Another question mark clue here: “Big flaps in the fashion industry?” are LAPELS, what you might find on the front of a suit jacket, rather than “big flaps” in the sense of controversies.ĥ5D. I enjoyed the meta clue “You’re reading one right now.” What the solvers are reading, as they read those words, is a CLUE.ĦD. “The shaded squares offer a nice visual element, too, to draw solvers in from the get-go,” they added.
Liu noted that the constructors “sold us on that cute and punchy JUMPSUITS revealer, which perfectly describes the wordplay.” The final element of this theme is the revealer, which ties it all together with a neat bit of wordplay: At 58A, we have the clue “Garments similar to rompers … with a hint to the shaded squares in this puzzle.” Those garments are JUMPSUITS, and that aptly describes the “jump” made by the suits in the shaded squares. This pattern repeats twice more to reveal SPADES and DIAMONDS. In the northeast corner of the puzzle, this occurs again with BEAC HED underneath PIE CH ARTS, with the shaded letters forming the word HEARTS. The squares containing CL- of CLEO are shaded and, when you “jump” to the line above it, the squares containing -UBS of DAUBS continue the shading to spell CLUBS. It should not need to be repeated that none of these scores relates to the clues, setters, editors, puzzles or even the culture of the crosswords.For instance, the first set of Across clues concealing the name of a suit is CLEO underneath DA UBS. The Telegraph and Guardian are the joint victors with the Times, depressingly, at the back of the pack.
Misc: The worst by at least 100% in one crucial respect. Jotting: A straight-cornered dedicated box which, while small, gets an extra mark for being labelled JOTTER PAD in bold capital letters, lest any businessman spot it and harrumph about the lazy waste of space which could have been used to advertise steel futures or something. Perhaps business magnates all have 6/6 vision? Would be the FT's only shortcoming if it weren't for the big one with the pink 'un - see below. Reading: The pink does no harm at all, but if the type were any smaller or denser, cataracts might pop. Halved, or quartered for padding, no turning ever necessary. The Financial Times crossword Photograph: Alan Connorįinding: As with the other old-school supersized broadsheet the Telegraph, easy once you know how: unhalve, flip up supplementary sections and re-halve turning paper inside out. None of the ratings relates to the actual puzzles themselves. Other notes: The photographs are based on a scientific sample sourced from the recycling bin.
Here's how the daily 'qualities' break down under the categories Finding, Folding, Reading, Jotting and Misc, each given a score out of three with the potential maximum tally per paper being 15. So how do the various Posh Papers compare? Other people get to do stats and rankings all the time - enjoyers of football, say, or politics. Still, a man can dream.Īnyway, I prefer easy access to my puzzle. And the very concept of 'retirement' will also be a quaint archaism. The puzzle will be force-projected into my mind as some kind of cryptic alarm clock, extracting a micropayment from my Brainbank®. Except that 'dead-tree' news sources will be a curious memory by then, like the pigeon post and ITV. I like to imagine that in the future I'll start each day of my retirement by opening an uncrumpled newspaper that has been delivered to my home, elbows wherever I please, unsquashed and at my own pace. I might be on a bench, or on a bus - so if my journey seems likely to be sardined with what former transport minister Steve Norris described in parliament as "dreadful human beings", the last thing I want is to be heaving around pages of a broadsheet, delivering jabs to unsympathetic fellow passengers. I'm aware that it's not exactly Jason Bourne - ever alert, he nails the devious anagram, barely missing his stop - but it's important for my choice of paper. Most important, though, is not the ease of the crossword, but the ease of finding the crossword: flapping about, turning and folding. Very occasionally, I'll be swayed by all the bumf they use to pad out a newspaper around the crossword: cartoons, adverts, news and so on.