Financial Times 16,641 by ZAMORCA

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A ZAMORCA to start off the week.

Good mix of clues here. Some great surfaces too. I especially liked 17d and 14a (though that is possibly because I made some over the weekend). LOI was 7d because I was being rather dim over the parsing.

Thanks ZAMORCA!

image of grid

ACROSS
1. Close to getting a large majority (6)
ALMOST

A + L (large) + MOST (majority)

5. Ask about holding college-run pro Sports Day event (4,4)
SACK RACE

(ASK)* (*about) holding C (college) + R (run) + ACE (pro)

9. Special little infusion containing phosphorus for fragrant flower (5,3)
SWEET PEA

S (special) + WEE (little) + TEA (infusion) containing P (phosphorous)

10. Distracted sailors lost net (6)
ABSENT

ABS (Sailors) + (NET)* (*lost)

11. Picks up partner in car for final trip (6)
HEARSE

HEARS (picks up) + E (partner, in bridge)

12. Inexperienced taking motorway, retired friend’s crossing old city (8)
IMMATURE

(MI)< (motorway, <retired) + MATE (friend) crossing UR (old city)

14. Sailors use a blast cold store, ultimately it improves the fish flavour (7,5)
TARTARE SAUCE

TAR TAR (sailors) + (USE A)* (*blast) + C (cold) + [stor]E (ultimately)

18. Temporarily guards and checks gold taken in robbery (5,3,4)
HOLDS THE FORT

HOLDS (checks) + (OR (gold) taken in THEFT (robbery))

22. Bug with quiet, light touch pinching most of food from hive (5,3)
PHONE TAP

(P (quiet) + TAP (light touch)) pinching HONE[y] (food from hive, most of)

25. Giant old ship’s carrying last of returning soldiers (6)
OGRESS

O (old) + SS (ship) carrying ([returnin]G (last of) + RE (soldiers))

26. One hunted for a rock producer (6)
QUARRY

Double definition

27. Troublemaker is blocking suggestion (8)
NUISANCE

IS blocking NUANCE (suggestion)

28. Tapes the funny content of Grumpy Old Women (3,5)
PET HATES

(TAPES THE)* (*funny)
Grumpy Old Women is a British TV show

29. What about note dictionary duplicated (6)
ECHOED

(EH (what) about C (note)) + OED (dictionary)

DOWN
2. Counsel women involved in row (6)
LAWYER

W (women) involved in LAYER (row)

3. Public artist introduced by journalist is praised too much (9)
OVERRATED

(OVERT (public), RA (artist) introduced) by ED (journalist)

4. Classified location over on Crete compromised (3-6)
TOP-SECRET

(SPOT)< (location, <over) on (CRETE)* (*compromised)

5. Tenacity in way creature endlessly climbs (7)
STAMINA

ST (way, street) + (ANIMA[l] (creature, endlessly)< (<climbs)

6. Lure of tea room on vacation (5)
CHARM

CHA (tea) + R[oo]M (on vacation)

7. Go back to original puzzle, missing a turn (5)
RESET

(TE[a]SER (puzzle, missing A))< (<turn)

8. Curtail agreement (8)
CONTRACT

Double definition

13. Service leader dismissed idiot (3)
ASS

[m]ASS (service, leader dismissed)

15. One in some distress after online scam cut spending (9)
ECONOMISE

(I (one) in (SOME)* (*distress)) after E CON (online scam)

16. American fellow’s semester at Harvard’s beginning to get results (9)
AFTERMATH

A (american) + F (fellow) + TERM (semester) + AT + H[arvard] (beginning)

17. Tropical plant room uses water pipe you long ago put in (8)
HOTHOUSE

HOSE (water pipe), THOU (you long ago) put in

19. Take legal action against improper use (3)
SUE

(USE)* (*improper)

20. Puffs out old cushions with new filling (7)
EXPANDS

EX (old) + PADS (cushions) with N (new) filling

21. Spy’s converted by revolutionary spirit (6)
PSYCHE

(SPY)* (*converted) by CHE (revolutionary)

23. Ah! Trondheim’s hidden up towards top of map (5)
NORTH

([a]H TRON[dheim])< (hidden, <up)

24. Go by road to reach romantic rendezvous (5)
TRYST

TRY (go) by ST (road)

10 comments on “Financial Times 16,641 by ZAMORCA”

  1. Recently, we have had three-legged race and egg-and-spoon race; now we have sack race. Wheelbarrow race anyone? Thought there were some well-constructed surfaces making for an enjoyable solve. Some may object to the excessive use of link words in the clues but, in general, I thought they were fine. Thanks to Zamorca and Teacow.

