Financial Times 12,757 Set by ORENSE

Posted by Octofem on 2nd May 2008

  A straight-forward puzzle with a theme of sea creatures running through. My first blog so I am hoping it is clear.  Comments gratefully received.

Across

1.  PORPOISE- - one in 12 (Ocean). P(orp<)oise
5.  ACACIA - a-c-acia “asia”
9.  LEGATION - leg-(a-t)-ion
10.PLAICE -pla-i-ce
12. OCEAN  -o-c(e)an - the key clue, perhaps too simple?
13. RED MULLET -Red- Mull (think, as in ‘mull it over’)-et (e[a]t
14. AFFAIR (fa<) fair (blonde)
16  SEA LION -*is alone
19 DOLPHIN- (*Phil Don)
21 CLEANS- lean=list , presumably within two c’s
23 IMMEDIATE - I-m(ust) mediate
25 BREAM -B-( r)-eam
26 TURBOT -Turbo( charge)- t(ime)
27  BELOW PAR - rather obvious double meaning.
28  DESIST - *side, plus st (way)
29 STING RAY - St-in-(g)-ray ( stray- to wander , g- middle of age)

Down
1.  PALLOR (Pall , jade in sense of being jaded,- or, for gold.)
2. REGRETFUL ( r-egret-ful(l)
3. OFTEN - (s)- often
4. SCOURER-  s(c)ourer
6. CALCULATE- (*a cute call)
7. CHILL- (arcti)c -hill
8. ABETTING - a- be-tt-ing  (a being with tee totaller)
11. ODDS - o- d(iminish) - d(umfrie)s
15. ANHYDROUS -*your hands
17. INNKEEPER - I-n-n-keeper(as in goal)
18.ADMITTED - A-d-mitt (slang for hand)-ed (editor)
20 NAAN - Na(a)n (Grandma )
21 CLEMENT - C(l)ement - l from labourer
22. SMARMY -Sm(Is this Sado masochism)? - army
24. MARKS - “Marx” - Karl not Groucho!
25. BROWN - B(lack)-row-n (point)

One of the things that struck me when I was solving this entertaining puzzle is how heavily my solving “technique” (if that’s not too poncey) involves working off of definitions and checking letters, where there are any, and then dealing with the wordplay later (or sometimes not all if I’m not blogging a puzzle). I’m not suggesting that I do this for every clue but I do seem to do it a lot these days. I expect this is a Bad Thing though as it would increase the likelihood of making mistakes.

A fairly gentle end to the week I thought. The grid seemed quite heavy on the black squares, and there are a number of long answers (most notably 7/3/16/11) which fill a fair number of the white ones. Other than that, everything I usually associate with Phi - a few bird references and a very high standard of clueing.

Have however realised my answer to 21A might be a few thousand miles off course, so if anybody can steer me back in the right direction, I’d be much obliged. Edit - I’ve got it now!

Found this really tough going at times, and still can’t work out some of the wordplay. Good puzzle overall though, with a few really nice clues.

Solvers were told that nine answers represented a song sequence, in clue order, but with a different and much happier ending.  The preamble also stated that the first answer, representing the eventual target, was to be entered normally.

My initial reaction on reading the title was to say to myself that ’There was an old woman who swallowed a fly”, but I couldn’t find reference to nine distinct insects/animals in any version of the rhyme, so I thought for a little while that my initial reaction was wrong, but eventually it was proven to be right.  I have to admit that the goat was new to me - in my childhood I seem to remember it was the cow that swallowed the dog.

As I solved the clues, it became readily apparent which of the them related to entries that were different from the answers.  I think it was the .GOA.A. and the B.O.AY that I had got to in 9 and 10 down that finally caused the penny to drop. At that point the location of BIRD, CAT and DOG became fairly obvious  and the whole thing then dropped into place fairly rapidly.  She swallowed the spider to catch the fly; the bird to catch the spider etc.  It is always the generic ‘CAT’, ‘DOG’, ‘GOAT’ etc that is caught by a word associated with the catcher.  The associated word may be a specific example of the catcher, e.g. epeira (spider) or tehr (goat), or it may  be something that requires more lateral thinking, e.g. pluto (dog)

If I had analysed the preamble more thoroughly on first read through I might have realised sooner that the FLY made two appearances, once in its normal form as TZETSE and once caught by a spider.

The eight ‘treated’ entries were clued to generate the catcher alone  - e.g. 21 across SESPIDERALARK is a clue for SEA LARK only

I am left unsure exactly why the ending is much happier.  Clearly there is no reference to the old woman being dead and, of course, that must be a cause of happiness, but I can’t help thinking that she still can’t be that thrilled whilst being stuffed with fly, spider, cat, bird, dog, goat, cow and horse.  I was left wondering whether there was another word to be highlighted in the grid signifying great happiness or joy,  or living happily ever after, but I can’t find anything obvious; nor was there any instruction to look for such a word.