Financial Times 17,053 by Mudd

10 comments on “Financial Times 17,053 by Mudd”

1. Two Mudd puzzles in the space of that week – double the fun!
   This was largely plain sailing, with lots of grins along the way (SQUEAL, BRICK, CHOCOLATIER).
   But my favourite was one of my last three in: BY A NOSE. It took me a while to spot ‘son’, instead of persisting with the letters of ‘boy’ and only then did I understand ‘vale’ as ‘bye’. Very good. The others were the-simpler-than-it-looked 4a and also 20a. Both emerging from the mists the following Sunday.
   Thanks to Mudd and Pete. (I had the same thought as you, Pete, re Ali and looked up his birthplace).

2. I had to struggle a bit more than normal this week. I usually have a fairly clean grid, but this time round was a bit of a mess, with four wrong answers over-written.

   There were a lot of multiple-words, which I often find a challenge. There seemed to be more anagrams than usual too, and Mudd did a masterful job hiding the anagram indicators in several clues. And then there was my usual share of new words & phrases (WOLF, OUSE, TOP HOLE and TROUT). And I know a roof is a HOUSETOP, but who calls it that?

   For my favourites, I shared BY A NOSE & CHOCOLATIER with Diane, and add FRAULEIN & SLEEPYHEAD (both examples of camouflaged anagram indicators), as well as CURATOR

   Thanks to Mudd and Pete. (I had the same thought as you Pete: not about Ali but about reverting to a prize puzzle)

3. Thanks for the blog , the Guardian and Observer have re-instated the prizes, maybe the FT soon. Diane and Martyn make a lot of good points, I will add BACKLASH for including Salk and WOLF-WHISTLE reads very nicely, they are meant to be banned now from building sites.

4. Martyn,
   I thought the same about HOUSETOP – probably why it was among my last and needed the crossers – but as luck would have it, I was nearing the end of Ulysses and spotted ‘housetop’, so James Joyce used it…100 years ago!
   I read that too, Roz, and imagined the difficulty in enforcing such a ban…liked the clue, anyhow.

5. It must be why they no longer whistle at me Diane , ha ha .

6. Thanks Mudd, I solved this slowly over several days — that’s just what I like in a Saturday crossword. My favourites included HOUSETOP, DARWIN, SLEEPYHEAD, and WOLF-WHISTLE. Thanks Pete for the blog. I do hope the FT brings back the prize — I was one of the random winners back in 2019 and I would like others to feel that joy.

7. I agree with all about the prize. I was lucky enough to win it twice. There must be many entrants so I imagine the prize winners are drawn out of editor’s hat.It was great fun. How can we encourage the FT to resume prizes?

8. The one way I can think of to encourage the FT to resume prizes would be for people to post their entries to the usual address. But it would be a bit costly in postage.

9. Thanks for your suggestion Pete@8. There seems to a bug in the system at Fifteensquared as I also received your post as a direct email?

10. Thanks Mudd and Pete
    Only started this one late last night and it spilled over until today – finishing it off this evening. There was a bit more oomph in it than usual, taking nearly twice as long as normal.
    The working out the wordplay for DARWIN, BACKLASH and TWO-BIT raised them to favourite status. Hadn’t seen the TOP-HOLE term before and must admit having to look up the inventor of the polio vaccine – I wonder if the anti-vaxers would still be, if they had of grown up when that dreadful disease was prevalent in society.
    Finished in the NE corner with that TOP-HOLE, FIREARM (clever and tricky word play) and CHOCOLATIER (after fixing the EER at the end).

Comments are closed.