Financial Times 17,009 by STEERPIKE

16 comments on “Financial Times 17,009 by STEERPIKE”

1. Enjoyable, but with the reward of working out some not so easy parsing, eg NUMBSKULLS (good word) as mentioned by our blogger.

   I’m probably drawing a long bow, and any relationship between the words is serendipitous, but I wondered if there was a sort of “broadcasting charter” theme going on here with INFORM, EDUCATE, ENTERTAIN and DRAMA plus a few other possibly related words such as CHANNELS, LICENCE, GRANDSTAND and STRICTLY. To mix the metaphors and stretch the already long drawn bow to breaking point, those of a certain political persuasion could also include LEFTIE for (a) certain broadcaster(s)!

   Theme or not (let’s face it, probably not), good fun. Thanks to Steerpike and loonapick.

2. I think this is just my second Steerpike but this outing was as memorable as the first for all the right reasons.
   One half of it slipped in easily enough but the other half certainly did require some figuring out. I needed Loonapick’s assistance in fully parsing STRUTS, LANYARD and NUMBSKULLS. No such trouble with 11a for obvious reasons! I had ticks for so many: CHANNELS, CHEETAH, STRICTLY, WREN and for their neat simplicity, CALLOW and RWANDA.
   Hope to see more from this setter soon. Thanks to setter and blogger both.

3. Good spot, WP@1 – there is definitely a BBC theme in the puzzle.

4. Well spotted indeed, WordPlodder – see here

   Our mission is “to act in the public interest, serving all audiences through the provision of impartial, high-quality and distinctive output and services which inform, educate and entertain”.

5. Sorry, wrong link!
   https://www.bbc.com/aboutthebbc/governance/mission

6. Somehow or other, this setter’s name has passed me by up to now but I see from the archive that this is his/her fifth puzzle. Like Diane, I’m looking forward to the next one, as I thoroughly enjoyed this, even before the theme was pointed out – and now I’m even more impressed.

   I didn’t manage to parse NUMBSKULLS – I missed the ‘cull’ – and was diverted by the spelling of 14dn – I have only ever met BAPTISTRY – but I see it’s in all the dictionaries.

   I particularly admired the construction of 1dn STRICTLY and had the same ticks as Diane ticks, for the same reasons. I thought the surfaces throughout were ingenious, witty and very satisfying.

   I’m just cross with myself for missing the previous four puzzles!

   Many thanks (and commiserations 🙁 ) to loonapick and to Steerpike – here’s to the next one!

7. Id like to add my thanks to Wordplodder for highlighting an added level of entertainment in today’s grid.
   And, now that Eileen mentions a few other Steerpikes I missed, I feel I might have to root them out!

8. Thank you Loonapick as I had no idea what was going on around the M1 in ABOMINATE, thank goodness I couldn’t think of anything else to fit the crossers – hope you survive the office.
   Thanks Eileen for confirming the validity of BAPTISTERY, I was led all over the place trying to parse that one and that word did not show up on the diagrams of churches that I googled, but had to be right once I spotted the anagrist and has all the crossers.
   And thanks also WordPlodder for a great spot, only the other day I noted that another puzzle fulfilled a Reithian brief but of course missed the actual Reithian elements here entirely!
   I did have a couple of v minor quibbles/queries (nerd vs geek, harsh vs strict, lack of defn by eg ind in LEFTIE) but only the last held me up for any time.
   Thanks Steerpike and I would agree that earlier puzzles by this setter are worth seeking out.

9. Many thanks to Loonapick for the blog. I hope the return to the office is not proving to be too traumatic. Was very pleased to see that the theme was picked up on by Wordplodder in the first comment, as this was intended as a tribute to Auntie Beeb for her centenary year. Thanks to all for the kind comments. Will try to keep the puzzles coming!

10. Like Eileen and Gazzh, I initially had trouble with the second “e” in baptistery. My one failure today was “LEFTIE” as I was convinced that the definition was “communist newspaper” and never got past it. Thanks Loonapick and Steerpike.

11. John@10: Same here, plus I got stuck on the LE being at the end instead of the beginning. Otherwise a very satisfying solving experience. Thanks to both.

12. Thanks for the blog, another super puzzle from this setter.
    Well spotted WordPlodder@ 1, I will tenuously add TEST CARD and ADORED for Radio3 and 4.

13. Thanks Loonapick and Steerpike. Thoroughly enjoyed this. My loi were NUMBSKULLS, which went in unparsed, and BAPTISTERY, to figure out which I needed all the crossers. Good luck at the office!

14. Thanks Steerpike and loonapick
    [Certainly agree wrt work from home – it has enabled me to set up ‘offices’ in Melbourne, Inverloch, Maryborough and Noosa so far].
    As per others, found this another very enjoyable offering from this setter, although the theme would never have surfaced to my mind – so well done Wordplodder. A couple of new terms in BAPTISTERY and DRAY (used by itself as a name for a DRAY HORSE). Didn’t parse NUMBSKULLS apart from noting MB – but thinking of MBs (‘doctors’) and LL (‘students’) had me well and truly off the path. DRAY (‘horse’) held up the parsing of LANYARD for ages.
    Finally finished in about double the normal solve time with STRICTLY (probably my favourite word play), STRUTS (my second favourite) and the not so hard TEST (took ages to understand that the T was an abbreviation for Tesla).

15. Tesla = T

    Let’s just use any old word as an indicator of a single letter, why don’t we? Ridiculous.

16. Margaret @15
    Not ridiculous and not any old word. It is a standard abbreviation. From Chambers under tesla: “a derived SI unit, the unit of magnetic flux density (symbol T), equal to one weber per square metre”.

Comments are closed.