce>N)STER (“city” with N (name) for CE (church (of England)) | ||
| 11 | IRREVERENT | Tail of golden retriever wags – that’s cheeky (10) |
| *(n retriever) where N is [tail of] (golde)N | ||
| 12 | IVES | Composer is left out (4) |
| (l)IVES (“is” with L (left) out)
Refers to Charles Ives(1874-1954), an American composer |
||
| 13 | MILLET | Grain, or what you may do with grain, we hear? (6) |
| Homophone of MILL IT (“what you may do with grain” [we hear]) | ||
| 15 | ANTELOPE | Animal is bound to stake first (8) |
| LOPE (“bound”) with ANTE (“stake”) first | ||
| 18 | SYMBOLIC | Representative thus embraces Chuck with my backing (8) |
| SIC (“thus”) embraces (<=LOB (“chuck”) with <=MY) [backing] | ||
| 20 | ERRANT | Rambling tirade by monarch (6) |
| RANT (“tirade”) by ER (“monarch”) | ||
| 21 | SPAR | Boom box (4) |
| Double definition | ||
| 23 | SEERSUCKER | Visionary – gullible sort providing material (10) |
| SEER (“visionary”) + SUCKER (“gullible sort”) | ||
| 25 | RUDIMENT | Essential money to feed diminutive sort (8) |
| DIME (“money”) to feed RUNT (“diminutive sort”) | ||
| 26 | REPUTE | Name Peter Ustinov’s first novel (6) |
| *(peter u) where U is U(stinov) [‘s first] | ||
| 27 | CHEESE | Children learn about East Cheshire? (6) |
| CH (children) + <=SEE (“learn” about) + E (east) | ||
| 28 | NOWADAYS | No manners? That includes lawyer at present (8) |
| NO WAYS (“manners”) includes DA (District Attorney, so “lawyer”) | ||
| Down | ||
| 2 | ADVERSITY | Misfortune truly besets model after a day (9) |
| VERY (“truly”) besets SIT (“model”) after A D (day) | ||
| 3 | ENDUE | Supply has to last, right away (5) |
| ENDU(r)E (“to last” R (right) away) | ||
| 4 | TORMENTIL | Plague emptied industrial plant (9) |
| TORMENT (“plague”) + [emptied] I(ndustria)L Tormentil is a plant with yellow flowers used for dyeing | ||
| 5 | CALDERA | Tree planted in centre of volcanic crater (7) |
| ALDER (“tree”) planted in [centre of] (vol)CA(nic) | ||
| 6 | IDIOT | Nana’s rheumatoid infection partly returned (5) |
| Hidden backwards in “rheumaTOID Infection” [partly returned] | ||
| 7 | DISTILLER | One makes spirits calm in the middle of rough ride (9) |
| STILL (“calm”) in the middle of *(ride) | ||
| 8 | NIECE | Fine clothes top of expenses for family member (5) |
| NICE (“fine”) clothes [top of] E(xpenses) | ||
| 14 | LIBERTINE | Rake it in, working with rebel (9) |
| *(it in rebel) | ||
| 16 | TREE SHREW | Animal breeders regularly entering shed (4,5) |
| (b)R(e)E(d)E(r)S [regularly] entering THREW (“shed”) | ||
| 17 | PUNGENTLY | Make jokes amiably or sarcastically? (9) |
| PUN (“make jokes”) + GENTLY (“amiably”) | ||
| 19 | CHEAT ON | Two-time, filled by passion? (5,2) |
| CON (“two-time”) filled by HEAT (“passion”) and &lit. | ||
| 22 | PLUSH | Opulent prince gets drunk (5) |
| P (prince) gets LUSH (“drunk”) | ||
| 23 | SUEDE | Kid had influence, so they say (5) |
| Homophone of SWAYED (“had influence” [so they say]) | ||
| 24 | CUPID | Police must restrain excited boy with bow (5) |
| CID (Criminal Investigation Department, so “police”) must restrain UP (“excited”) | ||
*anagram
A fairly gentle solve from Alberich today. CALDERA, LEINSTER & TORMENTIL were all new words for me.
Was anybody else, like me, convinced that 20a was an anagram of “tirade” until they got the crosser at 17d?
Thanks to Alberich and loonapick.
