Prize puzzle from the Weekend FT of July 6, 2019
While as fine as ever, this puzzle departs a little from Rosa’s typical fare with an unusual construction in 18ac (TETRAMETER), little-known terms in 25ac (MULLERED) and 16dn (STRADDLE), and challenging wordplay in 24ac (IODINE). My favourite clue is 1dn (HIDING) and I also especially like 14ac (FAIRY TALES) and 19dn (WALLOP). Thank you, Rosa.
| Across | ||
| 1 | HARD COPY | Printout from PC perhaps accepted by novelist (4,4) |
| COP (PC perhaps) in (accepted by) HARDY (novelist) | ||
| 5 | BAD EGG | Wished to knock stuffing out of grinning reprobate (3,3) |
| BADE (wished) + G[rinnin]G | ||
| 9 | DUTCH CAP | Londoner’s wife with better way of avoiding issue (5,3) |
| DUTCH (Londoner’s wife) + CAP (better, as a verb). A dutch cap is a kind of cervical diaphragm that serves as a method of birth control. Not that I knew this; I had to look it up. ‘Dutch’ for Londoner’s wife derives from Cockney rhyming slang (“Duchess of Fife”). | ||
| 10 | GLUTEI | Contractors put cement around front of traffic island (6) |
| T[raffic] in (around) GLUE (cement) + I (island) | ||
| 11 | NOTARIES | Satire on corrupt public officials (8) |
| Anagram (corrupt) of SATIRE ON | ||
| 12 | NEURON | Northern EU citizen lacking pulse in cell (6) |
| N (northern) + EURO[pea]N (EU citizen lacking pulse) | ||
| 14 | FAIRY TALES | Lies and falsity are shocking (5,5) |
| Anagram (shocking) of FALSITY ARE | ||
| 18 | TETRAMETER | Move unsteadily across tramline (10) |
| TRAM (tram) in (across) TEETER (move unsteadily) | ||
| 22 | ORACLE | One forecasting old drivers will retire at last (6) |
| O (old) + RAC (drivers, i.e. Royal Automobile Club) + [wil]L [retir]E | ||
| 23 | SONATINA | A nation’s diverse composition (8) |
| Anagram (diverse) of A NATIONS | ||
| 24 | IODINE | I love to feed urges with fashionable drug (6) |
| O (love) in (to feed) ID (urges) + IN (fashionable) + E (drug). I is the chemical symbol for iodine. ‘Id’ can mean ‘primitive instincts and energies’. | ||
| 25 | MULLERED | Brahms and Liszt briefly studied wine (8) |
| MULLE[d] (briefly studied) + RED (wine). This gave me some trouble as I had never come across the term ‘mullered’ which turns out to be one of the many informal terms for ‘drunk’. The definition refers to ‘pissed’ in Cockney rhyming slang. | ||
| 26 | ELEVEN | Prime the French to don uniform (6) |
| LE (the French) in (to don) EVEN (uniform) | ||
| 27 | DEEP-LAID | Secretly devised tartan behind backs of antiquated Dundee elite (4-4) |
| [antiquate]D [dunde]E [elit]E + PLAID (tartan) | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | HIDING | Concealing orchid in gardening trousers (6) |
| Hidden word!!! | ||
| 2 | ROTATE | Alternate cobblers saw them alternately (6) |
| ROT (cobblers) + [s]A[w] T[h]E[m] | ||
| 3 | COHERE | Company man about to be consistent (6) |
| CO (company) + HE (man) + RE (about) | ||
| 4 | PEACEMAKER | Hearing gun manufacturer is anti-war activist (10) |
| Homophone of “piece maker” (gun manufacturer) | ||
| 6 | AILMENTS | Complaints bother Stalin and me (8) |
| Anagram (bother) of STALIN ME | ||
| 7 | ENTIRELY | Thoroughly scrubbing edges of men’s lavatory, one trusts (8) |
| [g]ENT[s] (scrubbing edges of men’s lavatory) + I RELY (one trusts). Do I have this right? One might well say, for example, “One trusts that he is telling the truth” when really meaning “I trust that he is telling the truth” but I find it awkward because, as a usage note in Collins’ dictionary states, ‘rely’ is normally used only in conjunction with ‘on’ or ‘upon’ and that is missing here. | ||
| 8 | GLIBNESS | Gift of the gab is mixed blessing (8) |
| Anagram (mixed) of BLESSING | ||
| 13 | IRRESOLUTE | Indecisive Tories rule unstably (10) |
| Anagram (unstably) of TORIES RULE | ||
| 15 | ATROPINE | Actors oddly suppose this is poisonous (8) |
| A[c]T[o]R[s] + OPINE (suppose) | ||
| 16 | STRADDLE | Turn red, stumped by rising stock transaction (8) |
| ST (stumped by) + RADDLE (turn red). I was unaware of this meaning of STRADDLE which one dictionary defines as: The option to buy or sell a given stock or stock index or commodity future at a given price before a given date consists of an equal number of put and call options. | ||
| 17 | PARLANCE | Average weapon, in a manner of speaking (8) |
| PAR (average) + LANCE (weapon) | ||
| 19 | WALLOP | Permit cycling on policeman’s original beat (6) |
| ALLOW (permit) shifted one character circularly (cycling) + P[oliceman] | ||
| 20 | SIERRA | Chain of supermarkets in Egypt runs regular adverts at first (6) |
| S[upermarkets] I[n] E[gypt] R[uns] R[egular] A[dverts] | ||
| 21 | CANDID | Open prison completed (6) |
| CAN (prison) + DID (completed) | ||
This was the most difficult Rosa Klebb puzzle I’ve done. I missed TETRAMETER, MULLERED and STRADDLE and only half-parsed ENTIRELY, for which your explanation (‘One trusts’ = ‘I trust’) sounds correct – I wasn’t too fussed about the absence of ‘on’ or ‘upon’.
