Prize puzzle from the Weekend FT of 22 June, 2019
As usual with Redshank this puzzle took me some time and several sessions to complete but was also rewarding. In several cases, I found an answer fairly easily from a definition but took ages to make sense of the wordplay, most notably in 5dn and 21dn.
My clue of the week is the fine &Lit. of 10dn (FOLIES BERGERE) and I also like 16dn (EYESIGHT). Thank you, Redshank.
| Across | ||
| 1 | RELISH | Look forward to dressing (6) |
| Double definition | ||
| 4 | APPROACH | Speak to a priest on behalf of a church (8) |
| A (a) + P (priest) + PRO (on behalf of) + A (a) + CH (church) | ||
| 9 | MORON | Idiot runs show behind screens (5) |
| R (runs) in (screens) MOON (show behind) | ||
| 10 | FLIP A COIN | How to decide what whistle-blowers do first (4,1,4) |
| Double definition with the second being deeply obscured. Redshank is referring to the whistle-blower in the sense of the referee of football match, not a reporter of illegal activity. | ||
| 11 | TINFOIL | Food wrapper can be frustrating (7) |
| TIN (can) + FOIL (be frustrating) | ||
| 12 | ESTUARY | English house, unfinished, close to Mersey’s mouth (7) |
| E (English) + STUAR[t] (house, unfinished) + [Merse]Y | ||
| 13 | EARL | House member almost out of bounds (4) |
| [n]EARL[y] (almost out of bounds) | ||
| 14 | PEDIGREE | Poke about in wee family tree (8) |
| DIG (poke) + RE (about) together in PEE (wee) | ||
| 17 | HAUTBOIS | Play about with his old instrument (8) |
| Anagram (play) of ABOUT HIS. An hautbois is a woodwind with a double-reed mouthpiece. And hautbois became anglicized to ‘oboe’ as I was reminded by Custard (see comments). | ||
| 19 | OBEY | Carry out gong followed by Yankee (4) |
| OBE (gong) + Y (yankee) | ||
| 22 | MATURER | More or less green? (7) |
| Double definition | ||
| 24 | TRELLIS | Rose clambers over this river in Brief Lives (7) |
| R (river) in TELL (brief) + IS (lives) | ||
| 25 | DE RIGUEUR | Obligatory EU guide revised with rights (2,7) |
| Anagram (revised) of EU GUIDE RR | ||
| 26 | SWING | Wangle carpenter’s job without one (5) |
| S[a]WING (carpenter’s job without one) | ||
| 27 | ENTITLED | Qualified, being short and light (8) |
| ENTIT[y] (being short) + LED (light) | ||
| 28 | UPSHOT | Outcome of lob? (6) |
| Double definition. We have seen this clue before in Dogberry’s FT 15,228 as “Consequence of lob? (6)” | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | REMITTED | Sent hamper up to house with German (8) |
| MIT (with German) in (to house) DETER (hamper) backwards (up) | ||
| 2 | LORD NORTH | Old 5, reluctant to enlist regularly prudent men (4,5) |
| [p]R[u]D[e]N[t] + OR (men, as in Other Ranks) together in LOTH (reluctant) with the definition referring to 5 down (PRIME MINISTER). Frederick North, 2nd Earl of Guilford, better known by his courtesy title Lord North, was Prime Minister of Great Britain from 1770 to 1782. | ||
| 3 | SUN GOD | RA to study wildebeest heading north (3,3) |
| DO (study) + GNUS (wildebeest) all backwards (heading north) | ||
| 5 | PRIME MINISTER | Brief address of surgeon sent round in May (5,8) |
| PRIME (brief) + IN (in) in (sent around) MISTER (address of surgeon). I do not know if it is true in other parts of the world but, in the U.K., male surgeons are addressed as “mister”, not “doctor”. Similarly female surgeons are addressed as Mrs/Ms. | ||
| 6 | REACTOR | Organise race to run power supplier (7) |
| Anagram (organise) of RACE TO + R (run) | ||
| 7 | AGORA | Place for meetings held by Pythagoras (5) |
| Hidden word | ||
| 8 | HENRY V | Play Hearts, very nervous about end of season (5,1) |
| H (hearts) + [seaso]N in (about) anagram (nervous) of VERY | ||
| 10 | FOLIES BERGERE | Ogle briefs abroad ‘ere? (6,7) |
| Anagram (abroad) of OGLE BRIEFS + ERE (ere). This is a most elegant &Lit. | ||
| 15 | EMBELLISH | Large space beside ring is hard to improve (9) |
