Financial Times 16,416 by JULIUS

I hope Julius will forgive me for saying this, but what a lot of rubbish!


Thank you Julius.

image of grid
ACROSS
1 LITTER BAGS Spooner’s resentful convicts found down in the dumps (6,4)
Spoonersim of “bitter lags” (resentful criminals) – things found at the dump
7 EARL Nobleman almost naked (4)
nEARLy (almost) with no outside letters (naked)
9 ORCA Creature seen in our ocean frequently (4)
every other letter (frequently) of OuR oCeAn – a killer whale, seen in the ocean
10 DIRTY BOMBS Toxic, explosive articles stirring up Brits by Dom (5,5)
anagram (stirring up) of BRITS BY DOM
11 TECHIE Energy saved by support bod working in IT (6)
CHI (energy) inside (saved by) TEE (support)
12 PANDEMIC Strongly criticise Ms Moore, about to become viral worldwide? (8)
PAN (strongly criticise) DEMI (MS Demi Moore, actress) and C (circa, about)
13 BIN LADEN Notorious individual describing one stuffed with 1? (3,5)
definition / cryptic definition – Osama Bin Laden
15 IMHO Leader of Italian resistance unit retired, giving modest address (4)
Italian (first letter, leader of) then OHM (resistance unit) reversed (retired) – in my humble opinion
17 SPIV Sun’s leader, page 4, such a disreputable character! (4)
Sun (first letter, leader of) then P (page) IV (four)
19 HIERATIC Discuss loftier garret of priests (8)
sounds like (to discuss) “higher attic” (loftier garret)
22 PROSPERO The Duke of Milan’s quite correct to defend son, Oscar (8)
PROPER (quite correct) contains (to defend) S (son) then O (oscar, phonetic alphabet) – the Duke of Milan in The Tempest
23 REFUSE France pitching in to recycle garbage (6)
F (France) inside (pitching in to) REUSE (recycle)
25 GARTER BELT Bra – letter G – tailored item of ladies underwear (6,4)
anagram (tailored) of BRA LETTER G
26 TALE Hear end of story (4)
sounds like (head) “tail” (end)
27 HEAP At a knockdown price, Charlie shifted pile (4)
cHEAP (at knockdown price) missing (with…shifted) C (charlie, phonetic alphabet)
28 SINGS ALONG Participates vocally in hairdressing salon gossip (5,5)
found inside hairdresSING SALON Gossip
DOWN
2 ISRAELI National Inquirer’s no.1 serial criminal (7)
Inquirer (first letter, no. 1) then anagram (criminal) of SERIAL
3 TRASH Waste time being over-hasty (5)
T (time) on (being over) RASH (hasty)
4 REDHEADS Embarrassed leaders such as Kinnock and Kennedy? (8)
RED (embarrassed) and HEADS (leaders) – JFK and Neil perhaps
5 A DROP IN THE OCEAN Insignificant event preceding tsunami (1,4,2,3,5)
double/cryptic definition
6 SPYING Working with intelligence, start to plant yard with grass border (6)
Plant (first letter, start to) inside (with…border) SING (grass)
7 ESOTERICA I see actor throwing out collection of arcane items (9)
anagram (throwing out) of I SEE ACTOR
8 RUBBISH Poor Bobbie regularly given the run around (7)
every other letter (regularly) of BoBbIe inside (given…around) RUSH (run)
14 LIVES IT UP Copies Riley doing real-time tummy exercise? (5,2,2)
LIVE (real-time) SIT-UP (tummy exercise) – living the life of Riley
16 DETRITUS Litter? New duster will collect it (8)
anagram (new) of DUSTER contains (will collect) IT
18 PERVADE Rising salesman Dave struggling to spread effectively (7)
REP (salesman) reversed (rising) then anagram (struggling) of DAVE
20 INSULIN Puttin’ down timeless drug (7)
INSULtIN’ (puttin’ down) missing T (timeless)
21 DEBRIS Conclude Bristol is packed with dross (6)
found inside (packed with) concluDE BRIStol
24 FATAL Deadly river claiming reserves (5)
FAL (River in Cornwall) contains (claiming) TA (the former Territorial Army, reserves)

11 comments on “Financial Times 16,416 by JULIUS”

  1. thanks J and PD! Great blog and puzzle — I’m very bitter about not seeing litter bags.  no excuses.  BIN LADEN (the clue) was clever

  2. Thanks to Julius and PeeDee. I took a while parsing TECHIE, but the TRASH motif helped elsewhere.  I agree that in 4d Kennedy is not JFK.

  3. Thanks for a great blog, PeeDee.

    Pretty high-class rubbish! I particularly enjoyed HIERATIC and the well-hidden SINGS ALONG.

    Many thanks, Julius – it was fun.

  4. I spent far too long trying to figure out homophones and/or anagrams in 28a. For a while I even wondered if ‘hairdresser’ needed lifting and separating – with the def maybe referencing a character in the musical Hair – but of course that yielded nothing. I couldn’t believe how deceptively simple it was when I finally twigged it. For my money that was the best clue in a great set.

    Thanks to all.

  5. hi PeeDee…I’d have been disappointed if your intro hadn’t said that, actually!

    Thanks for the blog, and to those who have commented (I did mean dear Charlie Kennedy in the REDHEADS clue, fwiw)

    best wishes to all, Rob/Julius

  6. Thanks PeeDee for the blog — I never could have parsed FATAL even though I guessed it correctly. A new word for me was HIERATIC — I got that from the clarity and cleverness of the clue. I still get thrown by initialisms like IMHO; I expect a numeration like (4) to be a four letter word or at least an acronym but I guess (1,1,1,1) would be quite awkward. PANDEMIC, EARL, and LIVES IT UP were esp. fun. Thanks Julius for another good one.

  7. Thanks Julius and PeeDee

    Entertaining puzzle done on the train into and back from a work function last evening.  A good mix of clue devices and was especially impressed with the long hidden clue at 28a which inspired me to immediately find the other hidden one at 21d.  The Spoonerism at 1a was deceptively hard even though LAGS was a good bet for the second word.  SPIV raised a grin with its cheeky surface and clever construction.

    Finished up in that NW corner with the clever TECHIE (relatively easy enough to see, but took a while to understand the word play), REDHEAD (where I opted for JF having never heard of Charlie) and the excellent BIN LADEN clue as the last one.

  8. Thanks Rob, that was fun! I saw PeeDee’s byline on the 225 index and was gobsmacked .. had to do the xwd first before reading this. Very clever work showing you can indeed make a silk purse from a sow’s ear.

     

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