Financial Times 16,787 by PETO

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Overall a pleasant Monday crossword with a good range of clues in terms of style and difficulty.

This was not a particularly quick solve for me, as some Monday puzzles are. A bit of general knowledge required and Peto has made good use of continental languages (which I know has occasionally been grumbled about on this site).

A couple of iffy clues in my opinion: 3d (reads much better if it were the other way round i.e. PANS as the solution), 15a and 24d (both seem to be clued in the wrong order), but also some absolutely great surfaces (10a, 13a, 1d, 26d). Thanks to Peto!

And of course spot the card games!

picture of the completed grid

ACROSS
1. Most agreeable for a city street (6)
NICEST

NICE (a city) + ST (street)

4. Rex in touch with shrink (8)
CONTRACT

R (rex) in CONTACT (touch)

10. Will Shakespeare originally cutting offensive last word at end of Hamlet (9)
TESTAMENT

S[hakespeare] (originally) cutting TET (offensive) + AMEN (last word) at [Hamle]T (end of)

11. Permissible lining for every device used in fire management (5)
POKER

OK (permissible) lining PER (for every)

12. Boast of bishop attending charity event (4)
BRAG

B (bishop) attending RAG (charity event, raise and give)

13. Tall thin fellow’s explosion of anger isn’t without a hint of bitterness (6,4)
STRING BEAN

(ANGER ISN’T)* (*explosion) without A + B[itterness] (hint of)

15. Reportedly produced and worn by a spinster (3,4)
OLD MAID

“MADE” (produced, “reportedly”) and OLD (worn)

16. Spirit shown by Sweden’s top football team (6)
HEARTS

HEART (spirit) shown by S[weden’s] (top)

19. US poet’s redemption (6)
RANSOM

Double definition

21. Adept at pursuing 16 briefly amongst academics (7)
MAHATMA

AT pursuing H (hearts, briefly) amongst MA + MA (academics)

23. What 2 did with foe drawn angrily circling about (10)
FOREWARNED

(FOE DRAWN)* (*angrily) circling RE (about)

25. Commotion mostly over island’s religious mystic (4)
SUFI

FUS[s]< (commotion, mostly, <over) + I (island)

27. Women only seen at church from this time onwards (5)
HENCE

HEN (women only) seen at CE (church)

28. Fictional detective coming across pieces of art implicating the French in fraud (9)
CHARLATAN

CHAN (fictional detective) coming across pieces of ART implicating LA (the, French)

29. Old gold coin found in river by boy framed by gran (8)
NAPOLEON

PO (river) by LEO (boy) framed by NAN (gran)

30. Spanner? (6)
BRIDGE

Cryptic definition (that which spans)

DOWN
1. Portable computer’s weight boosted by what may be found on it (8)
NOTEBOOK

TON< (weight, <boosted) by E-BOOK (what may be found on it)

2. Polish king hiding in house of prophetess (9)
CASSANDRA

SAND (polish) + R (king) hiding in CASA (house)

3. Criticises mounting of photograph (4)
SNAP

PANS< (criticises, mounting)

5. Ridiculous in support of east German fact denier (7)
OSTRICH

RICH (ridiculous) in support of OST (east, German)

6. Troy happy with German’s innovative style of printing (10)
TYPOGRAPHY

(TROY HAPPY + G (German))* (*innovative)

7. Joint article on rearing animals (5)
ANKLE

AN (article) on ELK< (animals, <rearing)

8. Mathematician from university in Hertfordshire town (6)
TURING

U (university) in TRING (Hertfordshire town)

9. Angry journalist under pressure (6)
HEATED

ED (journalist) under HEAT (pressure)

14. He’d wisely arranged to stock American printer component (5,5)
DAISY WHEEL

(HE’D WISELY)* (*arranged) to stock A (American)

17. Trend regularly ignored after pharaoh repeatedly expressed disapproval (3-6)
TUT-TUTTED

T[r]E[n]D (regularly ignored) after TUT TUT (pharaoh, repeatedly)

18. Girl with diamonds set about in French comic opera (8)
PATIENCE

PAT (girl) with ICE (diamonds) set about EN (in, French)

