Financial Times 14,963 – Dante

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Monday Prize Crossword / Jun 22, 2015

After a couple of harder Dante puzzles, I found this one mostly easy until, yes, until ….

… I got to the NE where the triplet 14ac,7d,8d took me as much time as the rest of the puzzle and actually almost defeated me. Almost? Perhaps it did eventually because I am still not sure about 14ac.

Definitions are underlined wherever possible and/or appropriate.

Across
1 DECOCT
Prepare by boiling for two months (6)

DEC (a month, December) + OCT (and another one, October)
4 SPORADIC
Picadors get injured now and then (8)

(PICADORS)*    [* = get injured]
9 WHELPS
Warm start aids pups (6)

W[arm] + HELPS (aids)
10 PRECLUDE
Leave out one note in introductory piece (8)

C (one note) inside PRELUDE (introductory piece)

Dante says ‘one note’ because there are more.
12 PART
A bit of leave (4)

Double definition
13 ADAMS
Watership Down author gives female manuscript (5)

ADA (female) + MS (manuscript)

This is what the author said in The Guardian:  Perhaps I made it too dark …. .
14 GLUT
Fifty caught in a bit of a fiddle (4)

L (fifty) inside GUT (a bit of a fiddle, ie string material)

This was my last one in but I am still not sure.  However, can’t think what else it can be (having ?L?T).  There seems to be no real definition [so it must be an effort to write an &lit]. I’m afraid this is wasted on me, in other words: Help!   See Cookie’s comment @3 for a plausible explanation.
17 AFFECTIONATE
Showing love to fat fianceé in a strange way (12)

(TO FAT FIANCEE)*    [* = in a strange way]
20 NO TIME TO LOSE
Occasion when victory must be obtained quickly? (2,4,2,4)

Cryptic definition
23 BEEF
Grouse meat (4)

Double definition
24 STOUT
A full-bodied drink (5)

Double definition
25 SKIP
Miss spring (4)

Double definition

And another one!
28 ARTESIAN
It pushes up water rates in a reorganisation (8)

(RATES IN A)*    [* = reorganisation]

The solution is an adjective and somehow related to what I have underlined. But is what I underlined really the definition?
29 COME ON
Show progress? Don’t exaggerate! (4,2)

Double definition
30 ENLISTED
Came into force (8)

Cryptic definition
31 RARELY
Seldom depend on the Gunners (6)

RA (Gunners, ie Royal Artillery – not Arsenal!) + RELY (depend)
Down
1 DOWNPLAY
Belittle blue entertainment (8)

DOWN (blue) + PLAY (entertainment)
2 CLEAR OFF
Go away when it’s cloudless on holiday (5,3)

Double / Cryptic definition
3 CAPE
Wrath possibly shown by head (4)

Double definition

Clever clue. Cape Wrath is high up north in the UK.   Walking territory: Cape Wrath Trail .
5 PORTMANTEAUS
Chap splits drinks with us – bags of them (12)

MAN (chap) inside {PORT (a drink) + TEA (and another one)} + US

I guess, ‘of them’ is added to smoothen the surface.
6 RACK
One’s case may rest on it (4)

Cryptic definition
7 DOUBLE
Run to make the Five Ten (6)

Double /Cryptic definition

If you double five you’ll get ten. One dictionary tells me that ‘to double’ is ‘to move up speed ; run’.  I was also thinking of ‘at the double’ (or ‘on the double’), even of American baseball jargon.  I hope to hear from anyone who has a better idea.
8 CREATE
Be the first to make a fuss? (6)

Double / Cryptic definition
11 ADMINISTRATE
Its main trade is in disarray, control required (12)

(ITS MAIN TRADE)*    [* = is in disarray]
15 SCOOP
Dig out a story that makes the headlines (5)

Double definition
16 STOOD
Tried to get a seat – unsuccessfully apparently (5)

Double / Cryptic definition
18 LOOK HERE
Pay attention and watch this space (4,4)

LOOK (watch) + HERE (this space)
19 WEAPONRY
Any power may resort to producing armaments (8)

(ANY POWER)*    [* = may resort to producing]
21 ABRADE
Wear a well-trimmed beard (6)

A (BEARD)*    [* = well-trimmed]
22 MENTAL
Crazy man let loose (6)

(MAN LET)*    [* = loose]
26 USES
Employs sources of inspiration to clear head (4)

MUSES (sources of inspiration) minus its starting letter (‘head’)
27 TOGA
Past get-up a Roman wore (4)

TOG (reversal (‘-up’) of GOT (get, (in the) past (tense)) + A
*anagram

14 comments on “Financial Times 14,963 – Dante”

  1. When I was in school, the drill master in the ‘sports’ class used to say ‘double up’ when we boys walked back to the class at the end of the period. He wanted us to get back quickly.
    In India the phrase is always used with the preposition.

  2. 14a, if this were Paul, and not ‘Rufus’, GLUT, OCED, … indulge (… a desire etc.), ‘fifty caught in a bit of a fiddle’, with the meaning for ‘fiddle’ given by the Urban Dictionary, the enigma might be solvable with ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’ and several newspaper reports in mind – not that I have read the book, or seen the film, and I do not propose to do so.

  3. P.S. it appears there was a clue in The Telegraph not long ago ‘Excess shown by fifty caught in a bit of a fiddle’, Roger Squires also sets puzzles for that paper I believe. Perhaps the front of 14a has just been left out.

  4. That sounds plausible, Cookie, very plausible.
    How did you find out?

    Roger Squires does repeat clues every now and then.
    So, this may well be it.
    Meanwhile, I would like to stick to the wordplay given in the blog, keeping the smut out.

  5. I went on Big Dave’s Crossword Blog, Daily Telegraph Cryptic No. 100006, hints and tips by crypticsue. Agreed about the smut, that is what you find when you dig around.

  6. 28a. It is actually an Artesian Well that releases the natural pressure of an aquifer and so “pushes up the water”.

  8. trenodia @6:
    Thanks for explaining how an Artesian Well works and how this fits in with the clue.
    But your ‘It’ is the Artesian Well and not just Artesian.
    That was my objection and I’m afraid it still stands.

  9. Sil van den Hoek @8
    Of course you are quite right. I have not yet figured out how lax setters are allowed to be and had presumed it was not just literalness on your part. My apologies.

  10. Thanks Sil and Dante.

    I’m glad it’s not just me on 14ac.

    More anagrams than normal for this setter and some quite interesting ones – even if the surfaces were generally poor.

    Otherwise, are you being a bit unfair on 28ac. From my dictionary, artesian refers to the fluid being pushed up under pressure – an artesian well is where such water is drawn – i.e. There may be places where there are artesian systems but where the water isn’t drawn.

    What I did learn is that the term originated from Artois. So maybe one would draw lager from a real Artesian well! Yeah, I know, not a stella quality pun.

  11. Am I really unfair on 28ac?
    It’s not about what ‘Artesian’ or ‘Artesian well’ means but about the part of speech.
    The solution is an adjective, the definition is not (however you look at the clue).

  14. Thanks Dante and Sil

    Late to post with this one, even though I finished over a week ago – and that was after trying for quite a few days to make sense of the same three in the NE that Sil had trouble with.

    Am afraid that the half-baked 14a got me in the end as well. I pondered three different answers – PLOT (which I opted for with a tenuous connection between plot and fiddle and pot in the sense of money being equivalent to ‘a bit’), GLUT (which fitted but with no definition) and FLIT (even more tenuous for fiddle, but with not much to back it up in word play).

    This took away from anything else that might have been going on in the puzzle …

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