Favourites were the hidden HIDING, the old chestnut (but still fooled me for a while, especially with the tricky wordplay) I for IODINE and the association of ‘policeman’ (walloper) with WALLOP at 19d.
Thanks to Pete and Rosa Klebb
The parsing for GLUTEI is slightly wrong. It is GLUE around T(raffic) + I(sland).
When first reading 24a, I saw “I love to feed” as I + O (love) + DINE (to feed) but soon corrected myself. Also “urges” translates to ID rather than I’D (shades of Forbidden Planet).
I agree with your discussion on 7d and didn’t find it ‘entirely’ satisfying.
Needed a bit of help to get STRADDLE. Didn’t know the stock transaction meaning and don’t recall seeing RADDLE before either.
Thanks to Rosa Klebb and Pete.
I got iodine but couldn’t parse it so thanks for that.
I did get mullered: I recall ages ago you didn’t recognise “fu” as Scottish slang for drunk either Pete: you clearly lead a sober life?.
I’m not happy with straddle though I got the stock transaction meaning, but my dictionary doesn’t have “raddle” in it, and what is the word “rising” doing ?
Derek@3. I took the “rising” to refer the positioning of ST(umped) at the top of the down light.
I completed the puzzle but found the clueing not up to her usual standards. I knew “Dutch Cap” from a misspent youth and “straddle” as I am an accountant. In 7 down I thought “I trust” works better than “one trusts” and that “line” in 18 across though well-hidden was a little unfair.
I read “rising” in 16 down as going before “raddle” which I had to check was an alternative to “reddle”. I also had to check “mullered”. Rosa always seems to include at least one word that needs to be looked up.
Despite all that I enjoyed the puzzle and thank you both.
Hovis, Thank you for your two corrections. My messing up the explanation of GLUTEI was a mistake in writing the blog but my missing the significance of ID stemmed from my ignorance of the relevant meaning of the word.
> I recall ages ago you didn’t recognise “fu” as Scottish slang for drunk either Pete: you clearly lead a sober life?.
Derek, I have been drunk twice in my life, the latter time almost 40 years ago. So, yes, I guess I do lead a sober life.
I had come across ‘raddle’ before but was unaware of the ‘reddle’ variant.
Thanks Rosa and Pete
This felt like the Arachne of yore in the Guardian who I can remember serving up the occasional toughie like this – none the worse for it either I think. The surfaces as normal were silky smooth.
Didn’t see anything wrong with the lift and separate in ‘tramline’ – it’s a common device these days. Didn’t parse WALLOP properly- turning LAW (permit) and POL (as first part of ‘policeman’ – but no reversal indicator though). Also didn’t know that meaning of STRADDLE and had opted for being on a ‘stock’ horse.
Had NEURON as my favourite – tricked me for quite a while !
Finished with that STRADDLE and the previously unheard of MULLERED.
I liked NEURON too.
Thanks to Pete and Rosa Klebb
For the most part this was up to this setter’s consistently high standards, but I share the reservations expressed re 7d. I’ve tried to come up with a construction that works, but I failed.
16d is another I had difficulty with for two reasons:
I think that RISING only really works if ST is already present in the wordplay.
I was also thrown by the seemingly redundant use of BY, because I thought ST in cricket notation was simply STUMPED, Collins disagrees however and states that ST = STUMPED BY. This seems very odd – for B they have BOWLED, not BOWLED BY, and for C they have CAUGHT not CAUGHT BY.
BTW I am more familiar with REDDLE than RADDLE, by virtue of The Return of the Native by the novelist @ 1a
Dansar, Thank you so much for pointing that out about ST = STUMPED BY. It makes the clue more satisfactory.
Thanks, Pete, particularly for 18a which I thought was horribly tricky and couldn’t resolve. My problem with 7d is the tense – surely it should be ‘relies’ if it’s a synonym for ‘trusts’?
While I have seen adjoined definitions (as in 18a) before, I do not recall seeing one in a Rosa Klebb prior to this one. As Bruce notes, it is a technique that seems to be coming more common.
You raise a good point about 7d but I think the clue can be justified in this respect. If one views “one trusts” as two independent words to be played with then they would properly clue I RELIES. However if we treat “one trusts” as an expression, as I believe we are meant to do, then it can convert to I RELY.
There is still the issue that one trusts something/someone or trusts in something/someone but one relies on/upon something/someone. But maybe we are being too picky.
Re 16212 4(d), the Colt Peacemaker aka Equalizer was the most popular gun in the Wild West…
Ian, Thank you for commenting and for this nugget of information.
Didn’t get MULLERED. A slang term clued by argot = unfair. Rosa, retract your shoe-blade. Please.
Peter, Thank you for commenting. I tend to agree with you about the indirectness here. And I am getting a bit fed up with seemingly endless informal terms for ‘drunk’ turning up in these puzzles, most of which I do not know.