Weekend puzzle from the FT of April 22, 2023
I am posting this blog about 17 hours late. And the delay is solely down to my ageing memory. Sorry.
It was a delightful puzzle as usual from Rosa. My faves are 5 (HUMPED) which was my first-in plus 13 (OTTER) and 6 (UNPRONOUNCEABLE).
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | SOMEWHAT |
A little mate who’s spoilt (8)
|
| Anagram (spoilt) of MATE WHOS | ||
| 5 | HUMPED |
Copulated like camels? (6)
|
| Double definition | ||
| 10 | RULER |
Sovereign oddly ignored trouble with queen (5)
|
| [t]R[o]U[b]L[e] + ER (queen) | ||
| 11 | OFFSPRING |
Child leaving sprout (9)
|
| OFF (leaving) + SPRING (sprout) | ||
| 12 | BROADSIDE |
Diatribe is primarily baseless, by the way (9)
|
| B[aseless] + ROADSIDE (the way) | ||
| 13 | OTTER |
Animal that hides in earthenware vessels (5)
|
| [p]OTTER[y] (hides in earthenware vessels). An indirect hidden word like this is unusual but, I think, a gem. | ||
| 14 | CACHET |
Court guards long for prestige (6)
|
| ACHE (long for) in (guards) CT (court) | ||
| 15 | DROUGHT |
Dryness of dead grass on golf course tee (7)
|
| D (dead) + ROUGH (grass on golf course) + T (tee) | ||
| 18 | SWEATER |
One perspiring as we ate rancid sandwiches (7)
|
| Hidden word (sandwiches) | ||
| 20 | TANGLE |
Snarl and bite leg but not tail (6)
|
| TANG (bite) + LE[g] | ||
| 22 | AISLE |
Broadcast key passage (5)
|
| Homophone (broadcast) of “isle” (key) | ||
| 24 | DYSPEPSIA |
Indigestion from hectic days drinking cola (9)
|
| PEPSI (cola) in (drinking) anagram (hectic) of DAYS | ||
| 25 | SENTIENCE |
Feeling one’s constrained by life, perhaps (9)
|
| I (one) in (constrained by) SENTENCE (life perhaps) | ||
| 26 | BROWN |
Admit being to the right of British ex-PM (5)
|
| BR (British) + OWN (admit) | ||
| 27 | NEW-AGE |
Refuse initially to change direction, like some travellers (3- 3)
|
| SEWAGE (refuse) with the ‘S’ changed to ‘N’ (initially to change direction) | ||
| 28 | DATELESS |
Ever-fashionable daughter dieted (8)
|
| D (daughter) + ATE LESS (dieted) | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | SCRIBE |
Writer and Senior Common Room liable to fall out regularly (6)
|
| SCR (Senior Common Room) + [l]I[a]B[l]E | ||
| 2 | MELIORATE |
Better eat lime or bananas (9)
|
| Anagram (bananas) of EAT LIME OR. ‘Meliorate’ is an alternative form of the more common ‘ameliorate’. | ||
| 3 | WORLD-SHATTERING |
Dreadfully important people celebrate capturing proverbial madman (5-10)
|
| HATTER (proverbial madman) in (capturing) WORLD (people) SING (celebrate) | ||
| 4 | AMORIST |
Lover is tense, filled with misgivings at first (7)
|
| M[isgivings] in (filled with) AORIST (tense). The Aorist is a paste tense in classical Greek, Sanskrit and a few other languages. | ||
| 6 | UNPRONOUNCEABLE |
Can one rub Noel up the wrong way? Impossible to say (15)
|
| Anagram (the wrong way) of CAN ONE RUB NOEL UP | ||
| 7 | PAINT |
Dad with interest in make-up (5)
|
| PA (did) + INT (interest) | ||
| 8 | DIGERATI |
Edit rag about international IT crowd (8)
|
| Anagram (about) of EDIT RAG + I (international) | ||
| 9 | OFFEND |
Unlimited coffee, gin and weed ultimately cause upset (6)
|
| [c]OFFE[e] + [gi]N [wee]D | ||
| 16 | GALLSTONE |
Calculus annoys me after time (9)
|
| GALLS (annoys) + T (time) + ONE (me) | ||
| 17 | ASSASSIN |
Pair of berks pursued by cool hitman (8)
|
| ASS (berk) + ASS (berk) + IN (cool) | ||
| 19 | RODENT |
Right poetry books for Jerry or Roland? (6)
|
| R (right) + ODE (poetry) + NT (books, i.e. New Testament) with the definition referring to Jerry of “Tom and Jerry” and Roland of “Roland Rat” (a British television puppet character). | ||
| 20 | TESSERA |
Part of mosaic in potentate’s seraglio (7)
|
| Hidden word (in) | ||
| 21 | DAUNTS |
Heartily herding relative’s cows (6)
|
| [her]D[ing] + AUNTS (relative’s) | ||
| 23 | SINEW |
Power of vacuous sci-fi novel (5)
|
| S[ci-f]I + NEW (novel) |
A delight. I am so glad people on fifteen squared alerted me to Rosa Klebb/Arachne
Hi I remember enjoying this a week ago. Query on the blog: is there a Latin aorist? My memories are distant but I only remember Greek. Happy to be enlightened.
