Financial Times 12820 / Dante
Posted by C G Rishikesh on July 15th, 2008
I downloaded the crossword and solved most of it quickly. However, I was called away from home and was back only at about 7 p.m. IST. At that time the bottom left corner had some holes. Am writing this in a brief interregnum before going to the temple for a committee meeting. Typos have since been fixed.
Across
1 BUBBLY - two def.
4 MACHISMO - Mac, his, mo - the second component is gratis and the third one is an obvious abbreviation.
9 (Elementary, my dear) WATSON - anag. of ‘was not’
10 ADVOCATE - two def. - ‘brief’ does a switcheroo as v. as a def.
12 TROPICAL - anag. of ‘cop’ and ‘trial’ ‘Tropical’ is ‘fervidly hot’ - Whether ‘heated’ is an apt def. for word reqd. I am not sure.
13 SWERVE - s(w)erve - as ‘put’ can also be a verb in the past tense, one first thinks of ’served’ as the answer before further inquiry.
16 HA HA - The ‘boundary’ part I don’t get.
20 STET - A good cryptic def. for a word frequently used. But nowadays there is little chance for this impression to be made; proofreaders are an extinct tribe in newspapers.
23 APEMAN - rev. of ‘name, pa’ - I shouldn’t have taken as much time as I did. The left bottom corner, which proved difficult in my first foray, was filled in during a car ride.
25 BELL ROPE - CD
28 REPAIR - re-pair
30 ANTHEM- Nice CD, eschewing the usual anag. ploy.
Down
1 BEWITCH - b(E W)itch
2 BETROTHAL - anag. of ‘Harbottle’
3 LOOK IN - I am not sure whether the second def is quite apt.
4 AIDA - aid, a
6 HOODWINK - Hood, wink
14 ANISEED - an(I see)d - The word within word indication is not quite satisfactory.
17 OSTEOPATH - Anag. of ‘a stoop the’ - nice surface reading.
18 SEE AHEAD - see, a, head - Until we see that ‘divine’ does a switcheroo as a verb in def. for word reqd., the answer is delayed.
21 THEOREM - anag. of ‘me to her’ - nice surface reading but weak anag. ind.
22 CLUE IN - anag. of ‘nuclei’ - good anag. fodder but an anag. clue after an anag. clue may have been avoided.
24 EXTRA - two def - seamlessly merged
28 TIER - rev. of ‘re it’
July 15th, 2008 at 4:17 pm
“16 HA HA - The ‘boundary’ part I don;t get.”
A ditch or vertical drop often containing a fence,eg between a garden and surrounding parkland, forming a barrier without interrupting the view.