Prize puzzle from the Weekend FT of June 8, 2019
There are a good few delicious clues but also a couple of obscure words in our latest from Rosa. My favourite is 1dn (STATIC) which was also my first-in. I found other tasty dishes in 24ac (ASIA MINOR), 3dn (MORNING SICKNESS) for its cryptic definition, 6dn (CARDINAL NUMBERS) and 9dn (OMANIS) for its suggestive surface.
Two new words to me appeared at 23dn (EPODE) and 28ac (PEASANTY) which at least was guessable. Thank you, Rosa.
| Across | ||
| 1 | SCRAMBLE | Jockey beat it black and blue on regular basis (8) |
| SCRAM (beat it) + B (black) + [b]L[u]E | ||
| 5 | SCARAB | Driverless car about to run over beetle (6) |
| Hidden word (to run over) | ||
| 10 | ANGER | Hack off and remove casing of sausages (5) |
| B[anger]S (remove casing of sausages) | ||
| 11 | TOMORROWS | Queen’s mate is sad to lose head in days to come (9) |
| TOM (queen’s mate) + [s]ORROWS (is sad to lose head) | ||
| 12 | INTUITION | Suspicion of home schooling (9) |
| IN (home) + TUITION (schooling) | ||
| 13 | INTER | Plant 15 back to front on island (5) |
| I (island) + TERN (15, i.e. seabird) with the ‘N’ moved up front | ||
| 14 | DINGLE | Hollow noise ultimately making girl apprehensive (6) |
| DIN (noise) + [makin]G [gir]L [apprehensiv]E. A dingle is a small wooded hollow. | ||
| 15 | SEABIRD | Gull perhaps burst airbeds (7) |
| Anagram (burst) of AIRBEDS | ||
| 18 | ANGLING | Pointing at Nigel, oddly popular and grand (7) |
| A[t] N[i]G[e]L + IN (popular) + G (grand) | ||
| 20 | TONGUE | Chinese society content to shun ukulele and mouth organ (6) |
| TONG (Chinese society) + U[kelel]E. With a cryptic definition. | ||
| 22 | DRECK | Rubbish pile round back of boozer (5) |
| [booze]R in (round) DECK (pile) | ||
| 24 | ASIA MINOR | Confusingly, Romania is part of Turkey (4,5) |
| Anagram (confusingly) of ROMANIA IS | ||
| 25 | BROKE RANK | Penniless lush stepped out of line (5,4) |
| BROKE (penniless) + RANK (lush) | ||
| 26 | ENDED | Over time deserts moved in particular direction (5) |
| [t]ENDED (moved in particular direction, time deserts) | ||
| 27 | EVEN SO | Still huge and certainly not shrinking, seen from behind (4,2) |
| OS (huge) + NEVE[r] (certainly not shrinking) all backwards (seen from behind) | ||
| 28 | PEASANTY | Sally scrubbing hands like a yokel (8) |
| P[l]EASANT[r]Y (sally scrubbing hands). ‘Peasanty’ is a new word to me | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | STATIC | Changeless Jacques Tati clowning around (6) |
| Hidden word (around). As a fan of Jacques Tati, I was delighted by this clue. However, in a comment (see below), Sil states that the way Rosa uses ‘around’ does not work and I see his point. | ||
| 2 | RIGHT-WING | Wife stops correcting Conservative (5-4) |
| W (wife) in (stops) RIGHTING (correcting) | ||
| 3 | MORNING SICKNESS | Congress in Minsk unfortunately expecting trouble (7,8) |
| Anagram (unfortunately) of CONGRESS IN MINSK with a fine cryptic definition | ||
| 4 | LATTICE | Tactile drunk crossed bars (7) |
| Anagram (drunk) of TACTILE | ||
| 6 | CARDINAL NUMBERS | Figures showing how many anaesthetists in the Vatican? (8,7) |
| Double/cryptic definition | ||
| 7 | ROOST | Bounder gutting succulent fowls (5) |
| ROO (bounder) + S[ucculen]T | ||
| 8 | BESTRIDE | Have a leg either side of top fairground attraction (8) |
| BEST (top) + RIDE (fairground attraction) | ||
| 9 | OMANIS | Sultan’s citizens philander, regardless of restrictions (6) |
| WOMANISE (philander) with the first and last letters removed (regardless of restricitions) | ||
| 16 | IGUANODON | Dinosaur dung collected by institute’s top academic (9) |
| I[nstitute] +GUANO (dung) + DON (top academic) | ||
| 17 | LAUDABLE | Praiseworthy measure set up to conserve goldfish (8) |
| AU (gold…) + DAB (…fish) together in (to conserve) ELL (measure) backwards | ||
| 19 | GHAZAL | Eastern poem is good way to escape chance onset of lassitude (6) |
| G (good) + HAZA[rd] (way to escape chance) + L[assitude]. A ghazel (or ghazal) is an Arabic lyric poem that starts with a rhyming couplet whose rhyme is repeated in all even lines and which is especially common in Persian literature. I had come across this word before but did not manage to dredge it up when I needed it and resorted to using a pattern-matching tool to solve this clue. | ||
| 20 | TWINKLE | Wee nurses with gleam in eye (7) |
| W (with) in (nurses) TINKLE (wee) | ||
| 21 | ARIDLY | After vacation, angular invalid lay lifelessly (6) |
| A[ngula]R I[nvali]D L[a]Y | ||
| 23 | EPODE | Use dope after last of cocaine lines (5) |
| [cocain]E + anagram (use) of DOPE. An epode is a lyric poem in which a long verse is followed by a shorter one. And it is a new word to me. | ||
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