A fine puzzle from WANDERER who deserves much applause for both the puzzle itself, as well as the completion of a milestone I think.
WANDERER – if you are reading this, do stop by to take a bow!:) Am I right in assuming you have set 100 puzzles now for the FT?
FF: 10 DD: 9
| Across | ||
| 1 | PUERTO RICO | Endless corruption sadly engulfs European island (6,4) |
| CORRUPTIOn* (endlessly) around E (european) | ||
| 7 | TIDE | Ebb and flow? This does, regularly (4) |
| &lit; ThIs DoEs (alternate letters) | ||
| 9 | ASPS | Venomous lot: privileged Americans dismissive of women (4) |
| wASPS (priveleged americans – referring to uppper class protestants in the us ,without W – women) | ||
| 10 | FISTICUFFS | A PC’s restraint at first if it’s boozy hand-to-hand combat (10) |
| [IF ITS]* CUFFS (a pc’s restraint) | ||
| 11 | MALIGN | Wickedly hurtful insult (6) |
| double def | ||
| 12 | RHOMBOID | Figure a Christian backs providing accommodation for house doctor (8) |
| ROID (reverse of DIOR – christian) containing [ HO (home) MB (doctor) ] | ||
| 13 | HEADROOM | Max perhaps has the measure of bridge (8) |
| cryptic def, MAX HEADROOM is a fictional ai character | ||
| 15 | ALGA | Ingredient of coastal gastronomy? (4) |
| &lit; hidden in “..coastAL GAstronomy” | ||
| 17 | BERG | Barman in short dash away from northern city (4) |
| BERGen (northern city, without EN – short dash) | ||
| 19 | NEOPLASM | Plan some treatment for new abnormal growth (8) |
| PLAN SOME* | ||
| 22 | DEMERARA | Sweet brown stuff from S American flower (8) |
| double def; name of river in guyana | ||
| 23 | FACIAL | Beauty treatment current around China, oddly (6) |
| FAL (current) around ChInA (oddly) | ||
| 25 | QUADRATICS | Some of those equating a square with racist riots (10) |
| QUAD (square) RACIST* | ||
| 26 | EAST | Point of a festival? No hesitation there (4) |
| EASTer (festival, without ER – hesitation) | ||
| 27 | BEVY | Broke after vacation, very discontented group of girls? (4) |
| BE (BrokE, after vacation, without inner characters) VY (VerY, discontented, without inner characters) | ||
| 28 | ANNO DOMINI | Fully content to fade in advancing old age (4,6) |
| expansion (fully) of AD (content to fADe) | ||
| Down | ||
| 2 | UPSTAGE | Pug eats messily, further away from watching eyes? (7) |
| PUG EATS* | ||
| 3 | RISHI | Sage is somewhat boorish individual (5) |
| hidden in “..booRISH Individual” | ||
| 4 | OFF AND ON | Bad article written by fellow occasionally (3,3,2) |
| OFF (bad) AN (article) DON (fellow) | ||
| 5 | INSTRUMENTATION | Arrangement using trumpet in sonatina, not a piano? (15) |
| TRUMpET IN SONaTINA* (without A P – piano); nice surface | ||
| 6 | ORISON | Prayer for one relative (missing female) (6) |
| {fOR I (one) SON (relative)} (without F, female) | ||
| 7 | THUMBNAIL | Sort of sketch album (hint: that’s wrong) (9) |
| ALBUM HINT* | ||
| 8 | DEFYING | Flouting feminine principle in four consecutive letters (7) |
| YIN (feminine principle) in DEFG (four consecutive letters) | ||
| 14 | DEGREE DAY | Potentially bad (or mad) time for conferring (6,3) |
| cryptic def; read as DEGREE (BA or MA) DAY (D) | ||
| 16 | CONFUSED | Disorderly muddle of dunces (8) |
| OF DUNCES* | ||
| 18 | EXECUTE | Something moving between banks, with winning effect (7) |
| EXE (something moving between banks) CUTE (winning) | ||
| 20 | STAYS ON | Second runner’s leg remains longer than expected? (5,2) |
| S (second) TAY’S (runner’s) ON (leg, cricket terminology) | ||
| 21 | PANAMA | One of the overheads airline once absorbed initially (6) |
| PANAM (airline once) A (Absorbed, initially) | ||
| 24 | CREAM | Mug up about English dairy product (5) |
| CRAM (mug up) around E (english) | ||
*anagram
Congratulations, Wanderer and thanks for another great one. I sailed through it until … alas, I was met with the SW corner, which took me a long time. Thanks, Turbolegs, for spotting the Century message.
Thanks, Turbolegs – especially for spotting the message. It would have been awful for that to be missed. I’ve searched in the archive and confirmed that this is, indeed, Wanderer’s hundredth FT puzzle. I’m amazed to find that I didn’t start doing his puzzles until four years ago, so I missed a lot of enjoyment, as he’s now one of my firm favourites.
I’m with Hornbeam in getting stuck in the bottom left corner.but it all came good in the end. As usual, there were no dud clues but my particular favourites today were the clever anagrams PUERTO RICO, UPSTAGE and THUMBNAIL and the ingenious BEVY, ANNO DOMINI and DEFYING. [I’m always pleased to see ORISON – the only place I’ve actually met it, apart from crosswords, is in my A Level study of Hamlet: ‘Nymph, in thy orisons be all my sins remembered’.]
Many thanks, as ever, Wanderer for the challenge and the fun – here’s to the next hundred! 😉
Yes, great stuff. We’ve had a few hard ones lately and this was yet another. A real challenge with several unparsed, but eventually all complete, including a semi-guessed DEMERARA as my last one in. Lots to like including BERG, PANAMA, QUADRATICS and FISTICUFFS. The Nina, only spotted at the end, was a nice little bonus.
Congrats to Wanderer for the century and thanks to Turbolegs for sorting it all out and explaining everything so well.
Thanks all – I very much enjoyed this too but also get held up in the SW corner. My LOI was 17a Berg when the penny finally dropped or I recalled that barman = composer in cruciverbiage.
Thanks to Turbolegs and Wanderer
Very nice, congratulations to Wanderer.
A neat touch to get 4 rivers in 4 different ways
I saw 13a and 14d as wordplay + def.
Thanks Wanderer and Turbolegs
The last of the puzzles left over from late October holiday period … and what a beauty it was. I did get if finished finally after 4-5 separate sittings (3 short ones and a couple of longer ones). Must congratulate the setter on his hitting the 100 milestone. I’ve been doing the FT cryptic on and off for over 25 years but only consistently on a daily basis (including playing catch up lots of times) since about 2014, so will have probably have done a majority of his puzzles.
Needed a fair bit of parsing help on this one ‘mug up’ for study / CRAM was a new term for me, hadn’t heard of Max Headroom the cartoon and didn’t know the city of BERGEN. From that, it was obvious that the SW was the hardest and last bit in for my solve as well.
Did notice the ‘differently defined’ rivers but did miss the nina.