Financial Times 16,483 by BRADMAN

17 comments on “Financial Times 16,483 by BRADMAN”

1. Am I the only one to put 10ac BERMUDA and not be able to parse it? I think 9 anagrams/part anagrams is about 8 too many and lazy cluing but I enjoyed solving the rest so thanks setter and blogger.

2. A nice comfortable solve, until I reached the NE corner (LOI 8dn HIERARCH). Was there an unusually large number of anagrams? — keep them going, Don, they clear the head early in the morning. Thanks also to Turbolegs

3. Sorry, TonyDee, we crossed in the post

4. Can I assure TD that there was no laziness in my cluing for this puzzle. Setting puzzles is no job for sluggards!  Sometimes there will be very few anagrams and sometimes a lot, depending on how the words turn out. It’s easier of course to get the balance right if you can devise your own grids, and a grid with several long answers can pose a challenge.I have never subscribed either to the dictium that two hidden words is one too many. But thanks for the generally appreciative feedback — it’s good to know that there are a few Bradman solvers out there.

5. I don’t mind if there are fewer or more anagrams but I do like accurate cluing and by that measure I really enjoy Bradman’s puzzles. Sometimes he defeats me but generally I can do alright. Always a pleasure to do. Like Tony Dee, mind you, I entered Bermuda for 10ac knowing that it could not be right. One of those things when you put in the wrong word but it makes no difference because the crossing letters are the same as those of the right word. Many thanks Bradman and Turbolegs.

6. In 9d (ECCLESIASTICAL) I took the definition to end at ‘church’ and ‘matters’ to be the anagram indicator. My thinking is that ‘matter’ means ‘wrong’ in the question, “What’s the matter?” I can’t quite justify the pluralisation, but I still think it’s better than the alternatives of ‘alas’ doing double duty or no indicator at all.

   I also thought this puzzle seemed a tad anagram heavy, but I think that’s possibly because there were one or two clues that looked like they could be anagrams, but weren’t – ROUGHCAST in particular being one such. But in hindsight I don”t think 9/28 (just under a third) is an unreasonable number and, to be fair, at least none of the obscure(ish) answers were anagrams, which is a pet peeve of mine. All in all I enjoyed this puzzle and only the aforementioned 9d merited a slight question mark.

   Thank to all.

7. Thanks to Bradman and Turbolegs. I have no objection to the number of anagrams (I enjoyed them) but I have never heard of BARBUDA so settled for Bermuda (which did fit the crossers) even though I could not parse it.

8. Bradman @ 4,

   I’m intrigued by your answer ‘if you can devise your own grids’. Does that mean you are given a grid pattern by the editor to fill in, you can’t just submit your own choice of grid?

9. You can choose grids from a variety but if you discarded all that you thought a bit iffy you would be left with quite a small choice. The Independent is still an exception, as indeed is the Church Times puzzle, which I edit, The Everyman used to be setter’s own grid but it looks as though that might have stopped.

10. No complaints about the number of anagrams but I found this harder than the “typical Friday challenge from the Don”. Never heard of FLY ASH, ROUGHCAST, HIERARCH or BARBUDA (at least I resisted the “Bermuda” temptation), all of which had to go in by doing what it said in the wordplay recipe and hoping.

    I understand people can be very passionate about their fonts, so there may be some who would agree with the wordplay for HELVETICA.

    Thanks to Bradman and Turbolegs

11. Count me as one who entered “Bermuda” but then erased it because “pub” had to be “bar,” not “ber.” I then used a word finder to fill in the blanks to get BARBUDA. I thought a theme might be in the works with LIBIDO, NARCISSISTIC, AMORISTS, CRAVING, and GRAPHIC ARTISTS but I realized I stretching things. Thanks Bradman for the fun and Turbolegs for the blog.

12. An enjoyable solve with no problems.  We saw 10ac as a simple charade so didn’t fall into the Bermuda trap; it helped that we’d heard of the place but we had to look it up to satisfy ourselves where it is (in the Leeward Islands, actually).

    Lots to like but nothing to nominate as a favourite.

    On the subject of anagrams, this came up in the review of the latest rookie puzzle on Big Dave’s site: “15 out of 29 clues involved an anagram.  This is way too many.  Six to eight is probably around the number to aim for.”  On that basis 9 here is just about right, not that the number of anagrams bothers us.  As for grids we noticed that two consecutive puzzles in the FT this week had the same grid.

    Thanks, Bradman and Turbolegs

13. I like a good Bradman, and this was no exception. Always a challenge, often a few laughs, a couple of new words, and sometimes a couple I just can’t get, which is where I ended up today with raiment (nice clue) and outweigh. I’m sorry but this was the only downer. It’s never the “Out Way” it’s the Way Out, which is where I’m headed now…

14. Thanks to Turbolegs and Bradman

    I can’t recall Bradman doing double duty before but he’s been here so unless “matters” can be a transitive instruction then

    ” Bad spot” can clue “dab”

    I can’t make 24a (or what the FT and the blog term 4a), work either.

    In order that “aim” might “stitch together” “torn”, “torn” must first display signs of being separated e.g.

    Plan to stitch together parts of torn dress

15. I forgot to say why I had no problem with 10a. If you haven’t listened to “Down the Line” yet, treat yourself – the moment I realised the Radio 4 programme I had turned on was a spoof ranks with all the “I can remember where I was when …..”

16. I found this fairly tough and missed Barbuda (as it obviously wasn’t Bermuda, though that fitted) and also missed roughcast). I can usually do Bradman and found this was harder than usual

17. Thanks Bradman and Turbolegs

    Very late to this one even after doing this puzzle on the day that week.  Took about average time in a single sitting on the Friday evening – only got around to checking it off this week though.

    Did notice the numerous anagrams and I do enjoy unravelling the longer ones such as GRAPHIC ARTISTS to develop the answer to the definition – more so than seeing the answer and then checking the anagram fodder later.

    FLY ASH and BARBUDA (to a certain extent) were the only new terms in the puzzle.  FLY ASH was the second to last in with LUNGE (probably because of the definition) the last one.

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