Financial Times 17,161 by SLORMGORM

24 comments on “Financial Times 17,161 by SLORMGORM”

1. Thanks for the blog, very enjoyable set of clues as usual from this setter. For 11Ac what is the actual link between the words ? Can our French speakers help please ?

2. I first had 4d as ‘Bartender’ which had me scratching my head for 15ac until 18ac made me see the light, as it were!

   According to Wiki it seems Brasserie comes from the French word for Brewery and has no etymological link with Brassiere which was originally a French terms for a child’s undershirt…

   Thanks setter and blogger for a fun Monday offering.

3. Enjoyable and not too taxing, with a fair number of smiles and only one or two groans. A few Britishisms I keep forgetting — including RE for soldiers and MOTS. We don’t have plonkers here, but I vaguely remember having heard it in some television shows. Is “pi” an abbreviation of “pious”?

4. Teacow gives an apt description of this fun grid from Slormgorm. PLONKER and URALS were favourites.
   Steven is right, ‘brasser’ is the French verb to brew. Quite where we get the French-sounding brassiere from, I couldn’t say as ‘bra’ is ‘ le soutien-gorge’ in French (literally ‘throat-supporter’, ‘gorge’ being an old literary term for ‘chest’).
   Thanks both to Slormgorm and Teacow.

5. Found this at etymonline:

   brassiere (n.)
   “form-fitting undergarment to support a woman’s breasts,” by 1902, a euphemistic borrowing in the garment trade, from French brassière “child’s chemise; shoulder strap” (17c.), from Old French braciere “arm guard” (14c.), from bras “an arm,” from Latin bracchium “an arm,” from Greek brakhion “an arm”

6. Many thanks Steven and Diane , every day I like to learn something.

7. Thanks for the discussion above re the non-etymologically related BRASSIERE and “brasserie”; something I’ve learnt too.

   Enjoyable puzzle with an initial “bartender” for 4d holding me up as well. I had to think about how MOTS = ‘services’ and for some reason STATEMENT was slow in coming, even with BARPERSON in.

   I’ll join the fans of PLONK and URALS.

   Thanks to Slormgorm and Teacow

8. Sorry, Steven, I missed your mention of the child’s undershirt”.

9. Thanks Slormgorm and Teacow
   13ac: I think “operating” is part of the indication for ACT, leaving “with great precision” as a perfectly good= definition for EXACT. After all, a Bill (before parliament) is a proposed new law. It becomes an Act when it is fully approved and is therefore operating.

10. An MOT is not a service.

    It is a test.

    That is what the T stands for.

    No servicing is done while is car is having its MOT.

    I also thought that “end of day” would be Y, but accept it could be the D as well.

    I found this a bit trickier than most

    Thanks

11. 19A was obvious from the definition and that I had P_O_K from the down clues but, like Geoff DU, I couldn’t work out where the synonym for “idiot” came from.

    I did like “DIE” for “one spotted” … after I had solved it.

    As a musician, I had exhausted all singers from “bass” to “baritone” before I finally solved 10A.

    Re 10A: my memories as a child growing up in England, we always used the term “Robin Redbreast” or just “Robin”, rather than the second word on its own.

12. Aren’t we overthinking 11a. From the clue, I see no reason for there to be an etymological link between the two words. “Cheap wine” beginning with “P” had to be “PLONK” but needed Teacow to parse it. Thanks both.

13. Isn’t the connection between brassiere and brasserie that the contents of both are sometimes drunk?

    As for 19, I couldn’t parse it even with the crossers – so now know what I am,

14. John@12 I was not bothered about the clue , it is fine. I was just interested in the words themselves.

15. Moly@10 re 6dn: “at end of” here means “following”.

16. I don’t know if the TV show “Only Fools and Horses” was ever aired Down Under or Stateside but the word ‘plonker’ was often aimed at the character Rodney.

17. @ Pelham. 15.

    Thank you for explaining this. Now understood.

18. This was fun to solve, but MOT is not synonymous with service and bill is not synonymous with act. Also, isn’t it time that setters stopped using soldiers = men?

19. I am glad I found this site a few weeks ago. Thanks to all involved!

    I buy the FT most days here in Brussels and spend a happy half hour in my local Brasserie (yes, really) with a coffee and croissant doing the crossword.

    This site has been a mercy for me when answers elude me, and hence (and hitherto) so did sleep!

    Merci beaucoup!

20. Thomasina@18: I agree that bill is not synonymous with act. However, to clarify the point I made at comment 9, I do not think it is too much of a stretch to use “Bill operating” to refer to a bill that has taken effect after being passed into law, and therefore a bill that has become an act.

21. Thanks Slormgorm for a satisfying crossword. My favourites were URALS, OMAHA, HUNGARY, and EMOTIONAL. I could not parse PLONK, not knowing that an idiot was a “plonker.” (It seems the British have a wealth of words that either deal with drunkeness or stupidity — Newcastle aside, I really haven’t encountered much of either in my travels there.)
    [By the way there was an excellent cryptic in Saturday’s Wall Street Journal. See my blog entry under Vulcan’s crossword for the description and link.]

22. Thanks Tony@21 I will see if I can get a paper copy of this. Azed does a similar thing with Spoonerisms and does tell us which type of clue is which .

23. Roz @22: If you have access to a printer you can download the pdf and print it.

24. Thanks Tony, it means a visit to the IT office if I can face it, I will have to take my Paddington Bear with me.

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