Comments on: Financial Times 13,321 by Cincinnus

By: Sil van den Hoek

Sil van den Hoek — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 13:57:35 +0000

Oh, and apologies to Cincinnus (I really didn’t see your post #3).
And don’t worry (well, you won’t, I guess), my support will continue.
Why that is, I explained several times before on other occasions.

While people are normally very favourable towards Orlando crosswords, Cincinnus (with the same high quality, beautiful surfaces, wrongfootings, sublime anagrams – but perhaps a little less tricky) often seems to be overlooked by the masses on this website.
Unjustly so.

By: Sil van den Hoek

Sil van den Hoek — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 13:43:30 +0000

Pete, I am with you now re 4d.
Didn’t know that ‘glad’ was a contraction for ‘gladiolus’.
But it is in Chambers, so I should have looked it up first.

By: Pete Maclean

Pete Maclean — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 05:05:42 +0000

>> Nice to see Cincinnus give a ‘nod’ to one of his colleagues in 23ac.

I agree although I did not mention it because it was not really clear that it was intended to be a reference to Don Manley as opposed to Don Bradman.

Sil, your comment about 4D did set me thinking but I end up totally with Cincinnus. I happen to have a slight but curious history with gladioli. My mother told me when I was a boy that the first “long” word I uttered as a child was gladioli. I thought it mighty strange both that she should have noticed and remembered this and also that I should have spoken that particular word. Anyway, I am very familiar with the shortened version of the term and gladly accept the clue.

Oh, and I was also a big fan of Father Ted and did enjoy seeing him worked into 18A.

By: Cincinnus

Cincinnus — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 01:31:41 +0000

Thanks to Pete, Cincinnus blogger in residence, for the blog. Very good as always.

Thanks also to Sil, for the continuing support.

With regard to 4 down, I plead not guilty. ‘Little flower’ was not an instruction to take some of the letters from ‘gladiolus’. GLAD is in Chambers as an informal shortened form of ‘gladiolus’. So ‘little flower’ is quite justified, in my view. And ‘with’ as a link between two parts of a double definition clue is also, I believe, quite legitimate.

By: Sil van den Hoek

Sil van den Hoek — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 23:07:34 +0000

In 15d I meant of course (IMPERSONAL), not (POLAR MINES).
But it’s still very cold. Brrr.

By: Sil van den Hoek

Sil van den Hoek — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 23:05:45 +0000

As ever, thanks Pete for the blog.
You must be the Blogger-In-Residence for Cincinnus, I guess.

This crossword was as Cincinnus as Cincinnus can be.
High quality, very precise, smiling (and, I must admit, sometimes a bit boring because of all this evenness).
Today we solved Alberich, and we wondered why a really challenging setter like A, never gets the appropriate Saturday spot in the FT.

Anyway, lots to admire here.

My Best Anagram Award goes surely to 15d (POLAR MINES) – even just reading the clue feels like Antarctica.
And Charade Of The Day, for me, is 18ac with its Father Ted reference.
Probably the finest construction’s seen in 29ac (ATTENTION).
Nice to see Cincinnus give a ‘nod’ to one of his colleagues in 23ac.

But a critical note as well.
Describing half of ‘Gladiolus’ as ‘little flower’ is not very elegant. And although normally Cincinnus is a very accurate setter, I put a question mark to the use of ‘with’ in 4d.
I know, it’s all about the surface, but here? Mwah.

Finally, Pete, sorry to say that your winner 27d (ACTS) was – IMHO – very ordinary.