Puzzle from the Weekend FT of October 12, 2024
I think Rosa was in great form with this puzzle. My favourite clues are 9 (PROTEST), 14 (NODULOSE) even though it is a new word for me, 20 (AT IT) and 21a (SINE QUA NON).
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | PARISH |
Flock of black sheep, small for area (6)
|
| PARIAH (black sheep) with the second ‘A’ (area) replace by ‘S’ (small). I had a hard time with this one. I was confident of the answer but fixated on ‘area’ being the definition. Thanks to my solving buddy BC for pointing me in the right direction. | ||
| 4 | AFFORD |
Have enough to buy part of Staffordshire (6)
|
| Hidden word (parts of) | ||
| 8 | BITTERN |
Flighty boomer is resentful and close to meltdown (7)
|
| BITTER (resentful) + [meltdow]N. A bittern is a type of heron that lives in marshes and makes a booming sound. | ||
| 9 | PROTEST |
Harry Potter’s complaint (7)
|
| Anagram (harry) of POTTERS | ||
| 11 | SEALING WAX |
Spooner’s trundling bags closer (7,3)
|
| Spoonerism of “wheeling sax” (trundling bags) | ||
| 12 | EMUS |
Bamboozle wingless, flightless birds (4)
|
| [b]EMUS[e] (bamboozle wingless) | ||
| 13 | NERVE |
Bottle opener, veneered in part (5)
|
| Hidden word (in part) | ||
| 14 | NODULOSE |
Disorder unloosed, with knobs on (8)
|
| Anagram (disorder) of UNLOOSED | ||
| 16 | GARGOYLE |
Grotesque outburst over drunken orgy (8)
|
| Anagram (drunken) of ORGY in (over) GALE (outburst) | ||
| 18 | ANNAL |
Obsessive about new yearly record (5)
|
| N (new) in (about) ANAL (obsessive) | ||
| 20 | AT IT |
Tantrists regularly having sex (2,2)
|
| [t]A[n]T[r]I[s]T[s] | ||
| 21 | SINE QUA NON |
Must function untiringly at first to stop conspiracy theory (4,3,3)
|
| SINE (function) + U[ntiringly] in (to stop) Q ANON (conspiracy theory) | ||
| 23 | KINESIS |
Family relative behind leader of environmental movement (7)
|
| KIN (family) + E[nvironmental] + SIS (relative) | ||
| 24 | REGALIA |
Top beer brought back for Top Gear (7)
|
| AI (top) + LAGER (beer) all backwards (back) | ||
| 25 | GUSHER |
Good escort is exceptionally effusive person (6)
|
| G (good) + USHER (escort) | ||
| 26 | INSANE |
Clueless Keynesian acting crazy (6)
|
| Anagram (acting) of [key]NESIAN | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | PRIDE |
Lions intruded, escaping from trap (5)
|
| Homophone (escaping from trap) of “pried” (intruded) | ||
| 2 | RATTLER |
Venomous type of gossip blowing top (7)
|
| [p]RATTLER (gossip blowing top) | ||
| 3 | STRANGELY |
Liberal refused to throttle vacuous lefty, surprisingly (9)
|
| STRANG[l]E (Liberal refused to throttle) + L[eft]Y | ||
| 5 | FOREX |
In favour of former currency market (5)
|
| FOR (in favour of) + EX (forrmer) | ||
| 6 | OUTSELL |
University dons stole rubbish and left best in shop (7)
|
| U (university) in (dons) anagram (rubbish) of STOLE + L (left) | ||
| 7 | DISBURSAL |
Payment is absurdly curtailed abroad (9)
|
| Anagram (abroad) of IS ABSURDL[y] | ||
| 10 | SWINGEING |
Severe European taking part in group sex (9)
|
| E (European) in (taking part in) SWINGING (group sex) | ||
| 13 | NEAR THING |
Northern man spending pounds for close shave (4,5)
|
| N (northern) + EARTH[l]ING (man spending pounds) | ||
| 15 | DRAG QUEEN |
Piqued at heart, embraced by a gender-bending transvestite (4,5)
|
| [pi]QU[ed] in (embraced by) anagram (bending) of A GENDER | ||
| 17 | GUTLESS |
Think hosts extremely trivial and weak (7)
|
| T[rivia]L in (hosts) GUESS (think) | ||
| 19 | NIAGARA |
Falls over backwards and starts to resent ageing (7)
|
| AGAIN (over) backwards (backwards) + R[esent] A[geing] | ||
| 21 | SWINE |
Scoundrel wins cycling race at last (5)
|
| Circular shift (cycling) of WINS + [rac]E | ||
| 22 | OPINE |
Over-long remark (5)
|
| O (over) + PINE (long) |
It is always nice to see a Roa Klebb puzzle. This one made me think and took a couple of visits to complete
As usual, there were lots of great clues. I shared a few favourites with Pete, and my complete list is STRANGELY, SINE QUA NON, RATTLER and EMUS for their surfaces, while I took a while to see PROTEST and thought it clever.
