Financial Times 17,313 by GURNEY

11 comments on “Financial Times 17,313 by GURNEY”

1. Over and done with in less than half an hour, but enjoyable nevertheless. The Battle of Mons was my only unknown.

   I didn’t pay too much attention to the clue for 20a, Cineraria. It was clearly an anagram, so after a couple of intersecting words, I just put it in with no further thought.

   I’m sure someone else will enlighten us.

2. I liked this too. OENOPHILE was my favourite for both the def (‘retsina’ isn’t a common wine in crosswordland) and the tricky wordplay. Funny how these things happen, but NICKELODEON was the second clue I’ve done today referring to an ‘Old cinema’, with the other also being ‘in decline’.

   Like GDU @1, I didn’t think too much about 20a once I saw it was an anagram, but looking at it now, maybe there’s no “Twain” to help the surface reading (with ‘Mark’ as a verb in the surface) and to stop the answer being too obvious.

   Thanks to Gurney and Cineraria

3. Thanks, Gurney and Cineraria!
   The TOM SAWYER clue seems fine to me. Agree with WorldPlodder@2 regarding Mark and Twain.

4. I also didn’t like 20A and think that the “Mark” was redundant. Maybe “Mark’s literary character” would have worked better but usually clues reference a surname, rather than a first name. Offhand I cannot think of any other “literary” writers called Mark; although some of Mark Knopfler’s lyrics could be considered as “literary” works: “Tunnel of Love” springs to mind.

   25D was obvious from the clue but I had no idea of the law. I just knew it as something to do with electricity.

   Thanks Cineraria

5. Geoff@1-less you know about Mons the better.
   Nice puzzle

6. Made good progress with this, one which I found at the easier end of the FT spectrum. Like others, the Tom Sawyer clue baffled me though the answer was obvious. I thought a number of the anagrams, while easy, were well crafted. For instance, Clairvoyant.

   Thanks.

7. An enjoyable and not too difficult solve. We didn’t think too much about the construction of the clue for TOM SAWYER, We weren’t too sure of the definition of PERPETRATOR, thinking ‘perpetrate’ doesn’t necessarily have negative connotations, although we can’t think of an example where it doesn’t. But we liked CLAIRVOYANT, MERCENARY and OENOPHILE (might someone be all three, we wonder?)
   Thanks, Gurney and Cineraria.

8. I thought the TOM SAWYER clue just about worked. If we were good friends with Mark Twain, we could say “Tom Sawyer is such a Mark character”. Having one law named after you maybe doesn’t make you a law expert, but we know what’s intended. I enjoyed this. Thanks, both.

9. Thanks Gurney for some good clues — MERCENARY, OKINAWA, and PERPETRATOR among them and thanks Cineraria for the blog — the parsing of APACE eluded me.

10. Many thanks, Cineraria, for the excellent blog and also to all those who commented. The definition of TOM SAWYER was “Mark literary character” as a literary character, created by Mark (Twain). Inclusion of surname would brought it close to a definition-type clue, rather than a cryptic one. Wordplay made easy with straight anagram and, I guess, maybe the letter-count with two separate words helping too.

11. Gurney@10: Thank you for taking a moment to check in personally with that explanation.

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