Financial Times 17,613 MUDD

12 comments on “Financial Times 17,613 MUDD”

1. A very fair appraisal from Loonapick and lots of festive cheer to him and everyone here.
   I thoroughly enjoyed this, particularly the generous sprinkling of double definitions of which 1a was my favourite.
   Loved FOOTLOOSE for the definition, PANAMA for the surface and thought REDUCTION very neat.
   Thanks to Mudd for consistently providing entertainment throughout the year and also to Loonapick for the many well considered blogs over the same period.

2. Diane has summed up my thoughts very nicely indeed. With regard to puzzle, setter, blogger and community.

   I’d just add a couple more favourites: THESPIAN brought a smile; GOLFER is a nice twist on the old putter/putting ruse; PHILATELY and EQUIP are both very neat and PLANET has a nice evocative surface.

   Thanks Mudd and loonapick

3. Peter@3

   Peggy is a diminutive of Margaret – not sure of the derivation.

   Taking a pot shot at something is having a go, it originally derived form hunting – taking a shot at something which would eventually end up in a pot.

   To chin someone is to punch them on the chin (cf kneecap, crown)

4. Thanks for the blog and all the others this year . Neat set of concise clues and all single entries. It would have been a good Everyman puzzle.

5. Thanks Mudd and Loonapick

   20dn: Peggy for Margaret may be compared to Billy for William. We can go from Margaret to Maggie direct to Meggy and then Peggy, or possibly from Maggie to Mag and then Meg and then either back to Meggy or on to Peg and then Peggy. Meg (apparently as a short form of Margaret) is Mistress Page’s first name in The Merry Wives of Windsor so goes back at least to Shakespeare’s time.

   [21dn: It is irrelevant to the solving of this clue, but billiards is self-evidently at least as much a sport as golf is.]

6. 5ac/13ac/11dn: I think we should note for all of these how Mudd has avoided any possible ambiguity by putting the definition of the wrong answer in the middle of the clue.

7. Thoroughly enjoyed this one after yesterday‘s agonies.

   I feel slightly patronised by Loonapick’s comment about “relative newbie” because I’ve been trying to solve cryptic Crosswords for 20 years now and I still struggle. So I don’t feel a relative newbie. Maybe I’m just not very good.

   Nevertheless, thank you for an excellent blog

8. It has all been said – a nice puzzle, and it was great to see Mudd again with his humour and fabulous double definitions. I also have never heard of CHIN to mean hit, nor did I connect Kity and POT. I had a long list of favourites and add DECADE, THESPIANs, DIVA and VISTA to those mentioned above.

   Thanks to Mudd and Loonapick

9. Thank you Mudd and Loonapick.

   This was lots of fun!

   Billiards, golf, darts, and other competitions take skill, training, finesse, and make good money at a professional level. But they are games not sports! Just having fun throwing my view into that ring.

10. Started late… couple of hold-ups, didn’t see the DELI in SI – GHT as I was looking for something ending in L to fit into S – IGHT… loved PANAMA
    Anil@10 for a horrible moment I read “fitness” for “finesse”..
    thanks MUDD n loonapick

11. [Fitness is indeed a necessary requirement for billiards, golf, and darts. If you think otherwise, either you are mistaken or you are imposing an arbitrary definition of fitness.]

12. Got there eventually…I figured out little lower and putting and had seen flower before but couldn’t parse any of the reversed spellings…. thanks for the blog Loonapick and Mudd of course for the puzzle.

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