Prize puzzle from the Weekend FT of June 8, 2019
There are a good few delicious clues but also a couple of obscure words in our latest from Rosa. My favourite is 1dn (STATIC) which was also my first-in. I found other tasty dishes in 24ac (ASIA MINOR), 3dn (MORNING SICKNESS) for its cryptic definition, 6dn (CARDINAL NUMBERS) and 9dn (OMANIS) for its suggestive surface.
Two new words to me appeared at 23dn (EPODE) and 28ac (PEASANTY) which at least was guessable. Thank you, Rosa.
| Across | ||
| 1 | SCRAMBLE | Jockey beat it black and blue on regular basis (8) |
| SCRAM (beat it) + B (black) + [b]L[u]E | ||
| 5 | SCARAB | Driverless car about to run over beetle (6) |
| Hidden word (to run over) | ||
| 10 | ANGER | Hack off and remove casing of sausages (5) |
| B[anger]S (remove casing of sausages) | ||
| 11 | TOMORROWS | Queen’s mate is sad to lose head in days to come (9) |
| TOM (queen’s mate) + [s]ORROWS (is sad to lose head) | ||
| 12 | INTUITION | Suspicion of home schooling (9) |
| IN (home) + TUITION (schooling) | ||
| 13 | INTER | Plant 15 back to front on island (5) |
| I (island) + TERN (15, i.e. seabird) with the ‘N’ moved up front | ||
| 14 | DINGLE | Hollow noise ultimately making girl apprehensive (6) |
| DIN (noise) + [makin]G [gir]L [apprehensiv]E. A dingle is a small wooded hollow. | ||
| 15 | SEABIRD | Gull perhaps burst airbeds (7) |
| Anagram (burst) of AIRBEDS | ||
| 18 | ANGLING | Pointing at Nigel, oddly popular and grand (7) |
| A[t] N[i]G[e]L + IN (popular) + G (grand) | ||
| 20 | TONGUE | Chinese society content to shun ukulele and mouth organ (6) |
| TONG (Chinese society) + U[kelel]E. With a cryptic definition. | ||
| 22 | DRECK | Rubbish pile round back of boozer (5) |
| [booze]R in (round) DECK (pile) | ||
| 24 | ASIA MINOR | Confusingly, Romania is part of Turkey (4,5) |
| Anagram (confusingly) of ROMANIA IS | ||
| 25 | BROKE RANK | Penniless lush stepped out of line (5,4) |
| BROKE (penniless) + RANK (lush) | ||
| 26 | ENDED | Over time deserts moved in particular direction (5) |
| [t]ENDED (moved in particular direction, time deserts) | ||
| 27 | EVEN SO | Still huge and certainly not shrinking, seen from behind (4,2) |
| OS (huge) + NEVE[r] (certainly not shrinking) all backwards (seen from behind) | ||
| 28 | PEASANTY | Sally scrubbing hands like a yokel (8) |
| P[l]EASANT[r]Y (sally scrubbing hands). ‘Peasanty’ is a new word to me | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | STATIC | Changeless Jacques Tati clowning around (6) |
| Hidden word (around). As a fan of Jacques Tati, I was delighted by this clue. However, in a comment (see below), Sil states that the way Rosa uses ‘around’ does not work and I see his point. | ||
| 2 | RIGHT-WING | Wife stops correcting Conservative (5-4) |
| W (wife) in (stops) RIGHTING (correcting) | ||
| 3 | MORNING SICKNESS | Congress in Minsk unfortunately expecting trouble (7,8) |
| Anagram (unfortunately) of CONGRESS IN MINSK with a fine cryptic definition | ||
| 4 | LATTICE | Tactile drunk crossed bars (7) |
| Anagram (drunk) of TACTILE | ||
| 6 | CARDINAL NUMBERS | Figures showing how many anaesthetists in the Vatican? (8,7) |
| Double/cryptic definition | ||
| 7 | ROOST | Bounder gutting succulent fowls (5) |
| ROO (bounder) + S[ucculen]T | ||
| 8 | BESTRIDE | Have a leg either side of top fairground attraction (8) |
| BEST (top) + RIDE (fairground attraction) | ||
| 9 | OMANIS | Sultan’s citizens philander, regardless of restrictions (6) |
