Financial Times 16,958 by BUCCANEER

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Buccaneer provides today's FT fun.

I found it quite difficult to get a good start on this puzzle. After my first run through, I had half a dozen entries, none of which provided me any real assistance in the second run through. I concentrated on the long entries, such as CHIROPRACTOR and NEGOTIABLE, and eventually, all bar 1dn and 9ac yielded their solutions. Normally, when a clue refers to another, I'd expect to solve the latter first, but in this case, given the first letter D, I decided that the opposite of ACROSS had to be DOWN, stuck it in, and WORLD WEARY revealed itself almost instantly.

Thanks, Buccaneer – there was a lot to like in this puzzle.

ACROSS
1 DISCLAIMER
Record French song containing one denial (10)

DISC ("record") + LA MER ("French song") containing I (one)

La Mer was a French song first recorded in the 1940s, and released in English as "Beyond the Sea" by Bobby Darin.
6 ICON
Star’s confession of carrying out fraud (4)

I CON (what someone "carrying out fraud" may say when "confess"ing)
9 WORLD WEARY
Entering low, dry ground, dress in blue (5-5)

WEAR ("dress in") entering *(low dry) [anag:ground]
10 SNAG
Catch Nigeria’s capital entering decline (4)

N(igeria) ['s capital] entering SAG ("decline")
12 CHASTISEMENT
Carpeting is installed by virtuous people before time (12)

IS installed by CHASTE ("virtuous") + MEN ("people") before T (time)
15 IDIOMATIC
Linguistically convincing graduate has silly clothing (9)

MA (Master of Arts, so "graduate") has IDIOTIC ("silly") clothing
17 KARMA
Brownie points American roué mostly rejected (5)

<=(Am. (American) + RAK(e) ("roué", mostly)) [rejected]
18 DOWEL
Be successful, cutting large wooden peg (5)

DO WEL(l) ("be successful", cutting L (large))
19 POSTNATAL
Following delivery of letters somewhere in Africa once (9)

POST ('letters") + NATAL ("somewhere in (South) Africa once")
20 CHIROPRACTOR
Back specialist doctor or rich entertaining piano player (12)

*(or rich) [anag:doctor] entertaining P (piano) + ACTOR ("player"), so CHIRO(P)R-ACTOR
24 TOTO
Fictional canine is short and round (4)

TOT ("short") and O (round)

Dorothy's dog in The Wizard of Oz.
25 SWALEDALES
Sheep from valley in southern part of UK (10)

DALE ("valley") in S (southern) + WALES ("part of UK")

Swaledales are a breed of domestic sheep named after a valley in Yorkshire.
26 REEF
Queen slips out of jacket in bar, in the main (4)

ER (Elizabeth Regina, so "queen") slips out of REEF(er) ("jacket")
27 TREE TRUNKS
Trio removing hot pants in parts of planes, say (4,6)

T(h)REE ("trio", removing H (hot)) + TRUNKS ("pants")
DOWN
1 DOWN
9 across’ opposite (4)

"opposite" of "across" is DOWN (synonym of WORLD-WEARY ("9" across))
2 SORE
Which end of shinbone is sensitive? (4)

S or E (ends of S(hinbon)E)
3 LADY HAMILTON
Sailor’s mistress had lay composed by poet (4,8)

*(had lay) [anag:composed] by MILTON ("poet")

Lady Emma Hamilton was an actress who was mistress to a series of wealthy men, among them Horatio Nelson.
4 ITEMS
Articles in Times in need of editing (5)

*(times) [anag:in need of editing]
5 EARPIECES
What Cockneys listening to music do for phone parts (9)

'EAR PIECES ("what Cockneys listening to music do")
7 CONSECRATE
Set aside kind of wine drunk by politician and judge (10)

SEC ("kind of wine") drunk by Con. (Conservative, so "politician") and RATE ("judge")
8 NEGOTIABLE
Leg, one a bit wonky, on the table (10)

*(leg one a bit) [anag:wonky]
11 PECKING ORDER
Kiss suitable to maintain good set of relationships (7,5)

PECK ("kiss") + IN ORDER ("suitable") to maintain G (good)
13 VINDICATOR
Person who justifies and defends V-sign (10)

