Financial Times 18,103 by MUDD

21 comments on “Financial Times 18,103 by MUDD”

1. I certainly needed a 2d today to guard against those subtropical torrents! And it was a fine diversion for such a gloomy day.
   Perhaps 7, 17, 25 and 28 (liked this) have been seen before but they did get me off to a good start.
   UNNOTICED had a neat surface and the anagram was a good spot. Indeed, there were some very smooth surfaces overall along with a right peppering of this setter’s tricksy double definitions, HITCH being my favourite.
   ENDLESS was elegant.
   Thanks to Mudd and Loonapick.

2. Remembered cobbler from previous cws, but it’s one of the many folk terms this Antiopodean didn’t grow up with. Meanwhile, why is a wallflower a hippo … shyness … looks …?
   Thx Mudd and loona.

3. Not much to add to Diane & loonapick. Except to say I loved the long anagrams and second Diane’s appreciation of the many smooth surfaces. Not difficult but fun.

   Thanks Mudd, loonapick and Diane

4. Gf@2 it is a wallower not a wallflower. But, as you suggested, it could be the latter due to looks

5. You beat me to it, Martyn @4

6. Mudd, Mudd, glorious Mudd.[22ac]

7. My favaes were HIPPO and UNNOTICED.

   ENDLESSS
   Should it be ENDLES? 🙂
   A non-word clueing another non-word…Would it have been more fun?

   Thanks, Mudd and loonapick.

8. I’ve never known Hitchcock to lose his second syllable. New to me the fruit pie (is it American?) and the souwester. Some people may pronounce “picture” and “pitcher” the same, but I don’t.

   An enjoyable puzzle, thank you.

9. GDO@8, I think Hitch was his affectionate nickname, everybody called him so.
   KVa@7, yes, I get it; ‘though I thought your 3 Ss on ENDLESSS was part of it! My take on it, is that ETERNA itself is a word for “eternal”, a Latin ? adjective ( or not, I may be dreaming); so the single word, is both a definition, and a wordplay.

10. Oh dear, thanks Martyn and Diane, time for new specs!

11. Thanks Mudd and loonapick

    15ac: I think “did you say?” works as an indication of approximately the same sound.

    4dn responding to Geoff@8: Collins 2023 p 395 marks the “fruit pie” meaning of cobbler² as chiefly US.

    5dn responding to ENB@9: the Latin adjective is aeternus/a/um. The Italian is eterno/a.

12. ENB@9
    😃
    3 Ss was a typo. Sorry.

13. ENDLESS
    Considering the explanation for eterna, I withdraw my observation/objection @7 with due apologies to the setter.

    Thanks ENB & PB.

14. 5dn revisited: In comment 11, I was just correcting ENB’s statement about ETERNA being a Latin adjective. I was not intending to agree with that as the intended parsing of the clue, for which I agree with loonapick.

15. Further to 14 and with apologies for “drip feeding”: I very much hope that ENB’s take on 5dn is not the setter’s intention. I think it works very nicely as applying the answer to an English language definition of itself. In my view, it would be asking too much of the solver to expect any clue word – let alone the only clue word – to be interpreted as a foreign language definition of the answer without some indication that a foreign language is involved.

16. They don’t have apple or cherry cobbler in Britain? Huh. It’s more pie-like than strictly speaking a pie. No bottom crust, and the top crust is more of a crumble.

    In case you were wondering, cluing DC as “Washington” is perfectly legit. The city and the District are coterminous, and therefore also synonymous, used in my experience interchangeably by the locals. You do often see “Washington, DC”, but that’s to distinguish it from not only Washington State but also places like Washington, PA or Washington, IN (or one of the several others).

17. A very pleasant solve this afternoon, with some nice PDMs, such as for HIPPO (thanks for the earworm) and COBBLER. We thought at first that SOUWESTER should be enumerated (3-6) but checking in Chambers we see it’s spelt with an apostrophe, not a hyphen, so the (9) enumeration is correct according to crossword convention.
    Thanks, Mudd and loonapick.

18. We do have COBBLERs on this side of the Atlantic, I’ve made savoury versions, but I know sweet exist. The recipes I see are for pastry/scone mix discs arranged over the top of the filling.

    Thank you to loonapick and Mudd for the puzzle.

19. I got there but didn’t find it as easy as Loonapick suggests, and took longer than Guy yesterday.

    I got stuck in the top left hand corner.

    NHO Cobbler as a pie.

    I’m not fond of double definitions and maybe the oppressive heat has slowed me down.

    But a thumbs down from me for this one.

20. E.N.Boll& @5 🙂

21. Thanks, Shanne.

    [Me @16: for the record, 28 states have cities, towns, or villages named Washington; none of them are terribly big. My post @16 lists two of the five that have more than 10,000 people; the other three are the ones in Illinois, Missouri, and Utah. The latter is the largest of the bunch, with a rapidly growing population of 28,000.]

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