Financial Times 12,842 by Cinephile
Posted by Pete Maclean on August 21st, 2008
Here’s a Cinephile puzzle with a non-cryptic theme - synonyms of “crazy”. While it has a few fine clues (I like 12A, 14A and 27A), it also has a one that I do not understand (16D) and two that I think are rather poor (17A and 27D).
Across
9. ULTRAHIGH - anagram of HUGH TRIAL
10. PLATO - homophone + TO
11. KNEIDEL - ID (I had) in KNEE (joint) + L (plate)
12 METHANE - “me thane”
12, 18, 23, 26: OLD BOY NETWORK - BOYNE (battle) + TWO (two) in anagram of LORD + K (king)
14. NUTCRACKERS - NUT (crazy fellow) + CRACKERS (crazy)
17. SHEET - SHE (female) + ET (cosmonaut)
19. UNLIT - “a bed” in French
21. BANANA SPLIT - BANANAS (crazy) + L (student) in PIT (mine)
25. TURF WAR - cryptic definition
27. TROLLEY - “off one’s trolley”
28. GONER - G (good) + ONE (one) + [yea]R
29. KINGS PAWN - KIN (family) + SPAWN (young produced on a string)
Down
1, 6. CUCKOO SPIT - CUCKOO (crazy) + S[peculator] + PIT (mine)
2. ATTENDEE - A (a) + TEN (ten) + D (old pence) in TEE (letter say)
3. PADDINGTON - cryptic definition (”a ton of padding” is a heavy makeweight)
4. BILL - double definition
5. RHYME ROYAL - anagram of TRULY MERRY
7. DAMAGE - DAM (mother) + AGE (how old she is)
8. SOMERSET - SOME (few) + anagram of REST
15. TUBE STRIKE - U (turn) + BEST (ideally) in TRIKE (three-wheeler)
16. COURTHOUSE - ???. Another one where I fail to grasp the word play.
17. SABOTAGE - A (a) + BOT (larva) in SAGE (herb)
20. LONGLEAT - LONG (extended) + LEAT (millrace)
22. NERINE - hidden word
24. TRYING - double definition
27. TANK - cryptic definition. But a tank does not exactly contain caterpillars; it has caterpillar treads on it.
August 21st, 2008 at 7:58 am
I think it works like this:
Setting for tribunal - def
giving - connector
old solver - ’solver’ being you and ‘thou’ being its archaic form
the runaround - ‘the’ being container
? - for the unusual wordplay in this c/c clue
August 21st, 2008 at 8:02 am
Sorry, I have made a mess there.
It is COUR(THOU)SE
‘course’ is from ‘run’ in ‘runaround’
‘around’ is the c/c ind.
August 21st, 2008 at 3:51 pm
Re. 29A
I think the analysis should be KIN (family) + SPAWN (young produced) on G (string — as in G-string).
John M
August 23rd, 2008 at 7:39 am
Rishi, thank you once more. I am not surprised I missed that.
John M, thank you too. Yes, I missed that G although I am used to Cinephile’s using “string” to clue it.