V (the shape made by fingers when giving the V sign) + INDICATOR ("sign")
14 TIN WHISTLE
Something played in new card game, wearing hat (3,7)

N (new) + WHIST ("card game") wearing TILE ("hat")
16 TOP-DRAWER
Great artist’s last work, one producing pictures (3-6)

(artis)T ['s last] + Op.(opus, so "work") + DRAWER (one who draws, so "one producing pictures")
21 CALVE
Drop young animal in lake within grotto (5)

L (lake) within CAVE ("grotto")
22 ELAN
Dash that’s put in pasture-land (4)

Hidden in [that's put in] "pasturE-LANd"
23 AS IS
Single family member in current conditions (2,2)

A ("single") + SIS(ter) ("family member")

13 comments on “Financial Times 16,958 by BUCCANEER”

  1. Like Loonapick, my first run-through was paltry but the longer clues did get the ball rolling. A very enjoyable puzzle with a number of highlights including the jacket in 26a.
    However, I don’t understand 1d. Clearly, in crosswords, ‘down’ is the opposite of ‘ ‘across’ and seems confirmed by ‘blue’. But if 9a is ‘world weary’, how is ‘down’ the opposite? For this, I had ‘DEWY’, ie fresh or innocent.
    I look forward to further help here but in the meantime, thanks to Buccaneer and Loonapick.

  3. I didn’t find this as tricky as some Buccaneer crosswords but it was as enjoyable as ever

    Thanks to him and Loonapick

  4. Give me the original Charles Trenet version of LA MER any day, even though I admit the Bobby Darin version isn’t too bad.

    Enjoyable and not too much of a struggle to get this out. I liked learning about a new (to me) breed of sheep and working out the parsing of CHASTISEMENT and CHIROPRACTOR. Favourite was the “already separated and keep separate” def for DOWN.

    Thanks to Buccaneer and loonapick

  6. Never heard words to the Debussy classic but who cares with the pirate is in charge
    I think Nelson’s squeeze was my first in and then chipped away until it was finito.
    A favourite setter of mine who is making up for the absence of Arachne
    Thanks all

  7. Thanks loonapick for the parsing of 1a and 17a both of which I got from the crossers. And, thanks Buccaneer for a challenging but doable puzzle.

  8. Yet another treat from Buccaneer. Witty, inventive and challenging enough to keep me interested. Too many enjoyable clues to set them all out.

  10. Quite a challenge but satisfying to complete it. We weren’t aware of La Mer as song; we automatically thought of the orchestral piece by Debussy. Favourite was TIN WHISTLE.
    Thanks, Buccaneer and loonapick.

  11. Thanks Buccaneer, it’s always a treat to tackle your crosswords. This took a bit to solve and I still missed REEF, SWALEDALES, CALVE, and DOWN. Like Diane I had dewy for 1d so thanks loonapick for explaing the double definition nature of the clue. My favourites included ICON, IDIOMATIC, DOWEL, TREE TRUNKS, and SORE.

  12. As an ardent and measured Picaroon admirer (from the moment he started off in the Guardian), I wasn’t totally happy with the overdose of puzzles we recently got from our setter using other guises.
    For me, somehow, some of the sparkle seemed to have disappeared.
    When I first looked at the surfaces of today’s crossword I thought “um, a bit middle of the road”.
    But when solving, there was this thing of ‘this guy has really finesse’, nothing middle of the road whatsoever.
    Clever, original and above all precise.
    The difference between an OK setter and one that is really good.
    I mean, really good.

  13. Thanks Bucaneer and loonapick
    The second puzzle by this fellow in a week (thanks to backlogs). A slightly easier solve than his latest offering but no less enjoyable.
    Started with the easy to spot hidden ELAN and picked off all of the four-letter ones down the bottom. The ones up the top all had to wait until near the end to go in. Getting a lot of the long answers quite early helped the cause a lot and picked out KARMA as my favourite here.
    Finished up the top with DOWN (tricky clue – took a while to see where he was heading), ITEMS (don’t know why so late), DISCLAIMER (not really knowing the song) and CONSECRATE (another that looked fairly straightforward in hindsight).

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