Financial Times 16,864 by Mudd

11 comments on “Financial Times 16,864 by Mudd”

1. I enjoyed this characteristic offering from Mudd and completed it quickly but with a few questions over parsing.
   I made a false start, however, by entering MURDER for 21 meaning ‘to top’ and a reversal of the famous Red Rum. Fortunately ‘Persian Blue’ came along and meant a rethink. No more hiccups thereafter.
   Thanks, Pete, for parsing ATHENS. I often miss this sort of construction but it was guessable. Likewise, I didn’t know SMACK as a boat but the C of another connected double def (CLOBBER) helped there.
   Enjoyable romp with 5 and 28 favourites.
   Thanks to Mudd and Pete.

2. I had different favourites to Pete this week – ATHENS, JUMPER and APIECE all took some thought and brought a feeling of reward when the answer came, and I loved the surface of ARES.

   I had the same question about ARC as Pete. I also wonder whether NAPPED is really “fell asleep” – I always believed it means “slept”. CLOBBER is gear to me, not gear worn. And I fear Mudd’s life may be a bit insular if oxtail is only soup to him.

   I also have a question – in what sense does nips = shorts?

   As Pete said, a fairly routine Mudd – and a good thing at that! Many thanks Pete and Mudd

3. Diane @1 – I love MURDER as a solution for 21. If Mudd reads this, he will kick himself that he did not think of it.

   You reminded me – I forgot to thank Mudd for this week’s English lesson, and teaching me a new meaning for SMACK. I definitely needed the crosswords and a dictionary for that one.

4. Thank you, Martyn. Yes, I couldn’t believe that was not the right answer but there were no doubts about INSUPERABLE/PERSIAN so, reluctantly, I had to let it go. As for SMACK as boat, even the resident mariner couldn’t help me there! Good to expand the vocabulary, as you say.

5. Thanks Mudd for a pleasant weekend crossword. Favourites included SUPPLANT, GASTRONOMY, INTEGER, and EGOISM (great surface). LOI was SKIPPERING after using a word finder — don’t understand why, it seems so simple now. Thanks Pete for the blog.

6. Good puzzle from Mudd which wasn’t too difficult but did provide a few challenges. My favourite was 16a, as it refers to not just ATHENS, but also ‘Carac(as)’ as a ‘capital’, so it’s a kind of cryptic def as well.

   Martyn @2, a ‘nip’ or a ‘short’ is a small amount of eg whisky. Someone will probably correct me, but I regard it as equivalent to a ‘wee dram’. You can kindly answer a question for me too. You’ve said: “And I fear Mudd’s life may be a bit insular if oxtail is only soup to him”. I probably don’t want to know the answer, or it may not be suitable for a website such as this which strongly upholds traditional family values of course, but what do you mean by this?

   Apologies in advance to Pete, this is as annoying an example of nit-picking as you’re ever likely to see, but I think the gap in the underlining is in the wrong place at 1a. Yes, you’re right, I should have better things to do with my life.

   Thanks to Mudd and Pete

7. Thank you for a lovely blog, I think Mudd was determined to keep each clue very brief for this but it did not spoil the fun.
   Brilliant idea from Diane for “top ” .
   I will add to the praise for ATHENS from WordPlodder @6 , best clue by far . I have seen the A then S a few times but to use CARACAS to give the A and S was very novel.
   Linear curve ?? no maths lesson today but it is an accepted term. ( Geodesics in general relativity, Chebyshev series ……. )

8. I quite agree about ATHENS. I laughed out loud when the penny dropped . A relatively easy crossword but much enjoyed. Thanks to setter and blogger. Googling linear curve explains all.

9. Thanks Mudd and Pete
   Enjoyable work out as usual from this setter. Only got to it yesterday – so two Mudds in a week, with this one being slightly easier I thought. Still there were some neat tricks to be negotiated.
   Have seen numerous variations of the RED RUM / MURDER clue, this could have been an innovative way, but still reckon that the deft use of ‘top’ as a JUMPER was also very good. There were other very clever clues throughout, including his trademark double definitions (with the brief TUT among the best of them) and the trick with ‘Caracas’ at 16a – got sidetracked with ‘what’ = EH for too long though when trying to parse the answer.
   Finished in the NW corner with FOXTAIL and FLUKE as the last couple in.

10. Thanks for your steer on “short”, Wordplodder. I will add that to my list of new words.

    To answer your question, my remark @2 referred purely to food. There are a lot of great oxtail dishes and it seemed a pity to limit the clue to soup. There is slang with a very different meaning, but that was far from my mind.

11. I got ATHENS, but couldn’t work out why and it is so clever I too laughed when I saw how it works.

    As to “oxtail”, the part of the clue is “soup” and one soup is oxtail. It could have been tomato, chicken or many others; one just had to work out one soup. That is not to say that “oxtail” is only soup any more than “chicken” would be only soup.

    As to the RED RUM/ MURDER conversation, there would have to be a word somewhere that indicated a reversal before “Murder” would work. I don’t see one.

Comments are closed.