| EM (large space) + BELL (ring) + IS (is) + H (hard) | ||
| 16 | EYESIGHT | Sense order on parade ground right away (8) |
| EYES [r]IGHT (order on parade ground, right away) | ||
| 18 | UPRIGHT | Support Joanna (7) |
| Double definition with the second one referring to the Cockney rhyming slang for ‘piano’ | ||
| 20 | SMUDGE | Second slander, say, upset Mark (6) |
| S (second) + MUD (slander) + EG (say) backwards (upset) | ||
| 21 | MESS UP | More or less face mounting ruin (4,2) |
| M[or]E + PUSS (face) backwards (mounting). I gather that the ‘face’ meaning of ‘puss’ is not widely known in Britain except possibly in the case of ‘sourpuss’. It originated, I understand, in Irish English and the Irish spread it to America. As a long-time U.S. resident, I am familiar with it but it still took me a while to spot its use in this clue. | ||
| 23 | TAROT | To some extent dealt a rotten card (5) |
| Hidden word | ||
Thanks Pete and Redshank .
It took several sittings. Didn’t know 10d, even though I figured it to be an anagram. Thanks for parsing MESS UP. Great challenge…enjoyable.
Thank you Redshank and Pete.
I found this hard-going too. I smiled at 5 down as I knew that you were long resident in the States and that North was the PM who gave America away. I remember reading long ago Adam Smith’s solution to the problem which was that the seat of government should be in the country in the Empire which paid the largest taxes. He whought that would be America by the end of the nineteenth century. It amuses me today to think of what the Brexiters would have made of that.
Thanks Pete for the parsing of most of the clues. Managed some but had very little idea of how! Puss in 21down never heard of .
Thanks very much Pete. I couldn’t parse the PUSS, and it took me about a week to hit on 10d.
In 9ac, you can include “show” in the clue for MOON
17 ac – and this is, of course, where that odd word ‘oboe’ comes from. My education for the day! (not counting researching the history of the Folies)
Thanks to Pete and Redshank
A superb puzzle.
I think there may be a couple of typos in the blog – 9a MOON = SHOW BEHIND, 17a OLD is part of the definition rather than the anagram.
The only parsing I’m not really sure about is MORE for MATURER in 22a. I can’t think where they might be interchangeable so I went ( not confidently but encourage by the ? ), with a maturer piece of cheese for example being green with mould.
ps an Earl is now probably not a member of the House of Lords.
Custard, Thank you for pointing out how hautbois became ‘oboe’.
Dansar, I messed up the explanation of 17 and have now corrected it. Thanks. I also wondered about MORE and MATURER and think you have produced the best explanation. Thank you again.
Two comments suggest that I have the parsing of 7 across (MORON) wrong. But I fail to understand them and my parsing still seems sound to me.
Now I see where I went wrong with 7 across and have corrected the explanation. Sorry about that.
Thanks Redshank and Pete
Was able to sit down last Saturday and get this out in the single session that nearly used up an hour. Found it reasonably straightforward for a start but it quickly slowed up with a number of clues, such as FOLIES BERGERE and HAUTBOIS, taking a while to write in the answer at all and plenty that needed to be thought through for a bit to work out why.
Struggled with both ‘more or less’ clues – thought that the MESS UP was very clever, although had to check the PUSS=face definition but the other one left me a little cold – assumed that it was some reference to someone who from a climate change perspective could be considered to me maturer or ‘more greener’ – but it’s very tenuous. They were among my last in.
Bruce @9 – a maturer garden would be a more established one, with more greenery, while a maturer person would be less green/inexperienced