Prize puzzle from the Weekend FT of April 7, 2018
Rosa delights me again with some typically fine surfaces. My clue of the week is 15ac (ADDICTION) and I also applaud 19ac (LAP UP), 3dn (RHYME), 5dn (ACRID) and 16dn (DWELLINGS).
| Across | ||
| 1 | PUBERTY | Rejected informal agreement to confine boy when hormones rage (7) |
| BERT (boy) in YUP (informal agreement) backwards (rejected) | ||
| 5 | AT WORST | Taking most unfavourable view of opener, conclusively stumped on a pair (2,5) |
| A (a) + TWO (pair) + [opene]R + ST (stumped, as in cricket) | ||
| 9 | RUMMY | Clubs withdrawing from rubbish game (5) |
| [c]RUMMY | ||
| 10 | UKRAINIAN | British weather starts to irritate absurdly nervy Slav (9) |
| UK (British) + RAIN (weather) + I[rritate] A[bsurdly] N[ervy] | ||
| 11 | UNAVENGED | Arousal of nude vegan not requited (9) |
| Anagram (arousal of) NUDE VEGAN | ||
| 12 | SUSHI | Ultimately amateurs, you useless English samurai make Japanese scoff (5) |
| [amateur]S [yo]U [useles]S [englis]H [samura]I | ||
| 13 | BITES | Brit errs, relinquishing rights for morsels of food (5) |
| B[r]IT E[rr]S | ||
| 15 | ADDICTION | Dependence Day, in a manner of speaking (9) |
| A (a) + D (day) + DICTION (manner of speaking) | ||
| 18 | ARCHETYPE | Typical example of drug ingested by Norman? (9) |
| E (drug) in (ingested by) ARCH TYPE (Norman?) | ||
| 19 | LAP UP | Eagerly welcome LaMotta, discontented young boxer? (3,2) |
| L[amott]A + PUP (young boxer?). “LaMotta” references Jake LaMotta, an American boxer, who was portrayed by Robert De Niro in Martin Scorsese’s 1980 film Raging Bull. | ||
| 21 | SPLIT | Rent place on Adriatic (5) |
| Double definition | ||
| 23 | POLE VAULT | Try to jump over bar in eastern European wine cellar (4,5) |
| POLE (eastern European) + VAULT (wine cellar) | ||
| 25 | NEXT OF KIN | Closest relation of wild fox in Kent (4,2,3) |
| Anagram (wild) of FOX IN KENT | ||
| 26 | NOEND | Large amount of revolting gas inside of Ada (2,3) |
| NEON (gas) backwards (revolting) + [a]D[a] | ||
| 27 | CAYENNE | Spice from island in French north-east (7) |
| CAY (island) + EN (in French) + NE (north-east) | ||
| 28 | SYMPTOM | Lousy MP to mask overwhelming evidence of something wrong (7) |
| Hidden word, ‘overwhelming’ being, I fancy, an unusual hidden-word indicator but one that I think is okay. | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | PERTURB | Expert urbanely concealing disquiet (7) |
| Hidden word | ||
| 2 | BOMBASTIC | Pompous BBC aims to change (9) |
| Anagram (change) of BBC AIMS TO | ||
| 3 | RHYME | Poem of Frost read aloud (5) |
| Homophone (read aloud) of RIME. ‘Rime’, in case you are unfamiliar with the term, is another word for frost or, as one dictionary puts it, “Ice crystals forming a white deposit, especially on objects outside”. (So, I guess I cannot say that my freezer is riming.) Oh, and it’s an alternate spelling for ‘rhyme’. | ||
| 4 | YOUNG LADY | Fancy any old guy or girl (5,4) |
| Anagram (fancy) of ANY OLD GUY | ||
| 5 | ACRID | Extremely alcoholic free bitter! (5) |
| A[lcoholi]C + RID (free) | ||
| 6 | WHIMSICAL | Capricious male thus pursuing wife, a student (9) |
| W (wife) + HIM (male) + SIC (thus) + A (a) + L (student) | ||
| 7 | RUINS | Demolishes Freudianism on a regular basis (5) |
| [f]R[e]U[d]I[a]N[i]S[m] | ||
| 8 | TENSION | It causes butterflies in nets to flap, taking in oxygen (7) |
| O (oxygen) in anagram (to flap) of IN NETS | ||
| 14 | SWEETCORN | Refuse to eat tiny tot’s last vegetable (9) |
| WEE (tiny) + [to]T together in SCORN (refuse) | ||
| 16 | DWELLINGS | Houses large number comfortably in empty garages (9) |
| D (large number, i.e. 500) + WELL (comfortably) + IN (in) + G[arage]S | ||
| 17 | IMPRUDENT | Reckless rogue with dirty books (9) |
| IMP (rogue) + RUDE (dirty) + NT (books, i.e. New Testament) | ||
| 18 | ARSENIC | As one, enthralled by cranes flying (7) |
| I (one) in (entralled by) anagram (flying) of CRANES. AS is the chemical symbol for arsenic | ||
| 20 | POTSDAM | Kitty’s on barricade in German city (7) |
| POTS (kitty’s) + DAM (barricade) | ||
| 22 | LAXLY | Set about turning 60 in a relaxed way (5) |
| LX (sixty) backwards (turning) in (about) LAY (set) | ||
| 23 | PEKOE | People on vacation knocking back fine English tea (5) |
| P[eopl]E + OK (fine) backwards (knocking back) + E (english) | ||
| 24 | VENOM | Rancour in van, missing an M1 turning (5) |
| V[an] + M ONE (M1) backwards (turning) | ||
Sheer class!
Thanks Rosa & Pete.
In 28 across I did wonder if mask was doing double duty as fodder and hidden-word indicator, making overwhelming superfluous, but concluded that Rosa would not be so lazy and careless!
Thanks to Rosa Klebb and Pete MacLean. I missed this puzzle when traveling but found it today and greatly enjoyed it. I’m not used to seeing SWEETCORN as one word and needed help with the PE in PEKOE (people on vacation) and the ST in STUMPED (as usual I am weak on cricket terms) but the clues from this setter are always a delight.
Thanks Rosa Klebb and Pete
Entertaining puzzle that was not as difficult as she can be. Only the Norman arch was new to me.
Liked the trick with the extraction of rights to give BITES.
Finished in the centre of the crossword with LAP UP and ARCHETYPE the last couple in.
I had the same unknown parses as ACD did, and enjoyed Rosa’s work as usual. My checkmark went next to 28ac – I thought the hidden word was pretty slick. Great puzzle, great blogging, much obliged!
I have improved my cryptic skills quite a bit over the past few months – I asked my daughter to put a Times of London collection in my stocking and I’ve hacked my way through 3/4 of the 100 cryptics found therein. These puzzles are still very challenging, I find, but much smoother sailing than I had before. Only proble is there is nowhere to go when I don’t understand how something fits together, since I am not over the Times’ paywall.
Old dog. New tricks!