Financial Times 16,569 by VELIA

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A (mostly) gentle start to the week from VELIA…

This all went quite swimmingly, with all the long clues round the edges going in early on. Nothing to complain about (though I dare say a few will whinge about the homophone at 12), but then I got stuck for yonks on 14 (never heard of it), 16 (ah… didn’t expect one of those clues) and 20 (well… I was just being a bit dim by this point).
My parsing of 8 is possibly a bit dodgy – I could only make it work by having HE as “what’s up”. Helium maybe? Or I may just have missed something. (Bruce@aus @1 provides the correct explanation, which I’ve now fixed)

Anyway, thanks VELIA!

image of grid

ACROSS
1, 4. Getting on potty/loo tonight then? (4,2,3,5)
LONG IN THE TOOTH

(LOO TONIGHT THEN)* (*potty)

9. Abuse when Velia stops work (6)
TIRADE

I (Velia) stops TRADE (work)

10. Bacon sizzling here etc, cooked with thanks (8)
PANCETTA

PAN (sizzling here) + (ETC)* (*cooked) with TA (thanks)

12. Work to banish the devil, as they say (8)
EXERCISE

“exorcise” (banish the devil, “as they say”)

13. Somewhat austere outfit for speaker? (6)
STEREO

[au]STERE O[utfit] (somewhat)

15, 5. Cost accidentally picked up? That’s not right! (8)
OVERHEAD

OVERHEA[r]D (accidentally picked up, not R (right))

16. Mash representatives? (7)
MEMBERS

M + EMBERS (M + ash)

20. Denounced, rejected and free (7)
DELIVER

(REVILED (denounced))< (<rejected)

21, 27. Dismiss bears (4-4)
POOH-POOH

Double definition

25. Port bottles the ultimate in vintage – bliss! (6)
HEAVEN

HAVEN (port) bottles [vintag]E (ultimate in)

26. Friend a right nuisance in this city (8)
BUDAPEST

BUD (friend) + A + PEST (right nuisance)

28. Kitty gulps medicine back and gets a sweet (8)
LOLLIPOP

(POOL (kitty) gulps PILL (medicine))< (<back)

29. Wings of saprophytic horse beetle (6)
SCARAB

S[aprophyti]C (wings of) + ARAB (horse)

30, 31. Wretched habit I developed for say, cheese (5,3,6)
WATCH THE BIRDIE

(WRETCHED HABIT I)* (*developed)

DOWN
1, 22. Perhaps a “whole-fat pudding” is the precise legal definition (6,2,3,3)
LETTER OF THE LAW

LETTER (perhaps “a”) + (WHOLE FAT)* (*pudding)

2. Finally open to offer: seed for Scandinavians (8)
NORSEMEN

[ope]N [t]O [offe]R (finally) + SEMEN (seed)

3. Bring on half of industry, then change sides (6)
INDUCE

INDU[stry] (half of) then C[hang]E (sides)

5. See 15
6. Top of tatty, torn curtain becomes detached (8)
TACITURN

T[atty] (top of) + (CURTAIN)* (*torn)

7. Riverside residents on the Thames estuary, rock stars originally (6)
OTTERS

O[n] T[he] T[hames] E[stuary] R[ock] S[tars] (originally)

8, 19. What’s up with the FT? Needs a revamp into a viable prominent position (4,2,3,5)
HEAD OF THE TABLE

HE (what’s up) (EH (what))< (<up) with ((THE FT)* (*needs a revamp) into (A + DOABLE (viable)))

(Thanks to Bruce@aus @1)

11. Introduce Kathmandu’s last shrine restoration (5,2)
USHER IN

[kathmand]U (last) + (SHRINE)* (*restoration)

14. Rebel questionably dropped Latin from eulogy (7)
OBSEQUY

(QUES[t][i]O[n][a]B[l]Y (dropped LATIN))* (*rebel)

17. May be tuna sandwiches always hot (8)
FEVERISH

FISH (may be tuna) sandwiches EVER (always)

18. Decrepit Italian head of state, once a socialist (3-5)
DOG-EARED

DOGE (Italian head of state, once) + A + RED (socialist)

19. See 8
22. See 1 down
23. Romeo and Juliet possibly speculate about everyone (6)
BALLET

BET (speculate) about ALL (everyone)

24. Martial art found in 50% of Taiwan and large part of China (3,3)
TAI CHI

TAI[wan] (50% of) and CHI[na] (large part of)

27. See 21

8 comments on “Financial Times 16,569 by VELIA”

  1. Hi Teacow
    ‘What’s up’ … is just turning around EH, what? as an exclamation. I didn’t parse the rest of it tbouugh

  3. What a delightful crossword. Finished, all fully parsed, but needed a bit of thought in places. Got MEMBERS straightaway but usually associate this sort of clue with Goliath. Wrote down the letters needed for the anagram at 14d and figured OBSEQUY was the least unlikely combination and was pleased to discover it was a word.

    Yes, I could whinge at her homophone(?) at 12a. Not many accents would make that work but admit that some would. In 20a, I would prefer a different word order with “rejected” placed first but that’s a minor quibble.

    Too many favourites to mention. Thanks to Velia and Teacow.

  5. A perfect warm-up 12ac from Velia today. Finished this at a canter, picking off the entertaining outside clues before working inwards. I knew OBSEQUY from the French but it was 20ac which had me scratching my head for a while. Once sorted, I had most of the letters needed to finish off those at the heart of the grid which didn’t leap out at me on the first reading.
    As Hovis @ 3 says, this was choc full of goodies though I’d single out POOH POOH and PANCETTA as personal favourites. Thanks to Velia and Teacow.

  6. Thanks to Velia and Teacow. I managed to finish, but I was weak on parsing, so I had to guess (as it turned out correctly) at MEMBERS, OBSEQUY, and DELIVER.

  7. Defeated by the crossing MEMBERS and OBSEQUY.  The rest was OK; we liked PANCETTA, SCARAB and DOG-EARED.

    Thanks, Velia and Teacow.

  8. Thanks Velia and Teacow

    Finished this one yesterday and found it a little more difficult than a lot of others, taking longer than average time to get it filled in, maybe because the long perimeter clues didn’t start to fall until mid-solve.  Still failed to fully parse 8d in the end.

    This grid with its four interlocking clues that have their first light blocked can often cause me grief and this one was no exception.

    Still an enjoyable crossword when it was finally completed and did like the subtraction anagram at 14d which was my last one in – even though understood the how it was going to be solved, the anagram fodder didn’t give me the answer and had to use a word finder to see the solution.

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