20. Country cousin’s tip after rector’s seen in low company (7)
MOROCCO

C[ousin’s] (tip) after R (rector) seen in MOO (low) + CO (company)

21. Frenzied woman managed to settle after gang leader’s taken away (6)
MAENAD

(MANA[g]ED)* (*to settle, after G[ang’s] (leader) taken away)

22. Dog blanket (6)
AFGHAN

Double definition

24.  Raised with sort of hoist (3,2)
RUN UP

UP (raised) with RUN (sort of)

26. Stylist essentially brought in to polish up rock band (4)
BLUR

[Sty]L[ist] (essentially) brought into RUB< (polish, <up)

11 comments on “Financial Times 16,787 by PETO”

  1. I think your introduction pretty much sums up my thoughts, Teacow.

    I wasn’t keen on the use of “attending” in 12a which suggested an inclusion to me. I also didn’t care for clueing PAT in 18d by “girl”.

    Needed Chambers’ help to get the unknown-to-me, SUFI.

    Got 24d wrong. I put in RAN UP and would never have thought of “run” as “sort” (as in “run of things”).

    Despite these misgivings, I did enjoy this.

  2. Pleasant solve, helped by the presence of a theme – I won’t give the game away.

    I couldn’t parse RUN UP (for which I had ‘ran up’ too) and found a few quite difficult, including the unheard of (but of course very famous) ‘US poet’ and CHARLATAN with its complicated parsing.

    Thanks to Peto and Teacow

  4. Thanks Peto and Teacow
    13ac: This should be (ANGER ISN’T)* containing (without, in the sense of outside) B (a hint of Bitterness).
    I had not spotted the theme. It could be argued that it resolves the ambiguity at 3dn, but I would prefer it if the clue did that properly on its own.

  5. Needed help for MAENAD. Finished with PATIENCE, ironically, because PATIENCE was the first crossword clue I ever solved:

    Ability to endure operetta (8), Telegraph, 1965, aged 10.

    I share the reservations for today’s test but enjoyed it.

    Thanks to both, see you all tomorrow!

  6. pretty much what Teacow said also… and I had RAN UP for 24dn too..but plenty to enjoy 2dn, 5dn, 8dn, 10ac despite not understanding the offenive bit till later… was not aware of the poet and failed to spot the theme as such…
    thanks PETO n Teacow

  7. I was another with an unparsed RAN UP and even with the explanation given I’m not very happy with “run” for “sort”: I find it difficult to think of any phrase where substituting one with the other would give the same meaning. Otherwise pleasant enough and not difficult, even without noticing the theme at all, as usual – another good reason for coming to the site and being enlightened.

  8. Thanks to Peto and Teacow. I’m another n the RAN UP list but my problem came in the SE corner with 26D. I don’t know UK rock bands so I opted for BURL which parses and does work so that until I caught on I could not get CHARLATAN – and I agree that Pat is weak in PATIENCE.

  9. We started off at quite a lick but then fouind some tricky bits – in particular the SE corner where MAHATMA and CHARLATAN held things back for a bit. Once we got them the rest came easily. We agree, though about 15ac being in the wrong order.
    We couldn’t parse CASSANDRA as we didn’t see ‘sand’ for ‘polish’. In fact ‘sand’ for ‘polish’ has come up elsewhere on this site two or three times recently and attracted the comment that the two are not equivalent – we agree; sanding is what you do before polishing!
    Plenty to like, though, including TESTAMENT, NAPOLEON, TURING and TYPOGRAPHY.
    Thanks, Peto and Teacow.

  10. Good crossword — I needed a word finder for MAENAD and MAHATMA and I couldn’t parse CASSANDRA but otherwise I made steady progress with this. Enjoyed TESTAMENT (wonderful surface), SUFI, OSTRICH, and BLUR. (I still own several Blur CD’s but I haven’t played them lately.) Thanks to both.

  11. Thanks Peto and Teacow
    Already running behind this week. Had the same clue resevations and surface appreciation of many here, also went down the RAN UP burrow but corrected it in last parsing run through and missed the now obvious ghost card game theme.
    Finished in the SE corner after remembering the MAENADS and that MAHATMA was more generic than Mr Gandhi. Needed a word finder to ‘remember’ SUFI.
    Enjoyable start to the week.

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