Financial Times 17,049 by MUDD

14 comments on “Financial Times 17,049 by MUDD”

1. I was pleasantly surprised to find Mudd on midweek duty and thought it a fairly steady solve until my last few in which I couldn’t fully parse. Thanks to Grant for explaining 1d, 3d and 23d (‘cane’, of course!).
   3d was also my LOI and I wasn’t aware it was an oldie but it will be added to the list.
   It was very enjoyable with 5d my favourite but ticks too for 10d, 24a and 18d. 4a and 15d were typical Muddisms.
   I just felt 1a needed ‘you’ in front of it to make complete sense.
   Thanks to Mudd and Grant.

2. Thanks to Mudd and Grant. FWIW, I interpreted 10d and 21d as double definitions. Either way, they are good clues. 10 d was my favorite.

3. I have 23d as WACKA – We Are Completely Kick Ass (new to me as well) for whacker (you say), (narrowly escaped the cane at school myself!)

4. Thank you Grant, not so simple for me and I agree with EdK@USA@2 re the double defs. HELIUM held me up too but NITRE was new for me and LOI as it took me a long time to remember that a Nit was technically an egg. I am especially grateful to Mudd for helpful provision of exclamation marks to signify some of the tricksier definitions. I thought that WICCA was a pagan religion rather a form of magic but a quick read on Wikipedia suggests a complex relationship between them that I will read more about later. This was a lot of fun, my favourite was SPACEMAN, thanks Mudd.

5. Thanks Mudd and Grant.
   Further to EdK and Gazzh, I repeat the comment I made yesterday. Giving literal and idiomatic definitions is often a good way of cluing a phrase. Here are two more examples.

6. Thanks for the blog, WICCA was my favourite of course.

7. To EdK@USA #2:
   Technically, I don’t think either 10d or 21d can be double defs.
   ‘Head over heels’ can only ever mean ‘in love’ or very joyful about something. It’s not, e.g., a recognised gym move, so ‘flipping’ won’t quite cover it.
   Similarly, ‘beat it’ only means ‘go away’. It’s not a standard instruction for the treatment of eggs or anything else.
   You have to imagine each phrase as standing alone as a primary def without its partnering definition, and neither of them works that way, if you see what I mean. We’d all have been quite cross if either of those other secondary defs had been the sole defs, which is the test.

8. Just to expand, 21d might have gone, ‘Behave like an idiot, something to do with egg (4,2)’
   Solution BEAT IT.
   Parsing: BE A TIT (behave like an idiot).
   And where’s the definition?
   See what I mean?

9. Thanks Mudd, I got to this late but I’m glad to have done it. Liked DATE, CIAO (nice surface), BEWITCH, and HELIUM. I couldn’t parse NITRE. Thanks Grant for the blog.

10. Grant@7 i have to disagree. “He went head over heels” is certainly a description I have used and heard used for someone (eg a child) running at full pelt then tripping and performing some undignified forward roll type manoeuvre although I agree it will not be part of the floor exercises at the Olympics. Similarly, the fact that an egg can be beaten forms the basis for an excellent but unrepeatable-here joke with which I am sure Mudd is familiar.

11. I always felt a tumble should be ‘heels over head’ but that’s maybe just me.

12. Further to earlier remarks on BEAT IT, the BBC website has a recipe for how to make a perfect omelette, which includes (Step 2) “In a bowl, beat the eggs until just mixed.” This relates to mixing the yolks and whites, not just the two eggs with each other, so beating is certainly something that can be done to a single egg.

13. Very enjoyable, nothing too obscure or geographically challenging.

14. Thanks Mudd and Grant
    A puzzle on the easier end of the Mudd spectrum for me, able to be finished in a single session. Enjoyed his trademark double definitions and his ‘borderline double definitions’ (regardless of the technicality, thought that both HEAD OVER HEELS and BEAT IT were very good).
    Also thought that HELIUM (second one in, was awake to his trick for a change) and ANTONYM (which took a lot longer to see the word play) were fun clues. Finished with that one followed by ALARMIST and SPACEMAN.

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