Puzzle from the Weekend FT of December 23, 2023
If memory serves, this is the first Aardvark we have had in our Weekend space. So, I did not know what to expect of it. And what I found was an extraordinarily difficult puzzle. The answers include four terms that are new to me: EHCT, PLAYSUIT, TIE-NECK and JUGFULS (the last of which I might have guessed). There were two clues that I was unable to fully explain: 3 (ON TIME) and 29 (XANADU). Then there is one clue I am unsure about the wordplay of (14 JUGFULS). This makes it two weeks in a row that I have holes in the blog. Maybe I should be retiring?
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | FATHOM |
Twig seen in roof at home (6)
|
| Hidden word (seen in) | ||
| 4 | PLECTRUM |
Musical device left within reach, when son leaves (8)
|
| L (left) in (within) [s]PECTRUM (reach…when son leaves) | ||
| 9 | CURATE |
Clergyman’s long stick catches vermin (6)
|
| RAT (vermin) in (catches) CUE (long stick) | ||
| 10 | SEMOLINA |
Pupils supposedly can’t stomach this old Liberal boring class non-stop (8)
|
| O (old) + L (lib) together in (boring) SEMINA[r] (class non-stop). For some information on the definition, see this article from the Guardian. | ||
| 12 | COLUMBUS |
Tailed journalist’s work vehicle somewhere in Midwest (8)
|
| COLUM[n] (tailed journalist’s work) + BUS (vehicle) | ||
| 13 | METEOR |
Weather office that ruminates about particular shower (6)
|
| MET (weather office) + ROE (that ruminates) backwards (about) | ||
| 15 | ITEM |
Couple’s printing unit following modern technology (4)
|
| IT (modern technology) + EM (printing unit) | ||
| 16 | JUGFULS |
Prison food’s not filling, needing much fluid (7)
|
| JUG (prison) + FU[e]LS (food’s not filling) | ||
| 20 | ZIP-NECK |
Type of item that’s worn with fly down (3-4)
|
| ZIP (fly) + NECK (down, as a verb). I originally had the answer TIE-NECK with TIE (fly, as in angling) + NECK (down, as a verb) which, I think, works equally well. Both ‘zip-neck’ and ‘tie-neck’ are new terms to me and I have learned that a tie-neck is a blouse that has a tie at the neck and a zip-neck is similar with a zip. | ||
| 21 | PILL |
What may prevent new arrival parking wrong (4)
|
| P (parking) + ILL (wrong) | ||
| 25 | AMULET |
A hairstyle, just one length, that jeweller exhibits? (6)
|
| A (a) + MU[l]LET (hairstyle, just on length) | ||
| 26 | JOHN DORY |
Private place to visit with line, and fish (4,4)
|
| JOHN (private place) + DO (visit) + RY (line, i.e. railway) | ||
| 28 | BY CHOICE |
Past chilled bar, central conservative departed voluntarily (2,6)
|
| BY (past) + CHO[c] ICE (chilled bar, central conservative departed) | ||
| 29 | XANADU |
Promised land, European character receives an abandoned airfield (6)
|
| AN (an) + A[irfiel]D together in XU (European character). I have no idea how ‘European character’ clues XU (and nobody else seems to know either). And I will stick my neck out and note that I think ‘abandoned’ as a gutting indicator is very questionable. It would work much better as a truncation indicator. | ||
| 30 | ANECDOTE |
Brief story smoker recalled about City function (8)
|
| EC (city) + DO (function) together in ETNA (smoker) backwards (recalled) | ||
| 31 | WET ROT |
Decomposition’s removing body of wine, red (3,3)
|
| W[in]E + TROT (red, i.e. abbreviation of Trotskyite) | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | FOCACCIA |
On the house account, American spies baked produce (8)
|
| FOC (on the house, i.e. free of charge) + AC (account) + CIA (American spies) | ||
| 2 | THRILLER |
Pop album’s tremulous singer capturing hearts (8)
|
| H (hearts) in (capturing) TRILLER (tremulous singer) | ||
| 3 | ON TIME |
Research institute erected in twelve months, as expected (2,4)
|
| MIT (research institute, i.e. Massachusetts Institute of Technology) backwards (erected) in (in) ONE (twelve months). Initially I found it hard to accept ‘twelve months’ cluing ONE but commenters have offered some justification that I think works. Thank you Pelham Barton and KVa. | ||
| 5 | LEEK |
Sheltered hindmost to check vegetable (4)
