Financial Times 16,859 by SLORMGORM

14 comments on “Financial Times 16,859 by SLORMGORM”

1. An agreeably gentle Monday solve from Slormgorm. The unusual amount of clues requiring one to add or subtract a letter (over 10) is perhaps what made this a breeze. Of these, I thought 24a was rather good and the same device helped to land the ‘mug’ at 27 (which I often forget).
   A short-lived blip occurred having entered a hastily parsed SCORNS rather than SCOFFS but it clearly wouldn’t work for ‘blooming’ forcing a rethink.
   Also really liked 10 and 21, my LOI.
   Thanks to Slormgorm and Teacow.

2. Thanks for the blog, super crossword, Diane has picked my favourites first.
   I do not like DIS but that is just me refusing to be modern. Is it DIS or DISS or both ? The blog is a bit ambiguous.

3. Not too difficult to solve thanks to wordplay, but had never heard of the ‘writer’ at 8d. DISAFFIRM is also not a word I’d come across before but again wordplay was helpful and the answer seemed plausible as a synonym for ‘Deny’. Still, I agree with Roz @2 about DIS/DISS (? the latter) not being a favourite word.

   I liked OPENED and at the lower-rent end of the cultural scale, the surface for SLIME.

   Thanks to Slormgorm (busy boy today) and Teacow

4. Roz @2. I think either DIS + a homophone of A FIRM or a homophone of DISS A FIRM work, since DIS & DISS are both acceptable spellings. The blog seems to say the latter unambiguously to me.

5. Hovis I see how both work, I did not explain myself very well. Is the insult spelt DIS or DISS or both ?

6. Re the homophone (6d), I’ve only ever seen ‘dissed’ so assumed it’ was ‘diss’ in the present, otherwise it would sound like ‘his’ or ’tis’. However, as Hovis notes, either spelling is acceptable. Either way, it’s not pretty (though I have used it with tongue in cheek!).

7. Thanks to Slormgorm and Teacow. Enjoyable. My quickest finish ever with only a pause with the parsing of SLIME, my LOI.

8. 24a could have been clued as “Inaugurated by son in drag”, perhaps?

9. Very pleasant Monday solve with plenty of anagrams to get me going and the rest falling in to place smoothly. 24 a and 21d were my favourites.
   As an aside, my belated thanks to Slormgorm: I raised a gentle query about “redtail” in his last FT puzzle, since it wasn’t in my Chambers, but he helpfully pointed out that it is in Collins: I didn’t see his reply for a day or two and it seemed a bit late to respond then. As an inveterate Azed solver, I tend to regard Chambers as gospel, with the OED as backup if necessary, but maybe I need to expand my horizons.

10. Thanks Slormgorm & Teacow. Is there any significance in the use of “must’ve” rather than “must have” in 21 down? Presumably the writer would also have closed the dictionary; I wondered if “must’ve” could be regarded as the closed form of “must have”.

11. After Saturday’s gem by Basilisk which took me several sittings to solve this was a bit of a letdown but isn’t that par for Monday in general? Thanks Slormgorm and Teacow.

12. Thanks Slormgorm and Teacow – very pleasant Monday solve.
    Appreciated the 21D clarification – I had opined ?

13. Many thanks to Teacow for the nice blog and to all who solved and commented. See you all again next time around. 🙂

14. Thanks Slormgorm and Teacow
    Another good start to the week with a puzzle that had to look out throughout a busy work day on Monday. Nothing particularly difficult but a good steady solve ending up in the NW corner with TACIT, RECOVERED and ADVERSITY the last few in. Looking back they were no harder than the rest and could probably have been filled in much earlier.
    Hadn’t heard of the playwright at 8d and marked 8a and 17d as my favourites.

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