Financial Times 16,398 by MONK

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A tough one, but very satisfying to get it all explained in the end. Thank you Monk.

The grid made this trickier than it might have been, the four corners overlapped the rest of the puzzle by only a single letter. The grid-fill is a pangram, but by Monk's standards this barely counts as a feature. Is there something else going on here?

image of grid
ACROSS
1 APPLET Fruit tea, initially a thing in Java (6)
 

APPLE (fruit) then Tea (first letter, initially) – the Java programming language
4 QUAGMIRE Tricky situation needing a number of papers circulated around meeting (8)
 

QUIRE (a number of papers) contains (circulated around) AGM (meeting)
9 NONAGE Minority, say, soon getting sent back (6)
 

EG (say) ANON (soon) all reversed (getting sent back)
10 CLEAVAGE Bristol Channel? (8)
 

cryptic definition – Bristols is slang for breasts
12 STEP ON IT Hurry set point following smash (4,2,2)
 

anagram (following smash) of SET POINT
13 STRIFE Conflict is prevalent, by the way (6)
 

RIFE (prevalent) following (by) ST (street, the way)
15 ENDS Deaths of Kennedys viewed regularly (4)
 

every other letter (viewed regularly) of kEnNeDyS
16 PROWESS Bravery shown in old western covered by media (7)
 

O (old) W (western) inside (covered by) PRESS (media)
20 RECOUNT Detail concerning esteem (7)
 

RE (concerning) COUNT (esteem)
21 ORAL Oddly enough, really on “nil by mouth” (4)
 

ReAlLy (odd letters) following (on) O (nil)
25 LOUCHE Sinister indication of pain in left side of eye (6)
 

OUCH (indication of pain) inside L (left) and eyE (side letter of, either side)
26 MECHANIC Chance I’m upsetting one enrolled in services? (8)
 

anagram (upsetting) of CHANCE I'M – one working (enrolled) at a service station
28 INSIGNIA Badge insinuating drunken crazy nut should be ousted (8)
 

anagram (crazy) of INSInuAtING missing NUT (should be ousted)
29 MOJAVE Tailless bird having to travel quickly around a desert (6)
 

JAy (bird, tailless) inside (having…around) MOVE (to travel quickly)
30 HIAWATHA Remain in ditch, shifting one old native chieftain (8)
 

WAIT (remain) inside HA-HA (ditch) with I (one) then moving to a new location
31 SNEEZE Rapid blast from hooter (6)
 

cryptic definition – hooter is slang for nose
DOWN
1 AGNUS DEI A prayer gained us suffering (5,3)
 

anagram (suffering) of GAINED US
2 PINHEADS Idiots need keycode to sit on ship’s toilet (8)
 

PIN (keycode) with HEADS (a ship's toilet)
3 EGG BOX One keeps items originally found in layers (3,3)
 

cryptic definition
5 UGLI Italian region getting peeled fruit (4)
 

pUGLIa (Italian region) missing outer letters (getting peeled)
6 GIANTESS Tremendous girl guide’s leader is collecting bets (8)
 

Guide (first letter, leader) IS contains (collecting) ANTES (bets)
7 ITALIC Type of digital icons symmetrically cropped (6)
 

digITAL ICons (cropped, symmetrically)
8 EYELET Small hole in hollow, empty, overturned box (6)
 

EmptY (hollow) then TELE (box) reversed (overturned)
11 PIERROT Support rubbish bloke in panto (7)
 

PIER (support) ROT (rubbish)
14 SWANKER More smart women having collapsed around Edward (7)
 

W (women) inside (having…around) SANK (collapsed) then ER (Edward Rex ?)
17 MESHUGGA Crazy mags with huge totty (8)
 

anagram (totty) of MAGS with HUGE
18 TRUNCATE Chest picked up by crew, reportedly cut (8)
 

TRUNC sounds like (picked up) "trunk" (chest) with ATE (sounds like) reportedly "eight" (crew, of a rowing boat)
19 BLACK EYE Outcome of strike – servant housed in abandoned barge (5,3)
 

LACKEY (servant) inside BargE (nothing inside, abandoned)
22 SLEIGH European in incomplete flimsy transport (6)
 

E (European) inside SLIGHt (flimsy, incomplete)
23 RUSSIA American footballer called for country (6)
 

sounds like (called for) "rusher" (American footballer)
24 SHOO-IN Almost driving away a dead cert (4-2)
 

SHOOINg (driving away, almost)
27 HIGH Say hello dear (4)
 

sounds like (say) "hi" (hello)

29 comments on “Financial Times 16,398 by MONK”

  4. excellent blog and puzzle…I actually saw the repeated GIGGITY nina — but had no idea of its import — thanks Hovis! Impressed that the American football player position is fair game for a Brit puzzle…

  5. I saw GIGGITY in row 2 and saw it was going to be repeated in row 14 and that probably helped get TRUNCATE and on finishing googled it and found him-I’d never heard of Glen Quagmire but on watching a clip (“whats CPR?) I thought that Austin Powers was outclassed.Cleavage could be thematic and a pangram to boot(I wasnt even looking for that)

    This setter has got class

    Thanks PeeDee and Monk.

  6. The point about the character Quagmire is that he’s a would-be 25a sex-obsessed weirdo, and he says giggity-giggity when excited by anything vaguely naughty. So I think his name and the nina are nods to clues like 10a, 21a, 17d and 14d (almost!). I got stupidly stubborn with ODDS-ON at 24d unfortunately.