|
| LEE (sheltered) + [chec]K | ||
| 6 | CLOVELLY |
Constant money needed around Venice on vacation, resort famously steep (8)
|
| C (constant) + V[enic]E in (around) LOLLY (money) | ||
| 7 | RUINED |
Regret housing fashionable daughter that’s insolvent (6)
|
| IN (fashionable) in (housing) RUE (regret) + D (daughter) | ||
| 8 | MEAGRE |
Insubstantial meal at Greek’s all discounted by half (6)
|
| ME[al] A[t] GRE[eks] | ||
| 11 | QUEUING |
Announcer’s signalling in train? (7)
|
| Homophone (announcer’s) of “cueing” (signalling) | ||
| 14 | X-FACTOR |
Special quality of number ten, fine player (1-6)
|
| X (number ten) + F (fine) + ACTOR (player) | ||
| 17 | FIREWOOD |
Fuel anger between female and group of elders, say (8)
|
| F (female) + IRE (anger) + WOOD (group of elders, say) | ||
| 18 | DINOSAUR |
Upstanding rugby lad interrupts to help old fogey (8)
|
| RU (rugby) SON (lad) in (interrupts) AID (to help) all backwards (upstanding) | ||
| 19 | PLAYSUIT |
Ensemble’s quiet ballad supported by clubs perhaps (8)
|
| P (quiet) + LAY (ballad) + SUIT (clubs perhaps) with the definition referring to an ensemble of clothing. ‘Lay’ as a noun can refer to a ballad or narrative poem, especially one intended to be sung. | ||
| 22 | ZAMBIA |
Extreme characters with business degree traversing one country (6)
|
| Z A (extreme characters) + I (one) in (traversing) MBA (business degree) | ||
| 23 | QUICHE |
Which French cook trimmed flan? (6)
|
| QUI (which French) + CHE[f] (cook trimmed) | ||
| 24 | ENRAGE |
Wind up North, in time, starts to gust eerily (6)
|
| N (north) in (in) ERA (time) + G[ust] E[erily] | ||
| 27 | ECHT |
Genuine sort of college, top to bottom (4)
|
| TECH (sort of college) with the ‘T’ moved to the end (top to bottom) |
29A: XU contains an a(irfiel)d
In attempting this, I was left with a hole in the middle with 16ac, 20ac, and 11dn incomplete. When the solution was published online on the Monday, I was able to make sense of those three answers, with the following specifics:
16ac: JUG (prison) + FUeLS (fuel = food with middle letter omitted)
20ac is given as ZIP-NECK ZIP=fly as in trousers. I think Pete’s suggestion of TIE-NECK is just as good.
I could not make sense of XANADU or ON-TIME either.
The published solution has two answers beginning with each of J, Q, X, and Z unchecked including the four in the middle which provide the only link between the four corners of the grid. But it is not a double pangram, because there is only one V in the grid. It would have been easy to put INVADE in place of ENRAGE at 24dn, or VIAL for PILL at 21ac if INVADE was felt to be in bad taste in present times.
Thanks Pete for the blog.
29ac: I can see AN + A(irfiel)D. This use of “abandoned” was discussed at length when it was used by Steerpike in FT 17,607 and did not attract universal approval. But that still leaves XU to explain.
Incidentally, there is a typo in your answer to 27dn, which is ECHT, fitting with the correct parsing given and with the answer to 28ac.
XANADU
Found this online:
Xanu, the most powerful, mysterious and terrifying character in the whole series.
I never heard of this character. Must be a European cartoon character.
AD in XANU….maybe.
Thanks Pete Mclean for your lovely blog as usual (what holes? I didn’t see any) and Ardvark for the exciting puzzle.
ON-TIME
ONE: Could it be in the sense of ‘one year old’?
PB@4
When I was solving the puzzle, the discussion on ‘abandoned’ came to my mind. Now abandoned will slowly become a regular indicator for removing the inner letters of a word, I think.
I was unable to complete this. Very hard. I think Aardvark always has a pangram, but that was no help in solving this.
Cineraria@8: Having read my comment @2, I suppose it is possible that Aardvark submitted the puzzle with INVADE at 24dn, and this was changed without anyone noticing that the double pangram was thereby lost. I think with reason to suspect the double pangram, I may have got the answers in the middle. But I do not see how I could hope to suspect that pattern without having solved the clues first.