| WOMANISE (philander) with the first and last letters removed (regardless of restricitions) | ||
| 16 | IGUANODON | Dinosaur dung collected by institute’s top academic (9) |
| I[nstitute] +GUANO (dung) + DON (top academic) | ||
| 17 | LAUDABLE | Praiseworthy measure set up to conserve goldfish (8) |
| AU (gold…) + DAB (…fish) together in (to conserve) ELL (measure) backwards | ||
| 19 | GHAZAL | Eastern poem is good way to escape chance onset of lassitude (6) |
| G (good) + HAZA[rd] (way to escape chance) + L[assitude]. A ghazel (or ghazal) is an Arabic lyric poem that starts with a rhyming couplet whose rhyme is repeated in all even lines and which is especially common in Persian literature. I had come across this word before but did not manage to dredge it up when I needed it and resorted to using a pattern-matching tool to solve this clue. | ||
| 20 | TWINKLE | Wee nurses with gleam in eye (7) |
| W (with) in (nurses) TINKLE (wee) | ||
| 21 | ARIDLY | After vacation, angular invalid lay lifelessly (6) |
| A[ngula]R I[nvali]D L[a]Y | ||
| 23 | EPODE | Use dope after last of cocaine lines (5) |
| [cocain]E + anagram (use) of DOPE. An epode is a lyric poem in which a long verse is followed by a shorter one. And it is a new word to me. | ||
How funny.
This was as ever an altogether splendid crossword but your favourite, Pete, is the only one I didn’t like very much. That is because, for me, the way RK uses ‘around’ doesn’t work.
My favourite? 6d.
Many thanks to Pete & Rosa Klebb.
Thanks Rosa Klebb and Pete
Found this one fiendishly hard, having to park it numerous times as I came to dead ends. Knew the word EPODE, but didn’t really know what sort of poem that it was and had never heard of the GHAZAL one (and like Pete, only discovered it through a word finder and hopefully remember it for the next time that it might surface). ‘Hack off’ to ANGER was a new term for me as well.
I did like the well disguised definitions such as ‘lush’ for RANK, ‘plant’ for INTER, ‘queen’s mate’ for toM and ‘expecting trouble’ for MORNING SICKNESS (especially with an &lit interpretation of where it could have all started … oh, those Russian girls ! 🙂 ).
Finished down in the left hand side with DINGLE, DRECK and that GHAZAL the last few in. Agree with Sil regarding 6d as my equal top pick along with 3d.
Sil, Thank you. I see your point about ‘around’ in 1 down.
Bruce, I am not sure that I have come across ‘hack off’ used to mean ‘anger’ before but it somehow seemed plausible.
Thanks to Rosa Kleb and Pete. GHAZAL defeated me. I did know EPODE, but I struggled with DINGLE and PEASANTY (even with all the crossers). “Hack off” as anger does appear in various online dictionaries. My favorite was MORNING SICKNESS.
Thanks Rosa & Pete.
Setters seem to like Iguanodons — Aardvark had one yesterday.
Enjoyed this puzzle. But can’t see why deck = pile
Thanks to Rosa & Pete
pommette, Thank you for commenting and for your question. Which is a good one! I neglected to mention this but I actually wondered myself how ‘pile’ was qualified to clue DECK. It seemed vaguely plausible and now I have consulted a thesaurus which confirms that it works. Specifically it ties ‘pile’ to ‘deck’ in the sense of a pack, group or bunch along with band and set.
I also wondered about exactly what ‘deck’ means in the expression “a deck of playing cards”. I had always had the strong sense that it means a complete set of 52 rather than just a pile of cards and my dictionary confirms this.