Thanks for the blog, loonapick.
A lovely puzzle, which I really enjoyed. Favourites: IRREVERENCE, PUNGENTLY, CUPID, LEINSTER – a neat device with a nod to my home city – and REPUTE, a little gem.
Many thanks to Alberich.
[Niltac @1 yes, for a minute or two – intended, of course!]
Although I got TORMENTIL from the clue, I have to admit (as a Fellow of the Society of Dyers and Colorists) I had never heard of it! Niantic @ 1, I too).
Thanks Alberich and loonapick
What Eileen said apart from not thinking about the possible tirade anagram
Thanks to Alberich and loonapick
Thanks to Alberich and loonapick. Great fun. I got off to a slow start (including a vain attempt to get an anagram out of tirade), had to look up TORMENTIL after I parsed it, and wasn’t certain that nana = IDIOT.
A lovely puzzle as always from this setter. Yes, me too with tirade. I double ticked the same clues as Eileen and particularly liked REPUTE as I kept trying to make it RUPERT (my grandson) and wondering how to get another R. It was a dnf as I didn’t get IVES although I now remember he’s come up before and I failed then as well. One to store away. Many thanks to Alberich and loonapick.
Thanks to loonapick and Alberich
Excellent, but I was a little disappointed by the redundant HAS in 3d and MUST in 24d.
I also don’t like GETS as used in 22d, but it seems to be standard usage now.
@Dansar MUST, or a similar modal verb, is necessary because POLICE/CID is a singular entity and the cryptic grammar would otherwise require “police restrains” which makes the literal reading nonsense. If you’ve read Ximenes you’ll know that this is similar to the “I am” syndrome e.g. “I am in the plan” for PLAIN where “I is” is necessary for the cryptic grammar.
HAS can mean “consists of” (a deck of cards has four suits) and GETS fairly commonly means “arrives at” or “produces”.
Hope this helps.
Thank you cruciverbophile, but I still don’t quite get it.
I did consider leaving my comment as simply “excellent” because it is clear how much effort this setter puts into making both surface and cryptic elements work, but I am genuinely puzzled by the points I mention:
When it is clear that an entity consists of more than one person, then I wouldn’t object to being asked to infer the third person plural e.g “England restrict India to 150”, so “CID restrain excited boy” would work for me, though I concede it’s not strictly correct. The addition of MUST tells us that the police ought to restrain, not that they actually do so.
I don’t want to teach my granny to suck eggs but for 2d perhaps SUPPLY LAST TAKE AWAY
GET has many meanings, some young people even think it means “give you money in exchange for”, but I’ve not been able to come up with one that means NEXT TO, ATTACHED TO, or similar. I’ll keep thinking.
In the PRODUCES sense we might have had:
Half of me wanted to get priest drunk
Dansar – Apologies concerning GETS, I failed to spot that in this case it acts a a link between wordplay elements rather than between wordplay and definition. My bad, but it still works in the sense of “acquires” e.g. the train gets another carriage, another carriage is joined to the train. There are probably much better examples than that.
The issue of singular vs plural has been debated here many times before. In a literal sense “England restrict” or “England restricts” are both fine depending on context. But in a cryptic grammar sense, with reference to 2 down, it is the word for POLICE which restricts, not the boys and girls in blue themselves, which is why the verb needs to be singular. “Police restricts” doesn’t make sense literally so as I said before, the way round it is to use constructions like the one here. CID should/must contain UP to get the answer so it works.
You’re right of course, GET can mean ACQUIRE, but for me that puts the drunk inside the priest, rather than hanging off the end of him. I may be overthinking it. I’m certainly going to try.
Yes, it’s easy to overthink these things; I’m guilty of it too at times. Quite a few decent clues don’t stand up to close analysis if you really delve into them. It’s always interesting to discuss these things though!
Thanks Alberich and loonapick
Very late to the party with this one which I found quite a bit easier than normal for this setter, apart from a few new terms for me – TORMENTIL and NANA (for idiot) with only vague recollections of CALDERA. Initially was thinking of Burl IVES at 12 until looking him up and then more correctly finding Charles.
For some reason was straight on to ERRANT with only the R in – funny how the mind works – most times would also have gone down the errant ‘tirade’ anagram path.
INDENT was first in with SEERSUCKER the last.