Financial Times 14,809 by WANDERER

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A mindbender from WANDERER which turned out to be a complete delight at the end of it all. First pass resulted in barely 3-4 clues being solved and I was getting mentally ready for a long arduous affair.

Progress was slow to begin with, with only one clue in each of the quadrants that I could write-in. After that, the NE corner relented a bit and gave me a launch pad to deal with the SE corner. Last one to fall was SW. I can honestly say that many clues which I solved because of the crossers, required significantly more time to parse properly.

There were just way too many clues  that I liked, but amongst several, 1ac did stand out (though I have seen this clued similarily ages ago).

FF: 10 (this is a first!!) DD: 9

 

completed grid
Across
1 DRAWBACK
Disadvantage accruing to one c/o The Guardian (8)
One in care of a guardian could be a WARD. This can be cryptically clued as DRAW-BACK.
5 DEADEN
Remove feeling of extremes of discomfiture with port (6)
DE (extremes of DiscomfiturE) with ADEN (port)
8 ROT
Rhubarb crumble (3)
Double def
9 RINGMASTER
Top man in Omaha briefly (10)
Cryptic def. I am not sure what the best parsing for this, and was thinking whether there was a Warren Buffet connection somewhere. My best guess here (weak, I must admit) is: The Lion (in the Wonderful Wizard of Oz book) is from the Omaha Circus, as featured in “Lion of Oz”, a ‘prequel’ to the Wizard of Oz written by Roger Baum, the grandson of Frank Baum.
 [RING-MASTER = O-MA-ha (briefly) [Thanks to Muffy@1. I should have seen this!]
10 AMATEURS
A sort of meat recipe in the FT for lovers of ham? (8)
A MATE (sort of MEAT) [ R (recipe) in US (FT, Financial Times – this paper) ]
11 EARTHY
Blue baby finally gets new heart prioritised (6)
Y (babY finally) after anagram of HEART
12, 14 FRED FLINTSTONE
Rocky character? Fellow that’s awfully slender and fit (not!) (4,10)
F (fellow) Anagram of SLENDER FIT NOT
17 NEIGHBOURS
Near lies? No, said leader in back of the FT (10)
NEIGH (sounds like NAY, no) B (leader in Back) OURS (of the FT, this paper)
20 SPUD
Murphy fools about dropping ecstasy (4)
Reverse of DUPeS (fools, dropping ‘E’ – Ecstacy) – Several references to Spud Murphy – 2 of which are Joe ‘Spud’ Murphy who changed the game in potato crisps, American Jazz musician Lyle Stephanovic who was also known as Spud Murphy.
23 ABATED
A time where you might find flowers grew less (6)
[A T (time)] in A BED (where you might find flowers, flowerbed)
24 PENUMBRA
Write with some hesitation to support one of the Shadows (8)
PEN (write) UM (hesitation) BRA (support)
25 WILLOWHERB
Plant brew – who’s about to take ill? (10)
Anagram of BREW WHO taking in ILL with ‘brew’ doing double duty as anagrind. [Thanks Muffy@1 for the anagrind]
26 LOO
Almost spoils card game (3)
LOOt (Almost spoils)
27 FRANCK
Composer of whom you’ll have heard, honest! (6)
Sounds like FRANcK (honest)
28 ASSESSOR
Fools infinitely kind judge (8)
ASSES (fools) SORt (infinitely kind, clever use of ‘infinitely’ to mean endless)
Down
1 DORSAL FIN
Piece of shark fillet starter popular with Golden Girl initially (6,3)
F (Fillet starter) IN (popular) after [DOR (Golden, in French) SAL (Girl)]
2 ACTUATE
Ta-ta? Cue possibly to get going (7)
Anagram of TA TA CUE
3 BARNEY
Fight kicking off nearby (6)
Anagram of NEARBY
4 CONTRALTO
Against line being given to singer (9)
CONTRA (against) L (line) TO
5 DIALECT
Face a series of shocks, in a manner of speaking (7)
DIAL (face) ECT ( a series of shocks, referring to ElectroConvulsive Therapy)
6 ARTHRITIS
Painful condition of untidy British trains, if bins removed (9)
Anagram of bRITISH TRAins, with ‘bins’ removed.
7 EARTHEN
A tree mostly cultivated on a layer of clay (7)
Anagram of A TREe (mostly) on HEN (layer, of eggs)
13 DIGITALIN
Heart stimulant derived from split fingernail, surprisingly (9)
DIGIT (finger) ALIN (anagram of NAIL, surprisingly) ; split fingernail indicates parsing of finger and nail separately.
15 NERVELESS
Lever turned in head to make you calm (9)
Anagram of LEVER in NESS (head)
16 ENDEAVOUR
Try to finish with a 5-0 in Europe (9)
END (finish) with [ A VO (5-0, roman characters) in EUR (Europe) ]
18 EMBOWER
Wriggling worm and bee finding shelter in trees (7)
Anagram of WORM BEE
19 BEDROCK
Bottom layer of feed regularly eaten by badger (7)
ED (fEeD, regularly) in BROCK (badger)
21 PEBBLES
Smart watches from Borders town, British rather than English (7)
PEEBLES (Borders town, in Tweedale within the Scottish Borders region) with B replacing E (British rather than English) – My 7th clue in with some bit of reverse engineering.
22 RUBBLE
Law about books showing “hard core” (6)
RULE (law) about BB (Books, singular being ‘B’)
*anagram

6 comments on “Financial Times 14,809 by WANDERER”

  1. Thanks Turbolegs and Wanderer. I agree this was very good. I especially liked digitalin.

    Re 9ac RINGMASTER – O + MA (ha)
    Re 20 ac SPUD – I think a “Murphy” might be a term for potato.
    Re 25 ac WILLOWHERB – I took the anagrind to be “about”.

    Could there possibly be a theme? I can’t see Bamm-Bamm, but others are here.

  2. Thanks Muffy@1. Good to know you enjoyed it as well. I am kicking myself for missing what now seems to have been relatively simple in 9ac, compared to some of the other clues. Thanks also for the fix on 25ac.

    Cheers
    TL

  3. Hi Muffy,

    The mini-theme escaped me but I was pointed to in the right direction by your post. An initial list below, with potentially other clues that I might have missed.

    12,14ac : FRED FLINTSTONE
    3d & 22d : BARNEY RUBBLE
    17ac : NEIGHBOURS (the above two characters are so)
    19d : BEDROCK (the place where the Flintstones live)
    21d : PEBBLES (who is Fred’s daughter)

    Cheers
    TL

  4. Wanderer’s must be wondering why he has only 3 comments so far and Philistine 30 times as many.

    This was a really good puzzle.
    I saw the theme only at the very end which is always a plus, the ghost theme adding the final smile.

    I had the same experience as you, TL, a very slow start (hard to find a way in) but after I opened up the NE the ball started rolling.

    A pity of the EARTHEN/EARTHY crossing but apart from that top-notch clueing all the way, even if I didn’t understand the definition in 21d.

  6. Thanks Wanderer and Turbolegs

    Did this on a 2 hour flight from Melbourne to the Sunshine Coast in Queensland … and without aids, it took up most of the journey. Found that each clue had to be prised out one by one right up until FRANCK as the last one in – not helped by having written in DIGITALIS at 13 originally.

    For once , was able to spot the mini-theme and had parsed them all OK. Had to check both FRANCK and WILLOWHERB when back to ground.

    Particularly liked RINGMASTER and DIGITALIS but as was said there were many excellent clues.

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