I could not work out the parsing for 1 down, so thanks Pete! There were a couple of new words, but at a number where I felt it was good to learn.
Thanks Rosa Klebb and thanks Pete for the blog
Thanks Rosa for an unsurprisingly excellent crossword. Ticking clues in a Rosa Klebb crossword is really a silly exercise because all of them deserve mention. I, a creature of habit, still do it and I selected PARISH, GARGOYLE, AT IT, SINE QUA NON, KINESIS, PRIDE, NEAR THING, DRAG QUEEN, and NIAGARA as my favourites. I missed NODULOSE but I should have seen it. Thanks Pete for the blog.
Tony@2 for NODULOSE, I wasted quite some time thinking the answer must be anagram (unloosed) of disorder. I needed a second visit to see the actual solution.
It’s always interesting to see where different people were held up. I saw NODULOSE on my second pass, when I had a couple of crossers, always thinking it was an anagram of unloosed. The one I didn’t parse was PARIAH.
(Pete, you’re missing the A with GENDER and QU to get DRAG QUEEN, because I double took on that one).
Thank you to the always excellent Rosa Klebb and Pete for the blog.
Four weeks on and another great puzzle from Rosa Klebb. Lovely clues with beautiful surfaces as always.
Favourites included: PARISH, BITTERN, GARGOYLE, KINESIS, INSANE, NEAR THING, NIAGARA
Thanks Rosa Klebb and Pete Maclean
Thanks for the blog, no need for me to add to the favourites listed above.
NODULOSE was devious with the first two words being 8 letters.
BITTERN had a good definition, we see them at Leighton Moss but they are very elusive so more likely to hear them .
Especially liked 14a NODULOSE for its definition “with knobs on” (1921–). Oed.com’s latest citation:
‘2005 The fecking twat had it coming to him with knobs on. J. Brand, It’s Different for Girls Epilogue 340′
[That’s Jo Brand, and I’ve changed a “u” to an “e” to get it past Akismet.]
Thanks RK&PM
I totally agree with Tony Santucci @2 – but, like him, I just can’t resist doing it.
And my list exactly matches his, with the addition of PROTEST (It feels as if this must surely have been done before, but I don’t remember it) and SEALING WAX, for the meaningful and witty Spoonerism: Rosa is one of the very few setters who unfailingly manage to produce these.
Many thanks to Rosa and Pete.
Thanks Rosa and Pete
Small point about the parsing of 21dn: I do not think SWIN is meant to be an anagram of WINS, just what we mathematicians call a cyclic shift. You can turn one into the other by writing the letters equally round a circle and then starting somewhere else. Of course, it would also work as an anagram.
[I originally typed this with “into” as two words, but I realised that turning a group of people in to the police is very different from turning them into the police.]
Pelham, Good point. Thank you. Being a programmer I know all about shifts and should have noted this in 21d.
I parsed SWINE as did PB @9. Kind of Rosa to give us the word in plain view; I always find cycling tricky when I have to work out the synonym first though that is still entirely fair. Like Pete M, I found 1a quite tough, in my case because I was sure the substitution was happening after an initial B. Only when PRIDE resolved itself was that idea – literally – knocked on the head.
As others have already said, there are just too many delightful clues in here to name a meaningful list of favourites. Either super smooth surfaces or very clever constructions – and generally both. Would that all crosswords were like this.
Thanks Rosa Klebb and Pete M
Agreed that this was an excellent crossword. Too many good clues to nominate a favourite but somr of the contenders would be BITTERN, SEALING WAX, GARGOYLE, SINE QUA NON and GUTLESS.
We thought it was going to be a pangram but in the end it was. two letters short.
Thanks, Rosa and Pete.
Agree with all the praise for the puzzle and blog. Please could I add my thanks to Pelham Barton@9 for introducing me to the term”cyclic shift”? I am over eighty and had never heard of it before.
SM@13: Thank you in turn for your kind words. Actually, on looking it up, I find that the exact term “cyclic shift” belongs more properly to computer science. The nearest I could find on Wolfram MathWorld is “cyclic permutation”, with the same meaning.
Wunderbar!