Financial Times 14,339 by Alberich

10 comments on “Financial Times 14,339 by Alberich”

1. Thanks for the blog, Jed.

   I parsed a couple of clues differently from you:

   17dn: anagram [unnervingly] of U[nion] and first letters of To Revive Bitterness + LENT

   21dn: CON [criminal] + DO [act] + NE [bridge opponents]

   and in 25dn I’m sure you meant to say that it’s THET[is] [sea nymph] + A – my favourite clue.

   Many thanks to Alberich for a most enjoyable puzzle.

2. Thanks Jed
   Regarding 17dn, I’m afraid I have to disagree with both you and Eileen (Eileen, your parsing doesn’t have enough Us). I think it should be:

   TU (union) R[evive] B[itterness] U[nnervingly] LENT (fast)

   I had the same parsing as Eileen for 21dn.

   In 23ac you have not indicated the need to remove the ‘s’ from ‘shunt’ before creating the anagram.

3. Thanks, Gaufrid! 😉

4. Thanks for the blog, Jed. My favourites were PHILANDER and REWARD amongst many good clues.

   I thought for 29ac long = PAN(t). Pang is only a transitive verb (to inflict a pang on) or noun in my dictionaries.

5. Thanks Alberich for an enjoyable puzzle and Jed for the blog. I found this comparatively easy after getting stuck on Phi in today’s Independent.

   17dn: May I offer a third incorrect parsing? I originally had it as a partial “& lit” with “Unruly” doing double duty as definition and anagram lead giving (U T R B U)* + LENT, which also requires “starts” to indicate initial letters on its own, before finding the much more satisfactory parsing that Gaufrid has already given @2.

6. With regard to 25d, the “sea nymph” is THETIS, “is lacking a” -> THETA.

7. Great puzzle; the little four-letter words were tricky.

   Thanks Jed, Eileen and Gaufrid; I struggled a bit with the parsing of TURBULENT. LARRUP was nicely hidden.

8. A relatively tough Alberich, in my perception that is.
   TURBULENT, PEDANTRY, THETIS and HIT-AND-RUN should indeed be parsed as others did make clear before.

   The only one I couldn’t find was DRAWER (26ac).
   It is also the only one that I didn’t like.
   I can see Alberich’s temptation for the use of ‘Turner Prize’ but ‘turner’ here as the reversal indicator doesn’t work for me. A question mark at the end is not enough.

   But apart from that (as always) a great crossword.

   Now this.
   Alberich’s cluing style is very Ximenean. In that sense he has much in common with Pasquale (known in this place as Bradman). Both setters may perhaps lack ‘humour’ (quotation marks!) or the Guardianesque playfulness that some find essential to a good crossword but their cluing is usually top-notch.
   Yet, I cannot understand why everyone adores A and many solvers find B less interesting.

   Coming back to this puzzle, I liked it very much.
   Thanks Jed!

9. Sorry, THETA (not Thetis) of course.
   On the other hand, CONDONE should be added to the list.

10. Same old argument there, Sil! But without wishing to disparage anyone in particular, there are very boring so-called Ximenean puzzles out there, together with some very sloppy (and also boring) so-called Libertarian offerings. So it might just be that there are good and bad puzzles popping up all over the Ximo-Libertarian spectrum, as we call it (not really. I just made that up. But it is an effect of spacetime).

    With Saint Lord John, you suspect he knows very well every Xim trope in the book (XOTAOTC probably, or CCM), and has chosen to devote his life to subverting them all, whilst remaining fair, or just about, and this, for the vast majority of people, including the Queen, has worked.

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