FT No.12882, Set by Viking, 25 September, 2008
Posted by Octofem on September 25th, 2008
Some interesting clues this morning, and the left bottom corner gave me pause. 27d particularly troublesome.
ACROSS
1. CORNET - (c-or-net)
4. KEYBOARD - key board - cryptic definition. Board as in board and lodging)
9. ANNALS - ( a-n-n -alsO )
10. EAGLE EYE - (ea-glee-ye - old form of ‘you’)
12. PASTICHE - ( *its cheap)
13. FENDER - ( fen-<red. Fen is a unit of Chinese currency)
15. RUDE - homophone of ‘rued’.
16. ASCETIC - ( *ecstatic losing one ‘t’)
20. FILLIPS - ( homophone of [Prince] Philip’s.)
21. SPAR - (sp-E-ar)
25. RATTLE - ( rattleR - one who talks incessantly. To rattle someone is to cause upset.)
26. INSIGNIA - ( *signs in-i(NDIA)
28. FINE TUNE - (cryptic def.)
29. VIKING - (vi(P)-king )
30. RECORDER - ( re-c-order)
31. DIDDLE (dd. - to diddle is to toy with something,or to cheat )
DOWN
1. CLAPPERS - (c-l-appers)
2. RINGSIDE - (* desiring)
3. ECLAIR - (Claire with e moved to beginning)
5 ELAN - ( even letters of ‘deb learns’)
6. BULLETIN (bull-e-tin - a release as in ‘press release’.)
7. AMENDS - (amen-d-s)
8. DREARY- ( d-rear-y)
11. WHISTLE ( whist <el - not the wolf kind, obviously)
14. SERPENT -(,ser-pen-t - tres - French for very, around ‘pen’)
17. VIOLATOR - (viol-<rota - Don Giovanni, the infamous rake.)
18. OPEN MIND- cryptic def.)
19. TRIANGLE - ( * faltering without ‘f. I quite liked this alliterative clue)
22. PREFER - (p-ref-<re - to favour something)
23. ETHNIC -( eth-n-icS)
24. BIKINI( (bikinG-i)
27. ONCE- (on ice minus I- Thanks to Geoff for this answer.
September 25th, 2008 at 10:21 am
27d is ONCE - on ice (reserves) with i removed.
I have FIDDLE for 31a and parsed 25a as [p]RATTLE since both of these are supported by Chambers.
As you say, some ‘interesting’ definitions in places!
September 25th, 2008 at 10:52 am
Octofem,
Some clue numbers in the Across set need to be fixed.
September 25th, 2008 at 11:52 am
I didn’t get on very well with this, though that may have been because I was trying to do three things at once!
An alternative suggestion for 25a - as the clue contained “endless”, and it clearly didn’t relate to the last letter of the answer, I took it to be (p)rattle(r), using gossip as a noun rather than a verb.
September 25th, 2008 at 12:01 pm
In 19ac ‘footloose’ could have been used instead of ‘footless’, I thought.
September 25th, 2008 at 12:02 pm
Sorry, I meant 19dn.
September 25th, 2008 at 1:09 pm
Rishi - thank you for pointing that out. I hadn’t noticed! I like your ‘footloose’ idea. I did post thanks to Geoff, but it seems to have vanished. The ‘prattler’ base for 25a seems to be favourite.
September 25th, 2008 at 5:09 pm
Enjoyable, quite tricky in places. Yes, I think it’s prattler as rattle and rattler are too similar. Think I’d prefer ‘footless’ to ‘footloose’ though - I think the former gives precise indication of deletion - the other is maybe making one word two.