Financial Times 13,744 by Cinephile

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Cinephile gets everything right in this crossword: inventive, varied, no sloppy clues and exactly the right level of difficulty.  Altogether a pleasure to solve and a pleasure to blog.  Thanks Cinephile.

Hold mouse over clue number to read a clue.

Across
1 MIDDLE-AGE SPREAD MIDDLE AGES and P (piano=quietly) READ (study at university)
9 OUTSTAY OUTS (exposes) TAY (river) – one can outstay one’s welcome
10 BASTION BON (good) containing (drinks) ASTI (a wine)
11 LIFER REF (referee=judge) has ILL (mistakenly, reduced=short of one letter) all reversed (reactionary)
12 SURCHARGE CHAR (tea) inside SURGE (rapid increase)
13 GOLD LACED ‘Arsenic and OLD LACE‘ (1944 film) inside G and D strings (music) – definition is ‘made of precious metal thread’
15 IDAHO I’D A HOuse
16 TIPSY Y (unknown quantity, maths) and SPIT (likeness) all reversed – to be ‘one over the eight’
18 GUIDED BUS Anagram of GI (US soldier) and SUBDUED – definition is ‘new-fangled transport’
20 OVERTHROW VERT (green) and HR (hour) inside WOO (court) reversed – an extra run in cricket match
23   See 22
24 ARSENAL ARSENic (a lot of poison) and A L (pound, latin) – this was the first clue I tackled, and as soon as I saw ‘arsenic’ in the solution I started searching the crossword for ‘old lace’, finally finding it in 13ac.
25 LEBANON BAN (prohibition) inside LEON Trotsky
26 ANDERSON SHELTER ARN’T* around HOLDERNESS* – design of air-raid shelter
Down
1 MOONLIGHT SONATA MOONLIGHTS (does second job) ON (performing) AT A
2 DUTIFUL DU (‘of the’ in French) and I (1 Roman numeral) inside LUFT (‘air’ in GERMAN) reversed – from the famous message to the fleet by Admiral Nelson at the Battle of Trafalgar
3 LITERALLY LITE (restrained in modern style = increasingly popular adoption of American spelling for light) and RALLY (gathering) – definition is ‘just so’
4 ABYSS bABY’S Sock
5 ELBARADEI ELBA (island) with Right and IDEA* – Egyptian Nobel Peace Prize winner
6 PASCH Party (first letter of) and AS CH (Companion of Honour, British decoration) – definition is ‘Easter’
7 ERITREA RETIRE* and A
8 DANGEROUS CORNER ANGER (rage) and SCORN (contempt) embedded within (OUR ED)* (is wayward=anagram)
14 CIGARILLO CI (Channel Island) GORILLA (ape) with A and O swapping places (a little changed) – a small cigar
15 INEFFABLE FINE* and FABLE (story)
17 PRESSED PRESS (newspaper) ED (editor)
19 BARONET BAR ONE (with single exception) and The (first letter of)
21 TENOR Double definition
22, 23 WELLS FARGO WELLS (water supplies) FAR (greatly) GO (progress)

*anagram

8 comments on “Financial Times 13,744 by Cinephile”

  2. Thanks Cinephile for the crossword and PeeDee for the blog.

    There are three clues that could be taken as indirect anagrams. I was happy with 14dn because it was a small change after interpreting ape as GORILLA.

    I could also accept 8dn, where editor was abbreviated as ED to form part of the anagram fodder, but at least all the letters were actually in the clue.

    I was much less happy with 18ac, where it was necessary to convert “American soldier” to GI before forming the anagram. To me this is just the wrong side of the line and is asking too much for a weekday newspaper crossword. Of course, this is a matter of personal taste, and I have no quarrel with anyone whose opinions differ from mine.

  4. Many thanks PeeDee & Cinephile this was very enjoyable.

    However, I had absolutely no idea who ELBARADEI was.

    I assume that he was a pal of Cleopatra’s?

  5. Don’t very often get to see the FT (no FT, no comment) but picked this one up on the train and rattled it off in about 20 mins. A relaxing change from some recent Indy offerings.

    GI for ‘American soldier’ just the wrong side of the line and asking too much for a weekday newspaper crossword? Never! With all due respect, that’s commonplace elsewhere.

  6. Hi Allan, I think Pelham is objecting to anagrams made up of letters not present in the clue rather than the GI=’American Soldier’ definition per se. As you say, this is a commonplace abbreviation.

  7. Allan_C @5: As PeeDee (@6) has said, my objection was to the indirect anagram, not the use of “American soldier” for GI in itself. I had hoped that the context would make that clear.

  8. Thanks so much for the blog. We loved the puzzle (usually love Cinephile and thought this one just perfect), and really like the ability to see the clues when mousing over the numbers. A really nice addition to the site.

    Thanks so much PeeDee!

    I thought the indirect anagram was a tricky clue, but my mother solved it with ease.

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