Financial Times 16,855 by MONK

18 comments on “Financial Times 16,855 by MONK”

1. The expected degree of difficulty from Monk but very satisfying to complete and parse. OMITTANCE and HOE-CAKE were both new but went in from wordplay without too much trouble, whereas HANDSEL took a bit more working out.

   I particularly enjoyed the misdirection in the wordplay for THREE MEN IN A BOAT and both wordplay and def for RETROFITS. Good to see the pangram emerging as a reward at the end.

   Thanks to Monk and PeeDee

2. The numeration pretty much gave the book away but I managed to slip up on WELL and HANDSEL
   I had MEET and HANDSET. HOE CAKE? just followed the instructions.I couod smell pangram early on.
   Thanks Monk and Pee Dee

3. Thanks Monk and PeeDee. Very close to a double pangram, but only one each of J and Y.

4. Thanks for the blog , very precise. Super crossword, not heard of HANDSEL or EMOTICONS but the word play helped me out. [ what is an emoji ? ]

5. A very satisfying brain-stretching crossword – the near double pangram helped me. Lots to enjoy

   Thanks very much to Monk and PeeDee

6. Just after I had posted my earlier comment, I noted that 1dn and 22dn together spell FAREWELL. I hope that Monk is not telling us something there.

7. Pelham Barton @6. Shakespeare uses “omittance” 6a. only once: in “As You Like It”:

   “Omittance is no quittance”. I hope that puts your mind at rest.

8. Hi Roz – emoticon and emoji have very similar meanings, conveying feeling in electronic texts, but are unrelated as far as I know. An emoji is a Japanese word that denotes a picture or simple animated drawing embedded in some text used to convey a specific feeling or condition. An emoticon is a western word for a similar symbol but in this case one made up of characters from the extended Latin character set on a standard computer keyboard, such as 🙂 for happy face or 😉 for cheeky grin.

9. Thanks for that trenoidia. If Monk had not pointed it out I would not have realized that omittance was not a current word. It sounds very plausible. If one can have acceptance then why not omittance?

10. Roz – in my comment @8 the website has converted my emoticons into emojis. What I wrote in the comment for the emoticons was : – ) and ; – ) but without the spaces. I’m sure this behaviour is intended to be helpful, but when trying to contrast emoticons and emojis it becomes downright confusing!

11. Thank you Peedee, I think I see. I have heard of emojis and these are the actual faces ?
    Emoticons are the actual colons, dashes and brackets etc put together to look a bit like faces ?

12. Yes, exactly. In western computer messaging emojis are actual pictures and emoticons are stings of text characters made to resemble a picture. I suspect in eastern writing the distinction between a text character and a picture is less clear cut.

13. Thank you, I will try to remember this. Yes the Japanese writing system adds another layer of complication.

14. Three Men in a Boat had a crew of 4; don’t forget Montmorency the dog. Thank you Monk, that was very enjoyable, and thanks to Pee Dee for a super blog. I missed that MIT is in Cambridge Mass, and Hoe Cake I missed completely.

15. Thanks Monk and PeeDee
    Think that this is my favourite crossword for the year to date. Had all of the hallmarks of an Io in complexity with the degree of difficulty ratcheted down to a level that one’s brain wasn’t aching after it was finished.
    The device in 13a was outstanding, even if the answer was slightly telegraphed with the enumeration.
    The near double pangram was a great aid in finishing off MARKOVA, RETROFITS and WELL.

16. A sound and enjoyable puzzle. Commenting on Wanderer’s puzzle last week we said that when a numeral occurs in a clue we are alert these days to the possibility that it isn’t the number of another clue – but we have to admit we were taken in for a while today by the misdirection in 13ac. Favourite was 14ac 🙂
    A minor niggle about 7dn; tax officials these days are HMRC, not IR, so shouldn’t the clue have read “Old tax officials …” – particularly in the FT?
    Thanks, Monk and PeeDee.

17. Many thanks to PeeDee for yet another meticulous blog, and to all posters for their very generous comments!

    There was, quite literally, a Nina, albeit admittedly obscure!
    Perhaps PeeDee can tweak the above grid to highlight:
    [13a] THREE MEN IN A BOAT
    [19a] FREDERIKSBERG
    [5a] JAMAICA
    [1d/22d] FARE/WELL
    the confirmation of which is here 😉

18. So that explains the use of 19ac.
    In the early sixties Nina & Frederik were quite popular on the continent (including in my then home country).
    Gosh, Monk, you must only be just born when that song came out.
    Tonight I listened to Jamaica Farewell (on Spotify) and it immediately sounded familiar – probably, because of Harry Belafonte’s version.
    Yes, obscure but intriguing.

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