Financial Times 15,829 by AARDVARK

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Another enjoyable Wednesday puzzle for me to solve and blog, thank you Aardvark.

Sometimes I find it hard to write introductions to puzzles like these: in many ways there is nothing unusual about them.  However, to describe puzzles such as this as ordinary, standard stuff etc would be to damn with faint praise.  In my opinion the standard of setting in the FT is very high and to be a “standard” midweek puzzle is praise indeed.

I have said it a few times recently, but in addition to the virtuoso offerings the FT is also very good at producing the bread-and-butter traditional and accessible cryptics. Even after having written hundreds of blogs they are still a pleasure to write up. I’d like to take this opportunity to say a quick thank you to the editor and setters for maintaining this tradition.

completed grid

Across
1 UNSTABLE Regularly furnish item of furniture that’s wobbly (8)
fUrNiSh (regular selection from) then TABLE (item of furniture)
5 AM-DRAM Type of theatre doctor visits in the morning twice (2-4)
DR (doctor) inside (visits) AM AM (in the morning, twice) – amateur dramatics
10 STIFF Formidable second row (5)
S (second) TIFF (row)
11 SUPER BOWL American turned through arch and left big sports event (5,4)
US (American) reversed (turned) PER (through) BOW (arch) and L (left)
12 DESPERADO In emotionless situation, agents brought over old criminal (9)
REPS (agents) reversed (brought over) inside (in…situation) DEAD (emotionless) then O
13 ADEPT Expert’s appropriate clothing outside in deluge (5)
APT (appropriate) contains (clothing) DelugE (outside letters of)
14 JOSHUA Tease superior with a religious book (6)
JOSH (tease) U (superior, socially) with A – book of The Bible
15 EYESHOT View from east certainly popular (7)
E (east) YES (certainly) HOT (popular)
18 PALETTE Artist might use this rented property within The Crown? (7)
LET (rented property) inside PATE (head, the crown)
20 SEDATE Grave site peripherally showing when person died, say (6)
SitE (peripherally, outside letters of) then DATE (showing when person died, say)
22 REACH Pass priest leaving to deliver sermon (5)
pREACH (to deliver sermon) missing (with…leaving) P (priest) – definition as a verb, to hand over
24 POMPADOUR Englishman abroad every year with dreary old hairstyle (9)
POM (Englishman abroad, in Australia) PA (per annum, every year) with DOUR (dreary)
25 RIOTOUSLY Number ten, Lotus, crashed inside track without restraint (9)
IO (number ten) then anagram (crashed) of LOTUS all inside RY (railway, track)
26 BRACE Tone up, caber-tossing (5)
anagram (tossing) of CABER
27 BROOKE War poet without money, without love (6)
BROKE (without money) containing (without, outside) O (love, tennis score)
28 EDGED OUT Gradually removed newsman, then another, putting in complaint (5,3)
ED (editor, newsman) then ED (another newsman) inside (putting in) GOUT (complaint).  Did Aardvark intend to write “put in complaint” here?  A typo perhaps?
Down
1 UPSIDE Positive aspect of promoted football team (6)
UP (promoted) SIDE (football team)
2 SWISS ROLL Cake makes tongue register (5,4)
SWISS (tongue, a language) and ROLL (register, a list)
3 ALFRED HITCHCOCK Film director’s flared pants snag on part of gun (6,9)
anagram (pants, in a rubbish manner) of FLARED then HITCH (snag) and COCK (part of a gun)
4 LA SCALA The French, extremely sycophantic, like opera house (2,5)
LA (the, French) then SycophantiC (extreme letters of) A LA (à la ,like)
6 MARGARET DRABBLE Female novelist organised trade crowd, spread at the front (8,7)
anagram (organised) of TRADE then RABBLE (crowd) all following (with…at the front) MARG (spread)
7 RHONE Character in Marathon on Tyneside’s a European runner (5)
RHO (character in Greek, a written in Marathon) on NE (the North East, Tyneside) – the River Rhone, a river is something that runs
8 MILITATE One ignited in company of friend to fight for a cause (8)
I (one) LIT (ignited) inside (in company of) MATE (friend).  I would say “in company of” indicates being with rather than inside, but this is a tiny quibble.
9 OPPOSE Work on model’s face (6)
OP (opus, work) on POSE (model)
16 HOT POTATO One might be in a stew, given tricky problem (3,6)
double definition
17 SPARE RIB Relative keeping trim on runs gets minimal Chinese meal? (5,3)
SIB (sibling, a relative) contains (keeping) PARE (trim) on R (runs)
19 EL PASO Repeatedly showing heart, helps Jason somewhere in Texas (2,4)
the middle letters (repeatedly showing heart) of hELPs jASOn
20 SAMOYED Unhappy to involve doctor with the old dog (7)
SAD (unhappy) contains (to involve) MO (medical officer, doctor) with YE (the, old). I had never heard of this dog before, my first guess was SAMBYED but Wikipedia put me right
21 ARGENT Skill needed to include details in silver on shield? (6)
ART (skill) contains (to include) GEN (details, information generally) – silver in heraldry
23 A GOGO Eagerly excited, Olga’s opening in spades (1,4)
AGOG (eagerly excited) then Olga (opening letter of)

