Prize puzzle from the Weekend FT of October 12, 2013
I spent a fair time finishing off this puzzle. The right half seemed easy while the left half harboured some tricky clues, notably 18dn. My favourites are 9ac (PRETORIA), 6dn (PORCELAIN) and 17dn (AYATOLLAH).
ACROSS
1 Work as a barber, you might say, bringing misery (8)
DISTRESS – double/cryptic definition
5 Device for stopping the swine punching drunk (6)
SPIGOT – PIG (swine) in SOT (drunk)
9 African city where baggage finally located in airport after getting lost (8)
PRETORIA – [baggag]E in anagram of AIRPORT
10 Something hairy on back of vine fruit (6)
ORANGE – ORANG (something hairy) + [vin]E. That’s ‘orang’ as in orang utan (which means man of the forest).
12 Trainee soldier held back by unwarranted action (5)
CADET – reverse hidden word
13 Country’s university team taken apart in festival (9)
GUATEMALA – U (university) + anagram of TEAM together in GALA (festival)
14 A craftsman, we assert (6)
WEAVER – WE (we) + AVER (assert)
16 He painted witch inside ring (7)
CHAGALL – HAG (witch) in CALL (ring)
19 Container whose rim gets loud when beaten (3,4)
OIL DRUM – anagram of RIM LOUD
21 Sweet, one of seven, we hear? (6)
SUNDAE – homophone (“Sunday”)
23 Cap, one in hand, for leader (3,6)
TOP BANANA – TOP (cap) + BANANA (one in hand). A bunch of bananas is often referred to as a hand.
25 Mark is twenty (5)
SCORE – double definition
26 Indian sage denounced it on the radio (6)
PANDIT – PAND (homophone of “PANNED”) + IT (it). ‘Pundit’ is, I believe, the more common form of this word but I frequently see ‘pandit’ as well.
27 Go mad, given failure to find shoe (4-4)
FLIP-FLOP – FLIP (go mad) + FLOP (failure)
28 Eleven in a pack? (6)
WOLVES – double definition. In the case of the first definition, this refers to the football team Wolverhampton Wanderers, affectionately known as Wolves.
29 Bound to have hurt after a bike race (8)
ATTACHED – A (a) + TT (bike race) + ACHED (hurt). I have known of the “TT” races in the Isle of Man since I was a boy and frequently seen something like ‘bike race’ cluing TT in puzzles but it was only recently that I learned that TT in this context stands for time trials.
DOWN
1 Date regularly screening classic show (6)
DEPICT – EPIC (classic) in D[a]T[e] (date regularly)
2 Plant, rush requiring source of water (9)
SPEEDWELL – SPEED (rush) + WELL (source of water)
3 Pole among seed for perch (5)
ROOST – S (pole) in ROOT (seed)
4 Police trap The Hornet? (7)
STINGER – double definition
6 Ordinary boxes or empty case for fragile goods (9)
PORCELAIN – OR (or) + C[as]E (empty case) together in PLAIN (ordinary)
7 With horse to knock up, country short of pan gets pot (5)
GANJA – NAG (horse) backwards + JA[pan] (country short of pan)
8 Extremities, one different in reverse (8)
TOENAILS – anagram of ONE in TAILS (reverse)
11 Powdered substance essential to hospital catering (4)
TALC – hidden word
15 Contortionistic relatives, elastic! (9)
VERSATILE – anagram of RELATIVES
17 Always a charge, I see, for religious authority (9)
AYATOLLAH – AY (always) + A (a) + TOLL (charge) + AH (I see)
18 Right leader who sat up high (8)
SOUTHPAW – anagram of WHO SAT UP. ‘Right leader’ is a boxing term referring to a stance adopted (typically) by left-handed boxers. I had to seek help with this clue, both because I failed to see ‘high’ as an anagram indicator and and because I was unfamiliar with the boxing reference.
20 Listen, may I introduce you to flesh? (4)
MEAT – homophone (“meet”)
21 Ruddy claret’s red! (7)
SCARLET – anagram of CLARETS
22 Device for data entry, important flat, perhaps? (6)
KEYPAD – KEY (important) + PAD (flat)
24 Jury’s face left to drop (5)
PANEL – PLANE (face) with the L “dropped” to the end. (I initially misexplained this wordplay!)
25 Good to fill in the deep brown pigment (5)
SEPIA – PI (good) in SEA (the deep). ‘Pi’ here is short for pious.
Yes, Pete, I also liked the social comment implicit in the clue for 9A – sadly however an all too frequent occurrence these days.
Thanks as always for your comprehensive blog.
I seem to have solved this unaided with only a query as to what the wordplay was in 28a.
I can see that I had tin drum for 19a before finding that southpaw didn’t fit
Thank you, Pete. I always enjoy Mudd’s puzzles, but I couldn’t parse the TOENAILS!
I parsed 24d, PANEL, as face = plane (as verbs) with the L dropping down.
Yes, you are right, Jan, re 24d.
Although, I took Plane and Face as mathematical terms meaning the flat surface of a geometrical figure [noun].
I couldn’t parse TOENAILS either and I still think that ‘reverse’ is a pretty loose definition for ‘tails’.
It probably refers to ‘heads or tails’.
Jan, Thank you for clarifying 24d. I had wondered about how ‘to drop’ worked.
Sil, I think you will find that, in the context of coins and similar items, ‘reverse’ is a precise definition for ‘tails’. See, for example, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obverse_and_reverse .