Financial Times 16,706 by AARDVARK

17 comments on “Financial Times 16,706 by AARDVARK”

1. Thanks Aardvark and PeeDee

   A couple of Is missing from the wordplay at present: 11ac it is [MAT I] to go inside COT reversed and in 20ac, twelve inches gives I FT (one foot).

2. I have to say I have very much enjoyed Aardvark’s crosswords of late. “Tub” for “pudding” does seem a bit odd though. A tub of ice-cream perhaps?

3. Well, as my old Dutch nanny used to say, “Aardvark nesser hurt anyvun.”

   All fairly straightforward which, on a cold, rainy day that’s causing my arthritic knee to play up is just what I needed. Many thanks Aardvark and PeeDee. And thanks to Eccles in the Indie for a very nice offering.

4. Thanks both.
   The surface of 14ac is excellent. I enjoyed the crossword very much.

5. Thanks for that Pelham, fixed now.

6. Excellent puzzle, thank you to Aardvark and PeeDee

7. An enjoyable solve. There were several occasions when crossing letters suggested the answer but it took a while to figure out the parsing – not a complaint, just an observation.
   20dn rang a bell – Eccles in the Indy today also had SEGMENT, clued very similarly. Funny how these coincidences do occur, given that puzzles may be compiled at different times.
   We liked the two long answers; 3dn was a bit of a chestnut but RUMPELSTILTSKIN was very neat. We liked STEPPES, ASK FOR IT and OSCAR, too. CELLOS was our LOI, and a facepalm moment when we saw it.
   Thanks, Aardvark and PeeDee.

8. A DNF for me as I missed Turkey and Cellos, and also the easier Crewed

   Each to their own but I didn’t especially enjoy this one.

   Tennis court at periphery = rectangle is a mysterious definition for this solver

   I would’ve thought cells were where guests of her Majesty stayed, not the guests themselves?

   A tub is not a pudding

   Limestone is usually a soft rock. No idea what hard is doing in the clue.

   Thanks to everyone

9. Moly @8. Perhaps I can help on a couple of these:
   16dn; Chambers (2014) gives pudding as “a fat, dull, or heavy-witted person (inf)”. I am sure I have heard Tub used as a nickname for a fat person,: although this is not explicit in Chambers, it gives tubby as meaning “plump”.
   21dn: Cells are indeed where guests of Her Majesty stay, indicated by the word “here” in the clue.

10. An enjoyable late afternoon from Aardvark.
    I had concerns about a couple of the clues. Limestone is most definitely not a hard rock – it only rates as 1 on the Mohs scale of hardness. In 20a, the answer is clear but the origin of the “I” is not as ‘about twelve inches’ does not mean exactly 1 foot.
    And a couple of observations as well. I am quite sure that if that resort town in 3d did not exist, some crossword setter would have invented it. And I wonder if G-men really exist these days outside of crosswords.
    Thanks for the usual explanations too PeeDee.

11. Thanks Aardvark, that was an enjoyable crossword. I couldn’t get TURKEY or WESTON in 3d nor could I parse LIMESTONE but all else fell into place. I liked ETHER, CORSET (great surface and wordplay), REALIST, and SEGMENT. DESPOTISM was well hidden — it took me forever to see it. Thanks PeeDee for the blog.

12. Mystogre @ 10

    20A is SHY (throw) ‘about’ (= around) IFT (1 FT, or ‘twelve inches’). ‘about’ and ‘twelve inches’ need to be separated.

13. Thanks Aardvark and PeeDee
    Had an interrupted solve with this one which probably helped with it, being able to immediately see the answer to a clue that was stubbornly resisting in the previous look. Started on the left side after seeing CREWED straight away and piecing together the clever RUMPELSTILTSKIN soon after.
    A number of neat constructions and enjoyed the subtleness of several of them – ‘about twelve inches’, ‘European to become fit after playing’ (took ages to separate the V and E) and ‘pudding habit’. ‘Pudding’ and ‘tub’ are less than complimentary terms for a person who are less than svelte down here that were used pre-political correctness times.
    Finished with the long 3d resort (always takes ages to remember that strangely named place), FLOOR (tricked by French = FR) and OSCAR (after finally stop trying to find an aircraft of that name).

14. Thanks, Pelham, for explaining Cellos. I missed the “here”

    Still unconvinced by pudding = tub

15. A lot of this was fun… one could argue about tub=dessert, also I didnt like knurl=boss… in UK English I feel we’d use knurl to describe the pattern on a knob.. but I see Collins has it as American English .. not sure any of that made much odds to the solve… thanks Aardvark n PeeDee

16. An excellent crossword with no problematical clues that I can see. 17d ASK FOR IT was clever, 24a VEGETABLE was tasty, 6d RUMPELSTILTSKIN was devious, and 21d CELLOS was of course maniacal.

    Thanks Aardvark and PeeDee for the fun.

17. Undrell@15: I think “dessert” could clue “tub” as a kind of ice cream, but the word in the clue at 16dn was “pudding”. I agree with PeeDee’s parsing that this one works as both are informal terms for a fat person.

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