Financial Times 14,983 by GOZO

14 comments on “Financial Times 14,983 by GOZO”

1. Thanks Gozo and PeeDee. A tough one with about half a dozen of the artists unknown to me, and I didn’t really understand COP A PLEA either. Small typo in 13A – it should be TINTORETTO

2. 19d: I looked up. When one ‘cops a plea’, one pleads guilty to a lesser charge so as to avoid standing trial for a more serious charge.

3. Hi Rishi, indeed, but how would ‘copping a plea’ be a new appeal lodged under a small company?

4. Thanks PeeDee.

   Another gem from the gem-meister. I got the artist theme from the laugh out loud clues like 4, 11 and 16 across. Made the rest of it a bit easier, helped by the fact that I actually knew all themed answers. A very wide range of styles represented.

   Seeing it was a Gozo puzzle, and seeing the preamble, I relished getting down to it, and have rarely enjoyed anything more.

5. Re 19d. I see it as an anagram of (new) appeal and co, small company.

6. Disappointing – if I want a GK xword I will seek one out. Cryptics should be only allowed perhaps one proper noun. I despair!

7. I’m with Wagonman @6.
   There were lots of artists whose names I had not heard of. I spent lots of effort with Professor Google and in books to find the answer to many of these clues.

8. Wagonman and AID

   I do understand. As someone whose GK doesn’t include any pop music, sport or television, I tend to feel bereft when themed puzzles on these make their not infrequent appearances. I was just relieved to get something within my ken.

   (Once I clicked the wrong button on The Times site, and did the TLS thinking it was the regular daily one. ‘Home turf at last’, I thought foolishly. I learnt my error when I went to the blog to see if anyone had complained about obscurity.)

9. I can’t help wondering whether this is a reprint of a crossword compiled in the 1950s when people still said “What Ho!”, things were ‘U’ and ‘Non U’, ‘helpings’ were small because of ‘rationing’, Tito ruled Yugoslavia, people were regularly ‘all in’ after a long session with their bridge partners and ‘copped a plea’ if caught cheating…..

10. Hi Malta. There are a lot of people in this country who were alive in the 1950s. Where are you going with this one?

11. Hi PeeDee,

    According to the 2011 census, 71.7% of the UK population would not have been alive in the 1950s.

12. Malta’s comments about the “history” of this puzzle are way off beam. It was compiled three months ago. 1950s, eh? I hadn’t even discovered crosswords then, being only a nipper.
    I was disappointed to read of Wagonman and AID’s dissatisfaction with this themed puzzle. Such puzzles are very much my trademark for the FT. By the way, there was no need whatsoever for trawling through websites to verify the sixteen artists. All of them are listed in Chambers Complete Crossword Lists — a source of inspiration for many of FT puzzles — and thus I deemed it fair to include all their names.

13. Thanks for the update Gozo.

    Looking through Wikipedia to find out about the various artists was a very pleasurable experience. Perhaps ‘trawl’ gave the wrong impression. For me finding out new stuff is one of the pleasures of cryptic crosswords. I had a very enjoyable morning’s work!

14. Thanks Gozo and PeeDee

    Got off to a flyer with a few of the artists that I knew and quite a few of the down clues as well and thought that it was going to be an uncharacteristic ‘easy one’ from Gozo. That’s just before I hit the wall … and resorted to the electronics to help out to get finished.

    As it turned out, I ended up getting SMUTS wrong with Ian SMITH at 23d – guess that it was a little tenuous to have the black marks suggesting a blacksmith. It’s been a bad week, picking up errors in quite a few puzzles :(.

    An enjoyable and educational puzzle which I just grazed on across the day on the Monday after. Liked the layered hidden answer at 7d. Ended up in the SE corner with the last few in ANTI, TENNIEL and the erroneous SMITH.

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