Financial Times 16,988 by SLORMGORM

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The first Monday FT in a while, courtesy of SLORMGORM

A belated happy new year to you all!

A trickier than usual offering from SLORMGORM I thought, with 16a causing me some trouble. A decent selection of clues with a couple of nicely surfaced anagrams at 7d and 10d. 15d was probably my favourite.

Thanks SLORMGORM!

picture of the completed grid

ACROSS
1. One delivering numbers in a theatre (12)
ANAESTHETIST

Cryptic definition

Number being a thing that numbs and theatre being an operating theatre,

8. Talk tediously about housing old Lance with Barb (7)
HARPOON

HARP ON (talk tediously about) housing O (old)

9. I’m Slormgorm and about to save small duck (7)
IMMERSE

IM + ME (Slormgorm) and RE (about) to save S (small)

11. Records by extremely diminutive soprano (7)
MINUTES

MINUTE (extremely diminutive) + S (soprano)

12. Longer piece from Yes and Queen enthrals composer (7)
YEARNER

(Y (yes) and ER (queen)) enthrals ARNE (composer, Thomas Arne, composer of “Rule, Britannia!”)

13. Some feel Enedina is a woman’s name (5)
ELENE

[fe]EL ENE[dina] (some)

14. Come around late and serve Pole crackers (9)
OVERSLEEP

(SERVE POLE)* (*crackers)

16. Marine talks wildly about navy swimmers (3,6)
SEA RAVENS

SEA (marine) + RAVES (talks wildly) about N (navy)

19. Month cut short on cold island (5)
CAPRI

APRI[l] (month, cut short) on C (cold)

21. Blurt out old allegation (7)
EXCLAIM

EX (old) + CLAIM (allegation)

23. Love’s frontman in film with X-Factor singer (4,3)
COAL TIT

L[ove] (frontman) in COAT (film) with IT (x-factor)

24. Usual place to put back out for a climber? (7)
PARVENU

PAR (usual) + VENU[e] (place, to put back out)

25. Don’t cross a ballot paper with a black mark (7)
ABSTAIN

A + B (black) + STAIN (mark)

26. Figurative novel or a metal chip (12)
METAPHORICAL

(OR A METAL CHIP)* (*novel)

DOWN
1. Organise a headliner for Royal Variety (7)
ARRANGE

A + R[oyal] (headliner for) + RANGE (variety)

2. Pole tucking into beer is a missionary (7)
APOSTLE

POST (pole) tucking into ALE (beer)

3. Rock show’s opening with Mick Jagger? (9)
SANDSTONE

S[how] (opening) + AND (with) + STONE (Mick Jagger?)

4. Frighteningly dangerous as King Kong? (5)
HAIRY

Double (cryptic) definition

5. He fought Jerry from 1940 with men and beasts (7)
TOMCATS

TOM (he fought Jerry from 1940, Tom and Jerry) with CATS (men)

6. Unknown visitor finally polished off rum (7)
STRANGE

STRANGE[r] (unknown visitor, finally polished off)

7. One who cleans stack of my pieces when playing (7,5)
CHIMNEY SWEEP

(MY PIECES WHEN)* (*playing)

10. Extremely shrill patients girl sorted out (3-9)
EAR-SPLITTING

(PATIENTS GIRL)* (*sorted out)

15. Simple church song is “A Resting Place” (4,5)
EASY CHAIR

EASY (simple) + CH (church) + AIR (song)

17. A swear word said out loud could be damn (7)
ACCURSE

“a curse” (a swear word, “said out loud”)

18. A hobbling lawyer in a Texan tree- lined walk (7)
ALAMEDA

A + LAME (hobbling) + DA (lawyer, Texan)

19. Catholic girl in charge is outstanding (7)
CLASSIC

C (catholic) + LASS (girl) + IC (in charge)

20. Booby trap and mine everyone gets around fine (7)
PITFALL

(PIT (mine) and ALL (everyone)) gets around F (fine)

22. You must open insect trap (5)
MOUTH

U (you) must open MOTH (insect)

9 comments on “Financial Times 16,988 by SLORMGORM”

  1. Quite hard in places and I couldn’t solve COAL TIT, being thrown by the ‘frontman’. I did manage to get SEA RAVENS from the wordplay, though had never heard of them. Not exactly cute and cuddly. I also had trouble seeing that ‘damn’ was a verb to make ACCURSE work.

    Best bits were the misleading ‘Longer’ def at 12a and the surface and ‘climber?’ def for PARVENU.

    Thanks to Slormgorm and Teacow

  3. Thanks Slormgorm and Teacow
    Happy New Year too …
    Stared at this for ten minutes with not a thought to write in – the clues just read strangely for some reason. Put it down until this evening and then fairly ripped through it as I joined his wavelength.
    Lots of interesting and misleading clues and a girl’s name that I hadn’t come across at 13a. SEA RAVENS were also new creatures to me but with clear enough word play to work them out and then check them out – strange looking little devils. Did the opposite with COAL TIT that I have met in crosswords before and then had to work out the why.
    Finished in the NW corner with the girl, HARPOON and then what was the easiest clue in the puzzle, ARRANGE, well in hindsight.

  4. Thanks for the blog , lovely puzzle, lots of clever clues. Never heard of the name ELENE so I was glad it was a hidden clue. YEARNER was very neat.

  5. I was also briefly hoping for “soapstone”, which would have been rather witty, but it became obvious that it wouldn’t work….Slightly more challenging than Slormgorm’s norm, for me: a varied and satisfying puzzle.

  7. Thanks Slormgorm and Teacow
    Mark @6 re 13ac: This depends on views about the use of redundant words in “hidden” clues. If the answer were Edina, the word “feel” would play no part in the clue. Slormgorm usually responds to comments on his own puzzles, so it will be interesting to hear his views on this issue.
    Incidentally I had a different parsing of 12ac (ARNE in YE + R), but the one given by Teacow fits the clue far more neatly.

  8. Definitely on the more difficult end of Slormgorm’s spectrum for me — TOMCATS and COAL TIT never dropped and I used a word finder for several other clues. I did enjoy HARPOON, MINUTES, STRANGE, and MOUTH as well as the anagrams at 7d and 10d. Thanks to both.

  9. Many thanks to the cow for a lovely blog and to all who solved and commented.

    PB is correct that the convention is not to have superfluous words in hidden clues. I think one could make a case for using them, but it’s not something I would do currently …

    Cheers and hope to see you all next time around.

Comments are closed.