Prize puzzle from the Weekend FT of November 1, 2014
I found this puzzle to be a good and clever challenge while also containing some cluing of debatable quality. And there are two clues that I am at a loss to fully explain: 25a (LAIC) and 20a,12 (ABANDON SHIP). My favourites are the most excellent 24a (SIAMESE CAT) and 14d,26 (EXCLAMATION MARK).
ACROSS
1 Depressing ring encircles the centre of Portsmouth (6)
DISMAL – [port]SM[outh] in DIAL (ring)
4 These are visceral top ten tracks (8)
ENTRAILS – [t]EN + TRAILS (tracks)
10 Shock for stuffy figurehead as one gives way to exercise (7)
STUPEFY – STUFFY with one ‘F’ (figurehead) replaced by ‘PE’ (exercise)
11 Trendy drink compiler had found bland (7)
INSIPID – IN (trendy) + SIP (drink) + ID (compiler had)
12 See 20
13 Could be as bothered as the Financial Times (10)
BROADSHEET – anagram of AS BOTHERED
16 Looks at robins installed at first inside nests (6)
EYRIES – R[obins] I[nstalled] in EYES (looks at)
17, 28 Mark got flat – place to 21 (7,3)
SCRATCH PAD – SCRATCH (mark) + PAD (flat). With ’21’ referring to 21a (SCRAWL).
20, 12 Titanic one didn’t (7,4)
ABANDON SHIP – A BAND ON SHIP (Titanic one). It was easy for me to guess the answer to this clue although I originally did not understand how it works. Thanks to Sil (see comments below) for explaining it. Now, while agreeing that it is rather clever, I don’t think it works well. ‘One’ seems not quite right in the context. Are we supposed to take the whole clue as the definition?
21 Write “The origin of sun-stroke” (6)
SCRAWL – S[un] + CRAWL (stroke)
24 It eats mice as planned (7,3)
SIAMESE CAT – anagram of EATS MICE AS
25 Secular Tory abandon brief (4)
LAIC – LACONIC (brief) with CON (Tory) removed. I was originally unable to parse the wordplay here. Thanks to Sil for providing the explanation in comment 1 below. I wonder if there was a misprint in the clue — “Tory abandons brief” would surely work better.
27 Calm starts to parliamentary exchanges, as entering recess (7)
APPEASE – P[arliamentary] E[xchanges] in APSE (recess)
29 Language is about law, twisted to receive greeting (7)
SWAHILI – HI (greeting) in anagram of IS LAW
30 Liaise with cheerleader in getting drug (8)
MEDICATE – C (cheerleader) in MEDIATE (liase)
31 Slight risk in nymphomania, and that’s not all (6)
SKINNY – hidden word
DOWN
1 Dramatises mother’s departure, turning into tragedy (8)
DISASTER – anagram of DRA[ma]TISES
2 Briefly saw US diary – as big as the country (5,6)
SAUDI ARABIA – SA[w] U[s] DIAR[y] A[s] BI[g] A[s]. Here’s a curious clue type, with the solution formed from the concatenation of arbitrary abbreviations of listed words. Seems sloppy to me but also an interesting challenge.
3 See 7
5 One’s in the shade – that’s the problem (8)
NUISANCE – IS (one’s) in NUANCE (the shade)
6, 18 Rebels stir a scene? (10,8)
RESISTANCE MOVEMENT – reverse anagram of STIR A SCENE
7, 3 Spikes devil drinks (7)
IMPALES – IMP (devil) + ALES (drinks)
8 Sober night out in Kent? (6)
SEDATE – SE (in Kent? — i.e. the south-east) + DATE (night out)
9 Mayor regularly receives first, then second and third gift (5)
MYRRH – M[a]Y[o]R + R[eceives] + [t]H[en]
14, 26 Cameron milk tax a travesty! (11,4)
EXCLAMATION MARK – anagram of CAMERON MILK TAX A
15 Heroine in short trousers with exotic dancer (6,4)
JEANNE D’ARC – JEAN[s] (short trousers) + anagram of DANCER. One might argue that the enumeration should be (6,1’3).
18 See 6
19 Being brisk is right, in the metropolitan style (8)
ALACRITY – R (right) in A LA CITY (in the metropolitan style). Hmm, I would prefer “à la cité”.
22 Isothermic teeming (6)
ASWARM – AS WARM (isothermic)
23 Fatwa is to cover the midriff (5)
WAIST – hidden word
26 See 14
28 See 17
Brilliant puzzle from the FT’s own philistine (lowe case?).
I ticked at least seven clues that were way above average quality.
One of these was one you were lost on, Pete – 20,12.
A BAND ON SHIP did not ABANDON SHIP – and the band played on …
Your other one (25ac, LAIC) is LACONIC (brief) minus CON (Tory) – though I must say that ‘abandon’ doesn’t look right here.
Two wonderful &lits: 6,18 (RESISTANCE) and 24 (SIAMESE CAT).
Well, Pete, you may not fully like 2d but this was another one of my favourites.
“Briefly” clearly indicates what should be done and the result is very clever, in my opinion.
It is a device regularly used in The Guardian by especially Arachne and Philistine, very familiar to me.
It may be clear that, for me, this puzzle really had the Wow-factor.
Very different from the usual FT offerings but none the worse for that.
I was looking for ‘sink’ to be the second work in the Titanic pair. It wasn’t.
I don’t like any clue with ‘Tory’ in it – never have, never will.
Sil, Thanks for explaining 25ac. And, please excuse me if I am being dense, but even with your description, I still do not understand the ABANDON SHIP clue.
