Financial Times 14,705 by ALBERICH

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A tough puzzle from Alberich.

I found this puzzle tricky.  I made life hard for myself by incorrectly entering INTENDED at 7 across and STINGY at 2 down, but even so Alberich makes life hard by continually throwing in misdirections.  There are numerous words that experienced solvers recognise as construction indicators (anagrams, reversals, containment etc).  Alberich seems to delight in including as many of these as possible but used in their literal sense and so sending us off on wild goose chases looking for constuctions that are not there.

Thanks Alberich.

completed grid

Across

7 Admirer’s plighting to troth to come? (8)
IDOLATER
I DO LATER (a promise of a future act, plighting of troth to come)

8 Politician, one leading party, shows passion (6)
LIBIDO
LIB (Liberal, politician) I (one) then (leading) DO (party)

11 Ravel initially composed alternative end for Bolero? (5)
DANCE
anagram (ravel) of Allternative Composed (initial letters of) and END

12 Car held by popular belief, oddly, to be almost silent (9)
INAUDIBLE
AUDI (car) in (held by) IN (popular) BlLiEf (odd letters of)

13 Unscrupulous sort will be back shortly after retiring (7)
SHYSTER
STERn (back, shortly=unfinished) after SHY (retiring)

14 Boastful talk will follow from Devon town (7)
EXMOUTH
MOUTH (boastful talk) follows EX (from)

15 The renowned navy is at sea at regular intervals (5,3,3,4)
EVERY NOW AND THEN
(THE RENOWNED NAVY)* anagram=at sea

18 Pleasant fellow’s caught in a lie (7)
AFFABLE
F (fellow) in A FABLE (lie)

20 Herb Alpert rumoured at first to open record store (7)
ARCHIVE
CHIVE (herb) with A R (first letters of Alpert Rumoured) in front (to open)

22 Having admitted time in Holland, suspect is made to strip (9)
DISMANTLE
(IS MADE)* anagram=suspect contains (having admitted) T (time) in NL (Nederland, Holland)

23 An element of legalese putting off judge (5)
ARGON
jARGON (legalese) missing J (judge)

24 Satellite boxes extremely versatile? That’s progress (4,2)
MOVE ON
VersatilE (end letters, extremes of) in MOON (satellite)

25 Dignitary of long ago holding religious service? On the contrary (8)
MAYORESS
MASS (religious service) holding YORE (of long ago) – as opposed to YORE holding MASS

Down

1 New inlaw with wife missing, presumed dead? That’s awful but don’t give up! (3,11)
NIL DESPERANDUM
anagram (awful) of N (new) INLAw (w=wife missing) and PRESUMED D (dead)

2 Down, perhaps, from Scotland right away? (6)
COUNTY
COUNTrY (Scotland perhaps?) missing R=right – County Down in Ireland

3 Succeeded in record attempt to produce artwork (8)
TAPESTRY
S (succeeded) in TAPE (record) TRY (attempt)

4 2,000 pensioners initially failing to recollect? Maybe they’re having these (6,7)
SENIOR MOMENTS
anagram (to recollect) of MM (two thousand) pENSIONERS (initial letter missing, failing) and TO.  Definition is also &lit.

5 Crown prosecutor restrains ego before judge half-heartedly (6)
DIADEM
DA (prosecutor) contains (restrains) I (ego) before DEeM (judge, half heartedly)

6 Broadcast skirmish, or edit it out? (8)
AIRBRUSH
AIR (broadcast) BRUSH (skirmish)

9 Generosity characteristic of beggars? (4-10)
OPEN HANDEDNESS
double definition

10 Where rocket leaves quite often can replace a core of lovage in a salad (4,9)
CAPE CANAVERAL
anagram (in a slalad) of CAN REPLACE A and loVAge (core, middle letters of)

16 Gushing eulogy originally given by female quintet about America (8)
EFFUSIVE
Eulogy (origin, first letter, of) F (female) FIVE (quintet) containing US (America)

17 Secretary’s boss may be one autocrat (8)
DICTATOR
double/cryptic definition

19 Spend time in prison? That’s a warning signal (6)
BEACON
BE A CON (spend time in prison)

21 Artist makes brief entrance (6)
INGRES
IGRESs (entrance, brief)

*anagram <br />definitions are underlined

19 comments on “Financial Times 14,705 by ALBERICH”

  1. Well done, PeeDee. I agree with what you say — but am still not happy with the directions for 11ac DANCE. I live in Scotland so loved 2dn COUNTY. Thanks, Alberich, for another testing but enjoyable puzzle.

  2. Thanks for a great blog, PeeDee.

    Rather tough, as you say in your thoughtful preamble – but quite brilliant, I thought.

    It’s always invidious to pick out favourite clues in an Alberich puzzle but I have to mention the superb surfaces in 1dn, 4dn [I shall have fun relaying this one to my friends over lunch!] and 10dn.

    Huge thanks to Alberich for a most enjoyable work-out. I loved it.

