Financial Times 16,817 by SLORMGORM

26 comments on “Financial Times 16,817 by SLORMGORM”

1. In 27a, I took EVE as “period coming immediately before”.

   Don’t get how “delays” denotes an inclusion in 22d.

2. Thanks Slormgorm and Teacow
   Nothing to really scare the horses here … but very enjoyable all of the same. Didn’t know the HACK OFF term, but it had to be from the word play. LIKE A SHOT and the ‘bones with blade’ both brought a wry grin.
   Hovis, I had ‘delays’ meaning holds up and was therefore a clever innovative inclusion direction for a down clue.
   Finished in the SE corner with DODGEBALL, INSULIN and PUSHKIN the last few in.

3. I think you may be correct, brucew. If so, I also concur it is both clever and innovative (at least, I have never seen this use before).

4. Thanks Slormgorm and Teacow

   I’m afraid I’m not convinced by the definition in 16. Ras Tafari, aka Haile Selassie, was the object of veneration and viewed as a god. The ‘religious type’ involved is a Rastafarian, abbreviated to Rasta.

5. Thanks Slormgorm and Teacow
   10ac: I will bite on the bait offered by Teacow. It would I think have been great if Slormgorm had given an indication that the homophone only really works in some accents, not so much as an aid to solving, but to help the solver feel satisfied with the answer after getting it. However, I do not think it would be worth making the clue unwieldy to do this, so I think he was probably right to leave the clue as it was.
   27ac: I agree with Hovis@1 on the parsing here.
   16dn: Could the phrase “religious type” extend to the god rather than to the followers? Among the long list of definitions for type in Chambers, there are a few which come agonisingly close, but none that I would put forward with conviction as definitely fitting that need.
   22dn: An interesting explanation from bruce@2, but it is too much of a clue to a clue for my liking.

6. Thanks Hovis@1 – have modified the parsing
   Bruce@2 – Those were my last ones in too, along with CHARMLESS. I spent rather too long trying to make PUMPKIN work…

7. I pretty much agree with Pelham Barton@5 on all points.
   In my midwestern American accent, 10a is a perfect homophone.
   Needed some help from Google to understand why cobblers=rot.

8. EdK. In case you’re interested, that meaning for “cobblers” is another word with its origins in rhyming slang. It comes from “cobblers’ awls” for “balls”, as in balderdash.

9. Thanks for the blog, all my points been dealt with.
   Edk @7 – cobblers was popularised by Albert Steptoe in our sit-com Steptoe and Son that had huge audiences. It was thought to be just respectable enough for mainstream television.

10. Enjoyed this a lot… certainly didn’t take umbrage at the “long v short A” in 10ac, despite favouring long As in general… equally happy to accept 16dn at face value… certainly not going to argue about religion …
    Thanks SLORMGORM n Teacow

11. I didn’t even pause over the homophone ‘I slander’/‘I slahnder’, speaking as I do a kind of RP but a with short ‘A’ in words like ‘bath’. My touchstone – as so often – is Michael Flanders (or, as he would have said, ‘Flahnders’) when he adopts a northern accent to rhyme ‘slander’ with ‘Lysander’ for comic effect and quite unnecessarily, as I’m sure he’d agree.

12. An enjoyable solve with no real problems.
    As for 10ac, Chambers indicates that ‘slander’ can be pronounced with either a short ‘a’ as in ‘hat’ or a long ‘a’ as in ‘hart’.
    CoD for us was SURGEON – brilliant!
    Thanks, Slormgorm and Teacow.

13. Quite a while since I’ve tackled a Slormgorm -will have to do so more often as I enjoyed it a lot.
    Re 16 down, Wikipedia lists Rastafari, Rastafarian, and Rasta as interchangeable.

    Thanks Slormgorm and Teacow.

14. Count me as one who had no problem with the homophone in 10a (unlike 1d in Monday’s Guardian). I enjoyed this crossword with EVEREST and INSULIN being favourites. I couldn’t parse RIOTS so thanks Teacow for the help. Thanks Slormgorm.

15. Many thanks to Teacow for the blog and all who solved and commented.

    At time of writing, I recall thinking long and hard and coming up with some sort of reasoning for ‘delay’ working, but I think the commenters are right here and that for use as an containment ind. – unless I can remember what my justification was! – zee war is over for it …

    Cheers to all and see you all next time around. 🙂

16. Thanks, Slormgorm and Teacow. I also had no problem with 10a as I pronounce it. Didn’t figure out SENDS somehow; clever misdirection with “locums” and “short-term posts” so I figured it had to be something like TEMPS – thanks for blog! Also thanks for parsing RIOTS. [SURGEON reminds me of the Marx Bros. routine in Duck Soup – “Ah, you’re crazy, sturgeon, he’s a doctor who cuts you up when you’re sick.” :)]

17. As ever, Hoskins@15 is Slormgorm, but without a change of name. Later here … hell, it’s late everywhere, no doubt! 🙂

18. Roz@9 – I just figured “cobbler” as in Shakespeare means any kind of inferior work or worker, so “cobblers” must mean “rot”. Thanks for the further info. Never saw Steptoe, but it was adapted here as Sanford and Son starring Redd Foxx (likewise “just respectable enough” for a family hour).

19. Jeff@18 I never knew it had an American version, were they still what we call rag n bone men ?
    Old man Steptoe would often say ” What a load of old cobblers ” . I was pleased to see it in a crossword.

20. Roz@19: Yes, they were what we call junk dealers.

21. Thank you EDK , junk dealers does make sense. Steptoe and son had a large yard, and house, full of all the junk they had collected.

22. Here we go with the endless homophone debate. If homophone means “sounds similar to”, then this one is fine for all speakers of English. If you insist that it means “sounds exactly the same as”, then it is fine for some but not for others, and this would be true for most homophones. If we want to allow setters to use homophones, then surely we have to accept the “similar to” meaning.

23. Cellomaniac@22: I agree that the debate has been rehearsed many previous times. However, I do not see any need for a hard and fast rule, at one extreme saying that homophones must be exact, or at the other extreme saying that we must always allow “similar to”. Rather we should go back to first principles and ask whether any particular homophone indicator works in the specific clue. “Some say” clearly allows a homophone that only works in specific accents/dialects, but “we hear” suggests to me that the homophone must be exact.

24. Pelham Barton@23: Exact according to whom? By “we”, do you mean speakers of RP? Do you mean rhotic or non-rhotic speakers? Do you mean speakers of “correct English”? Whatever you mean, you are excluding a lot of English-speakers from your “we”.

25. [ Cellomaniac if you read this I want to say thank you, You know what for. ]

26. Cellomanic@24: “Exact” was the wrong word. I meant “universal”, for example KNIGHT/NIGHT, as opposed to BALMY/BARMY or WHICH/WITCH.

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