Financial Times 16,404 by AARDVARK

22 comments on “Financial Times 16,404 by AARDVARK”

1. Thanks PeeDee. I failed to get VALE. Ridiculously, I looked up EALE, which is in Chambers, but wasn’t relevant.

   There’s a minor error in blog for 21a. MP -> PM.

   I didn’t know VENA CAVA. Guessed the VENA bit but cheated on the CAVA. Also didn’t spot the pangram. I normally see these and only the best constructed ones escape me so congrats to Aardvark on that.

2. Where’s the ‘z’?

3. I like Ardvaark but where is the Z

4. That’ll teach me not to check before writing @1. Could have used FAZE instead of VALE since the letters of VALE are used elsewhere.

5. thanks PeeVark! great puzzle and blog — I tried to insist on PER,T for 22a — but ultimately 🙂 realized that T was never going to be explainable — fortunately, there was a pear on the kitchen table.

6. Hovis @1: I’m not surprised you didn’t get VALE, featuring as it does an ordinal number indicating a Roman numeral. A practice which, in my humble opinion, should be considered a cardinal sin! Seriously though, how does “fifth” = V (5a) make any sense? Yes, ‘five’ and ‘fifth’ are related, but that doesn’t make them synonymous or interchangeable, does it?

   Apart from that one gripe I found this puzzle enjoyable and satisfying to finish.

   Thanks to all.

7. Me @6: 18a, not 5a. I guess I had five on the brain.

8. Angstony. The usual explanation is that, for example, Henry V means Henry the fifth.

9. Thanks Hovis, I hadn’t thought of that. Hmm… but doesn’t it then become a problem of an omitted definite article?

10. Oops – not a pangram!  I’m so used to seeing pangrams in puzzles that I just assumed here comes anther one…

11. Angstony @ 9

    I think ‘the’ can be seen as implicit. Verbally, Henry III, IV & V would be “Henry the third, fourth and fifth”.

12. Thanks Aardvark — I’m always pleased to see your crosswords — 26a, 8d, and 20d were esp. entertaining. Thanks PeeDee for parsing — got stumped by LLANELLI — my knowledge of Welsh geography is minimal at best.

13. Simon S @11: I remain unconvinced I’m afraid. There is a definite article given for the first Henry in that sentence, so it’s reasonable to infer it for the other two in the list, but a single monarch in isolation would never be referred to as e.g. Henry fifth, so I don’t think it’s justified in isolation in a clue either.

    I guess it’s just something I’ll have to get used to, but I don’t have to like it.

14. Angstony – if you object to articles not being explicitly stated then all manner of clues would be unacceptable.  “Cod” not being “a fish” because “a fish” would have to be “a cod”?  You seem to be taking things to extremes here.

15. PeeDee: I don’t object to implied articles per se, but I think there’s a big difference between those we commonly imply and infer in normal speech and one based on a rarely used list scenario. I’m not trying to be a Ximenean absolutist here, I just think this particular case is unfair.

    I mean, should we also allow “Fiftieth” = L, “Hundredth” = C, “Thousandth” = M, etc.? Are you seriously telling me you’d be A-okay with all of those? And if not, why do lower ordinal numbers like “fifth” get a free pass?

16. Combinations like Henry V, Edward VIII don’t seem very obscure to me.  They are the normal way of naming kings and queens in English.  If we ever get fifty kings named Henry then Henry L would make perfect sense.  Seriously!

    Suppose the definition is “river” and the solution is “Thames”.  I show you a map that has a blue squiggly line with “Thames” written next to it.  You say that’s no good because people would not say “river Thames”, they would say  “the river Thames”.  Does that really mean the clue is a bad one?

    You see Henry V.  You say V doesn’t mean fifth because people would add the when voicing the phrase.  Same argument.  A weak one in from what I can see.

17. Angstony – another way of looking at it:

    You say that L=fiftieth, C=hundredth are obviously wrong because you don’t see them used like that in English.  If so then a good reason not to use them in a crossword.

    But you do see V used to mean Fifth.  Names of kings and queens is a very common example.  That M and C are bad does not mean that V has to be bad too.

     

18. Simon S’s list used the same regnal name to say “Henry the third, fourth and fifth”, but that doesn’t work for a mixed name list like you’ve given, it would be “Henry the fifth and Edward the eighth”. And I don’t see why ordinal numbers only qualify on the basis of counting monarchs. Anything may be counted and commonly is, so there is no bar to using “fiftieth” for L right now. But put it in a crossword and see how thick and fast the objections come in.

    Anyway, like I said, it’s probably just something I need to get used to. It’s certainly becoming more commonplace. And although I’ve argued my case in good faith, I don’t actually feel that strongly about it – the ‘cardinal sin’ line in my first comment was meant more as a play on words than a serious suggestion.

    But thanks for taking the time to respond and giving me some food for thought. And who knows, I may soften my view once I’ve slept on it. 🙂

19. I quite like non-pangrams like this. As it happens, my last in were FIXATE and, finally, NEESON, so having found the ‘X’ I was looking for the ‘Z’ which wasn’t there, which just adds to the fun, really.
    And there seems to be an awful lot of typing above about a single letter ‘V’. Can’t say it worried me at all.
    Thanks to all. Whatever else, this has clearly been an engaging puzzle.

20. Thanks Aardvark and PeeDee

    Nearly got sucked into the pangram as well, until it fell over at the last hurdle.  Entertaining puzzle as usual from this setter with his interesting charade constructions used throughout – particularly liked those of VENA CAVA and WINDOW SEAT.

    Have seen the Roman numeral used in the ordinal sense a number of times, so VALE presented no problems this time.  Didn’t see where UP came from in 13d until coming here, getting sucked into ‘over’ referring to SCRUB UP being over WELL. Hmmm

    GIDEON was first in with the tricky GAMBOL and WINDOW SEAT (took ages for the Windows O/S penny to drop) the last couple in.

21. Thank you for a nice puzzle and a great blog.

    I did not know GAMBOL and NEESON (my inadequate knowledge of vocabulary and of actors!).

    The controversy about V = fifth is foregin to me. In several languages (except English) the roman numerals are used precisely to indicate ordinals, whereas the numerals adopted in Europe from the Arabic are used to indicate cardinals. Therefore 5 = five, whereas V = fifth (as in this crossword, quite regardless of kings); the same would apply to L or to C.

    VENA CAVA was clever and it is a vessel: but I thought the adjective personal was a slightly unfair deception. It seems to me that an anatomical structure present in everybody’s body is not personal.

    I liked 6ac and 16ac

22. Lucio – I took personal to mean in a cryptic sense “of your person” or “of your body”, a physical property of a person

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