Non-prize puzzle from the Weekend FT of April 9, 2022
A fairly typical Mudd, I reckon. My favourites are 4 (ESCARGOT), 2 (NOWADAYS) and 5 (SIX FEET UNDER).
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | MONACO |
Country: one embracing American culture, initially (6)
|
| A (American) + C[ulture] together in (embracing) MONO (one) | ||
| 4 | ESCARGOT |
Slow mover races off: understood? (8)
|
| Anagram (off) of RACES + GOT (understood) | ||
| 9 | NEWEST |
Most fresh, figure nursing stitch on the way back (6)
|
| SEW (stitch) in (nursing) TEN (figure) all backwards (on the way back) | ||
| 10 | OXBRIDGE |
Ambitious student’s target unknown in old game (8)
|
| O (old) + X (unknown) + BRIDGE (game) | ||
| 12 | RIDE |
Free energy for travel (4)
|
| RID (free) + E (energy) | ||
| 13 | LOVER |
Romeo has nothing right (5)
|
| LOVE (nothing, as in tennis) + R (right) | ||
| 14 | AVID |
Passionate, a taped recording (4)
|
| A (a) + VID (taped recording, as an abbreviation for ‘video’) | ||
| 17 | KEY SIGNATURE |
As Greek unity crumbling, score mark? (3,9)
|
| Anagram (crumbling) of AS GREEK UNITY | ||
| 20 | PLAYING FIELD |
Park up against sphere (7,5)
|
| PLAYING (up against) + FIELD (sphere) | ||
| 23 | POND |
Location of water fountain’s back inside school (4)
|
| [fountai]N in (inside) POD (school) | ||
| 24 | TASER |
Shocking rates, a shocker! (5)
|
| Anagram (shocking) of RATES | ||
| 25 | FOWL |
Winger’s footballing offence under discussion? (4)
|
| Homophone (under discussion) of “foul” (footballing offence) | ||
| 28 | NOISETTE |
Fillet I put in document (8)
|
| I (I) + SET (put) together in (in) NOTE (document). The definition refers to a small round boneless slice of lamb. | ||
| 29 | CUBIST |
Painter again confined to nick (6)
|
| BIS (again) in (confined to) CUT (nick) | ||
| 30 | TETHERED |
Number inspired by inspirational talker unable to break free (8)
|
| ETHER (number) in (inspired by) TED (inspirational talker) | ||
| 31 | BADGER |
Hound, black and white animal (6)
|
| Double definition | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | MANDRAKE |
Plant one male on top of another (8)
|
| MAN (one male) + DRAKE (another) | ||
| 2 | NOWADAYS |
A tad snowy, though no time to shiver in the current climate (8)
|
| Anagram (to shiver) of A [t]AD SNOWY | ||
| 3 | CASE |
Patient action (4)
|
| Double definition, the second referring presumably to a legal action | ||
| 5 | SIX FEET UNDER |
No more fixtures need to be rearranged (3,4,5)
|
| Anagram (to be rearranged) of FIXTURES NEED | ||
| 6 | AIRY |
Light spirit initially unseen (4)
|
| [f]AIRY (spirit initially unseen) | ||
| 7 | GODIVA |
Lady exposed, as shout of encouragement heard at Covent Garden? (6)
|
| GO DIVA (shout of encouragement heard at Covent Garden?) with the wordplay referring to the Royal Opera House which is in the Covent Garden are of London and which is sometimes called simply “Covent Garden” | ||
| 8 | TRENDY |
Seek to hold tip in (6)
|
| END (tip) in (to hold) TRY (seek) | ||
| 11 | BOUNCY CASTLE |
Exuberant man, children’s entertainer? (6,6)
|
| BOUNCY (exuberant) + CASTLE (man, as in chess) | ||
| 15 | VILLA |
House where every one of four brought up (5)
|
| ALL (everyone of) + IV (four) all backwards (brought up) | ||
| 16 | CRAFT |
/Skill drawing up line on this organ (5)
|
| ARC (line) backwards (drawing up) + FT (this organ). I take the slash to be a typo. | ||
| 18 | BECOMING |
Appropriate growing (8)
|
| Double definition | ||
| 19 | IDOLATER |
Old vow in due course for heathen (8)
|
| I DO (old vow) + LATER (in due course) | ||
| 21 | SPINET |
Old instrument group used to bandage leg (6)
|
| PIN (leg) in (used to bandage) SET (group) | ||
| 22 | ENLIST |
Heading off, soldiers given tip take the King’s shilling (6)
|
| [m]EN (heading off soldiers) + LIST (tip)
If you are not familiar with the definition you can find out about it on Wikipedia |
||
| 26 | FETE |
Gala hosted by wife, tedious (4)
|
| Hidden word (hosted by) | ||
| 27 | TUNA |
Head popping up, a fish (4)
|
| NUT (head) backwards (popping up) + A (a) |
Thanks Pete
Typical Mudd maybe, but I found this one a tough solve. The answers in the NW and SE corners presented themselves fairly readily, but I struggled for a long time with the other two quadrants.
