Financial Times 16,892 by STEERPIKE

19 comments on “Financial Times 16,892 by STEERPIKE”

1. Don’t recall seeing Steerpike before either (outside of Gormenghast, that is) and on this showing, I hope to see more.
   It was another swift and steady solve until I reached the SW corner. There seemed to be a rakish, even salty flavour to the clues which led me to pen in JAILBIRD and WHOREHOUSE (!) at first. Of course, I then had problems with 14d/18d. A rethink provided the correct answers, finally, and I must say I laughed to see 14d intersecting with the ‘brothel’. Taken with 7a and NEBRASKA, this was full of spice and vice.
   Thanks Steerpike and Loonapick.

2. H stands for ‘Harbour’ in the two standard abbreviations, CHA (Competent Harbour Authority) and SHA (Statutory Harbour Authority). There are those who maintain that, in wordplay, an initial should stand for a whole word only if it does so in standalone contexts and not if it does so only as part of a compound abbreviation. If this were the Guardian thread, no doubt a debate would ensue, as it has on a couple of recent occasions.

3. Ah Loonapick, you omitted to underline the definition for 1a: ‘swung the lead’. This was nicely misleading. [In the meantime, enjoy your break]

4. Spooner’s catflap – I am strongly in that camp, as otherwise almost any word in the English Language could be indicated by its initial, making a mockery of the whole exercise.

5. I agree with loonapick on this. It’s fair to say that if a letter stands for the same word in several different compounds, it often gets to stand for that word in its own right. I’m thinking of, perhaps, words like “royal” and “bachelor”.

6. Just checked in my Collins where H for Harbour is listed.

7. Thanks Steerpike and Loonapick

   18dn: Thanks Hovis @6, but I must state my wholehearted agreement for the principle of not allowing single letters to be taken from longer abbreviations.

   15ac: I see no need for “Abandoned”. Chambers 2014 gives “completely deserted” as a meaning of abandoned, but to me that does not quite work as an indicator to leave the outside letters, while Ry is given as an abbreviation for railway.

8. A very straightforward crossword indeed.

   I too am against allowing single letters to be taken from longer abbreviations.

   Thanks to Steerpike and Loonapick

9. Maybe no obscure words or general knowledge for those in the UK, but there was plenty for this Yank: “swung the lead”, “bird” for prison term, “DUP”, Tyneside for NE, and PETROLHEAD. And, of course, spelling “instil” with only one L. (Perhaps that offsets some of the superfluous “U”s in colour”, “labour”, etc. 🙂 )

   BTW, is using “period of abstinence” to clue LENT on Yom Kippur a little off-kilter? 🙂

10. Can anybody explain 10a please? It may be a cryptic definition but I can’t see what the ‘navel’ bit means.

11. Paul @10: there is a variety of orange called a “navel orange”.

12. Thanks to Steerpipe and loonapick. Enjoyable. I had trouble parsing HOOKAHS and the BED in OBEDIENCE.

13. Thanks for the blog, new setter for me too. Quite easy but sound clues , a good variety of techniques and originality so very enjoyable.
    For 10AC I think it is actually a double cryptic definition, certainly for myself these days.
    H for harbour is not in my Chambers 93, personally I do not like any abbreviations that are not in Chambers , there are many to choose from for each letter. However there are no rules as such, the setter can set and we can have a little grumble sometimes.

14. Certainly a new setter for the FT, we think, but could set elsewhere under a different pseudonym; there have been several new setters in the Indy recently. Anyway, this was a pleasant and rather swift solve making it an agreeable debut for this setter. The only one we couldn’t parse was HOOKAHS. Difficult to pick a favourite but we’ll go for ORANGE PEEL.
    Thanks, Steerpike and loonapick.

15. Welcome to a new setter. I found it an interesting solve and harbour threw me too – doesn’t appear in my eChambers on this thing. Some dropped into place easily but others took more thought while there was the odd bung and hope. But all attainable in the end and that is the main thing.
    Thanks for the exercise Steerpike and the thorough blog Loonapick.

16. Quite enjoyable even if was on the easy side — there were many smooth surfaces which I always admire. Favourites included DICE, LENTIL, and MISHAP. I also learned the meaning of “swung the lead” as well as PETROLHEAD who in the States we would call a “motorhead.” Thanks to both.

17. In two papers that I’m aware of, The Times and The Daily Telegraph, one is able to choose single-letter indicators only from a prescribed (and not very long) list. I don’t mind this, as it forces one to be more creative, and (obviously) disallows using most of the 10bn SLIs you can find in the dictionaries.

    So welcome to ‘at first’, ‘initially’, ‘for (a) start(ers)’, ‘finally’, ‘at last’ (cont p.94)

18. Thanks Steerpike and loonapick
    Enjoyed this debut puzzle from this setter and like others found it quite straightforward until getting down to the SW corner. Thought that the clueing was crisp with a nice amount of misdirection with no need to create obscure words in the answers or in the word play.
    Finished with SHUN, BAWDY HOUSE (not a term that I was overly familiar with) and HOOKAH (which I cheated with a word finder to get it over with as the backlog mounts).

19. Late thanks loonapick, hope you enjoyed (or are enjoying) your break, and thanks Hovis for clearing up ‘H is for Harbour’ – while I don’t like “it’s in the dictionary so it’s OK” i have come round to the idea there there ought to be some sort of inarguable source for these things. I thought there were plenty of twists and turns in this tale and enjoyed it a lot, favourite GHOULISH, thanks Steerpike, you are as cunning as your namesake!

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