Financial Times 17,042 by FALCON

19 comments on “Financial Times 17,042 by FALCON”

1. Ha, ha, very good, Teacow re 25a! Enjoyably straight-forward, as you say, though 21d eluded me (obvious now). Thought a pangram was in the offing and this helped with my favouites – 8d and 15a – but it was not to be.
   Thanks to Falcon and Teacow.

2. Thanks for the blog , must be a day off for the carthorse, a lot of neat and concise clues here.
   Our musicians may not be happy with CRESCENDO .
   A BLUE MOON occurs seven times every nineteen years, rare enough I suppose.

3. I agree with the above . A relatively easy solve . I doubt it would have been so easy without the obvious long anagrams . I had forgotten that “i” is the symbol for current. Thanks to setter and to faultless blogger.

4. Good to be greeted with a reminder of the great ‘Herb Elliot’ at 1a; I’m sure he would have won more gold medals if he hadn’t retired at such a young age after the Rome Olympics, which was not quite, but almost, his ‘last run’.

   Pleasant puzzle, though FRIEZE may have held me up if I hadn’t fortunately seen it straight away. Yes, proper musicians don’t like CRESCENDO for ‘climax’ but it’s in at least one dictionary, qualified by “figurative”. I learnt that a WARBLER can be a type of ‘whistle’.

   Thanks to Falcon and Teacow

5. WordPlodder @4. I also learnt that the Swiss Warbler is the world’s smallest musical instrument . You can buy one on the Internet. Easy to play too.

6. Thanks SM @5. Not exactly something you can picture a heavy metal band playing!

7. Wow! I quite understand Teacow@6. The warbler would definitely not be suitable.

8. I was held up in the SE corner trying to fit in K, Q and V but found that none of them were there. Good Monday fare. Are we in Florida only four hours ahead of you now? Thanks Falcon and Teacow

9. Oops, I meant “behind”.

10. Really glad someone else remembers the great Herb Elliot—unbeaten iirc over a mile or 1500m after the age of 17!

11. A pleasant diversion apart from two of my pet hates: ‘period of time’ and misuse of ‘crescendo’ (the dictionary acceptance of it as ‘figurative’ was evidently contributed by Carroll’s Humpty Dumpty).

12. Others have already, quite justifiably commented on the misuse of crescendo.

    In the same spirit – a ghetto, horrible thing that it is, doesn’t necessaily mean slum. It means an area where an ethnic or religious group is confined. Some ghettos through force of circumstances and the intention of the oppressors may become slums but ghetto and slum are not and should not be victim-blaming synonyms. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghetto

13. Thanks Falcon for a pleasant crossword. I liked CHIEFTAIN and APOPLEXY in particular.
    I also thought that GHETTO and slum were not quite the same. Often ghetto’s have unintended benefits where slums do not. When my Italian ancestors emigrated to Pennsylvania they were not permitted to live in Bangor, a predominantly German town and they were forced into their own enclave which they named Roseto after their town in Italy. The side effect was a tightly bonded community that contributed to their longevity and progress. While not excusing oppression it made an interesting study and coined the phrase the Roseto Effect.
    https://www.unimedliving.com/living-medicine/illness-and-disease/the-roseto-effect-a-lesson-on-the-true-cause-of-heart-disease.html

14. I agree that ghetto and slum are not the same, although there would be a substantial overlap on the Venn diagram. I confess that I have never understood (and still don’t) how “slum” and “ghetto” are victim-blaming words.

    The resilience of people, especially immigrants, is remarkable, as Tony’s example illustrates. It sounds like his ancestors, while ghettoized, refused to be victimized.

    Thanks, Falcon and Teacow for the fun.

15. Thanks Falcon and Teacow
    11ac: Clearly enough people are using the word “crescendo” with the meaning “climax” that this has now become one of the standard meanings of the word in English. This is how living languages work.

16. Thanks Falcon and Teacow. Minor quibble, I parsed 28a as WE + (TURN)* + S[ensibl]E rather than (WE TURN)* + S[ensibl]E, but I guess it makes no diff. A very smooth and enjoyable solve.

17. Enjoyable and not too difficult. My favourite was REMAINDER. I learnt today that a box is a tree. On the other side of the world, I’d never heard of Broadmoor. And strictly speaking a crescendo isn’t a climax — possibly a lead-up to a climax.

18. John@8/9: Yes, until the UK goes on Summer Time on the last Sunday in March (27 this year). Then the time difference will go back to five hours.

    For some reason, we Yanks refuse to synchronize our use of DST with Summer Time in Europe. It wreaks havoc with airline schedules.

19. Thanks Falcon and Teacow
    Playing catch up again and can remember this being a pretty straightforward solve with my last in, BROADMOOR, being only one of two that I hadn’t seen before – easy enough though with all of the crossers and clear word play. The other was that WARBLER whistle that was entered from the bird alone.
    Liked my first in TARRAGON with its reference to our Herb cleverly misdirecting away from the real definition. Also enjoyed putting APOPLEXY together.

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