    [PeeDee, in 20ac you meant ‘first letters of Alpert Rumoured’.]

  3. I wondered about 11ac too, taking the initial letters of two words. I could imagine c being an abbreviation of ‘composed’ which would make the clue more straightforward, but I couldn’t see it in Chambers. If it is two initial letters, then I think it is a stylistic thing, you either think multiple initials should be explicitly indicated or not. I think it is a personal preference rather than an faux pas.

  5. I loved this puzzle. I knew what 1dn had to be but needed help from the internet to crack it.

    Lots of elegant clues. I personally liked 13ac, 20ac and 4dn. Also the use of “rocket leaves / salad” in 10dn was brilliant.

    Thanks Pee Dee for the blog. Thanks Alberich for making life difficult for yourself by setting such entertaining puzzles as this one, standards which you will need to match with every future puzzle.

    Cheers
    Turbolegs

  7. Peedee – A small afterthought on 2dn. I think the “perhaps” sits well with “Down” rather than for Scotland although I was thinking exactly the same as you (in the parsing) when solving it.

  8. Eileen @6 – yes, the same comments apply there. Personally I am quite comfortable with this, but I have seen comments on previous posts where people did not approve, so this caught my attention.

    trubolegs@7 – quite right, should not be there twice. I got a bit tangled up thinking about the forthcoming referendum and wondering if there was a wink and a nudge here.

  9. I had to come here to figure out 11a. The answer was obvious, but why completely defeated me. Having seen the explanation, my forehead is now slightly bruised. Since I know I’ve used that construction, I entirely approve of it, and would just congratulate Alberich on hiding it so well in plain sight.

  10. Great puzzle.
    I hardly dare to say that I didn’t find it extremely difficult – it’s not that I am a brilliant solver (far from that), it’s more a wavelength thing.
    That said, I have to admit that I failed on two of the easiest: the intersecting 2d and 13ac.

    The only one I didn’t understand was DANCE (11ac) which as a solution was clear enough.
    The device used here (and, very nicely, in 20ac too) is not one I am a great fan of, that is, when used too many times in one puzzle.
    Exactly a week ago we had a ‘discussion’ on this: http://www.fifteensquared.net/2014/08/13/financial-times14699-monk/#more-77329.
    Perhaps, it’s good to re-read comment #17 in which the setter (Monk) made his thoughts clear in a very structured way.

    Many thanks to PeeDee, and to Alberich for another fine one.

  11. Hi SIl,

    I saw Monk’s comment last week. I didn’t reply then I was on holiday and didn’t get to read it until much later.

    I think Monk’s example is a little misleading. TO recap: Monk compares the construction to the distributive property for addition and multiplication A(B+C)= AB + AC

    In the the analogy the multiplication operator represents ‘do something to’ and the addition operator represents ‘this and that’.

    The point here is that the presence of the brackets explicitly states that the multiplication operator is applied to the result of the addition. In the clues there are no brackets or other such indications that the normal precedence of these operators is to be overridden.

    Without brackets the analogy should lead us to your interpretation AB + C rather than Monk’s AB + AC.

    I hope Monk is reading!

  13. I’m with Sil on this in that I thought it a great puzzle, not too difficult, but I did find 11 across problematic. As Eileen comments @ 6, it is the same device as 20 across, but I think there is a difference. With 20 across, if you already have the starting letter “a” then the construction of the clue starts to open up, although you still don’t know whether you are looking for a definition of herb or “store”, so there is still work to be done. With 11 across, once you have “d” it has to be dance; thus I’m already working backwards to see how it parses, with no penny-dropping moment. To me seemed a bit contrived. Thank you to Alberich for the puzzle,and PeeDee for the blog (and also for his commentary on Monk’s elucidation of this device).

  14. On a more prosaic point, “Every now and then” @15ac usually implies at irregular rather than regular intervals, I’d say.

  15. Just to put a bit of oil on the 11ac fire, only a few minutes ago Magwitch’s Saturday FT Prize appeared on this site and see what happened at 20ac?
    “Unconscious mother found behind car initially thought injured critically (9)”.
    See, it just happens all the time.

  18. One indicator for multiple single letters is something the compilers are allowed to get away with, but it’s not perfect.

  19. Thanks Alberich and PeeDee

    Funny how sometimes a difficult puzzle can feel easy and more often than not the other way around. For whatever reason, this was done in less than half hour, which for me is pretty quick. I think probably helped by getting all of the long words other than 1d quite early – maybe just tuning into the setter’s wavelength as well.

    This was only my second Alberich crossword and I struggled with his first and got one wrong in it as well!

    The parsing of several (1d, 4d, 10d, 11a and 13a in particular) was a challenge – and still didn’t get ther STER(N) bit of SHYSTER – had worked on a backward RETS (returns) which didn’t really work.

    Enjoyed it a lot and can’t wait till his next challenge to see if I get away so lightly then.

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