Financial Times 12,758 by Cinephile — Ice malt? (7, 5)

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I found this puzzle rather difficult even after catching on to the theme, climate change. I got 18A wrong and did not find the solution to 17D. A few clues that struck me as both challenging and clever are 13A, 18A, 20A-4D and 27A.

Across
1. BALL GOWN – BALL (round object) + G (string) + OWN (have)
5. SCREAM – S (second) + CREAM (top)
10. ROGUE – [pro]ROGUE (stop session)
11. RIVER BANK – RIVER (flower) + BANK (Oberon’s wild thyme etc)
12. ATTENTION – double definition
13. OUTDO – double/cryptic definition
14. DUGONG – DU (from the French) + GONG (medal)
15. ENFORCE – hidden word
18. ROBESON – “ROBE’s ON” (ceremonially clad). I first thought this was ORBISON — see comments below.
20, 4. GLOBAL WARMING – LOB (throw) in GAL (girl) + WAR (fights) + MING (China)
22. SPRIG – S (S-) + PRIG (self righteous person)
24. WILLPOWER – P (prince) in WILLOW (tree) + ER (queen)
25. HINDSIGHT – anagram of THINGS HID
26. IDRIS – D[olgellau] in IRIS (rainbow). The full name of the mountain is, I believe, Cadair Idris.
27. THEIST – T (time) + HEIST (crime)
28. PARTISAN – P (quiet) + ARTISAN (worker)

Down
1. BARMAN – ARM (weapon) in BAR (prohibition)
2. LIGHT BULB – LIGHT (not serious) + BLUB (cry) backwards (up)
3. GREENHOUSE GASES – E + anagram of ENOUGH in GREASES (lubricants)
6. CARBON FOOTPRINT – NF (National Front) + O[rganisation] in CAR BOOT (sale) + PRINT (publish)
7. EXACT – double definition
8. MAKEOVER – double definition
9. AVENUE – A (a) + VENUE (place to meet)
16. ROADWORKS – A (adult) in ROD (corporal punishment) + WORKS (is successful)
17. BRASS HAT – BRASS (money) + HAT (cover)
19. NEW AGE – SEWAGE (refuse) with S changed to N (change poles)
20. GALATEA – GALA (celebratory) + TEA (meal). In Greek mythology, Galatea was a sculpture created by Pygmalion and brought to life by Aphrodite.
21. PRISON – IS (is) in PRON[e] (lying down deprived of energy)
23. RANGE – double definition

8 comments on “Financial Times 12,758 by Cinephile — Ice malt? (7, 5)”

  1. Pete,

    I did not solve his but the moment I put down on paper the pattern ?O?S?H?T and read the clue, I thought the answer was BRASS HAT.

    brass – money; cover – hat

    Now that crossing letter O needs to be checked.

  3. Hi Pete
    The construction for 1 across is round object (ball) string (g – no comment!) have (own).
    Rishi is right – 18A is Robeson (Paul, famous singer from many years ago). I went for Orbison first but revised it on getting brass hat, which was one of my last ones.

  4. Rishi, thanks, I am obliged to you again. ROBESON is a better answer given that one does not normally wear an orb. And thanks Magpie for the 1A explanation. I had begun to wonder if “string” referred to the descender on the g!

  5. I don’t like string = g in 1ac. Presumably this is g-string but, although g-string can I suppose equal string, I don’t see how g equals g-string. Brass doesn’t equal brass hat, kipper doesn’t equal kipper tie, and so on.

  6. Wil, your comment prompted me to think a lot about the matter and I have decided that I do not like it either. After all, we do not generally see, for example, frame cluing A, square cluing T, neck cluing V or factor cluing X. The only exceptions I can think of are shirt cluing T (which may be a special case because a T shirt is also known at a tee) and bend cluing U (which also has some extra justification).

  7. Pete and Wil, the G-String refered to is not the garment but one of the strings on a musical instrument. Therefore any of eight letters may be the answer in the same pattern as “note” might refer to do, re, mi, etc. ie, there is more than one possible answer unlike only one V-neck or one T-square option which seems to be your quibble.

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