Petert, Rosa is quite a treasure, isn’t she! Thank you for commenting.
Nick, Thank you, I had it wrong. There is no aorist in Latin and I have edited that from the comment on the clue.
Thanks Pete
Nice puzzle, with a few parsings lagging the answer by a day or two. For example, Otter was LOI, based on crosswords, with pOTTRRy coming to me the following day.
As always, I encountered new words (DATELESS, aorist, DIGERATI to name a few). I did not really have any favorites this week, but generally enjoyed it.
Thanks for the blog , very neat puzzle, I think the grid was very friendly , lots of first letters, certainly helped me with DIGERATI and AMORIST,
Saw DIGERATI for the first time about 10 days ago in the Guardian puzzle.
OTTER and NEW-AGE were clever, UNPRONOUNCEABLE a spectacular anagram.
You wait all your life for DIGERATI to come along (Imogen, 19th April) and then two appear within ten days of each other! I didn’t help myself by putting in an unparsed EARTH SHATTERING, either. Yes, UNPRONOUNCEABLE was a gem.
Gladys@6 I always try to cold solve the Down clues without the grid, only put them in when I have tried them all. I had EARTH SHATTERING in mind, I think the term is far more common than the answer , but the grid helped me out with W_R_D .
Very late to the party today. Like Nick @2, I remember enjoying this (of course) a week ago but once again I’m kicking myself for consigning it accidentally to the recycling bag, so I’ve lost track of my (many) ticks.
I just had to comment on the coincidental appearance of DIGERATI – a new word for me when I blogged it in the Guardian Imogen puzzle just last week. Quite remarkable: I could find only one previous appearance in the archive, over three years ago – new to the blogger then, too.
Huge thanks, as ever, to Rosa and to lucky Pete, as crypticsue would say.
Thanks for the blog Pete – it doesn’t matter if it is a little late as I still get to read it with my breakfast coffee.
I was another who shattered the earth first, until things wouldn’t fit.
Another delightful puzzle from Rosa Klebb – thanks.
A satisfying solve although we are more familiar with shattering the earth rather than the world. Last two in were the TANGLE/GALLSTONE crossers after we wondered if ‘gritstone’ could be described as a calculus. We liked DIGERATI – new to us though no doubt the word has been in circulation for some time.
Thanks, Rosa and Pete.
Like Eileen, I’ve often recycled my paper from the previous week by the time the blog rolls around.
But one look at this blog and I could easily remember how much I enjoyed the puzzle. Pete’s favourites were also mine.
DIGERATI and AMORIST were both guesses aided by crossers and I agree with Roz that ‘earth’ springs much more readily to mind than ‘world’ but that too slotted in nicely with the aid of crossing letters.
Thanks to Rosa – reliable source of fun – and to Pete for the thorough blog.
Thanks Rosa, it’s always a joy. I could have ticked every clue but I chose HUMPED (great DD), BROADSIDE, TANGLE, DYSPEPSIA, SENTIENCE, NEW-AGE, DATELESS (great surface), and DAUNTS as favourites. I guessed AMORIST but could not begin to parse it. Thanks Pete for the blog.
I’ve recycled my piece of paper too so I’ll just say a big thank you to Rosa and Lucky Pete
Great stuff was bemused by half a dozen of these so the blog is very useful.
We had to look up New-Age Travellers, and found there’s even a BBC documentary (as well as w wikipedia entry). Ah, more learning about the UK.