Financial Times 16,583 by CHALMIE

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Sorry for the late post everyone, and thanks to Chalmie for the puzzle.

image of grid
ACROSS
1 RELATE Tell extremely equivocal judge to go outside (6)
 

EquivocaL (outer letter, extremes of) inside (…to go outside) RATE (judge)
4 TRANSFER Hand over drills – less one if gear has odd parts missing (8)
 

TRAiNS (drills) missing I (one) then iF gEaR missing odd letters
10 NO CONTEST Easy choice read back during trial phase (2,7)
 

CON (read) reversed (back) with ON (during) TEST (trial phase)
11 OXLIP Plant beef cheek (5)
 

OX (beef) LIP (cheek, impertinence)
12 ELMS Trees he climbs regularly (4)
 

every other letter (regularly) of hE cLiMbS
13 CONSIDERED Rated second ride awful (10)
 

anagram (awful) of SECOND RIDE
15 UNTRIED I turned around, being inexperienced (7)
 

anagram (around) of I TURNED
16 SKYLAB Broadcaster with dog which went into orbit (6)
 

SKY (broadcaster) with LAB (Labrador, dog)
19 GRAMME Mass measurement finishing after a couple of minutes in Georgia (6)
 

last letter (finishing) of afteR with A and M M (minute, twice) all inside GE (Georgia)
21 SQUALOR Look into Leicester possibly being cut off by filthiness (7)
 

LO (look) inside SQUARe (Leicester Square possibly, cut short)
23 INEDUCABLE A clue I bend deviously, which can’t be taught (10)
 

anagram (deviously) of A CLUE I BEND
25 ORZO Pasta or hybrid yak (4)
 

OR with ZO (hybrid yak)
27 EJECT Throw out film about Japanese city (5)
 

ET (film) contains (about) J (Japanese) and EC (City of London, from postal code)
28 ITERATION Independent note helping another run- through (9)
 

I (independent) TE (note, music) RATION (helping, of food)
29 TWIDDLED Time children went and turned knobs (8)
 

T (time) WIDDLED (went, to the toilet, for children)
30 EDITED Revised some quayside tidetables on the way back (6)
 

found inside (some of) quaysiDE TIDEtables reversed (on the way back)
DOWN
1 RUNNER-UP Second hare chewed prune (6-2)
 

RUN (hare) and anagram (chewed) of PRUNE
2 LOCOMOTOR One going places has look at Italian lake and hill (9)
 

LO (look) with (at) COMO (Italian lake) and TOR (hill)
3 TINY Minute semi-desert’s abandoned fate (4)
 

DESert (semi, half of) missing from (has abandoned) desTINY (fate)
5 RETESTS Runs at Longchamp and is second, so tries again (7)
 

R (runs) then ET EST (and is, French, at Longchamp perhaps) and finally S (second)
6 NOONDAY SUN Light right above, sound on, any problem? (7,3)
 

anagram (problem) of SOUND ON ANY
7 FILER Shot rifle one puts away (5)
 

anagram (shot) of RIFLE
8 RAPIDS Pressure to stop attacks which could mean danger down-river (6)
 

P (pressure) inside (to stop, like a cork) RAIDS (attacks)
9 RECORD Wine retains goodness for minutes (6)
 

RED (wine) contains COR (goodness!) – minutes of a meeting
14 DISMOUNTED Minute odds fixed, so got off horse (10)
 

anagram (fixed) of MINUTE ODDS
17 ALLERGIST She soothes sensitivities of everyone tigers chewed (9)
 

ALL (everyone) with anagram (chewed) of TIGERS

18 PRE-OWNED End power struggle for second 26 (3-5)
 

anagram (struggle) of END POWER – second hand
20 EXAMINE Inspect what used to be a colliery (7)
 

EX (what used to be) A MINE (colliery)
21 SILVER Medal for second fictional pirate (6)
 

double definition – Long John Silver
22 BISECT Second part covers split (6)
 

SEC (second) inside (…covers) BIT (part)
24 ELEMI The Spanish mostly give off fragrant resin (5)
 

EL (the, in Spanish) then EMIt (give off, mostly)
26 HAND Chinese director possibly minute (4)
 

HAN (a Chinese) and D (director) – hour hand and minute hand

16 comments on “Financial Times 16,583 by CHALMIE”

  1. Love the way Chalmie riffs on the different meanings of a couple of words, here second & minute. Together with his sound cluing and good surfaces this makes him stand out from the pack (of very good setters). Thanks for the Blog PeeDee.

  3. I agree with jmac and Hovis: I sped through disappointingly quickly and then got stuck in several of Chalmie’s fun-traps. Thanks, Chalmie, for another good one; likewise PD.

