Prize puzzle from the Weekend FT of May 20, 2017
A typically fine puzzle from Mudd which gave me just a little trouble in the bottom left. My clue of the week is 6dn (PUSHOVER) and I also especially like 13a (MOUSER).
| Across | ||
| 1, 4 | CARPET SLIPPERS | Reprimand skaters for casual footwear (6,8) |
| CARPET (reprimand) + SLIPPERS (skaters) | ||
| 9 | MISLED | Taken in the wrong direction, might one be skidding down the motorway? (6) |
| MI SLED (might one be skidding down the motorway? — i.e. the M1) | ||
| 10 | ARMS RACE | Mars furious with people for an accumulation of weapons (4,4) |
| Anagram (furious) of MARS + RACE (people) | ||
| 12 | SENTENCE | Language unit one’s passed (8) |
| Double definition | ||
| 13 | MOUSER | Flower picked by male cat (6) |
| OUSE (flower, i.e. river) in (picked by) MR (male) | ||
| 15 | LUTE | Old instrument spoils broadcast (4) |
| Homophone (broadcast) of “loot” (spoils) | ||
| 16 | BRITTEN | He scored for his country, did you say? (7) |
| Homophone of “Britain” (his country) | ||
| 20 | TIBETAN | Asian having to live in the confines of giant (7) |
| BE (to live) in TITAN (giant) | ||
| 21 | VEGA | Star thrown back into luggage van (4) |
| Reverse hidden word | ||
| 25 | FLOSSY | Disaster in fancy skirts, overdressed (6) |
| LOSS (disaster) in F[anc]Y | ||
| 26 | ATROPINE | A protein disguised as poison (8) |
| Anagram (disguised) of A PROTEIN | ||
| 28 | EYESIGHT | Faculty I place in audition? (8) |
| Homophone (in audition) of “I site” (I place) | ||
| 29 | TSETSE | Fly goes down into treacle, wings only (6) |
| SETS (goes down) in T[reacl]E | ||
| 30, 31 | STOCKING FILLER | Gift in left sock getting girl excited (8,6) |
| Anagram (excited) of IN LEFT SOCK GIRL | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | CAMISOLE | Women’s top author into cabbage (8) |
| AMIS (author) in COLE (cabbage) | ||
| 2 | RESONATE | Consider squeezing hooter that’s turned up to produce echo (8) |
| NOSE (hooter) backwards (that’s turned up) in (squeezing) RATE (consider) | ||
| 3 | ELEVEN | Number in the middle of twelve and ten so? (6) |
| [tw]EL[ve] + EVEN (ten so?). I needed some help to figure out the second part of this wordplay. | ||
| 5 | LORD | Drunkard supposedly partial to mezcal or daiquiri (4) |
| Hidden word | ||
| 6 | PUSHOVER | Something sticky? Hang about, it’s a piece of cake! (8) |
| PUS (something sticky) + HOVER (hang about) | ||
| 7 | ELAPSE | Pass light up over heads of service engineers (6) |
| PALE (light) backwards (up) + S[ervice] E[ngineers] | ||
| 8 | SHERRY | Cast about to go off for a drink (6) |
| ERR (to go off) in SHY (cast) | ||
| 11 | SCARLET | Red claret’s drunk (7) |
| Anagram (drunk) of CLARETS | ||
| 14 | STEALTH | Secrecy a shade irrelevant ultimately in first half of show (7) |
| TEAL (a shade) + [irrelevan]T together in SH[ow] | ||
| 17 | DIPSTICK | Jerk to go down, don’t twist! (8) |
| DIP (to go down) + STICK (don’t twist – as in the card game pontoon, a.k.a 21) | ||
| 18 | REMITTAL | Hand taken in sincere pardon (8) |
| MITT (hand) in (in) REAL (sincere) | ||
| 19 | CAPE FEAR | Preface with a novel for thriller (4,4) |
| Anagram (novel) of PREFACE A. Cape Fear is a thriller movie — actually two thriller movies, an original and a remake. The 1962 original starring Gregory Peck and Robert Mitchum is, I believe, the better known although Martin Scorsese’s 1991 remake with Robert De Niro and Nick Nolte won more awards. | ||
| 22 | AFTERS | T is (immediately) for tiramisu? (6) |
| AFTER S (T is immediately, as in the alphabet). Some non-Brits may be unfamiliar with ‘afters’ being used in the sense of dessert. | ||
| 23 | POMELO | Setter in game that’s fruity (6) |
| ME (setter) in POLO (game) | ||
| 24 | BONSAI | Eastern art – good sticking at it, initially (6) |
| BON (good) + S[ticking] A[t] I[t] | ||
| 27 | CHIN | Almost land punch (4) |
| CHIN[a] (almost land) | ||
Thanks for the low down on the film Pete. Managed to fetch it this time as I remembered a previous clue . Thank you Mudd and Pete.
Thanks Mudd & Pete.
I thought that Mudd had given us an easy starter in 1 down, the definition “cabbage” and the reference to the Italian author Giuliana Sica giving the obvious solution “brassica”. 12 across and 3 down easily fell into place but unfortunately I was unable to complete the rest of the top left corner!
Thanks Mudd and Pete
Did this one a while ago and for some reason only got around to checking it up just now. I had it down as taking 3 hours which is way over the normal time for this setter and I also was held up in the SW corner with FLOSSY (a new term for me), DIPSTICK (a tricky definition for STICK which I didn’t understand fully until coming here) CHIN (hadn’t heard of this punching term) the last few in.
Had seen the film, CAPE FEAR, in another crossword around the time, so it didn’t present too much of a problem here.
Good quality challenge as per normal from JH.
I liked MOUSER too but hadn’t realised that MR = male. Why is that?
I can see now that writing it as MR may be rather unclear because it suggests that it is an abbreviation for something like Metropolitan Railway or Master of the Rolls. In fact it is an abbreviation but for ‘mister’. It would have been clearer written as “Mr.”, yes?