XANADU
XANU
The heroes encounter an alien being who claims to be behind Batman’s transformation. The being restores Batman to his regular self in exchange for Superman overthrowing a tyrant, Xanu, who rules the alien’s world. During their time in the mirror world, Superman and Robin also become similarly transformed.
(DC Comics)
Ooops! That’s American!
3d: Chambers gives “one” as “the age of 12 months.” I did not look it up when I solved the puzzle, but just now I could not remember how I parsed it last week, only that I did. I thought Xanadu clue may have been a mistake, confusing XU with XI.
Toughie to solve and to blog. Thanks Aardvark and Pete.
ub@12: I can see “the age of one year” in The Chambers Dictionary 2011, 2014, and 2016 (page 1076 each time). That is arguably good enough to make 3dn work as a clue, but I cannot find “the age of 12 months” in any of these. Which edition are you referring to?
At 12 months/ONE this child looks precocious.
Does this work?
Correct me if this is wrong English.
Thanks for the blog , I found this very tricky but fortunately I had far more time than normal so I did enjoy it.
XANADU I just assumed that XU was a letter perhaps from an ancient European language before the Greek alphabet that we know. I will ask an expert when I am back at work.
Twelve months/ one I found okay . For babies/toddlers their age is often referred to in months, seems to stop at about 18 months . A one year old will have a twelve month assessment. I may be out of date here, my sprogs a lot older now.
ZIP-NECK used to be quite common, typically leather jackets.
@13 Pelham Barton: You are correct. I double-checked and saw that I mistyped after looking at the page you reference. Thank you.
3dn further to KVa and Roz: I think the idea of working with ages helps, but I do not think it gets us all the way.
As exact periods of time, 12 months and one year are the same, but the unit “year” needs to be specified.
As ages, a child aged 12 months will be aged one, with no need to specify “year”, but so will a child aged 13 months, etc. I think that interpretation of the clue leaves us with an unsignalled definition by example.
An analogy that may or may not help: my next door neighbours’ pet is a dog/quadruped. According to at least some authorities, “dog” does not clue “quadruped”, but “dog?” does.
ub@16: Thank you for coming back on that.
PB@17
but so will a child aged 13 months, etc.
That’s a finer point. I didn’t think that far.
This was quite difficult for me and I ended up revealing seven answers out of pure frustration. I did enjoy a number of clues including X-FACTOR, FIREWOOD, ZAMBIA, ENRAGE, and ECHT. Thanks to both.
You aren’t allowed to retire Pete.
Your blog is one thing I always look forward to with my Sunday breakfast coffee.
I found this hard, with the same problems as others. It had more bung and hope answers than usual for me. But, as always, I enjoyed the struggle.
Horrible.
Thanks for the blog, but what a waste of my precious time on planet earth. I’m delighted to see that even some of the experts struggled.
Managed about 50% before abandoning. This type of conundrum has no place in the financial times. Should have been published in some specialist nook. What I found particularly galling is that I solved the previous Aardvark.
Where is the consistency, Editor?
Thanks so much for the enlightenment have been struggling with this most of Xmas. There were some v satisfying answers here and one or two (ok 5 or 6) that were well beyond me.
[Moly @22: I think Saturday’s crosswords are supposed to be more challenging. This was traditionally (prior to COVID) a prize puzzle that solvers had more time to complete.]
Thanks Tony @24
I can solve most Saturday puzzles (I often find them at the easier end of the spectrum – I don’t sense there’s any pattern). I can also generally solve Aardvark. This one was in a different league, in my judgement.
Most of all I yearn consistency by setters. It strikes me as the job of the editor, and the setter, to be fair to the solver. To avoid causing us to waste our time; to be fair.
I don’t have a problem with there being harder puzzles (as long as the clues are realistically solvable either through parsing or definition) and we should all want to try and improve. And of course the only way to do improve is with challenge; I just think we should know which puzzles the very difficult ones are likely to be, through consistency of setting.
Slightly tangentially, I also think the Financial Times is broadly read paper and the crossword should be broadly solvable. Not just open to a few elite few solvers.
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16 and 20 were absolute stinkers which rather dampened my festive mood on Christmas Eve. I won’t be rushing to attempt another Aardvark offering!