Financial Times 16,654 by HAMILTON

by

Hamilton at his most generous.

Straightforward and entertaining stuff from my sometime Nemesis. Quirky as ever, but no complaints this morning and some moments of real pleasure. Thanks, Hamilton.

image of grid
ACROSS
1, 8 HELL FOR LEATHER Very quickly, nightmare affected Flora there (4,3,7)
 

HELL ('nightmare') + anagram ('affected') of FLORA THERE.
5, 28 CHANNEL-HOPPING Playing with remote Anglo-French commuter’s routine? (7-7)
 

Jocular cryptic def.
9 LABEL Sheila Bellingham’s trademark (5)
 

Inclusion in 'sheiLA BELlingham'. Clue for inclusion is the apostrophied S.
10 DYSPEPSIA “It’s upsetting”, Pepys said, broken (9)
 

Anagram ('broken') of PEPYS SAID.
11 ANALYSAND Lady Anna’s unhappy being Freud’s subject (9)
 

anagram ('unhappy') of "LADY ANNAS".
12 TILTH Alternatively, trial half this depth of soil (5)
 

Alternate letters of 'TrIaL' + half of 'THis' = 'the depth of soil turned up in cultivation' (Chambers @3).
13 LYING Working steadily? Not at first, that would be mendacious (5)
 

pLYING ('working steadily') minus 1st letter.
15 POSSESSOR One has town on the Wye returned to lawful body (9)
 

POSSE (historically, US 'lawful body') + ROSS (on Wye), reversed.
18 DENDRITIC Branching out, study reviewer opens with the next letter (9)
 

DEN ('study') + cRITIC ('reviewer'), its 1st C replaced by D, ('next letter' alphabetically).
19 SPASM Brief time that Dad’s into bondage (5)
 

S[ado] M[asochism] ('bondage') includes PAS (''Dad's")
21 NUBIA Fresh draught reported in region of the Nile (5)
 

Homophone of 'new beer' ('fresh draught').
23 FLOOR SHOW Performance dumbfounds housewife (5,4)
 

FLOORS ('dumbfounds') + HO[use] + W[ife], which you have to split & abbreviate.
25 GUERRILLA Beastly sounding tactics (9)
 

Homophone of 'gorilla'.
26 PATIO Irish lad’s joyful cry in the courtyard (5)
 

PAT ('Irish lad') + I O ('joyful cry', soon by priests and people to be sungen). Pronounced EE-O, according to Kings College, and they should know.
27 See 1 down
 
28 See 5
 
DOWN
1, 27 HOLD ALL THE ACES Bag singles from the pack to gain the advantage (4,3,3,4)
 

HOLDALL ('bag') + THE ACES ('singles from the pack').
2 LIBRARIAN Literary minder (9)
 

Cryptic definition
3 FULLY Perfectly hairy after changing sides (5)
 

FUrrY ('hairy'), its 2 Rs ('rights') exchanged for Ls ('lefts'). Ingenious.
4 RED CARPET Trodden underfoot by the privileged few (3,6)
 

Whole clue cryptic.
5 CASED Boxed in when Chancellor’s outside department (5)
 

C[hancellor] [of the] E[xchequer] around AS ('when') + D[epartment].

6 ADEPTNESS Ten spades dealt with masterly skill (9)
 

Anagram ('dealt with') of TEN SPADES.
7 NASAL Congested US research centre gets final deferral (5)
 

NASA ('US research centre') + last of 'deferraL'. A nasal voice might sound 'congested'.
8 See 1 across
 
14 GERIATRIC Re-examined government criteria for old people (9)
 

Anagram ('re-examined') of G[overnment] + CRITERIA.
16 SOCIOPATH Photos given to CIA revealed personality disorder sufferer (9)
 

Anagram ('revealed') of PHOTOS & CIA.
17 SPAGHETTI Resort where billionaire’s called for something Italian (9)
 

SPA ('resort') + homophone ('called for') of GETTY, the billionaire family.
18, 20 DONT GET ME WRONG My advice to solvers so there’s no misunderstanding (4,3,2,5)
 

Hamilton's not terribly helpful parsing tip.
22 BREVE Note how cleric fills empty bottle (5)
 

REV[erend] ('cleric') in outside of BottlE. A 'breve' is the rarely-seen long (8-beat) musical note.
23 FALLS Maybe Victoria Road in Belfast (5)
 

Double def, the Falls Road in Belfast being notorious as the focal point of the old Troubles.
24 RIP UP Vampire’s literally holding back tear (3,2)
 

Reversal of the PIR in 'vamPIRe'. Neat surface.

9 comments on “Financial Times 16,654 by HAMILTON”

  2. Enjoyable challenge from Hamilton. My only slight beef was for GUERRILLA – I wondered if there shouldn’t have been a question mark after ‘tactics’, for which the answer is only one example, though I didn’t have a problem with the homophone. I’d initially also thought the I O in PATIO was a pretty weak example of a ‘joyful cry’, but didn’t know about the EE O chant or whatever it’s called.

    I liked DENDRITIC (first time I think I can remember seeing the word in crossword land), the cheeky surface for FLOOR SHOW, the unobtrusive ‘One has’ def for POSSESSOR and the misleading surface for RIP UP.

    Thanks to Hamilton and Grant

  5. Of the arguments over homophones there shall be no end.
    ‘Guerilla’ – however spelt – should I s’pose be pronounced in its Spanish original form as something like ‘Gair-ee-ya’ but I pronounce identically to ‘gorilla’. Chambers says I should hit the ‘O’ more,‘Gore-ill-a’, but I don’t.
    I was half expecting loonapick to jump in and say that the R in ‘beer’ in prevents it from rhyming with the ‘bia’ bit of ‘Nubia’ in Scotland. True, but who’s right? And whether you pronounce the diphthong in ‘new’ (‘nyoo’ or ‘noo’) depends on where you live.
    None of this troubles me much.

  6. A pretty straightforward and fairly quick solve, but we found it less than satisfying.

    In 11ac ‘Alternatively’ does not mean ‘alternately’ and the clue asks the solver to take alernate (not alternative) letters of ‘trial’.
    We thought NASAL to be a bit loose as a synonym for ‘congested’
    And to be pedantic, GERIATRIC does not mean ‘for old people’ (although it’s commonly used in that sense) – it refers specifically to medicine and healthcare of old people, in contrast to ‘paediatric’ referring to children.

    Sorry, but this didn’t quite float our boat.

    Thanks, though, to Hamilton and to Grant.

  7. Like DENDRITIC a lot but I dislike cryptic definitions and most homophones so this was not an entirely pleasing crossword for me. I don’t think I’ve seen the apostrophied S as an inclusion indicator before so I’ll have to keep it in mind. Thanks to both.

  8. Thanks Hamilton and Grant

    Was able to complete this in a single session just after lunch and was able to maintain a steady solve throughout with a good mix of general knowledge, the usual homophonic challenges (all good for me though), a dodgy definition for NASAL and a couple of very good cryptic definitions.  New terms for me were ANALYSAND, TILTH and FALLS ROAD.

    Finished with that FALLS, RED CARPET (that took longer than it should have to see) and SPASM (not helped by writing in DON’T GET IT WRONG initially).

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