Puzzle from the Weekend FT of February 4, 2023
I find it comforting to know that Rosa’s recent reappearance was not a one-off. My favourite clues here are 2 (HASHISH), 8 (MOUSERS), 12 (CATHETER) and 21 (HUMBUG). Thank you, Rosa.
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | PHENOMENON |
Quiet female warning about something extraordinary (10)
|
| P (quiet) + HEN (female) + OMEN (warning) + ON (about) | ||
| 7 | POMP |
Self-importance of humourless politician (4)
|
| PO (humourless — as in po-faced) + MP (politician) | ||
| 9 | USED |
Habitually took drugs, oddly unsteady (4)
|
| U[n]S[t]E[a]D[y] | ||
| 10 | DAWN CHORUS |
Early morning wake-up calls? (4,6)
|
| I suppose that this must be counted as a cryptic definition but I have to say that it seems barely cryptic to me | ||
| 11 | LINEAL |
Of direct descent from earl in Ealing (6)
|
| Hidden word (from) | ||
| 12 | CATHETER |
Provide food outside the Tube (8)
|
| THE (the) in (outside) CATER (provide food) | ||
| 13 | CHASTEST |
Most pure cocaine undergoes check (8)
|
| C (cocaine) + HAS (undergoes) + TEST (check) | ||
| 15 | APSE |
Part of church perhaps employing guards (4)
|
| Hidden word (guards) | ||
| 17 | ABUT |
Neighbour more or less losing heart (4)
|
| AB[o]UT (more or less losing heart) | ||
| 19 | AIRHEADS |
Rash idea ruined stupid people (8)
|
| Anagram (ruined) of RASH IDEA | ||
| 22 | MORIBUND |
Guy in bank, on the way out (8)
|
| RIB (guy) in (in) MOUND (bank) | ||
| 23 | PERUSE |
Study extremely plausible stratagem (6)
|
| P[lausibl]E + RUSE (stratagem) | ||
| 25 | RED CABBAGE |
Cook grabbed ace vegetable (3,7)
|
| Anagram (cook) of GRABBED ACE | ||
| 26 | NAIF |
Unworldly male intended to leave church backwards (4)
|
| FIAN[ce] (intended to leave church) backwards (backwards) | ||
| 27 | ONUS |
Responsibility borne by setters (4)
|
| ON (borne by) + US (setters) | ||
| 28 | GADGETEERS |
Widget enthusiasts unfairly segregated (10)
|
| Anagram (unfairly) of SEGREGATED | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 2 | HASHISH |
Drug that’s this completely timeless introduction to heaven (7)
|
| [t]HA[t]S [t]HIS + H[eaven] | ||
| 3 | NUDIE |
Picked up new stamp featuring naked women (5)
|
| Homophone (picked up) of “new” + DIE (stamp) | ||
| 4 | MODELLED |
Sat and assembled Airfix kits? (8)
|
| Double definition | ||
| 5 | NEW SCOTLAND YARD |
Met here and saw canny toddler acting up (3,8,4)
|
| Anagram (acting up) of SAW CANNY TODDLER | ||
| 6 | NICETY |
Refinement of French resort initially thrills you (6)
|
| NICE (French resort) + T[hrills] Y[ou] | ||
| 7 | PROMENADE |
Professional soldiers regularly dawdle and stroll (9)
|
| PRO (professional) + MEN (soldiers) + [d]A[w]D[l]E | ||
| 8 | MOUSERS |
They ponder adopting old cats (7)
|
| O (old) in (adopting) MUSERS (they ponder) | ||
| 14 | SET PIECES |
Perhaps corners men on board (3,6)
|
| Double definition with the first referring to corners in football and the second to, say, a chess set. Am I right about corners here? I know little about football. | ||
| 16 | GRAPHENE |
Suffering pang here for the hard stuff (8)
|
| Anagram (suffering) of PANG HERE | ||
| 18 | BOOLEAN |
Show dislike of hard type of algebra (7)
|
| BOO (show dislike of) + LEAN (hard) | ||
| 20 | DOSSIER |
Report vagrant circling middle of Tring (7)
|
| [tr]I[ng] in (circling) DOSSER (vagrant) | ||
| 21 | HUMBUG |
Sweet Spooner’s inept show of affection (6)
|
| “bum hug” | ||
| 24 | RANEE |
Artist born to be queen (5)
|
| RA (artist) + NEE (born) |
Thanks Rosa and Pete
3dn: I think this works better if the “die” is kept out of the homophone.
For non-Brits, NEW SCOTLAND YARD is the HQ of the METropolitan Police. A well hidden def. HUMBUG made me chuckle.
Pelham Barton@1
I agree with you on NU-DIE.
