Financial Times 17,181 by GOZO

16 comments on “Financial Times 17,181 by GOZO”

1. Having battened down the hatches for another storm on its way here, this themed offering from Gozo fit the bill (pun intended) perfectly.
   Happily, I’m familiar with the topic and this was a particularly good thematic grouping. I liked the grid’s pattern too which expedited the solve. Of these, I liked 2, 10 and 28, especially. 25 was another of my picks, along with the symmetry of cardinal points in 20 and 21.
   Thanks for the well-crafted and witty exercise, Gozo, and to PeeDee for explaining the parsing of 11 – mine just wouldn’t fly.

2. A pleasant divertissement today. Most of the birds were pretty straightforward, although there were a few doozies in the SW quarter (I’d never heard of twites, whinchats, or tragopans). I’d initially entered TOMTIT for 25a/13a, which didn’t help me with 25d. 28a didn’t seem right to me: I couldn’t work out what was meant to be the anagrind. TA for volunteers in 23d stumped me, Google was no help, and I now see it’s one of the many British initialisms that I can never remember, but I did manage to recall the National Union of Teachers. And my knowledge of the locations of Devon, Cornwall and Tyneside has been enhanced.

3. Thanks Gozo and PeeDee

   Nothing personal, PeeDee, but it’s a shame Pierre didn’t get to blog this. He would have been in seventh heaven!

4. Wow – three new birds for me today: and I don’t mean that in any romantic sense. Whinchat, Blackcap and Tragopan.

   First in was 12A, as “roue” usually signifies “rake”. My French lessons from school made 17A pretty easy.

   I’m not too sure how 8D equates “relish” with “palate”. “Palate” is a noun which means “taste”, and “relish” is noun meaning a sauce; or a verb meaning “to like”. Can one say “I have a relish for something” that is the same as “I have a palate for something”? Hmmm…

   Re 24D: isn’t the collective noun for porpoises a “pod”. Surely a “school” refers to fish and porpoises are not fish.

   Anyway, thanks PeeDee

5. Peter @4 – Chambers lists

   palate
   noun
   1…
   4. Relish

   I can’t help you with an example usage. Usually the OED provides some extra context but in this case is doesn’t help at all.

   Re SCHOOL Chambers lists “A shoal of fish, whales or other swimming animals”

6. I met a few new feathered friends here – BLACKCAP and WHINCHAT – and was reacquainted with a couple of long-forgotten ones – TWITE and TRAGOPAN. I couldn’t work out was going on with the wordplay for the latter and also put the G and the P in the wrong places. PALATE went in from the wordplay as I didn’t know the ‘relish’ sense either.

   This turned out to be not the “enter unknown words from wordplay” slog I’d been half expecting and it was satisfying to be able to recognise most of the thematic answers.

   Thanks to Gozo and PeeDee

7. Thanks, PeeDee, for the “palate” explanation. As I have commented before, I don’t know when Chambers became such an authority: when I left England in 1965, the definitive dictionary was the OED. I still have my original copy from about 1969.

8. For what it’s worth, Collins also gives ‘relish’ as a meaning for ‘palate’.

9. description for 14A needs a tweak.

   NUisANCE (pest) missing (out) L (left)

   should be :-

   NUisANCE (pest) missing (out) “is”

10. Peter @7 : I guess this may partly be the influence of Azed in The Observer, who has specifically recommended Chambers for many years. Chambers is particularly strong on the obscure dialect and Scottish words which Azed uses so much.

11. Thanks PeeDee, i had the same query on 28A. nearly fell foul of 31A having STORMS (being out of sorts leading to someone storming off) but a count of themesters got me thinking again.
    Re 8D i have the following from an online dictionary with palate as a verb:
    “i was ill and could not palate much of anything” and “i find your suggestion hard to palate” – I think “relish” could just about be substituted there. I did wonder if there was an obscure bird that I was missing as I hadn’t spotted the subtlety of the special instructions in respect of 16d!
    Anyway this was a pleasant diversion, always good to be reminded of the song of a Blackcap, thanks Gozo (and thanks again Peedee as I didn’t know the pudding item).

12. Thanks for spotting that Mark A. Fixed now.

13. Thanks Gozo. There were many new birds to me — DOTTEREL, GODWIT, WHINCHAT, TRAGOPAN, NIGHTJAR, PEN, TWITES, and WHEATEAR — so this became an exercise in parsing a plausible answer and then checking it in Collins rather than a pleasant romp. The fact that I could figure out as much as I did indicates how well Gozo writes clues. Thanks PeeDee for the blog.

14. It took a couple of goes to complete, as I got stuck in the bottom left hand corner for a while having never heard of a Tragopan (the only bird in the crossword I didn’t know). I also took too long to spot the blindingly obvious Twites. I also mistakenly had the inexplicable Tom Tit for a while until Godwit jumped out.

    Thank you very much for explaining the second culinary definition of Blackcap

15. Diane @1: It’s late but I want to acknowledge the cleverness of the avian puns in your post.

16. Ha ha, thanks Tony. Can never resist a corny pun.

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