Non-prize, Easter-special puzzle from the Weekend FT of April 11, 2020
I was happy to find another crossword from Julius just two weeks after our last, and a special one at that to mark the bank-holiday weekend.
Julius provided the following instructions at the top:
RANDOM ALPHABETICAL
Solve the clues and fit the answers into the grid. Each letter
of the alphabet appears at least once at the beginning of the
grid entries.
So there were 28 clues to solve and then fit to a grid that, fortunately, had the first letter of each answer as a checked letter (bar two). Here is the finished grid:
My favourites are BOJANGLES, MONOSYLLABLE, DESIRABLE and SURREAL. Thanks to Julius and to Paul Drury whose software is so valuable in blogging puzzles like this one.
Here are the clues along with their answers in the same (random) order that they appeared in the paper:
Balt to fix up a television set inside (7)
LATVIAN – TV (television set) in (inside) NAIL (to fix) backwards (up)
Bullets, nitrogen, iodine, atomic gas (7)
AMMONIA – AMMO (bullets) + N (nitrogen) + I (iodine) + A (atomic)
Eat heartily in Australia, ruining tie…oh no! (3,4)
HOE INTO – anagram (ruining) of TIE OH NO. I was unfamiliar with this expression.
Quickly leave low flower container outside (7)
VAMOOSE – MOO (low) in (outside) VASE (flower container)
Conquer the wild west; resistance contained, tightened with this? (6,6)
TORQUE WRENCH – W (west) and R (resistance) in (contained) anagram (wild) of CONQUER THE
Wife featured in crude love letter (5)
VOWEL – W (wife) in (featured in) anagram (crude) of LOVE
German chap’s fine, luxury hotel (5)
F (fine) + RITZ (luxury hotel)
Actor and dancer Simpson wearing bracelets (9)
BOJANGLES – OJ (Simpson) in (wearing) BANGLES (bracelets)
Makeshift opener for England going in, looking fit (7)
INTERIM – E[ngland] in (going in) IN TRIM (looking fit)
Public school mate, about 13 or 15? (5,4)
RUGBY TEAM – RUGBY (public school) + anagram (about) of MATE. In Rugby League a team is usually 13 players and can be 15.
Crammed in like Jaffa cakes? (3-6)
JAM-PACKED – double definition. Jaffa cakes are a popular product in Britain. One consists of a round piece of sponge the size of a typical biscuit covered with jam or marmalade (usually orange) on one side and sealed with a thin coating of chocolate. I loved them as a boy.
Woman implicated in Tokyo Land affair (7)
YOLANDA – hidden word
Ten hour old son, a native of Africa (5)
XHOSA – X (ten) + H (hour) + O (old) + S (son) + A (a). The Xhosa people are an ethnic group in South Africa.
County failing to finish with a fifty. Bizarre (7)
SURREAL – SURRE[y] + A (a) + L (fifty)
Two pints? Let me see….25c? (7)
QUARTER – QUART (two pints) + ER (let me see)
New exchange-traded fund reportedly beats media services giant (7)
NETFLIX – N (new) + ETF (exchange-traded fund) + homophone (reportedly) of “licks” (beats)
Smart Alec/superbrain repelled everybody (4-3)
KNOW-ALL – WONK (superbrain) backwards (repelled) + ALL (everybody)
Understand we will shortly recover (3,4)
GET WELL – GET (understand) + WE’LL (we will shortly)
Regularly bleeds husband following £1 discount in price demanded by Venetian (5,2,5)
POUND OF FLESH – POUND (£1) + OFF (discount) + [b]L[e]E[d]S + H (husband)
In Paris one’s dining on ox tongue, finally left on the table (7)
UNEATEN – NEAT (ox) + [tongu]E together in (dining on) UN (in Paris one). ‘Neat’ is an archaic term for cattle that occasionally comes up in crosswords. A good word to remember.
Around November, Jack learned new weightlifting technique (5,3,4)
CLEAN AND JERK – anagram (around) of N JACK LEARNED
In Giza, I re-anointed a former African citizen (7)
ZAIREAN – hidden word
Asses/ordinary horses transporting The Queen (7)
O (ordinary) + ER (the Queen) in (transporting) NAGS (horses)
Fancied serial bedhopping? (9)
DESIRABLE – anagram (hopping) of SERIAL BED
Donne work viewed from the side? (3,2)
END ON – anagram (work) of DONNE. Really? Surely this defines ‘in profile’, not ‘end on’.
Notice Ying ducking the ace of hearts? (7)
PLACARD – PLA[ying] CARD (the ace of hearts? ducking ying)
Ban smelly loo product, eg Vim (12)
MONOSYLLABLE – anagram (product) of BAN SMELLY LOO. In the UK and some other countries, Vim is the name of a scouring-cleanser product.
Reclaim whisky kept behind the house in America (3,4)
WIN BACK – W (whisky) + IN-BACK (behind the house in America). “In-back” is a term I occasionally hear in the US. And I have to say that I hate it.
