The report provides a broad-based look at the cost of food for 2024, breaking it down by product categories, expected increases and the costs for different family configurations. If that conflict were to expand regionally that could lift the price of oil, a major input into food production and transportation. “It’s a good news report,” he said, although he noted that authors are “holding their breath a bit” over the Israel-Hamas war. Sylvain Charlebois, the report’s lead author and senior director of the Agri-Food Analytics Lab at Dalhousie, said c onditions should be favourable to consumers in the second half. “I am optimistic that the phrase ‘sticker shock’ will become less commonly used throughout grocery stores in 2024.” “The estimated increase of 2.5-4.5 per cent for 2024 provides customers with much-needed relief from the higher increases observed in previous years,” Stuart Smyth, chair of Agri-Food Innovation and Sustainability Enhancement at the University of Saskatchewan, said in a press release. The price of food purchased from stores increased by a high of 11.4 per cent year over year in September 2022, according to Statistics Canada, before falling to 5.4 per cent in October 2023, the most recent data available. To me this is poorly worded, for two reasons: firstly there’s no conditional such as ‘could’ or similar and secondly the past tense of ‘portrayed’ is unjustified (in the cryptic reading it has to be a simple past tense rather than a participle because otherwise there’s nothing to tell you that the anagram ‘equals’ the letters of TAHITIANS).Canadians won’t be happy to hear that food prices, a major stressor on household budgets, are predicted to continue rising, but costs have nonetheless come down from the stratospheric increases recorded in the years following the pandemic. “This artist” and “HAS” strangely portrayed “TAHITIANS” In the actual clue, the ‘and’ is implicit (so we have ‘This artist has…’ instead of ‘This artist and has’) and ‘could portray’ is just ‘portrayed’. The ‘could’ is necessary (in my view) because TAHITIANS is only one possible such anagram. In other words, TITIAN and HAS anagrammed could produce TAHITIANS. This artist and HAS strangely could portray TAHITIANS (9) In this case (and ignoring the problem of the clue making sense as a sentence), this would be something like: Where Y is the definition (indicated by “this”) and the letters of X and the required answer together can anagram to Z. KETCH – this is a stretch: the definition is ‘This is a vessel’ and the wordplay (‘…put up for sauce’) has to be written as ‘write UP for sauce’.Ĭomposite anagrams are generally worded along the lines of: RECONSTRUCTION (INSTRUCTOR ONCE)* – decent anagram, although ‘-nstruct’ appearing in both anagram and answer is a weakness (both words come from the Latin struere meaning ‘to build’).ĪLFRESCO ALF + (CORES)* – I can’t see any justification for ‘fruit’ being an anagram indicator. I originally had ‘left out’ here, but luckily 15ac was straightforward so it didn’t hold me up. LEFT OFF (LEFT)* = ‘felt’ – wordplay in the answer. REGATTAS (T + TEAR-GAS)* – the online version had ‘teargas’ but surely it should be hyphenated. TITIAN (TAHITIANS – HAS)* – unusual to see a composite anagram in the Sunday Times (where the anagram (here ‘Tahitians’) consists of the answer word plus another word in the clue), and I don’t think this one is worded very well: ‘portrayed’ should really be something like ‘might portray’, although that wouldn’t fit the surface. GRAND SLAM (cryptic definition) – referring to bridge. NORTH-NORTH-EAST NNE in full – not keen on this: ‘sinner’s heart’ is NN or INNE but not NNE, which is the heart of ‘sinner’s’ but I don’t think you can read it like that. IMPUTES (I’M UPSET)* – not ‘impetus’! I didn’t read this clue properly, having seen ‘impetus’ from the checking letters before looking at it. RESEMBLE (A,S) subtracted from REASSEMBLE A word to watch out for in clues because it can be an anagram indicator in its second sense. SUPPLY (2 defs) – ‘to supply’ and ‘in a supple manner’. OVERDRAFT OVER (= ‘about’) + DRAFT (= ‘plan’) ![]() ![]() G + RIFF + ON – a type of dog as well as a mythical creature. A very careless error at 26ac notwithstanding, this was mostly very straightforward although several clues were dubious.ĭAUGHTERS-IN-LAW (SUTHERLAND + A WIG)* – ‘broadcast’ is fine as an anagram indicator but I don’t see how ‘during broadcast’ works.
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