This crossword didn’t appear on the FT website until very late yesterday afternoon, by which time I was no longer at the compooter, so couldn’t solve or blog it. I use PeeDee’s excellent software to create the blog, but don’t think it can be used for prior days (or if it can, I don’t know how), so please forgive the formatting of this entry.
To the puzzle…was it worth the wait? Absolutely, this was the best I’d solved this week, although some of the parsing was difficult. A few good &lits, and no quibbles, other than a possible typo in the clue for 26dn.
ACROSS
1 Does he often say, “This needs fixing eventually“? (3,2,5,4) ONE OF THESE DAYS
*(does he often say)
10 Present-day umpire dismissed the old Australian PM once (5) HAWKE
HAWKE(ye)
11 Conduct at St Ives Harbour possibly starts with this (9) BEHAVIOUR
*(ive harbou) ie “at St Ives Harbour” without “starts”
12 Bookish student has left to do repeats (7) ITERATE
(l)ITERATE
13 Mathematician‘s trick involves small lines (7) RUSSELL
(RUSE involving S) + LL
14 Outside broadcast doesn’t begin following viewer’s 11 (5) EYING
(ob)EYING
16 Big topless girl regularly mauls dope (9) IGNORAMUS
(b)IG + NORA + MaUlS
19 Try assuming right expression for a while (5-4) SHORT-TERM
(SHOT “assuming” R) + TERM
20 Rather French-sounding animated dog (5) PLUTO
Homophone of “plutôt” (the French word for “rather”)
22 He might run over a pet overtaking horse (4-3) ROAD-HOG
R + O + (DOG “overtaking” H) and &lit.
25 Where The Doctor’s Dilemma is presented? (7) THEATRE
Double definition
27 Proclaimed substantive church with housing (9) ANNOUNCED
NOUN CE “housed by” AND (“with”)
28 Bean counter probing company’s bean plant (5) CACAO
ACA (chartered accountant) in Co.
29 Nancy misses damselfly in jam (14) MESDEMOISELLES
DEMOISELLE (“damselfly”) in MESS (“jam”)
As well as being a damselfly, a demoiselle can also refer to a species of crane.
DOWN
2 Unused millions nearly leave firm in a state (3,6) NEW MEXICO
NEW + M + EXI(t) + Co.
3 Work in middle-of-the-road theatre circles (5) OPERA
<=REP (“theatre circles”) in (r)OA(d) and &lit.
4 Plonk bill on bar we put up inside (5,4) TABLE WINE
<=WE “inside” TAB LINE
5 First woman in UK to incorporate article number (5) ETHER
THE in E.R. (The Queen, so “first woman in UK”)
6 What happens in autumn (not the start) to bug (9) EAVESDROP
(l)EAVES DROP
7 What’s all this fuss about love? (5) ADORE
ADO (“fuss”) + RE (“about”)
8 Nearly certain small cross is more than enough (7) SURPLUS
SUR(e) + PLUS
9 Almost 3 out of 4 prosper (6) THRIVE
THRE(e) “out of” IV
15 Dined in Grand House beside river lodge (9) GATEHOUSE
ATE in G H “beside” OUSE
17 Doctor needs to tackle flat and round worms (9) NEMATODES
MAT (“flat”) + O (“round”) in *(needs)
18 Eat so much it gets messy? (9) MOUSTACHE
*(eat so much)
19 A crass misguided comment essentially? (7) SARCASM
*(a crass) + (com)M(ent) and &lit.
21 Animal Arabs banned from illicit car-boot sale (6) OCELOT
*(c oot le) ie “car boot sale” without “Arabs”
23 Victor left fine wines for her (5) AGNES
(champ)AGNES
24 Reptile, oddly grey and cold with fine back (5) GECKO
GrE
26 On air, forty-nine stand out (5) EXCEL
I think there’s an error in this clue and it should read “forty stand out”, as it looks like
we need a homophone of XL (Roman numerals for 40), unless I’m missing something?
Many thanks, Redshank and loonapick – both puzzle and blog well worth waiting for. 😉
As so often with this setter, in all his guises, too many favourites to pick. I enjoyed it all.
Another splendid crossword by one of my favourite setters.
One that we solved directly after successfully tackling today’s Philistine.
Quite a few ‘subtraction anagrams’ today, one of Redshank’s trademarks.
As ever, also a few clues that were &littish, the most obvious one being 19d.
We couldn’t parse 14ac (EYING) and assumed NEMATODES are worms.
We thought, 1ac was really marvellous.
[even if my solving partner made clear that ‘This will need fixing eventually’ might be better]
Thanks, loonapick, for the belated blog.
Glad you liked the crossword.
ps, it is possible to blog the puzzle in the ‘normal’ way.
Go to ‘Solve’, ‘more’, (FT), ‘view in blog writer’.
Then you are where you want to be.
Agree with all the above.
I’d like “nine” in 26d to mean something but I think it’s just an unintentional superfluity.
Actually – ones like 11a I tend to call a comp anag – although obviously the fodder letters work the same. For me keying the anwer with “this” (as well as possibly a straight definition) is the deciding factor. It is indeed one of this setter’s trademarks to frequently(always?/nearly always? – not sure) drop one of these in.
Many thanks both.
Thanks Redshank and loonapick
This was one of the most enjoyable puzzles that I’ve done for ages. Full of variously contrived clues, many of which had multiple dimensions or clever definitional misdirection.
Didn’t see the anagram in 1a, just thought it was a kind of cryptic definition – but should have known better with this fellow. Didn’t parse ANNOUNCED at all apart from the CE bit (just wrote it in from definition) – again a very clever word play when explained. Also missed the compound anagram for BEHAVIOUR – had the right fodder, viz (IVE[S] HARBOU[R]), but thought that he meant the starting letters of those – quite unsatisfactory in retrospect!
Finished in the NW corner with the very clever OPERA, the not so hard (looking back on it) ITERATE and embarrassingly our own Bob HAWKE the last one in.
Thanks loonapick and Redshank.
I failed to fully parse BEHAVIOUR, EYING, OPERA and AGNES – so thanks for your explanations. All makes perfect sense now.
I can’t work out whether 29ac is lazy or brilliant since DAMSEL, DEMOISELLE and MESDEMOISELLES all seem to have the same derivation from the old French.
My top clue was MOUSTACHE.
Good fun.