Financial Times 16,341 by JULIUS

16 comments on “Financial Times 16,341 by JULIUS”

1. I think 1a is referring to F expanded as Foxtrot and T as Tango (phonetic alphabet) both ballroom dances.

2. Thanks Hovis.  I will get the blog updated ASAP.

3. Great stuff. Thanks.

4. Another tough one after today’s Philistine in the Guardian. I eventually worked out what BALLROOM DANCING was all about, but couldn’t make sense of the ‘Flaming Ferrari’ wordplay and wasn’t convinced about DIRT CHEAP. Almost my last in, but ‘Jason the bird collector’ GOLDEN RETRIEVER was my favourite.

   Thanks to PeeDee and Julius

5. This one was harder for me than Philistine in the Graun, but completed it eventually.COD 26ac, though it’s a chestnut.

6. Thanks Julius and PeeDee. This was fairly easy for me to complete despite some clues I couldn’t completely parse. Since I work these crosswords on paper with a pencil 26ac was obvious from the start.

7. I eventually had to guess 1a and 1d from the checkers, then parse! Very nice. Loved Jason, Fleur, geriatric, and the gin demander rudely entering the boozer.

   Bit surprised to see the homophone in 2d include an abbreviation, but the answer was clear

   I also liked 26a

   Many thanks Julius & PeeDee

    

8. I completely missed the NATO alphabet reference for BALLROOM DANCING, so thanks for explaining that, and I’d never heard of the musical concept of a comma, so I learnt something interesting there. I’m not entirely convinced as to the merits of “Knockdown compost” as a cryptic definition for DIRT CHEAP, and was wondering how to get DIRTC to go with the (compost) HEAP. Whatevs. I tried for too long to get BURST IN to work for 17D, when it was clearly wrong. Nice puzzle and blog. Thanks Julius and PeeDee.

9. PeeDee, re your question at 2d, this is the first time I’ve come across advertised as a homophone indicator, but as a synonym of eg announced and proclaimed, it seems fair enough.

10. DIRT CHEAP I thought of as a double definition.   An item on knockdown price is available dirt-cheap, and compost is cheap dirt …    And thanks, PeeDee and Julius.  I needed the blog to get BALLROOM DANCING which made everything else fit.

11. jeff@usa – I like the double definition idea, interesting and not something that had occurred to me.  The problem for me is that compost is something that you can buy in bags at the shops, or you have to go to the effort of making it yourself.  It would not be an example of cheap dirt, it would be dirt with some added value.

12. PS …and the other thing is that the phase “dirt cheap” is barely metaphorical, it means more or less literally “as cheap as dirt”, and compost literally is “dirt”.  It is difficult to see how one can get a double definition out of this.

13. hi PeeDee

    many thanks for your blog. I think I remember seeing a sign once at a garden centre during sale time advertising reduced John Innes no.1 as “dirt cheap”. It’s perhaps not worth over-thinking this and possibly one for me to file in the (already bulging) “rubbish whimsical punning doube/cryptic definitions that didn’t really work” bin and move on.

    All the best to you and the other commenters as ever, Rob/Julius

14. Hello Julius, thanks for dropping in.  Personally I think it your willingness to risk the “rubbish whimsical punning X that didn’t really work” that makes your puzzles stand out and be so enjoyable.  Please keep them coming, we can always get a bigger bin if necessary.  Better than producing sterile risk-free puzzles any day.

15. Thanks Julius and PeeDee

    Thought that this was quite brilliant and it didn’t take as long as it should have to complete the grid – it did take some time afterwards to completely parse everything all the same.  Didn’t properly align COMMA in the musical sense – had justified it with ‘minute’ = small, as in slight pause as compared with a semi-colon, colon or full stop.

    Think that 1a exemplifies the puzzle – after finding that ‘Strictly’ was the known abbreviation of ‘Strictly Come Dancing’ which focuses on both ballroom and Latin dancing and to find an example of each to give the radio code for the paper – just nodded my head in acknowledgement !

    Even the ‘bin-able’ DIRT CHEAP – back in the day, no gardener would have ever thought not to be making their own compost – and in that sense it was cheap dirt.  To be honest, I had more trouble with trying to work the ‘Flaming Ferrari’ back into the answer of MOLOTOV.

    Finished in the SE corner with COPYRIGHT and the cleverly composed GET IT ON.

16. Julius @13 – I very much doubt you are still reading this post, but just in case:

    I have been mentally coming back to COMPOST HEAP when trying to explain similar clues in other puzzles.  I think I will adopt your words “whimsical definition” in future.

    A whimsical definition is a clue that isn’t quite a cryptic def nor a double definition, not quite &lit nor exactly a traditional wordplay either.  Even so it still makes sense on some level and raises a smile.  Whimsical definition fits the bill perfectly.

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