Financial Times 15,774 – Hamilton

10 comments on “Financial Times 15,774 – Hamilton”

1. Enjoyed this more than I usually do for a Hamilton, who I tend to find a bit too quirky for my taste. The inclusion indicator in 12a doesn’t work for me but the ‘in keeping’ is ok by me in 28a but ‘with’ is then just a link word. I agree that the two definitions are close in 5a, but I took ‘welcome’ as the verb and ‘hug’ as the noun to make it work a little better. CARILLONS was a new word for me.

   Thanks to S&B.

2. Thanks Hamilton and Sil. Isn’t one definition of ‘rendition’ (in 12A) ‘taking’ or ‘abduction’ (as in ‘extraordinary rendition’)? In which case that would serve as the inclusion indicator.

3. Didn’t notice when I looked up ‘rendition’ that it can also mean ‘rendering’, as in ‘application of a coat’, so ‘dire’ as a coat for G works for me.

4. Thanks to Hamilton and Sil. My problem was with the U in ACTUARIES – and I still don’t get it. The rest worked for me, including DIRGE – i.e., if a “miserabilist” composed a piece of music-notes what would it be?

5. http://www.bbfc.co.uk/what-classification/u

6. I am happy with ‘rendition’ being interchangeable with ‘rendering’. The latter can mean coating (with plaster). Whether the two are really interchangeable in that particular sense, I don’t know. I’m not a native speaker and, certainly in this case, I’ll have to rely on dictionaries. The other thing about it that I do not like very much is the nounal use of the indicator: to me, ‘A rendition of B’ meaning ‘A around B’ is inelegant, to say the least.

   The clumsiness of the construction is also my problem with 28ac (RISOTTO). Hamilton equates ‘A B in keeping’ to ‘A around B’ while he actually means ‘A keeping B in[side it]’ or ‘A keeping in[side] B’.

   Sometimes setters mess up the word order, creating all sorts of gaps that we, the solvers, then have to fill up – just to get the surface plausible. Probably most solvers will accept it but I always call it ugly clueing.

    

    

7. Thanks for the blog, Sil. I like your comments.

   I must say that I was too tired to properlly appreciate this crossword tonight.

8. Thanks Hamilton and Sil
   Did this on the train ride home last night, finishing the last couple off when I got there. Slightly quirky which I find kind of refreshing. Lots of really neat clues to make it an enjoyable overall solve.
   Rushed a half-parsed VICAR in at 23d which made the SW corner much harder than it could’ve been and getting VROOM was the endgame for me. Didn’t properly parse DIRGE and quite liked it when I saw it. Favourite was PRIVY COUNCIL – very clever to use PRIVY (toilet / convenience) and COUNCIL(body) and then generate the whole clue as the definition.

9. Follow management on the back of a lorry (9)
    
   TAIL (follow) + BOARD (management)
   I took ‘on’ as being part of the definition i.e. ‘something on the back of a lorry’. Otherwise it would be an inappropriate link word.

    

   I took “on” as being a positional indicator of “board” relative to “tail” with a latent comma:  “Tail, board on”, leaving the definition on-less.

    

    

10. Though it is an idea, Brian, I cannot agree I’m afraid.

    (a) I find such wording from a setter another example of the kind of ‘clumsiness’ I mentioned @6.

    (b) In a down clue ‘A on B’ usually [in 99% of the cases] means A + B.  That use of ‘on’ seems to be the opposite of what you are suggesting (‘B placed on A’ = ‘B on A’).

    Nonetheless, it is possible but does it really matter in the end?

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