The FT crossword puzzle blog: and we’re clueing a Stairway to Heaven

A blog that takes a look at the highlights from the week’s cryptics, and some of the puzzles coming up this Easter weekend.

Clues of the weekend 

Saturday brings us the Easter cryptic jumbo, set by Leonidas and available here. It includes a literary theme, and this anagrammatical clue -

Atypical cop in action is disastrous (11)

And this container clue -

Garment Mike stuffed into bit of hose (5)

Sleuth is the setter of the Saturday Polymath, our weekly general knowledge puzzle, and includes this -

The room in a building where few people are allowed to go (7,9)

And this -

Singer and songwriter, lead singer of Led Zeppelin (6,5)

How to solve

In Neo’s puzzle on Wednesday, this clue -

Before noon 50 coming into the stricken village (6)

The cryptic elements are

before noon = AM

50 = L

the ‘stricken’ (an anagram of the)

AM + L coming into HET gives us -

HAMLET - another word for village

In Aldhelm’s Weekend hybrid puzzle, which mixes straight clues and cryptic, an anagram -

Visionary maker lied horribly (9)

Mix up the letters of maker lied and you get

DREAMLIKE, a synonym for visionary

Word of the week

KITSCH

In Xela’s puzzle today, this clue -

Trashy uniform given to school (6)

uniform = KIT

School = sch (abbreviation)

Trashy = Kitsch

The OED says the 19th Century German word kitsch probably comes from kitschen, meaning to spread (mud) evenly over a surface, to scrape (something) together, to slide.

From the FT Style Guide

to table

In US a bill that is tabled is shelved or killed. This is opposite to British usage; therefore try to use another word such as propose, introduce.

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.