Financial Times 17,019 by ZAMORCA

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A decent midweek-morning brain-waker…

Solid stuff, nothing too effortful. I have a couple of quibbles, neither serious. Oh, and it’s a pangram, which helped here and there. Thanks, Zamorca.

picture of the completed grid

ACROSS
1 BUMBLE
Faff about with mike, interrupting popular singer (6)
M[ike] (radio code) in (Michael) BU.BLE, Canadian vocalist.
4 SPOTLESS
Impeccable Selby beginning to sink fewer balls? (8)
1st of ‘S{elby}’ then ‘POT LESS’ = ‘sink fewer balls’ in e.g. snooker.
9 ON AIR
Rude Croatian act’s cut for broadcasting (2,3)
Anagram (‘rude’) of ‘cROatIAN’ minus ACT.
10 JALAPENOS
Jack needs a drink with nose running after hot peppers (9)
J[ack] + A + LAP (to ‘drink’) + anagram (‘running’) of NOSE.
11 WITNESS
Women’s group posted about Sodha’s leader in Observer (7)
W[omen’s] I[nstitute] + reversal of SENT + 1st of S{odha}.
12 CUISINE
Prompt to describe one’s current cooking style (7)
CU.E (‘prompt’) around 1’S + I (symbol for ‘current’)
13 REEK
Kedgeree known to possess a strong smell (4)
Hidden in ‘kedgeREE Known’.
14 STRONGLY
Mightily in error heading off to follow holy woman (8)
wRONGLY (‘in error’), without 1st, follows S[ain]T (‘holy woman’).
17 LEAVE OFF
Stop! Holiday’s cancelled (5,3)
i.e., your leave has been withdrawn. I had ‘break off’ until the crossers.
19 QUIN
One in five question tax return (4)
QU[estion] + reversal of N[ational] I[nsurance].
22 BASMATI
Bit stressed when Mum’s involved making rice (7)
Anagram (‘stressed’) of BIT surrounds AS MA (‘when Mum’)
24 CRECHES
Credit energies church put into opening of Sunday nurseries (7)
CR[edit] then CH[urch] put into 2x E[nergy] + 1st of S[unday].
25 CARETAKER
Building manager has job keeping track every now and then (9)
CARE.ER (‘job’) contains alternate letters of ‘TrAcK’.
26 HALVE
Husband’s beer-drinking volume cut by 50% (5)
H[usband] + AL.E around V[olume].
27 SUPPORTS
Champions ahead in game’s final minutes (8)
UP (‘ahead’) in S.PORT (‘game’) + last of ‘minuteS’.
28 GRAB AT
Snap up German artist’s “Creature of the Night” (4,2)
G[erman] + RA (‘artist’) + BAT (‘creature of the night’).
DOWN
1 BOOKWORM
Report new work’s in for keen reader (8)
BOO.M (noisy ‘report’) contains anagram (‘new’) of WORK.
2 MEANT WELL
Had good intentions but ultimately below average with skill (5,4)
MEAN (‘average’) on last of ‘buT’ + WELL (‘with skill’).
3 LARDER
Longer opening more difficult in East End food store (6)
1st of L{onger} + ‘ARDER (= ‘harder’, ‘more difficult’ as pronounced in Cockney).
5 POLICE OFFICER
Detective in charge cutting staff if force is reorganised (6,7)
I[n] C[harge] in POL.E (‘rod’) + anagram (‘reorganised’) of IF FORCE. Not sure the definition’s tight enough here.
6 TOPPING
Very good thing to have on pizza? (7)
Double definition.
7 ENNUI
World weariness that is mounting over news you heard (5)
I.E. (‘that is’) reversed upward around 2x N[ew] (‘news’) + U (homophone of ‘you’).
8 SUSSEX
Discover former partner has place on the South Coast (6)
SUSS (slang, to ‘discover’) + EX (‘former partner’).
10 JUST THE TICKET
Good man, on time, repairing kit etc is exactly what’s needed! (4,3,6)
JUST (‘good’) T[ime] + HE (‘man’) + anagram of KIT ETC.
15 YOUTH CLUB
Finally finish old cub hut refit to hold large group of kids (5,4)
Anagram (‘refit’) of last of ‘finallY’ + O[ld] + CUB HUT around L[arge].
16 ANTS NEST
Soldiers make home in colony (4,4)
ANTS (‘soldiers’) + NEST (to ‘make home’). Not overly cryptic.
18 ADAPT TO
Conform with modern times to fit in (5,2)
A[nno] D[omini] (‘modern times’) + TO, around APT (‘fit’)
20 ABACUS
Top level coach keeps account with an old-fashioned calculator (6)
A (‘top level’) + B.US (‘coach’) surround AC[count].
21 ZEPHYR
Unknown prey scattered and hard to intercept in wind (6)
Z (mathematical ‘unknown’) + anagram (‘scattered’) of PREY around H[ard].
23 SCRAP
Little bit of a brawl (5)
Double def.