    Titillating Amusing puzzle.

  7. Thanks for the blog PeeDee.
    I was quite pleased to have filled in the top half of this quite quickly. However after then getting half of the SE corner I lost the will to carry on.
    I think describing a mechanic as ‘one enrolled in services’ is unfair clueing.
    I also don’t understand how ‘totty’ is an anagrind.

  8. Grumpy @7, I was okay with MECHANIC, given that the definition had a question mark and the wordplay was an easily spotted anagram.

    ‘Totty’ in Chambers is ‘unsteady; dazed; tipsy’.

  10. That was hard and made harder by an awful grid with only one crosser between each corner and the middle block, which is itself made up entirely of over-unched lights. That said, spotting the Nina/s with Quagmire looming over cleavage gave me a laugh that more than made up for it.

    It also had some nice penny-drop moments – APPLET, GIANTESS, and ITALIC to name a few.

    Thanks to all.

  13. PeeDee I was just joshing with you because we posted simultaneously, but yes, dazed and dizzy are both in the list of anagram indicators in the Chambers Crossword Companion. Perhaps they share the same derivation?

  14. Really tough, so that I ran out of time and didn’t finish. I loved 10ac CLEAVAGE — it’s rhyming-slang (Bristol City — titty). Thanks Pee Dee and Monk for an unusually difficult day.

  18. Thank you PeeDee. Most grateful for the info. I have never heard of any of this but good to enlarge my cultural range.

  19. Thanks Monk & PeeDee.

    SM:  Or why not try the 15^2 FAQs for Nina?

    In 28 across there are two anagram indicators:  drunken and crazy.  The first relates to insinuating as a whole and the second indicates that the letters of nut are not contiguous.

  22. psmith @19 – re 28 across I thought something similar at the time. I couldn’t see how crazy (an anagram indicator) would indicate that the letters of NUT are not contiguous.  They do appear in the correct order, so an anagram indicator is not necessary to indicate that they have to be muddled before removal. For the blog I just glossed over it and hoped no-one would notice!

    Do you have a way of explaining how drunken and crazy work together in this clue?

  23. PeeDee@22: the N in ‘nut could refer to the penultimate letter in the fodder, which would make the order incorrect. That was my take on it anyway.

    By the way, apologies for repeating your complaint about the grid. I somehow missed that part of your blog and seeing no mention of it in the comments I thought I was the first. 🙂

  24. PeeDee @ 22:  I agree that crazy is not an anagram indicator but just recognises that the word nut does not appear in insinuating.  The clue can perhaps be clarified by inserting punctuation: Badge insinuating drunken (crazy nut should be ousted) (8)

  25. Interesting point re 28 ac.
    Everyone seems to be a bit right.

    In my opinion, it is all about in which order both devices (anagram(s) and subtraction) are applied.
    In this case, an anagram [indicator: drunken] of ‘insinuating’ comes first.
    That might get you ‘insignianut’.
    Thereafter ‘nut’ is ousted, leaving you with ‘insignia’.
    No second anagram indicator needed.

    But, if you really do want a second indicator, that is only necessary if the letters of ‘nut’ appear in a different order (in the word ‘insinuating’) .
    PeeDee makes very clear that that is not the case here.
    And then Angstony tells us that what should be ousted could have been ‘utn’, meaning we do need one more anagram indicator [crazy].

    So, we’re all a bit right and/or wrong.

  26. Thanks Monk and PeeDee

    Just looking back and see that I always find puzzles by this setter quite tough and always taking well over the hour to get out.  This one was no exception – even after getting a quick start in the NW corner, it still took three sittings and closer to the two hours with electronic help to finish. Didn’t pick up on the ninas or the theme, having only ever watched a few episodes of the show.

    UGLI (knew the fruit but didn’t know the Italian name (or the English one for that matter) of that region of Italy, LOUCHE, MESHUGGA and RUSHER (as the US footballer) were all new terms for me.  EGG-BOX is also a term not used here – more egg carton.

    Thought that ER for Edward (Rex) was quite vague and it took some time to eventually account for the R.  It was my penultimate entry, followed by HIAWATHA (which took ages to see the tricky wordplay).

  27. Sil @ 25:  Where we were all wrong was in thinking that crazy was an anagram indicator.  Perhaps it usually is, but here it is used in the sense something like that in crazy paving, in which a paving stone is broken into several pieces scattered across the paved area.  In this instance nut is the paving stone broken into its three letters.  The natural sequence is to remove the identified but separated letters to leave eight letters for the anagram for which drunken is the anagrind.

  28. Perhaps, I am dim but “In this instance nut is the paving stone broken into its three letters” seems to me indicating an anagram.

  29. Hadn’t realised that this had come out (giggity!). Thanks to Pee(giggity!)Dee for great blog, to all for nice comments, and to copmus@5 for an erudite appreciation of les choses risquées. The subtractive anagram (SA) at 28ac is, I think, unambiguous (hence fair) since ‘crazy’ was not intended to be an anagram indicator, but rather to signify ‘composed of irregular bits’, just as in crazy paving and crazy quilt. Had it been an anagram indicator, the clue would have strayed into compound-anagram (CA) territory, which by convention (I know not why) is seemingly verboten in daily puzzles. Finally, I genuinely had not noticed the flimsy connections in FT Stock Grid #16, i.e. not one of my own design. Apologies to Horn(giggity!)beam@14 for giving you such a hard(giggity!) time.

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