Financial Times 16,486 by GURNEY

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A little stiffer than the Tuesday usual…

… including some sort of record-bid at 26. Enjoyable. Many thanks to Gurney.

image of grid
ACROSS
1 PENALTY SHOOT-OUT Youth, top one, last to be involved in tie-break? Not at Wimbledon (7,5-3)
Anagram (‘to be involved’) of YOUTH TOP ONE LAST, w cryptic definition.
9 LOBSTER Aims high most of time, providing seafood (7)
LOBS (‘aims high’) + TERm, (‘time’, shortened).
10 RAT RACE Suspicion after artist in continual struggle (3,4)
TRACE (‘suspicion’) after RA (‘artist’).
11 TILER Worker in trial year regularly absent (5)
Alternate letters of ‘TrIaL yEaR’.
12 SAN MARINO Changed, a man irons in republic (3,6)
Anagram (‘changed’) of A MAN IRONS.
13 CAROLLERS Singers and visitors welcoming returning soldiers (9)
CA.LLERS (‘visitors’) includes reversed O[ther] R[anks] (‘soldiers’).
15 SPARE Refrain from using duplicate (5)
Double def. To ‘spare’ as in, say, a recipe: ‘Don’t spare the pepper’.
16 LIPPY Freshly starting, fast, with too much to say? (5)
nIPPY (‘fast’), 1st letter changing.
18 HIDEAWAYS Retreats from initially hostile notion habits will follow (9)
1st of ‘Hostile’ + IDEA (‘notion’) + WAYS (‘habits’: ‘King John was not a good man. He had his little ways’).
20 SUPER BOWL Reserve restrains a flyer in game (5,4)
SU.B (‘reserve’, as in soccer) surrounds PER (‘a’, as ‘potatoes 50p a pound’) + OWL (a ‘flyer’).
23 COACH Vehicle instructor (5)
Double definition.
24 LORELEI Folklore leitmotif? To some extent perhaps she is (7)
Hidden in ‘folkLORE LEItmotif’, for the legendary siren of the Rhine.
25 SKI LIFT Satirical piece about uncompleted bio that boosts you on holiday? (3-4)
SKI.T around shortened LIFe (a biography), w cryptic def.
26 MARIE ANTOINETTE Queen Mum right: that’s a new weighty piece, covering one better missed outside (5,10)
MA + R[ight] + IE (‘that’s’] + A + N[ew] + TON (‘weighty piece’) which in turn surrounds ‘1’, then inner letters of ‘bETTEr’. Phew, an 8-parter.
DOWN
1 POLITICAL ASYLUM Prudent, like extremely savvy Scottish smoker, securing permission to stay (9,6)
POLITICAL (‘prudent’: Chambers gives this as an old form of ‘politic’ in this sense) + AS (‘like’) + 1st & last of ‘SavvY’ + LUM (Scots chimney, a ‘smoker’).
2 NIBBLER One at first not into big bites, leaving expensive restaurant? (7)
1st letters of last 7 words, w iffy half-clue def involving some double-duty. A little woolly, but gettable.
3 LITERALLY Truly less extreme gathering (9)
LITE (marketing-speak for ‘less extreme’) + RALLY.
4 YPRES Scene of fighting – push not ending after year (5)
PRESs shortened after Y[ear].
5 HARD-NOSED Realistic, moved fast to protect daughter and son after upset (4-5)
HAR.ED (‘moved fast’) around D[aughter] + SON (reversed).
6 OSTIA East German I asked originally to identify old Rome’s port (5)
OST (Ger. ‘east’) + I + 1st of ‘Asked’.
7 OCARINA Instrument in auto, car in America (7)
Inclusion in ‘autO CAR IN America’.
8 THE POWERS THAT BE Unusual Web post there about Derby authorities? (3,6,4,2)
Anagram (‘unusual’) of WEB POST THERE around HAT (e.g., ‘Derby’, hence q-mark).
14 ETHIOPIAN National of Haiti? Nope, wrong (9)
Anagram (‘wrong’) of HAITI NOPE, &-lit, arguably.
15 STANCHION Upright guy, Greek character, willing (9)
STAN (a ‘guy’) + CHI (Gk character) + ON (‘willing’, as in, ‘Right, I’m on’).
17 PAPERER At work prepare for one who should improve wall’s appearance (7)
Anagram (‘at work’) of PREPARE.
19 ARABIST Expert skill, going over area again (7)
ART (‘skill’) surrounds A[rea] + BIS (‘again’, French for ‘encore’. No, really).
21 RILKE Avril keenly embracing poet (5)
Hidden in ‘avRIL KEenly’, for the German romantic (sic) Rainer Maria Rilke.
22 LASSO Something used by cowboy’s girl – ring (5)
LASS + O. Seems to be turning up a lot recently.