I had also noted that the clue to 25a did not read at all well and really should have been ‘abandons’ rather than ‘abandon’. So I agree wholeheartedly with Pete on that one,
Pete, I’ll try 20ac again.
“Titanic one didn’t”
A BAND ON SHIP (“Titanic one”, the band of musicians on the Titanic), they “didn’t” ABANDON SHIP.
As Wikipedia tells us:
‘The Musicians of the RMS Titanic all perished with the ship when it sank in 1912. They played music, intending to calm the passengers, for as long as they possibly could and all went down with the ship”.
Very clever, IMO.
I only got 1a,11a,13a,24a 29a,31a, 8d,9d 14d,23d & 26d . I got all those within 30 mins. I looked at on and off for the next week as usually answers pop out but not with this one. Way too hard for me and not what I like in the Saturday FT.Some comments bearing in mind that I don’t resort to a dictionary
4a I did not know what visceral meant . How many knew that?
17,28 If I ruled crosswordland I would ban clues that refer to other clues . If you haven’t got 21a then you have no idea what it is on about. I don’t think the Times does this.
25a I didn’t know laic or laconic so would never have got that
7d.3d, Is that allowed? Ie splitting a 7 letter word into two parts?
15d I thought it was Joan of Arc -how can Jean d’Arc be allowed?
19d I would never have got a la city -has anyone ever heard anyone use this term ?
Well done for the blog
bamburger, I sympathise with your comments.
I knew visceral well. I knew of laconic but had only a vague idea of its meaning; now I am glad to have learned it. Is splitting a word across two entries in the puzzle (as in 7d,3d) allowed? Yes, Cinephile used to do that a lot. It actually gives an extra hint in that the solution is the concatenation of two words that can stand by themselves.
I agree that 15d should have either had a more explicit enumeration or a hint that the answer is French. And, as I indicated, I am not fond of “a la city”.
Re 6 & 7:
Splitting up one word into pieces is alright as long as the two separate parts are ‘words’ in their own right. Pete is absolutely correct about this.
It may perhaps not happen very often but this thing does creep up from time to time. So, if today’s the day you saw it for the first time, be alert next time.
The use of “a la” is fully supported by Chambers and Oxford (my references): in the manner or style of. They even give non-French examples like “à la Oprah” and “à la James Joyce”. I really cannot see any objections to this clue from a cryptic point of view.
I have a feeling that some solvers at this place (the FT) are less favourable than I am. It is probably due to the fact that I am very much used to what setters do in the Guardian and the Independent. As I said in my comment @1, this was “very different from the usual FT offerings”.
As to JEANNE D’ARC (15d), this would never be clued as (6, 1’3). Ever seen that before? Every now and then there are similar discussions on Fifteensquared but in the end the conclusion will always be ‘one should ignore the apostrophe’.
Apart from 25ac (could be anyone’s mistake), I tend to stick to my verdict.
A marvellous puzzle by the FT’s own philistine.
Would have been rated 4 to 5 stars at The Guardian.
I really had hoped Eileen would have dropped in to support me but alas.
That said, yes, ‘we are all different, aren’t we?’.
Alas indeed, Sil, if you’re still there.
I was very disappointed yesterday to find that I had missed a puzzle by one of my favourite setters on the day that I was flying back from my holiday.
I read the blog and your earlier comments but didn’t think it was appropriate to add anything, since I hadn’t done the puzzle. Having seen your latest, I now offer wholehearted belated support to you and the FT’s Philistine. [I’m glad that you thought you could depend on it. 😉 ]
A very late comment (having been away) that I found this one nearly impossible and even having read through Pete’s blog (thanks as ever) do not see how some of the clues really lead to the answers. One of the pleasures of the Daily Telegraph (I never do it now) is that once one had the answer one knew it was correct. I couldn’t say that for much of these answers. (Fortunately completely finished the following week’s offering so equability restored)
It is widely held that a hallmark of a good crossword is that, once you solve a clue, you can be reasonably sure that your answer is correct. I have come across a couple of cases where a clue had two workable answers but these are rare and surely unintentional. Of course it may take a dictionary check or some similar research to create one’s certainty. I agree that a few clues here (such as 19d) are perhaps not as strong in this regard as one might wish but, on the whole, I think they do well.
Thanks Goliath and Pete
Was late to this one – have been preparing a house for sale and has been hard to find the spare time that I’d normally have for a crossword.
Anyway, I’m right on Sil’s side with this one – some excellent clues that really made one think to get the answer. Some clever left of centre devices, such as the interesting 2d.
Not quite sure about the folk who complain about the use of words that they don’t know, but are not prepared to use a dictionary. I’ve always appreciated the new things that I’ve learntin crosswords by having to look up references on previously unknown topics.
So late now that nobody except you Pete will see this: I agree that some of the clues are very clever, but sometimes they’re not in my opinion quite sound. Yes the Titanic band did play on, but where in the clue is there an indication of ‘a band on ship’? Just in ‘Titanic one’, but not in ‘didn’t’, and this isn’t right. It’s loose. To be sound it needs to be ‘Titanic one, Titanic one didn’t’, but of course this has a feeble surface and Goliath has given in to the temptation to produce what seems to be a pithy clue but is faulty.
And talking of faulty clues, where in 10ac is there any indication (even accepting that f = figurehead, which not everyone does) that it’s one of the f’s that is replaced? It should say ‘Shock for stuffy as one figurehead gives …’ which of course is gibberish.
Nobody has commented on 9dn. Now that really is a good clue.