Financial Times 17,263 by GURNEY

GURNEY starts the week off…

I very much enjoyed this puzzle. Plenty of great clues and surfaces. Nothing too challenging, though it took me a while to parse 23d.

Thanks GURNEY!

picture of the completed grid

ACROSS

1. Recap, standard, covering rotating machine (7)

CAPSTAN

[re]CAP STAN[dard] (covering)

5. Drama to upset Ring performer? (7)

MATADOR

(DRAMA TO)* (*upset)

9. Friendly parent still around (5)

MATEY

MA (parent) + (YET)< ( still, <around)

10. Pub artist with something to chew, a fish (9)

BARRACUDA

BAR (pub) + RA (artist) with CUD (something to chew) + A

11. The very thing, popular — period railway journey plan (9)

ITINERARY

IT (the very thing) + IN (popular) + ERA (period) + RY (railway)

12. Soak, high (5)

STEEP

Double definition

13. Leave catching start of show, live (5)

EXIST

EXIT (leave) catching S[how] (start of)

15. Top, recently acquired, in a state! (3,6)

NEW JERSEY

NEW (recently acquired) + JERSEY (top)

18. Building employee unfortunately egocentric, forgetting time (9)

CONCIERGE

(EGOCEN[t]RIC (forgetting T (time))* (*unfortunately)

19. Swimmer heading away from unpleasant smell (5)

TENCH

[s]TENCH (unpleasant smell, heading away)

21. “All About Me” — oddly a collector’s item (5)

ALBUM

A[l]L [a]B[o]U[t] M[e] (oddly)

23. Unit’s total ban I revised (9)

BATTALION

(TOTAL BAN I)* (*revised)

25. Get at ship’s exotic food (9)

SPAGHETTI

(GET AT SHIP)* (*exotic)

26. Small charge for turf (5)

SWARD

S (small) + WARD (charge)

27. Cunning bargain, that (not half)! (7)

STEALTH

STEAL (bargain) + TH[at] (not half)

28. Plant using drinks, English (7)

GINSENG

GINS (drinks) + ENG (English)

DOWN

1. Put together polemic for change (7)

COMPILE

(POLEMIC)* (*for change)

2. Privileged Roman pair I can’t reform (9)

PATRICIAN

(PAIR I CANT)* (*reform)

3. Herb that’s a surprise to see brought up in article (5)

THYME

(MY)< (that's a surprise, <to see brought up) in THE (article)

4. Important person drops by casualty in US, easy decision (2-7)

NO-BRAINER

NOB (important person) + RAIN (drops) by ER (casualty in US)

5. Join Republicans in 31 days (5)

MARRY

RR (republicans) in MAY (31 days)

6. Managed some inmates initially in shelter not intended to last (9)

TRANSIENT

(RAN (managed) + S[ome] I[nmates] (initially)) in TENT (shelter)

7. This leads to advantage in court (5)

DEUCE

Cryptic definition

8. Have another go at harvest work (7)

REAPPLY

REAP (harvest) + PLY (work)

14. Celebrating uniform speed in test (9)

TRIUMPHAL

(U (uniform) + MPH (speed)) in TRIAL:(test)

16. Lively girls went for sport (9)

WRESTLING

(GIRLS WENT)* (*lively)

17. Extremely silly to replace leader of show group (9)

SYNDICATE

S[ill]Y (extremely) to replace head of [i]NDICATE (show)

18. Check as sibling briefly shows car part (7)

CHASSIS

CH (check) + AS + SIS (sibling)

20. Deceived about no good own goal, miserable (7)

HANGDOG

HAD (deceived) about (N (no) + G (good)) + OG (own goal)

22. Support couple (5)

BRACE

Double definition

23. Set timer wife’s seen as second-rate (5)

BATCH

[w]ATCH (timer, W (wife) seen as B (second rate))

24. Crime clergyman quietly ignored (5)

ARSON

[p]ARSON (clergyman, P (quietly) ignored)

12 comments on “Financial Times 17,263 by GURNEY”

How nice. Enjoyable, no obscurities, no unfamiliar initialisms, and no quibbles. Life’s good.

I struggled with 23D, not wanting to insert an “I” as the second letter to give a derogative term for a “second-rate wife”. Luckily, I finally twigged to “set” as the (rather loose) definition.

Ooops… I forgot to thank Teacow. Great work.

Thanks for the blog, very neat and concise set ( or batch ) of clues.
I liked the lively girls WRESTLING.

Enjoyable and not too taxing, although we initially had ‘drunk’ for 12ac (‘soak’ as a slang term for a drunk) until 6dn put us right. No single favourite but we liked CONCIERGE, NO-BRAINER, DEUCE and SYNDICATE among others.
Thanks, Deuce and Teacow.

Thanks Gurney, that was enjoyable. The SE corner took a bit of trial-and-error but everything fell into place in good time. Favourites included MATADOR, EXIST, STEALTH, TRIUMPHAL, and SYNDICATE. Thanks Teacow for the blog.

23 d foxed me, Batch being the likely answer, though I couldn’t see why.

Straightforward (nice) but I don’t like abbreviations such as no = N, check = CH.

Celebrating does not mean Triumphal to me. It means Triumphing. Celebrational means Triumphal. But I can’t find celebraional in Chambers. ???. So I must have made it up.