  2. Some of the same favourites as Teacow with the TAR+TAR for ‘Sailors’ and the tricky RESET, for which I almost entered ‘resit’. I quite liked the not immediately obvious AFTERMATH too. I missed the parsing of E for ‘partner’ in HEARSE – one to remember next time.

    SWEET PEA has appeared a few times in the last few months, always with the def as a variation on a theme of ‘flower’. Just a suggestion to our erudite setters, but I know it better as a classic pop song myself.

    Thanks to Zamorca and Teacow

  3. A gentle intro to the week with this pleasing puzzle from Zamorca. The appearance of ‘Ur’ just a few days ago made 12a easier to parse but I failed on HEARSE, my LOI, because I too didn’t think of bridge partner. Still, I liked the gallows humour of the surface.
    My favourite today was also TARTARE SAUCE with nods to PET HATES, CONTRACT, PHONE TAP and NORTH.
    Thanks to Zamorca for the diversion and to Teacow for a much-needed blog – I trust the 14a was tasty.

  4. Diane @3: you’re right, Ur appeared on Friday and is an old favourite.  Partner for ‘e’ (and presumably also for w,s and n) was tough but fair; I’m more used to seeing ‘partners’ indicating two of the letters but no reason why we shouldn’t welcome yet another indicator of a single letter.  As WordPlodder says, one to remember.  And crosswordland seems to have more than its fair share of ogres and OGRESSes; amazing how often they pop up.

    Thanks, Teacow, for helping with RESET which was my only parsing failure today – and I suspect I’d not have got it if I had a week.  I do know it’s a Several of my ticks have been mentioned – TARTARE SAUCE, AFTERMATH, PET HATES and PHONE TAP.  I also liked LAWYER, CHARM and QUARRY for their simplicity and the surface for NORTH was nicely contrived.  I think I’ve seen TRYST before but think it’s a super clue.

    Thanks Z&T

  5. We thought we were going to struggle with this as we only got SACK RACE and QUARRY in our first pass through the acrosses, but we had better success with the downs and it all came together nicely.

    We thought, though, that ‘partner’ for E in 11ac was stretching things a bit too far, even allowing that ‘partners’ often signifies N and S or E and W.  But similarly ‘opponents’ can be E and N etc, so the clue could quite easily have been ‘pick up opponents in car for final trip’, the opponents in this case being S and E.

    That’s our only grumble, though, about a very satisfying solve.  We liked SACK RACE (which, incidentally, cropped up over on Big Dave’s site at the weekend), TOP SECRET and AFTERMATH, but favourite was QUARRY.

    Thanks, Zamorca and Teacow.

  6. Thanks Zamorca, that was pleasant. I started slowly, with ASS being my FOI. Favourites were ALMOST, SWEET PEA,HOLDS THE FORT, and NUISANCE. Thanks Teacow for the blog.

  7. Thanks Zamorca and Teacow

    Nice puzzle to start the week which was solved on the first day of lifted COVID restrictions that brought back some normalcy to Melbourne after more than four long months and when our last known case had recovered and was released from hospital.

    Got down to HEARSE for my first entry and was able to proceed quite steadily until reaching NUISANCE and PSYCHE to finish the crossword.  Some tricky parsing such as for RESET and HOTHOUSE to keep one honest.  Marked TARTARE SAUCE as the favourite.

  8. What a lot of beautiful surfaces. You could make up a scene in your head for each one. And I agree with PostMark@4 that simplicity is a virtue in a well-constructed clue.

    I didn’t know the Grumpy Old Women TV show, but when I pictured a bunch of old women grumping away, PET HATES jumped out of the anagram jar.

    Thanks Zamorca and Teacow for the excellent diversion.

  9. Thanks to Zamorca for the puzzle and Teacow for the explanations, especially 7d. I was sure RESET was right, but I couldn’t explain it. And didn’t know (but had to assume) that Brits spell tartar sauce differently than we do in the US.

    Minor quibble on 14a: “store” is misspelled in the explanation.

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