Financial Times 15,445 by CHALMIE

by

This was a tough offering from Chalmie

There were some excellent clues such as 1ac and 4dn in this puzzle, but it was a real mixed bag with some gimmes like 9ac and 23 ac and some really obscure words such as ROM in 19ac and the solution to 22ac and 24ac.

I couldn’t quite parse 14dn, although I can see all of the elements that make up the solution.

Thanks, Chalmie.

Across
1 ATINGLE Feeling funny eating lettuce sandwiches (7)
  Hidden in “eATING LEttuce”
5 HECUBA Man meeting island’s legendary queen (6)
  HE (“man”) + CUBA (“island”)

In Greek mythology, Hecuba was the wife of Priam, and mother of Hector and Paris.
8 LAP DANCER Cavalryman carrying Blackberry, say, for club artist (3,6)
  LANCER (“cavalryman”) “carrying” PDA (personal digital assistant, of which “Blackberry” is an example)
9 EARNS Merits organ with metal back (5)
  EAR (“organ”) + <=Sn (chemical symbol for tin, hence “metal”)
11 GROPE Fumble good line (5)
  G(ood) + ROPE
12 SUBSCRIBE Pay regular fee to one who writes underwater? (9)
  Straight definition, follwed by a cryptic one.
13 THEOREMS Shown proofs horse met disaster (8)
  *(horse met)
15 ENDING Elected government object before completion (6)
  END (“object”) + IN (“elected”) + G(overnment)
17 ROOFIE Drug an old curse on friend of Pooh (6)
  ROO (“friend of Pooh”) + FIE (“old curse”)
19 GOMORRAH Witch runs traveller over in coming back to Biblical city (8)
  <=HA(R + ROM + O)G

where HAG is “witch”, R is “runs”, ROM is “traveller” and O is “over”.

Rom is a word for a Gypsy boy or man, so “traveller”
22 KILDERKIN 18 gallons reportedly did for her family (9)
  Homophone of KILLED HER KIN

A kilderkin is an obsolete word for 18 gallons, or half a barrel.
23 ALARM Upset one large member (5)
  A L(arge) + ARM (“member”)
24 NAIRA African ready to put back contents of trench (5)
  <=(m)ARIAN(a)

The Mariana Trench is a deep fissure in the ocean bed of the Pacific, and the naira is the unit of currency of Nigeria
25 NICORETTE In French town, engineers block excessive anti-smoking measure (9)
  R.E. (“engineers”) “blocking” O.T.T. (“excessive”) “in” NICE (“French town”)

I think the inhabitants of Nice may prefer CITY to TOWN.
26 JEWELS Stones murdered Elton John’s introductions on comeback (6)
  (<= SLEW + E(lton) J(ohn))
27 ENCODES Makes obscure fish finally come into being (7)
  COD + (com)E in ENS (“being”)
Down
1 ALLIGATOR SKIN Doctor is taking a roll of material (9,4)
  *(is taking a roll)
2 IMPROVE Better current politician cycling past (7)
  I (unit of electric “current”) + M.P. + ROVE (“cycling” OVER)

To get the “cycling over” bit, imagine the word OVER written on a wheel, then “cycle” it by 90 degrees, the letters would then spell OVER if you started at the same place.
3 GRAZE We hear white horses eat (5)
  Homophone of GREYS

“Whitish” may have been more appropriate.
4 EXCUSE ME I didn’t like that dance (6,2)
  Double definition
5 HEREBY With this different thinking, Belgium replaces Sweden (6)
  HERESY (“different thinking”) with the S replaced by B (Belgium replacing Sweden)
6 CRESCENDO Cern’s codes compromised by increasing volume (9)
  *(cern codes)

There’s a stray S in the anagram fodder here, though!
7 BURQINI Inquire about missing European with black swimming costume (7)
  B(lack) + *(inquir)
10 SLEDGEHAMMERS People pretending to hold projection tools (13)
  SHAMMERS (“people pretending”) “to hold” LEDGE (“projection”)
14 REITERATE Film about computer age in popular culture finally gets repeat (9)
  The only parsing of this that I can see is:

(popula)R (cultur)E  with I.T. ERA (“computer age”) and <=E.T> (“film”), but I can’t quite see how it all fits together from the clue.
16 CORNICHE My special spot on coast road (8)
  COR (“my”) + NICHE (“special spot”)
18 OIL PIPE I record paper exercise supporting old fuel supply (3,4)
  O(ld) + I + L.P. + i (news”paper”) + P.E. (“exercise”)
20 REACTED Turn grass without having replied (7)
  ACT (Turn”) in REED (“grass”)
21 SKINKS Small band of lizards (6)
  S(mall) + (The) KINKS (60’s “band”)
23 AURIC Golden covers taken off Forster novel (5)
  (m)AURIC(e)

*anagram

7 comments on “Financial Times 15,445 by CHALMIE”

  2. Thank you loonapick, needed your early blog to confirm a few answers – as you say, it was quite a tough puzzle. Was going to help with the parsing of 14d, but Chalmie has got in before me; to quote Eric Morecambe, you had “all the right notes but not necessarily in the right order”!

    Thank you Chalmie.

  3. A tough puzzle but inaccurate-I was going to give it a miss until it was blogged as tough.

    NICE is plain wrong-isnt it the 5th largest city there?
    I’ve only heard of ROOFIE(rhohypnol nest pas?)in crime programmes about date rape(although it is fine sleep-aid on a long flight)
    GREY-WHITE?
    As for MAURICE? I’ve read almost all the others but thats a bit off-track.

    I didnt mind the challenge but after the perfection of Vlad/Tyrus clues, it felt jolting.

    Ta for blog.

  5. Parsing both Jan 11th and 12th is a bit iffy .. ? Normally parsing ft puzZles including gaff and chalmie have not been so here n there.. what’s up??

  6. I thought this an excellent challenge. Thanks Chalmie.
    Though 24ac is too much GK for me – needing it in both the wordplay and again obscurely in the answer.
    Thanks also loonapick

  7. Thanks Chalmie and loonapick

    Another who found this quite hard taking the elapsed day to get it completed with a number of words that were new ( BURQINI, MAURICE (the novel) and ROOFIE) and some that I had to dredge out of the seldom used parts of the memory (KILDERKIN, EXCUSE-ME (the dance) and NAIRA (helped by having just read about the Nigerian civil war with Biafra, where it was mentioned)).

    Had no worries with ‘greys’ and sort of parsed the 14d enough to be confident with it.

    Finished in the SW corner with the tricky word play of REITERATE, NAIRA (that took quite a while to find the Mariana Trench) and ROOFIE (new term and hard to parse after Roo).

Comments are closed.