Financial Times 16,971 by BRADMAN

by

I found this BRADMAN offering a real tough nut to crack. Most of the right half of the grid went in quickly but from thereon, it was a slow trudge. Thanks Bradman for the treat.

FF: 8 DD: 10

ACROSS
1 BACKBONE
Fortitude of player, Britain’s foremost individual (8)

BACK ( player ) B ( Britain's foremost, starting letter ) ONE ( individual )
5 ARMPIT
A slowing down with politician in a bit of a depression (6)

A [ MP ( politician ) in RIT ( slowing down, short for ritardando ) ] – needed help parsing this.
10 HAWKING
Physicist pitching on the street? (7)

double def
11 REMORSE
Regret about Lewis’s colleague in Oxford (7)

RE ( about ) MORSE ( lewis' colleague in oxford, from the inspector morse series )
12 SMOCK
Society to make fun of countryman’s attire? (5)

S ( society ) MOCK ( make fun of )
13 TESTAMENT
Examination meant bringing forward a set of books (9)

TEST ( examination ) [ MEaNT with A moving forward to the front ]
14 PRIVATE PARTS
Squaddie leaves bits that should be covered up? (7,5)

PRIVATE ( squaddie ) PARTS ( leaves )
18 CHILD BENEFIT
Cash giving minor help (5,7)

&lit; CHILD ( minor ) BENEFIT ( help )
21 ALMSHOUSE
Where charity would begin at home? (9)

cryptic def
23 ICHOR
Divine flower (5)

cryptic def; flower used in the context of 'something that flows' – fluid that flows like blood in the veins of greek gods as google tells me
24 BANG OUT
Hurriedly produce instruction to get rid of disease (4,3)

cryptic def; read as BAN ( ~ get rid of ) GOUT ( disease )
25 THINNER
The recipe pub introduced with less fat (7)

[ THE R ( recipe ) ] containing INN ( pub )
26 EVER SO
Very English page of writing (not right!) (4,2)

E ( English ) VERSO ( page of writing, not right – referring to a page on the left side of the book ) – needed help to parse this
27 TENEMENT
House finally secured by a number of chaps — end-of-street accommodation (8)

{ E ( housE, finally ) in TEN MEN ( number of chaps ) } T ( streeT, end of )
DOWN
1 BEHEST
What is included in most appropriate instruction (6)

EH ( what ) in BEST ( most appropriate )
2 COWBOY
Intimidate lad who is an irresponsible worker? (6)

COW ( intimidate ) BOY ( lad )
3 BLINKERED
Arab at Ascot may be so narrow-minded (9)

double def
4 NEGATIVE EQUITY
Financial disadvantage? No fairness! (8,6)

NEGATIVE ( no ) EQUITY ( fairness )
6 RUMBA
Dance has sailor turning to his favourite drink? (5)

reverse of AB ( sailor ) after RUM ( a sailor's favorite drink )
7 PARTERRE
Some sin associated with Eden originally – something in the garden? (8)

PART ( some ) ERR ( sin ) E ( Eden, originally ) – needed help with the solve for this.

8 TREATISE
A setter, I will be puzzling for the paper (8)

[ A SETTER I ]*
9 GRASP THE NETTLE
Take a difficult decision and risk being stung (5,3,6)

cryptic def
15 PRIMITIVE
Proper form of technology I have? It’s out of the ark! (9)

PRIM ( proper ) IT ( technology ) I'VE ( i have )
16 SCRAMBLE
Namely, to walk at leisure or buzz off quickly? (8)

SC ( namely, scilicet ) RAMBLE ( walk at leisure )
17 DIAMANTE
Girl overturned something laid down for decoration (8)

DIAM ( girl = MAIID, reversed ) ANTE ( something laid down, poker term )
19 CHANGE
Transformation conveyed by archangel (6)

hidden in "..arCHANGEl"
20 ARARAT
Two artists coming in at a landing-stage (6)

[ RA RA ( two artists ) ] in AT
22 HOOTS
Cries that may express Jock’s annoyance (5)

double def

8 comments on “Financial Times 16,971 by BRADMAN”

  1. I too struggled with EVER SO and ARMPIT (my LOI despite seeing MP and PIT).
    Otherwise, everything was present and correct though it took a while to see some, like PARTERRE, as I was hellbent on trying to fit in one of the seven deadlies. Still in this quadrant, I liked RUMBA for its apt simplicity. SCRAMBLE, COWBOY and BLINKERED were also appreciated.
    Thanks to Bradman for a tough but fair grid and Turbolegs for the unravelling.

  2. I didn’t find this too difficult, but couldn’t parse EVER SO either. I remembered VERSO for ‘page of writing’ but couldn’t work out what ‘(not right!)’ was doing, having forgotten that VERSO referred to the text on the left page of a bound, open book v. “recto” for the right. Figuring out the crossing DIAMANTÉ also took a bit of work. I did recognise the RIT in ARMPIT and ICHOR from previous crosswords.

    Does ARARAT refer to the mountain as being the mythical ‘landing-stage’ of Noah’s Ark? If so, “mythical” is being generous! Maybe I’m missing something.

    I liked the BAN GOUT and RE MORSE.

    Thanks to Bradman and Turbolegs

  4. This all went in pretty rapidly except for a time stuck on what I had decided must be “even so” (verso with the R removed but leaving a problematic stray N) until the penny dropped. Otherwise, all good and agreeable – I liked BANG OUT.

  6. We solved this fairly quickly with no real problems apart ftom ARMPIT, our LOI which we only saw once we’d got PARTERRE, although having got BANG OUT from the definion we took ages to see the parsing and could have kicked ourselves when we saw it. The long answers were pretty much write-ins for us.
    EVER SO was our CoD – very neat!
    Thanks, Bradman and Turbolegs.

  7. There were one or two I couldn’t get my head round yesterday afternoon but the overnight brain reset helped and I finished it this morning, sitting in the sun with my breakfast coffee.
    I also had trouble with those clues and initially went down the EVEN SO line convincing myself that “not right” indicated the substitution. That was when I had a hard look at what “verso” meant and that then raised a smile.
    A thoroughly enjoyable exercise, so thanks Bradman. Thanks for the rational explanations Turbolegs.

  8. Thanks Bradman and Turbolegs
    Exactly on my average time, across four shortish sessions, and found it a good challenge. EVER SO was the only one that I didn’t parse properly – going with [R]EVERSO, an alternative to VERSO and with a neat removal of R (right) but unfortunately didn’t account for English.
    Liked the two long down clues and the two long across clues.
    Finished in the SW corner with ALMSHOUSE (where I did try to look for something extra), DIAMANTE (pretty simple in hindsight, but well misdirected) and BANG OUT (another cute clue).

Comments are closed.