13 comments on “Financial Times 17,019 by ZAMORCA”

  1. A bit of a mixed bag for me this one. I agree that 5d could do with “detective maybe” or some such. 26a doesn’t work for me. “Beer drinking volume” could clue ALVE but the hyphen ruins this. “Beer-drinking” means the thing that follows drinks beer. I have seen this hyphen device used correctly many times in the past but not here.

  2. This week’s proving to be gentle so far with another quick solve courtesy of Zamorca.
    Rather liked 1a (though ‘faff’ may be tricky for non-Brits).
    I agree with Grant that the ‘colony’ is not very cryptic and needed his help for my half-parsed CARETAKER and JALAPENOS.
    The ‘n’ is missing, though, from 12a, for which I had CU.E and IS IN (one’s/one is current).
    Thanks to Zamorca and Grant.

  3. Another puzzle that was at the easier end of the spectrum. However, BU.BLE was way out of my musical range. Well done Grant to know this one and thanks to both for a pleasant Tuesday. Must be some tough times to come.

  4. Believing there was a pangram helped me with my LOI’s 3d and 1a, particularly as I hadn’t heard go Buble! But for 3d I knew there had to be a “D”.

  5. A pretty quick solve for me also.

    LOI Bookworm and Bumble. How I missed bookworm for so long I don’t know.

    Thanks for helping with the parsing of Youth club – I thought there was a mistake in the clue because of the absence of a Y – until you explained where it came from.

  6. I agree with most of what was said above. “Faff” was a new word to me, and I’ve only seen QUIN once before (in a cryptic puzzle, naturally). Fortunately, I was familiar with Michael Bublé; he’s probably better known in North America than in the UK.

    Hovis@1: one of the first rules I was taught when I learned to solve cryptics is “ignore the punctuation”. I applied that rule to 26a. On the other hand, sometimes a setter throws a curve and makes the punctuation part of the fodder — and once in a while it is even the meaning.

  7. I consider a hyphen more than just punctuation that can be ignored in the cryptic reading. Essentially, beer-drinking is a one-word adjective. A beer-drinking individual is an individual who drinks beer, not the reverse.

  8. We fairly romped through this; fortunately we had heard of Bublé.
    In the clue for 4ac, ‘Selby’ refers to Mark Selby, current World Snooker Champion, thus contributing to the surface.
    In 12ac we wondered at first about the N but then we saw ‘current’ as the adjective and hence ‘in’
    Lots to like, so no real favourite.
    Thanks, Zamorca and Grant.

  9. Thanks Zamorca and Grant
    A slightly quicker solve than yesterday done in an awake part of the night – a perfect puzzle for someone just starting out on the FT crossword journey I would have thought.
    Agreeing with Ed@6 on the hyphen – I reckon it is probably a little less forgiving than ignoring commas, full stops and dashes and would rank it with the use of capital letters to mislead – the clue worked OK for me.
    Finished at the bottom with GRAB AT (a little tricky to see and parse), YOUTH CLUB and ADAPT TO (but just because I was filling all the across clues in first).

  10. Thanks Zamorca and Grant. The pangram helped with my last ones in, 19a QUIN and 16d ANTS NEST. I figured 19a had to begin with Q, but hadn’t heard the word; where I’m from, one of five children of the same birth is a quint, not a quin. And not being in the UK, I couldn’t figure out why NI would be “tax”. But looking up quin in a dictionary and then googling “NI tax” helped. The crosser N then determined that the nesting soldiers were ants rather than bees. Agree with the general sentiment that 16d was a weak clue, but I enjoyed the puzzle nevertheless, with 10a JALAPEÑOS getting my vote for the COD.

  12. Bujji @11 The X in 8d SUSSEX and the J in 10a/d immediately made me suspect a pangram. Besides, if memory serves, Zamorca’s puzzles are often pangrams.

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