Is the FT getting harder, or am I getting stupider? That’s a rhetorical question. Took me a while to work through this lovely puzzle from the Don, which touches on ornithology, pharmacology, philosophy and one or two things one would sooner not be made to consider over breakfast. Thanks, Bradman.
ACROSS
1. PASTRY Past [old] + r(ecipe) + (trend)y
4. AKINESIA Kines [cows] within Asia [China etc] to give a medical term for impaired movement
9. GRILL G(ood) + rill [flower, stream]
10. SPEARHEAD Pear [fruit] + he [man] within sad [grave]; lovely surface, this
11. ANGINAL Gin [stiff drink] within anal [in the bottom… I mean really, Don] to give a term describing various painful conditions
12. TWIDDLE T(rousers) + widdle [wee, urinate]
13. TEAL The alternate or ‘regular’ letters of ThEcAlL to give the Eurasian duck Anas crecca
14. MISTRESS Distress [anguish] with the initial D [500 in Roman numerals] ‘doubled’ to make M [1,ooo in Roman numerals]
17. KILLDEER Nice double definition: a hunter may want to kill deer, and the killdeer is a North American plover
19. COKE Double definition: a term for both cocaine and Coca-Cola (this was the last one to in for me, mainly because, going by the OED, it could just as well have been dope)
22. RUSSELL The name of the mathematician and philosopher Bertrand sounds like rustle [whisper]
24. EXIGENT Ex [old lover] + I [one] + gent [fellow]
25. PARCHMENT Ch(urch) men [blokes] within part [piece]
26. PILOT Pi [pious, religious] + lot [crowd] to give one who might literally be ‘up in the clouds’
27. OPPOSITE O [zero, love] + (a)pposite
29. TENDER Reversal of ruddy [red] + net [cricket practice]: tricky, this, as it really appears to clue rednet rather than tender
DOWN
1. PAGEANTS Page [try to get hold of – that is, contact a person’s pager] + ants [workers]
2. SLING BACK Double definition: to sling back an offering would be rather impolite, and a slingback is a kind of shoe
3. ROLAND Reversal of OR [Other Ranks, soldiers] + land [ground] to give the legendary Frankish hero
5. KEEP TO THE LEFT Another nice double definition: a political radical might be stubbornly left-wing, and a newcomer to the UK might need reminding that we dtive on the left here
6. NERVINE Nerve medicine hidden in dinNER VINEgary
7. SPEED Double definition, alluding to a slang term for amphetamine
8. ADDLED Add [tot (up)] + led [was first]
10. SELF-INDULGENT Anagram of fuelling tends to give a term descriptive of the hedonist Epicurus; what a marvellous surface
15. SHOVELLED Ignore the misdirection of shed in shovelled – this is hovel [shed] within sled [vehicle]
16. TESTATOR Test [try] + reversal of rota [list] to give one making a will (who might indeed wish to set up a list)
18. LEECHES (Fou)l + anagram of cheese
20. TROPPO Reversal of op [opus, work] + port [left] to give a musical term meaning ‘too much’
21. SIMPLE Double definition, alluding to a generic word for a herb
23. STRAP St(reet) + rap [kind of music] to give a looped band
Thanks Bradman for the puzzle and Ringo for the blog.
I too found this comparatively hard going but generally satisfying, and finished on 19ac. Lots of very nice clues. I think my favourite must be 15dn for the misdirection with “shed”. I also enjoyed the misdirection at 1dn: for some time I was trying to use “get hold of” as an inclusion indicator.
14ac: I wrote in DISTRESS, but that required some twisting of the clue: your explanation makes it clear that MISTRESS is the better answer.
19ac: Not the Don at his best. The two meanings are consecutive definitions under the same headword in my 1998 Chambers and there are so many other words that could have been used in the space.
28ac: As you imply, the formula used in this clue is often ambiguous. Here TENDER must be the correct answer, because RED NET is not really a proper phrase, and would have to be given as (3,3) if it were.
Thanks Bradman and Ringo. Mostly enjoyable. I too hazarded DOPE at 19. The doubling of D to M in 14 was a new device to me – neat!
Thank you Ringo for the blog. As usual the Don in one of his disguises is too tough for me.
2ac – I think you mean ‘kine’ rather than ‘kines’.