Non-prize puzzle from the Weekend FT of December 11, 2021
This puzzle looked tough to me at first but I ended up solving it rather quickly although only by using pattern-matching tools to get three answers I did not know: 11 (SPAVINED), 18 (OSTEAL) and 22 (ANTIPOPE).
As noted in 2dn (DRINKS IN), the puzzle has a theme (or should we call it a feature?) of having drinks embedded in all the across answers– as highlighted in this grid:
I suspect I would not have noticed this had it not been declared and I am impressed by Buccaneer’s achievement even though it meant including a couple of obscure terms.
| ACROSS | ||
| 7 | CHAR |
Burn a lot of the vegetable (4)
|
| CHAR[d] (a lot of the vegetable) | ||
| 8 | TRUMP CARDS |
What players want is president’s entertaining wit (5,5)
|
| CARD (wit) in (entertaining) TRUMPS (president’s) | ||
| 10 | TWINED |
What Victor gets, punching Theodore, is wound (6)
|
| WIN (victor) in (punching) TED (Theodore) | ||
| 11 | SPAVINED |
Having diseased joints, son put out flags around home (8)
|
| S (son) + IN (home) in (around) PAVED (put out flags). ‘Spavined’, a new word to me, describes a horse afflicted with a swelling of the hock-joint. | ||
| 12 | GINSBERG |
Sing works by composer or poet (8)
|
| Anagram (works) of SING + BERG (composer) | ||
| 13 | SKIRTS |
Avoids satirical performances about queen (6)
|
| R (queen) in (about) SKITS (satirical performances) | ||
| 15 | CONTACT SPORTS |
Wear boring visual aids for activities such as rugby (7,6)
|
| SPORT (wear) in (boring) CONTACTS (visual aids) | ||
| 18 | OSTEAL |
Huge duck is perhaps bony (6)
|
| OS (huge, i.e. out-sized) + TEAL (duck). The ‘perhaps’ seems superfluous, no? | ||
| 20 | INFANTAS |
Trendy wishful thinking mostly for princesses (8)
|
| IN (trendy) + FANTAS[y] (wishful thinking mostly). An infanta is the daughter of a king of Spain or Portugal. | ||
| 22 | ANTIPOPE |
A refusal to admit hint for religious leader’s rival (8)
|
| A (a) + TIP (hint) in (to admit) NOPE (refusal). I had to look this one up and I still do not understand well just what the word means. Collins says it is a rival elected in opposition to a pope who has been canonically chosen. | ||
| 24 | NO-GOOD |
Show agreement to eat sticky stuff that’s lousy (2- 4)
|
| GOO (sticky stuff) in (to eat) NOD (show agreement) | ||
| 25 | BED OF ROSES |
Swilling beers with food’s a pleasant experience (3,2,5)
|
| Anagram (swilling) of BEERS FOODS | ||
| 26 | DALE |
One seeking to exterminate endless depression (4)
|
| DALE[k] (one seeking to exterminate endless) | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | SHOWPIECES |
Models succeeded in what fashion with men? (10)
|
| S (succeeded) + HOW (in what fashion) + PIECES (men) | ||
| 2 | DRINKS IN |
Absorbs with interest what all across answers here have (6,2)
|
| Double definition | ||
| 3 | STODGE |
Heavy food, say, Dorothy’s thrown up? (6)
|
| EG (say) + DOTS (Dorothy’s) all backwards (thrown up) | ||
| 4 | SPEAKS UP |
Cat climbing around summit isn’t shy (6,2)
|
| PEAK (summit) in (around) PUSS (cat) backwards (climbing) | ||
| 5 | TAHITI |
Tropical area close to coast in Haiti possibly (6)
|
| [coas]T in anagram (possibly) of HAITI | ||
| 6 | IDLE |
Python not given to exertion (4)
|
| Double definition with the first referring to Eric Idle of Monty Python | ||
| 9 | UNSIGHTLINESS |
Ugly quality of a French blind that keeps cool (13)
|
| UN (a French) + IN (cool) in (keeps) SIGHTLESS (blind) | ||
| 14 | TESLA COILS |
E-car manufacturer with cold lubricants in transformers (5,5)
|
| TESLA (e-car manufacturer) + C (cold) + OILS (lubricants) | ||
| 16 | ALL FOURS |
Exclusively for the FT, hosting loud card game (3,5)
|
| F (loud) in (hosting) ALL OURS (exclusively for the FT). All Fours is apparently a traditional English card game but I do not recall coming across it before. | ||
| 17 | RENEGADE |
Magritte, say, capturing aged, decrepit deserter (8)
|
| RENE (Magritte, say) + anagram (decrepit) of AGED | ||
| 19 | EDITOR |
Boss withdrawing current soldiers (6)
|
| TIDE (current) backwards (withdrawing) + OR (soldiers, i.e. Other Ranks) | ||
| 21 | FINISH |
Polish, perhaps, is European language that’s spoken (6)
|
| Homophone (that’s spoken) of “finnish” (European language) | ||
| 23 | NOEL |
Winter holiday in Spanish region to the north (4)
|
| LEON (Spanish region) backwards (to the north) |
What a winning piece of entertainment this was. Rather than picking an individual favourite, however (too many good ones, anyway), I’ll instead praise the unannounced theme for providing an additional layer of fun without feeling belaboured. It also helped to track down the likes of SPAVINED, GINSBERG and SKIRTS. The only one never to have passed by lips was… FANTA!
