The FT crossword blog: By George, I think we’ve got it!

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

Phrase of the week

In Neo’s Friday puzzle, this one —

Princess in factory returning poor parts (4,3)

This one requires reversing words. Princess Di, written backwards in works (for factory), gives us —

SKID ROW

Workers transported logs to a river by sliding them down roads on greased skids. So it came to be known as the place where those without money gathered, hence a depressed city street.

Clues of the weekend 

Rosa Klebb offers this in Saturday’s cryptic, which sounds like praise for a stock exchange market —

AIM is very special (3,2,1,7)

Try thinking of the three letters of AIM and what each can mean, then how they are positioned in relation to each other.

This one from Rose Klebb is a nice anagram —

Got oboes to play something to raise morale (3,5)

Aardvark, setter of the Polymath general knowledge puzzle, tests your expertise on George Michael, David Bowie, Joan of Arc and brown African waders.

How to solve

Mudd on Monday had —

We need help with nothing ordinary (2-2)

The distress call sign, SOS + O for nothing, gives you something ordinary —

SO-SO

Phsshtpok on Tuesday goes travelling with —

City in France I love is full of wealthy people (7)

French for I = JE. O = love. Fill JE and O with wealthy people and you get a city —

JERICHO

A neat cryptic from Guy on Wednesday —

The work of a certain journalist? (8,7)

The clue is all about the first word — the. In grammar, it’s known as the —

DEFINITE ARTICLE — as the work of a certain journalist might be described.

Double meanings are at work in Zamorca’s clue on Thursday —

Stuck with improvised music (6)

Stuck and improvised music both give us —

JAMMED

From the FT Style Guide

GERRYMANDER

Not jerrymander; it means to divide a voting area so as to give one party an unfair advantage. The word was formed from the name of Elbridge Gerry, governor of Massachusetts in 1812, and Salamander, the odd shape of a constituency he created.

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.