Financial Times 17,311 by Mudd

10 comments on “Financial Times 17,311 by Mudd”

1. While it has been nice to experience a variety of setters recently, it was wonderful to find Mudd back again. I was on the same wavelength and I love his sense of humour. Unusually for me, I knocked it out in a single sitting, solving and parsing all clues in one hit.

   I loved the parrot clue, and quoted it to several unsuspecting friends through the week. Other favourites were FLAT OUT, PERUSE and STEAMY.

   As always, lots to learn. I have never seen SITTER used to mean certain win, so I cannot answer Pete’s question. I also had a similar note about CALAMARI. Not sure I have seen DING DONG used as a noun before, and I was horrified to see that “flower” not only points to the hundreds of blooming plants, but also the thousands of rivers. But, I worked it out, and quite liked EXECUTE too.

   Many smiles this week. Thanks Mudd for an enjoyable puzzle and thanks Pete for your great explanation

2. Thanks for the blog, I agree with you and Martyn – Many smiles this week – is a good summary . EMULATE is very clever I also liked CATAPULT .
   For CALAMARI we need the views of an Italian speaker.
   SITTER , Chambers has – an easy shot – (from sitting bird) now often applied to sports such as football as common usage.
   It also has – anything difficult to fail in – which just about gives Mudd cover for me.

3. Having checked my assorted Harraps and Collins dictionaries, le calmar/le calamari (Fr), Il calamaro (It) and el calamari (Sp) all translate as squid. It’s true that calamari on menus invariably seems to be deep fried squid in rings but whether cooked or swimming in the sea, it’s still seafood so I’ve no problem with it.
   I enjoyed the return of Mudd and think I liked CATAPULT and DING DONG best. I remember struggling to parse PRIMACY so thanks to Pete and our setter.

4. Thanks, Mudd and Pete. I echo the positive sentiments, this was most enjoyable.

   As I understand it, calamari doesn’t refer to a specific dish but to squid as an ingredient, so the “edible” qualifier in the definition makes it ok, I think. My local anglo-tapas joint has calamari a number of ways on the menu, all of them delicious.

5. Thanks Mudd and Pete

   15ac and 21ac: For each of these I took the definition as just the first word, the second word being part of the “hidden” indicator.
   20ac: Nice to see an old friend reappearing. I can remember a time when “flower” for “river” was so common in crosswords that using it to mean “plant” actually had some deceptive value.

6. I think if you miss a sitter you miss a certain goal which may or may not be a winner. For me, CALAMARI are plural. [ derived from a Greek word for pen, one dictionary says that’s the shape of the internal shell, another from the fact that they squirt ink] I agree with P B@5 about 15ac and 21 ac and with all those who found this fun.

7. Thanks Mudd and Pete. SARDINES, ISOLDE, STEAMY, and FLAT OUT were my top choices. I failed with EMULATE (didn’t get the Monty Python bit) and PRIMACY (never heard of pacy), and I didn’t fully understand SITTER. All CALAMARI is squid but not all squid is CALAMARI — some of it is used for bait. As Widdersbel @4 pointed out “edible” makes the clue OK for me. Thanks Pete for the blog.

8. Mostly straightforward but we thought it was going to be a DNF till we got PRIMACY and realised that ‘kill’ was the definition giving us EXECUTE and th crossing OXBRIDGE as our LOI. Favourite was CATAPULT.
   Thanks, Mudd and Pete.

9. I have corrected 15 and 21. Thank you Pelham and Petert. My brain must have been out to lunch when I did those!

10. Late to the party but glad Mudd is back as I can finish his puzzles sometimes, like this one. Favourite and first in was SARDINES.

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