We may be saying the same thing, but I parsed GODIVA as GO = shout of encouragement, and DIVA = heard at Covent Garden.
I initially fluffed 25ac – deciding that DOVE is the answer (the American version of dived). But, happily, I soon came to my senses. I shared SIX FEET UNDER with you, Pete, as a favourite and add BADGER (for its clever observation) and OXBRIDGE for its surface.
Thanks to Pete and Mudd. Cheers!
If every Mudd crossword were this difficult for me I would place him on my “no fly” list along with Monk, Io, and Vlad. I gave up with six clues unsolved and many of the others did not come easily. My favourites were ESCARGOT, POND, TETHERED, and SIX FEET UNDER. I enjoyed learning the phrase “take the King’s shilling,” a new expression to me. Thanks to both.
Yes, thanks Tony S. I, too, do not remember seeing “take the king’s shilling” before, and it is always great to learn new expressions.
I forgot to ask about CRAFT – 16d. What does “line” in the clue mean? Is it superfluous or is it an insertion indicator?
Why is Ted inspirational talker?
Thanks
Oldham @4: TED talks are a series of videos by “experts” on a wide variety of topics. See ted.com if you’re curious.
Martyn@3 LINE=ARC, think of drawing a curve on a graph, drawing UP gives CRA.
Thanks for the blog, more of a mixture for me, a few quite tricky clues that took some thinking about. Lots of good clues already mentioned by Martyn and Tony, GODIVA and TETHERED my favourites.
Martyn, I like your point about the GODIVA clue. I think one could take it either way and now lean more towards your parsing.
I wondered about “inspirational talker” cluing TED. I often listen to TED Talks but question the use of this to clue TED rather than something like “forum for inspirational talks”.
Thanks Tony@5.
Yes this was tough but enjoyable with some good clues. For 6d I had AIRY: FAIRY without initial letter?
Thanks Pete and Mudd. I had a different answer for 6 down. Airy i.e. fairy (spirit) without the initial F (initially unseen)
Thanks Mudd and Pete. I was another with AIRY at 6dn: two more days to wait for the official solution to be printed.
I greatly prefer Pete’s original parsing for GODIVA. It works smoothly, whereas Martyn’s parsing requires a bit of a distortion to make “heard at Covent Garden” to mean “someone who is heard at Covent Garden”.
definitely AIRY for 6d for me
Thank you all for a much better 6d than mine! I have corrected the blog. Originally I had AURA as a double definition.
Thanks Mudd and Pete
Got to this one over multiple short sessions and a much longer one to finish off yesterday, aggregating to about double my normal solve time. So based on that, I would have to classify it at the harder end of Mudd’s difficulty spectrum for me. Unlike Martin@1, the NW corner was my starting point causing little agree that SE was tougher and is where I finished with CUBIST, PLAYING FIELD and CRAFT.
As with others, the term for ENLIST was new to me along with the TED talks. Nitpicking, BADGERS only have black and white faces, so a bit of a stretch to refer to them as a ‘black and white animal’ – not that it stopped the solve of it.
SIX FEET UNDER and BOUNCY CASTLE were my favourites.