definitions are underlined

I write these posts to help people get started with cryptic crosswords.  If there is something here you do not understand ask a question; there are probably others wondering the same thing.

11 comments on “Financial Times 15,829 by AARDVARK”

  1. Spiders and Scorpions both make for good setting.I keep having to remind myself that Aardvark =Scorpion and always welcome in this parish.

    Just having LA SCALA, EL PASO MARGARET DRABBLE and ALFRED HITCHCOCK made this great fun

    Thanks PeeDee and er…Aardvark.

  2. Thanks Aardvaark and PeeDee

    There’s a minor typo in the parsing of 6, the spread is MARG (which is supported by Chambers, but I don’t know of anyone who pronounces it with a hard G).

  5. hi Coby – Swiss is the language of a native of Switzerland, his native tongue.  Technically speaking it might be Swiss-German or something more specific but I think in a cryptic crossword sense it just means the language of a Swiss person.

  6. Thanks to Aardvark and PeeDee. A GOGO and AM-DRAM were new to me (though easily parsed) and the two long answers came quickly so that the rest fell into place. Very enjoyable.

  7. Thanks aardvark, very enjoyable.

    I stupidly imagined the definition of a gogo was eagerly excited, which made the rest of the clue hard to parse.

    Swiss as a tongue seemed weird to me too, what is Swiss? But chambers has “high German dialect” – good lord, it’s anything but high German. Not nice to the French, Italians and Romansh either.

    I didn’t know the novelist or the war poet, but was sufficiently confident of the wordplay to enter them. I knew the dog, it’s a crossword favourite.

    Thanks also peedee

  9. Swiss is probably some kind of language [I know how it sounds] and therefore I am happy with ‘tongue’.

    Unlike Dutch I did not know the dog (SAMOYED, 20d) and I had to check/look it up. A crossword favourite? Never come across the beast – perhaps in one your next puzzles?  🙂

    But the war poet is quite well-known around here (i.e. Cambridge and Grantchester, in particular). There is even a small museum dedicated to Rupert Brooke on the premsies of the famous Orchard tea garden. And the village has a pub too with his name – never been there, though. He was friends with the so-called Bloomsbury Group and knew Virginia Woolf very well. Wouldn’t surprise me if they had a dip together in the Cam at some point.

    I liked this crossword which made me quickly forget the feelings I had about the FT puzzle of two days ago.

    Thanks PeeDee [I’m still happy!  🙂 ]

  10. Thanks for pointing that out psmith, fixed now.  I have no idea what I was thinking when I wrote opposition!  I must have mentally moved on to the next clue or something.

  11. Thanks Aardvark and PeeDee

    A vanilla style crossword with a distinctive champagne aftertaste.

    Crosswords had introduced me to Rupert BROOKE and SAMOYEDs are common pet dogs down here.  A-GOGO and AM-DRAM (my last one in) were both new to me though.

     

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