ANTIPOPE was a lucky guess.
Thanks to Buccaneer and Pete.
Thanks Buccaneer for the drink themed prize. It was fun to have a second layer to augment the fun. My favourite was BED OF ROSES; I needed a word finder for SPAVINED, unknown to me. Thanks Pete for the blog and explaining DALE.
Great fun once I twigged what was going on and, like Diane, the theme helped with a couple. Thanks Buccaneer.
Pete, I have always thought tea was CHA and the “r” on the end made it “the daily”. But I see I am wrong as both spellings are acceptable for a tea reference. Live and learn I guess.
I did smile at DALE though. And at the idea of that president and entertaining wit in the same sentence.
Just thought you would all like to know it is a great day for one of the longest two of the year.
Thanks for the blog Pete.
Thanks for the blog and the highlighted grid, I would never have noticed this feature without 2D.
SPAVINED was new but very well clued with the misleading use of flags. Like Diane@1 , too many good clues to list.
Lancashire ALL FOURS is still played in pubs here when things are normal, a bit like Whist but a lot of odd rules like not having to follow suit if you can trump a trick.
Another fine crossword from Buccaneer – and with a theme even I spotted. My favourite has to be 26a
Thanks to Buccaneer and Pete
[anyone else finding that the system doesn’t ‘remember them’ and having to type in their name and email address every time?]
[ It does happen to me sometimes, not often, I just leave it alone and it seems to work again the next day ]
crypticsue @5
[anyone else finding that the system doesn’t ‘remember them’ and having to type in their name and email address every time?]
It’s not the system, it’s your browser. See the penultimate entry in the FAQ page for the solution.
Thank you Gaufrid, I’ll give that a go
Roz@4,
I doubt I would have noticed either but, luckily, 2d was my 3rd entry so I had fun hunting them down.
And Mystogre, Crypticsue,
DALE was brilliant though the sea devils scared me more.
Another super puzzle from Buccaneer.
Like others, I hadn’t noticed anything going on in the across clues until I reached 2dn and went back to have a look. Then, like Diane, I enjoyed tracking them down.
SPAVINED rang a distant crossword bell, so I looked up the archive and found just two other instances, one of which I blogged (in 2013!).
The clue (for SPAVIN) was
‘Disease vet identified initially in a pair of horses?’
A little self-indulgence – I commented:
“This is really spooky: I read my Guardian immediately before doing the crossword and, in Simon Hoggart’s column, came across ‘spavined’ [referring to the world economy], a word I wasn’t familiar with and so I was moved to look it up. I was astonished when it turned up minutes later in this clue, since I didn’t know, either, that a span was a pair of horses: huge thanks to Simon, who, I know, is a cruciverbalist! An impressive clue, as SPAVIN is a disease that horses get.”
[This has made me realise how much I still miss Simon Hoggart, who was a friend of Araucaria. We heard at Araucaria’s memorial service that he was too ill to attend and he died just a couple of days later.]
Many thanks to Buccaneer for the fun and to Pete for the blog.
Ditto to all that was said above. A few tough clues here, and thanks for showing me now to parse EDITOR. I only managed to parse TRUMP CARDS, IDLE and SHOW PIECES long after I got the answer. Note that Wikipedia tells me leave granted to WW2 soldiers was called Python – so I went with that interpretation before the real Python hit me.
Thanks to Buccaneer and Pete.
I agree that this was a fine puzzle. I needed a word search app to find SPAVINED, which was new to me as it was to most of the other posters. On the other hand, I had heard of OSTEAL and ANTIPOPE before. I couldn’t completely parse EDITOR, so thanks to Pete for the clear (and embarrassingly straightforward) explanation and the confirmation of the other answers.
After getting 2d, I did see that each across answer contained a kind of drink. Very clever, Buccaneer, and thanks for the fun.
Thanks Buccaneer and Pete
Found this one quite tough, only getting to it late on Christmas Eve. Tired, so only got a bit over half done before retiring – having got 2d and seen where they were in the across clues that I had. Completed the rest this morning, having forgotten the thematic hint and also needed a word finder to track down SPAVINED. [Do like those stories of serendipity, as with Eileen@10 – an eerie feeling, in a nice way!]
Lots of very entertaining clues and a nice way to start Christmas Day before the celebrations start.
Finished in the SW corner with that tricky to parse EDITOR, OSTEAL (where for ages couldn’t get past it starting with OSS) and NOEL (where had to change hemispheres for the penny to drop).
Merry Christmas to all the setters (for providing the fun), bloggers (for helping us understanding the fun), fellow posters (to know that there’s others with this crazy addiction) and Geoff (for bringing us all together) !!