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Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.
A blog that takes a look at the highlights from the week’s cryptics, and some of the puzzles coming up this weekend.
Clues of the weekend
A nice simple one from Mudd in the Saturday cryptic:
Secretary in agony (4)
And one that you can find “hidden” in the clue, which is helpfully highlighted:
Some herb or a geranium? The former (6)
The Saturday Polymath general knowledge puzzle, set by Aardvark, will test your expertise on Harry Potter, Russian history, constellations and this for the lepidopterists:
Type of large bright red and black moth whose larvae feed on ragwort (8)
How to solve
Need a bit of cryptic help? Try out the magazine hybrid puzzle, which mixes straight clues and cryptic. So if you can solve this straight clue . . .
Sword sheath (8)
. . .its last letter is the first for this cryptic one:
Get larger fruit I left inside (6)
Hint: Think of a four-letter fruit, inside which you can insert the letters I and L (for left)
How to solve
From Friday’s cryptic, set by Solomon:
Knock back magnificent beer (7)
If you reverse (knock back) a word for magnificent, you get a word for beer.
So REGAL, reversed, becomes LAGER
Did you spot . . .
The April Fool puzzle, signalled by the anagram:
Parody? As if! (LOL)
. . . spelled out a message from the first letter of each successive solution, and another message from the first letter of each successive clue.
Word of the week
WAFFLE
In Julius’s Wednesday puzzle, Number 18,015, is this clue —
Rabbit – a popular breakfast item (6)
Nice and simple, this clue. Rabbit, as a verb, gives you the same word as something you eat for breakfast.
The OED says the breakfast item comes from the Dutch word wafel, or wafer, and the verb derives from waff or woff, which a dog does when it yelps.
From the FT Style Guide
Complement: To complete or add to; a complete amount, number; complementary means completing, making up a whole.
Compliment: an expression of praise.
To access the FT’s Cryptic, Polymath and FT Weekend crosswords, go to https://www.ft.com/puzzles-games or solve them on the iOS and Android apps.
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