As a solver I am not very good at stand-alone clues.
Therefore, for me, the traditional alphabeticals (Araucaria, Maskarade) are often a bit of a struggle.
However, Julius’s style of clueing is so accessible that it got me well on the way.
The last time he wrote a puzzle like this that was the case, this time it was too.
Having 28 clues (instead of 26) is/was very helpful as well.
That said, it took me more than 15 clues before I confidently could enter some into the grid.
This was good, enjoyable and very satisfying.
And, as blogger-of-old Rightback used to say, Music of the Day ….
…. Mr Bojangles, Nitty Gritty Dirt Band.
Thanks Pete.
I remember solving this puzzle, but that’s about all. I remember enjoying it, but I’ve probably done about 40 puzzles since then. As there wasn’t a prize at stake, why the delay in posting this?
Loved it
Thanks for the blog, Pete.
I was initially rather daunted, as I hadn’t done this kind of alphabetical puzzle [without the initial letters] before but, once I realised that there were only 28 clues, therefore only one or two letters repeated and only four 12-letter answers, conveniently placed round the perimeter, together with accessible clues, as Sil says, I reckoned I had a reasonable chance and soon got enthusiastically stuck in – and, like copmus, just loved it.
I was lucky enough to solve all four long answers early on and POUND OF FLESH was only my second guess for the top row and gave a handful of initial letters to get the ball rolling. It kept my interest to the very end and I thoroughly enjoyed it.
[Slight quibble: I usually dislike this spelling but it should be ‘whiskey’ in the last clue!]
Huge thanks to Julius – more please!
An enjoyable puzzle. Rather daunting until I had got enough answers to start trying to fit words in. Fortunately chose correctly for the bottom and right-hand long clues and only had to adjust a couple of other clues. Last one in “Placard”.
End on, I had no problem with. In profile would apply to a person would it not, whereas an object can be looked at “end on”?
To answer NNi, the solution always come out on this date, so why change it? Some of us take quite a while to finish a crossword and I for one could not have done 40 more in the meantime.
Eileen, even it America it could have been Scotch whisky?
I have not met Hoe into, nor in-back, before.
Malcolm Caporn @5 – but in the NATO alphabet W = whiskey.
Thanks Julius and Pete
A slightly different alphabetical but one that was full of enjoyment. Had around eight clues solved when the two V clues gave me the start into the grid. Took another eight to find TORQUE WRENCH down the left hand side already having HOE INTO (which is still commonly used down here), QUARTER and ONAGERS was able to confidently start filling out the rest.
END ON was that I had a slight query with but it was a cleverly disguised anagram. IN BACK was slightly familiar but it was one of the later ones.
Finished with GET WELL, LATVIAN and INTERIM to get it done over the duration of this Monday whilst working from home.
Thank you all for the comments. I agree about Whiskey.
Bruce, The two V clues were what gave me intro into the grid as well.
Thanks for the blog Pete, and thanks to those who have taken the trouble to comment – particularly since it’s so long since the puzzle was published. When I began setting for the FT, I wanted to have a go at setting an alphabetical jigsaw; I’m curiously drawn to the hours of trial and error during the grid-fill process which seem worth it at the Eureka! moment. In the FT grid library, there are only three suitable candidates for such a puzzle (the last across light must be numbered 26) and they all have long perimeter lights. If the clues were presented with the first letters given, the puzzle would simply collapse as soon as the first couple of long entries were fitted, since the solver would get 13 starts more or less immediately…so I decided to jumble the clues.
However, the ed has in principle okayed the idea of using a different – customised – grid, so it might be possible to change the format in the future.
Dear Eileen…I’ll try and remember to Irish-ize the whisky to whiskey next time around, although querying the spelling in a phonetic alphabet seems a bit odd to me.
best wishes to all, Rob/Julius
Great construction — I had some reluctance to tackle this one but getting TORQUE WRENCH and CLEAN AND JERK right off the bat put me on my way. Thanks Julius ( who never disappoints) and Pete for parsing.
Dear Rob – I think I didn’t make it clear which spelling I dislike: my late husband was a malt whisky-loving Scot, who resented the ‘correct’ spelling in the NATO alphabet. 😉
All very enjoyable. I started the jigsaw by looking at the perimeter and nine-letter solutions first, so was able to pencil a few in before I had half of the solutions. I actually bought the pink paper to tackle this one because I don’t have a printer at home, I was getting a Guardian anyway and it takes ages to draw a grid by hand or in a spreadsheet…
Thanks to Julius and Pete, Great fun. With time on my hands I took this puzzle as a challenge without much confidence but over several days with surprise managed to finish (though now I remember little of the process). I do recall getting POUND OF FLESH early on and finding that it fit neatly with two other items I had spotted, but the other three border clues took much longer, especially TORQUE WRENCH.