ft 12,130

[ralphwalker]

23d Compass withholding half what it helps to draw
I have ?i?t? I suppose answer is "WIDTH" but I am not quite sure why.

26a Hit land shortly. I have ?h?n. It must be an off day for me, but I can't see what must be a very sipmle answer.

Can anyone help please?

[Grace Digger]

26a Maybe China as in chin + hit

[ralphwalker]

Thank you Grace Digger. I certainly hadn't thought of that. I am not really sure that CHIN means to hit, although a boxer tries to hit it!

[crofter]

ralph Not very sharp clues I'm afraid, but I think I've got them sorted!

I reckon that the second one is CHIN - in the sense that "to chin someone" is to land a punch on the chin! It is, of course, also a shortened version of CHINA!

The second one is not entirely accurate - it is based on WIDTH meaning "Compass" . It is formed by WITH holding D (hence the use of the word "withholding" in the clue).

The tricky part is the D, which is a semicircle (that is, half of a circle) and circles can be drawn by a compass!

This is all very well but (strictly speaking) a compass is used to determine which direction is North and a PAIR of compasses is used to draw circles! Cheers

[ralphwalker]

Thank you Crofter. I agree with you. Clue is really a bit obscure.

There has been some correspondence in the D.Telgraph during the last few days, where readers were recalling what they regarded as the best clues ever. Maybe the Ft should take a tip or two!

Included was the notorious one, HIJKLMNO. Answer WATER.
Not really a clue at all as the answer is not suggested.