14 comments on “Financial Times 16,486 by GURNEY”

  1. Thanks Grant. Failed to get SPARE and cheated with a word fit to get STANCHION. The rest went in ok but agree the definition part of NIBBLER is iffy at best. Always find it a bit weird how much setters love the “ocarina”. Pops up frequently but never see it outside crosswordland.

  2. To Hovis @1:
    Like me, most folkies I know have an ocarina on a shelf somewhere (get one, they’re the cheapest instrument there is & very jolly to mess around with).
    I too struggled with SPARE & wd probably have left it if unparsed not blogging.
    NIBBLER is just odd.

  3. Probably the best way to read NIBBLER is a semi &lit. Effectively, this gives “one” as the “definition” but with extended wordplay.

  4. As you say Grant a bit stiffer than usual for a Tuesday but all fairly clued.  I felt a real sense of achievement on working out the parts to 26A.  In relation to 1D it looks as though there is a redundant S in the clue – it doesn’t accommodate both as and sy.  However it did feature one of my favourite crossword words – the Scottish smoker.

    Thanks to Grant and Gurney.

  5. Didn’t notice the redundant S in 1d. I have seen “extremely” to refer to just the first or last letter rather than both so it may not be an error.

  6. Thanks for excellent blog, Grant.

    In 1D what was intended was  “prudent” as  POLITIC, with A LA “like” and S Y the outer letters of savvy.

    Comment #3 correctly describes what was intended for NIBBLER.

  8. I’d go with tricky but fairly clued (for a Tuesday or otherwise)

    If one didn’t know how much time elapses between the setting of most crosswords and their publication, one might wonder whether our setters are, when not practicing their origami, busy playing their ocarinas

    Thanks to Gurney and Grant

  10. Thanks Goujeers. Didn’t have time to watch the whole video but now I know what an ocarina looks and sounds like. The initial bit on the piano (not sure why it was there) gave fond memories of watching Victor Borge in my youth.

  11. We had a few head-scratching moments but got everything without help.  SPARE was a bit of a best guess, LIPPY was the obvious answer to 16ac but we couldn’t see why for ages.  We liked HIDEAWAYS and STANCHION.

    Thanks, Gurney and Grant.

  12. Thanks to both. 26a was a real trial, although the answer was clear early on. I got held up on STANCHION as I kept looking for a rope rather than an actual name.

  13. Thanks Gurney and Grant

    Only got to this in short stints throughout the day and taking just under the hour aggregated to get this one done.  Thought that the long perimeter clues were particularly good and enjoyed unravelling the word play of 26a when it became obvious what queen we were talking about.

    Had ZIPPY as the ‘fast’ word ‘freshly starting’ – and think that both it and NIPPY work OK, not that it mattered to generate LIPPY.

    Finished in the SE corner with the unexpected ARABIST as the ‘specialist’, STANCHEST after persisting with TAU as the Greek letter for fat too long and SPARE (where the ‘duplicate’ definition took ages to take form for me).

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