  4. Thanks Chalmie and PeeDee

    As jmac @ 1 observes, this seems to have been one of the puzzles that Chalmie acknowledges he’s been working on using the same word(s) [here MINUTE and SECOND] in various ways through the clues, including anagrist (14D). A very good puzzle.

  6. Many thanks Chalmie and PeeDee for the fun and elucidation. I did not help myself by starting 23a with UN – dyslexic fingers I think. Sorted it eventually but I was also uncomfortable with the TINY clue For some reason. However I certainly enjoyed this much more than the Guardian yesterday. Note, it is tomorrow morning for me now – time zones.

  7. Thanks Chalmie. Despite trouble in the SW corner I enjoyed this crossword. NOONDAY SUN was my favorite clue along with ITERATION, TRANSFER, and HAND. Being of Italian descent, ORZO is anything but obscure. In fact I was eating a stew of white beans, sausage, and orzo when I was solving this puzzle last evening. Thanks PeeDee for the blog.

  8. @Mystogre. I think the reason you’re not happy with the clue for TINY is that it’s nonsense. There must be a way of subtracting DES from fate and sticking a “minute” at one end or the other and ending up with a meaningful sentence, but that clue isn’t an example of same. I didn’t like the clue much myself, but there are only so many hours one can bang one’s head against a wall before needing painkillers and settling for a string of words which looks like a sentence even though it’s drivel.

  9. Chalmie @ 5

    Like TS @ 7, I don’t think ORZO is anywhere near obscure.

    It appear in many Italian recipes, is on the shelf (well, generally) in most UK supermarkets, and I have a packet in my kitchen.

    CARNAROLI, while it wouldn’t fit the lights, is probably less well known – and probably harder to clue.

  10. A nice steady solve with no real problems.  We thought it had to be a pangram and with only 18 and 25 left we remembered ‘zo’ (a useful word in Scrabble, btw) as a hybrid yak and thought could 25 be ORZO?  And there it was in Chambers.

    We particularly liked TRANSFER, OXLIP and NOONDAY SUN.

    Thanks, Chalmie and PeeDee.

  11. Nice puzzle with a well-worked out use of the words ‘second’ and ‘minute’.
    I didn’t notice that it was a pangram.
    Sometimes you need it to finish a crossword, sometimes you don’t.

    As for Simon S, orzo’s in my kitchen too – I use it for stews and soups.
    I was somewhat surprised to see Chalmie using ‘chewed’ as an anagram indicator twice.
    And I don’t see why 29ac has ‘children’ other than that it makes the surface work – for me, it’s in the way of the correct cryptic grammar.
    But apart from that, all good fun.
    5d (RETESTS) was particularly clever.

    Many thanks to PeeDee & Chalmie.

  13. OK, fine, let’s not make this too complicated.
    The only thing is that, I admit, ‘the purist’ in me doesn’t equate ‘children went’ to ‘widdled’.

     

  14. Sadly, PeeDee’s illuminating blog wasn’t up before my bedtime (again, time zones) but it was gratifying to see that I was barking up the right tree.
    As others have commented, the inventive and varied use of ‘minute’ and ‘second’ kept me so well-occupied that I only belatedly spotted the pangram and used it to complete my LOI, SKYLAB. I think I was too busy looking for other time-related answers/ninas. SQUALOR, NOONDAY SUN and OXLIP were favourites.
    ORZO is something I enjoy occasionally but make more frequent use of arborio than carnaroli so yes, good FT fodder!
    Thanks very much to Chalmie And PeeDee.

  15. Chalmie @12 – twiddle and twee.  Ha! That put a smile on my face!

    It is a shame that I was so busy yesterday that I didn’t get a chance to think about or appreciate any of the clues. I just had to bang-out the blog as quickly as possible.

  16. Thanks Chalmie and PeeDee

    Must be getting on this setter’s wavelength as the time to actually fill the grid was well under average for an FT crossword.  Had the sense that there was something about time going on during the solve, but it was only post solve that I realised how much of the clever use of second and minute there was.

    A couple of new words in LOCOMOTOR and ORZO (always surprises as to how much culinary ignorance one has). Some really cute clues in RETESTS (the clear clue of the day, especially with its horse racing surface), the ‘twee’ (haha) TWIDDLED and the neatly constructed EJECT.

    Finished with BISECT (which took longer than it should have to correctly parse – went down a BI SECT path initially), that TWIDDLED and ORZO (with that ZO, DHO, ZHO, DZHO whatever it is that I always forget) as the last one in.

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