DAWN CHORUS:
Yes, Pete Maclean. It’s hardly cryptic. The birds wake up and call/sing among themselves, but not to wake anyone up. That’s a minor cryptic bit, if at all.
SET PIECES:
Yes, a corner kick (corner) is an example of a set piece in soccer/football. ‘Perhaps Corners’ because there are
other set pieces.
Thanks, Rosa Klebb and Pete Maclean!
Thanks for the explanation of NEW SCOTLAND YARD, gladys @2. Truth be told, most non-brits (well at least me) probably had more of a surprise that HUMBUG is a sweet/candy. And I am not sure I know what to make of a bumhug! If I have my English origins straight, I think the concept of guying (ribbing in 22) is very British, and I would say “dosser” in 20 is seldom used beyond the shores of the UK.
I had never seen neighbour used as a verb before, and RANEE was new to me too.
And can someone tell me the purpose of “male” in 26? I am sure NAIF can apply equally to women, and wondering about that held me up for a bit.
So saying, it was an enjoyable crossword with several nice clues. Being a sucker for long anagrams, my favourite was NEW SCOTLAND YARD.
Thanks Pete and Rosa Klebb
Martyn@4. From Wiki.
In its early use, the word naïve meant “natural or innocent”, and did not connote ineptitude. As a French adjective, it is spelled naïve, for feminine nouns, and naïf, for masculine nouns. As a French noun, it is spelled naïveté.
It is sometimes spelled “naïve” with a diaeresis, but as an unitalicized English word, “naive” is now the more usual spelling.[1] “naïf” often represents the French masculine, but has a secondary meaning as an artistic style. “Naïve” is pronounced as two syllables, in the French manner, and with the stress on the second one.
I laughed out loud at the ‘humbug’ Spoonerism and understand Martyn’s surprise at ‘bum hug’.
It should, perhaps, be pointed out that among its other meanings, ‘bum’ can be an adjective meaning ‘useless’ or ‘inept’.
Thank you Rosa Klebb for this and what I hope to be many more crosswords. This was a joy with CATHETER, AIRHEADS, NAIF, HASHISH, NEW SCOTLAND YARD, and MOUSERS being my top picks. Thanks Pete for the blog.
Thanks for the blog and to PDM@5 for the extra on NAIF .
Very good puzzle , I liked HASHISH for the clever completely timeless and BOOLEAN for the algebra reference .
A minor quibble for GRAPHENE, it is not “hard” being very low on the Mhos scale. Strong and tough but being thin sheets you can cut it with a pair of blunt scissors.
A very good week in the FT for puzzles, the Guardian is my first crossword and I have found it very trying this week.
26ac: When solving this, I am sure that I took the word “male” with “Unworldly” to justify the -F ending. However, Chambers 2014 allows us to use naif and naive as equivalents in English. Where we do need “male” is to qualify “intended” to give us FIANCE with a single E at the end before removing CE.
When I finished the puzzle last weekend, I wrote at the top of the paper:
“Surfaces of the purest silk”.
For me that makes for a perfect crossword.
Lovely to have Rosa back – more please soon
Many thanks to her and Pete
I agree wholeheartedly with comments 10 and 11.
(Some of) my favourites were 1ac PHENOMENON, 12ac CATHETER, 26ac NAIF, for the precise use of ‘male’ pointed out by Pelham Barton @9, 2dn HASHISH, for more precision in ‘completely timeless’ and the clever anagrams at 28ac GADGETEERS and 5dn NEW SCOTLAND YARD.
I wondered about hard = LEAN in 18dn (hard / lean times?) but didn’t get as far as looking it up.
Martyn @4 – re ‘neighbour’ as a verb: the participle ‘neighbouring is widely used.
Many thanks, as ever, to Rosa and Pete.
Entirely enjoyable crossword, and – rightly said – silky smooth. Thanks to Phil for sorting out a couple I had not quite parsed correctly. I couldn’t work out why cocaine was CHAS rather than the usual C or Charlie – it was C-HAS. Agree about DAWN CHORUS but ‘wake-up call’ has acquired other now cliched connotations so may be forgivable.
Re the discussion of NAIF, I think the point is that a “male intended” is a fiancé whereas a female who is engaged to be married is a fiancée so leaving out the church (CE) wouldn’t work.
Thanks PB@9 for explaining male in NAIF. I think you are spot on. And thanks to others for the information and replies.
As a point of clarity: writing @4 that I had never seen certain words or certain uses before was not intended to imply the setter is wrong. Quite the opposite. For me, every crossword is a learning experience.
Thanks again Rosa Klebb for an enjoyable puzzle, and thanks again to Pete
Hi Martyn @15
I realise now that my response @12 was rather terse – my apologies. I don’t think I’d ever come across ‘neighbour’ as a verb, either, until I thought it through, as I commented.