Financial Times 14,984 by FALCON

7 comments on “Financial Times 14,984 by FALCON”

1. In 23a, by the use of ‘budding’, the setter probably implies that alchemists, who wanted to tranform base metals into noble metal, were not proper scientists.

2. Yes, definitely one for the nursery slopes. I enjoyed being initially misdirected by the ‘perhaps’ in 15d in trying to make an anagram of ‘sample tea’ although I could see the obvious answer had to be piecemeal! Then the penny dropped. Thanks setter and bloggers.

3. Rishi that was all that occurred to us, too, but it seems very tenuous. A scientist is one who enquires and experiments, and they did that.

4. Thanks Falcon and D&L

   A respite for the latter end of the week … good catching up material ! Nothing much to comment on other that the two already mentioned:
   UPFRONT – was able to find an archaic meaning of FRONT for ‘beginning or the first part’ which goes close to ‘opening’.
   ALCHEMIST – can only go along with Rishi’s logic, although I agree that it is rather tenuous.

   Finished in the NW corner with PLUM DUFF (new meaning of duff for me), UPFRONT and BORDEAUX (which for some reason I had not thought of it as a port).

5. Thanks Falcon, David and Linda.

   I read ‘dog’ as the definition in 20dn (dog meaning
   to tail or follow.)

   The Second Edition of Collins (1986) gives this example for ‘front’ in the sense of opening:
   the front of the book.

   I thought ‘budding’ was quite a good description in 23ac
   for a person involved in what the dictionaries describe
   as ‘a pseudoscientific predecessor of chemistry’.

6. Mike and Bruce I suppose the logic on front/opening is front = forward part = beginning = opening. But I still don’t think I’d describe the doors of a car as the front. And the Collins definition doesn’t really work. Most people would think of the front of a book as the front cover and of the opening as the first pages of the first chapter.
   We wondered for a moment on whether dog was the definition. It works up to a point.
   The trouble with pseudoscientific sciences is that they have a habit of becoming mainstream over time. One wouldn’t describe trying to find a cure for various diseases as pseudoscientific just because no-one has succeeded yet.

7. Thanks Falcon and David and Linda.

   Pleasant to solve an Allan Scott puzzle again. I had not heard of a RED CENT before.

   I think an ALCHEMIST can be a budding scientist. Robert Boyle was an alchemist in that he thought the transmutation of metals to be possible, but he is also regarded as the first modern chemist; with nuclear reactions elements can be transmuted, perhaps one day someone will obtain gold.

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