Financial Times 17,145 by AARDVARK

14 comments on “Financial Times 17,145 by AARDVARK”

1. Joy! First time I’ve completed an Aardvark without cheating. Knowing this setter’s penchant for double letters helped me across the line…that and the fruitless pursuit of a pangram.
   This was a real pleasure to solve with so many neat surfaces and high-scoring scrabble letters. Really hard to pick a favourite but I’ll nominate 2d for the sneaky ‘parking sign’, 26a and 27a (devilishly well hidden).
   Not sure if there’s any particular significance or pattern in the double and, sometimes treble, letters but it was great fun to do regardless.
   Thanks to Aardvark and PeeDee (especially for parsing VULCAN).

2. Ah, PeeDee, I had VIZ (homophone from described) so thought it was a lipogram?

3. I had VIZ too so not a good day fo me.(so much for Top Tips)

4. Well spotted Diane, I have a mistake on 25ac. It should be VIZ. I will update the blog ASAP.

5. Came to a grinding halt after getting fewer than half out, so abandoned ship. I’ve conquered Aardvark’s previously, but mustn’t have been on the right wavelength today.

6. Thanks for the blog, do not like the grid , essentially four separate corners apart from the middle Q. I did like the clues though, a lot of clever ideas today, agree with Diane about the missing P in AQUARIUS.
   I am never bothered about things like pangrams but since it has been mentioned surely it would be easy to change RAW to JAW.

7. Hey, Geoff, you’re really letting we Aussies down by conceding defeat (insert smiley emoji here). I couldn’t really parse or explain every clue but I did manage to get it all correct: even 25A which I still don’t really understand. I also don’t understand why a “weasel” is a “shark” in 31A.

   Re 4A – it’s been a long time since I skied on snow but doesn’t “off-piste” have a particular meaning to untravelled snow? It doesn’t mean “outside the box”. In fact “outside the box” is a modern misinterpretation of “outside the nine dots”?

8. Not so gentle for me and I especially found the crossing VULCAN and VIZ hard to crack. Like Peter @7, I don’t see a (human) SHARK being the same as a WEASEL but I suppose they’re close enough in the sense of being contemptible. Similarly, OFF-PISTE went in with a shrug.

   Favourite was the surface for AQUARIUS.

   Thanks to Aardvark and PeeDee

9. Peter & WordPlodder – that is interesting, over the years I have seen many people make similar comments on figurative meanings not having the same weight as literal meanings. A weasel is certainly not a shark.

   My personal take on such is that this cryptic crossword is word puzzle, not a zoology puzzle. What is present in the clue is the word “weasel” and the word “shark”, not an actual shark or a weasel. The words are not constrained to the physical limits that animals are.

   Unlike a physical weasel the word “weasel” can adopt many shapes and forms, it can represent multiple entities both concrete and abstract. It can represent more than one thing at the same time, it can even have contradictory concurrent meanings (think of how a pun works).

10. Peter@7 – I have come across ‘off-piste’ & ‘outside the box’ used in business jargon for something that is outside of the normal parameters or practices, so in that context they are used synonymously.

    Thanks to blogger & setter.

11. Thanks Aardvark for many clever clues with my top marks going to MAVERICK, AQUARIUS, TROMBONE, ATLANTIS, and SCORED. It was not the easiest crossword but the multitude of readable surfaces made it a joyful one for me. I missed VIZ so thanks PeeDee for the help.

12. I enjoyed this one and all solved correctly without too much fuss.

    I agree 25D Bull’s eye is UL but “eye” suggests one letter to me, not two. I can see eye meaning centre though, like eye of storm.

    Esp. liked Couscous and Aquarius.

13. Worst I’ve done in a month a while

    And my council estate upbringing always thought it was a shoe-in

14. I believe there is a family of weasel sharks, Hemigaleidae, which may help explain 31A. Fun puzzle.

    Thanks to Aardvark and PeeDee.

Comments are closed.