Financial Times 17,266 by FALCON

by

Falcon swoops in with an FT puzzle.

This would be a good puzzle for a beginner, as it wasn't overly difficult, and had a good range of clues and nothing terribly obscure. It was also a pangram, which I didn't actually notice until I had finished.

Thanks, Falcon.

ACROSS
1 KNAPSACK
Bag Kelvin put down by fire (8)

K (Kelvin) + put NAP ("down") by SACK ("fire")
5 KERNEL
Essential part of service in part of ship (6)

RN (Royal Navy, so "service") in KEEL ("part of ship")
10 SNAFFLE
Take the Spanish female supporters back (7)

<=(EL ("the" in "Spanish") + F (female) + FANS ("supporters")) [back]
11 OPTIMUM
Best to choose single mother (7)

OPT ("to choose") + I ("single") + MUM ("mother")
12 EXACT
Former deed, strictly accurate (5)

EX ("former") + ACT ("deed")
13 SUSTAINED
American brought in instead, unexpectedly went through (9)

US ("American") brought in to *(instead) [anag:unexpectedly]
14 ANTAGONISTIC
Hostile? Worker perhaps acting so, I suspect (12)

ANT ("worker, perhaps") + *(acting so i) [anag:suspect]
18 QUARTERSTAFF
Pole has lodgings next to river in Cardiff (12)

QUARTERS ("lodgings") next to TAFF ("river in Cardiff")
21 AVALANCHE
Runs away from cattle farm in a valley in flood (9)

R (runs, in cricket) away from (r)ANCH ("cattle farm") in A VALE ("valley")
23 UNCLE
Relative’s soiled article disposed of (5)

UNCLE(an) ("soiled", with AN ("article") disposed of)
24 RISOTTO
Stir too vigorously making rice dish (7)

*(stir too) [anag:vigorously]
25 OWN GOAL
Personal target in move that backfired? (3,4)

OWN ("personal") + GOAL ("target")
26 NUANCE
Sister outside a church in shade (6)

NUN ("sister") outside A + CE ("Church" of England)
27 ASSASSIN
Hit man when given cheek at work (8)

AS ("when") given SASS ("cheek") + IN ("at work")
DOWN
1 KISMET
Fate of king is settled (6)

K (king) + IS + MET ("settled")
2 AVATAR
Film a vessel on a river (6)

A + VAT ("vessel") on A + R (river)
3 SAFETY NET
Nasty, feet slipping – this should save you (6,3)

*(nasty feet) [anag:slipping]
4 CHELSEA TRACTOR
A four-by-four dodgy character stole (7,7)

*(character stole) [anag:dodgy]

For non-Brits, Chelsea tractor is a nickname for a 4×4 driven almost exclusively in an urban setting, typically by parents dropping kids off at school.
6 EXTRA
Spare more (5)

Double definition
7 NOMINATE
Mention a ridiculous name (8)

*(mention a) [anag:ridiculous]
8 LAME DUCK
Passenger to avoid following spicy meal (4,4)

DUCK ("to avoid") following *(meal) [anag:spicy]
9 JOBS FOR THE BOYS
Favouritism in the workplace some may interpret as sexist (4,3,3,4)

(not very) cryptic definition
15 INFLUENZA
Complaint in New Zealand advanced about alternative fuel (9)

IN + NZ (New Zealand) + A (advanced) about *(fuel) [anag:alternative]
16 SQUADRON
Small bike runs over large group of people (8)

S (small) + QUAD(bike) + R (runs, in cricket) + ON ("over")
17 MALAYSIA
Mali, say, a foreign country (8)

*(Mali say a) [anag:foreign]
19 ACROSS
A bad-tempered over (6)

A + CROSS ("bad-tempered")
20 MERLIN
Legendary magician’s falcon (6)

Double definition
22 ATTIC
Some latticework in room (5)

Hidden in [some] "lATTICework"

11 comments on “Financial Times 17,266 by FALCON”

  1. Thanks Loonapick, especially for the explanation of 27A. I parsed it thinking that “cheek” should be plural so wrote in “ass” and “ass” as the cheeks of an American bottom!

    Re 4D, here in Melbourne we have the equivalent as a Toorak Tractor.

  2. I missed the parsing of ASSASSIN too; no excuse, but IN for ‘at work’ didn’t occur to me and like Peter @1, I thought of ASS for ‘cheek’ rather than SASS. QUARTERSTAFF was another to go in unparsed, with the TAFF now added to the list of the UK rivers.

    Happy to see the pangram which helped with QUARTERSTAFF and then SQUADRON my last in.

    Thanks to Falcon and loonapick

  3. Quite enjoyable. Not sure why nap is down, and I didn’t think an avalanche was a flood. No other quibbles. As Peter says, Melbourne has its Toorak tractors, and I’ve forgotten what the Sydney equivalent is. And I’ve another British river to add to my list, which is getting awfully long!

  4. GDU@3
    Nap is a downy cloth; and avalanche and flood are both indications of something overwhelming “flood/avalanche of e-mails” for example.

  5. Thanks for the blog.

    I did not understand the sense in which “lame duck” = “passenger”? The clue was clear enough otherwise. Apparently in the UK, the expressions generally have the shared sense of someone who is (fecklessly) along for the ride? In the US, I have only ever seen “lame duck” used in the post-election sense, and “passenger” does not have any special meaning that I am familiar with.

    “Jobs for the boys” is also not a US expression. I figured that it would be something about “boys,” so the sense was clear enough, but I needed the pangram to look for the “j” in order to guess the unches in that one.

  6. Loonapick@4, I took “put down” and “nap” as referring to sleeping, without thinking much more about it, although that does not quite work, on reflection.

  7. Thanks Falcon and Loonapick. Here are the relevant definitions from Chambers 2014, which may help with a couple of the clues. I make no claim that Chambers is a particular authority for this puzzle.
    For 21ac: avalanche – an overwhelming influx (fig); flood – any great inflow or outflow, eg of light, tears of visitors.
    For 8dn: lame duck (found under duck[1]) – anything disabled; an inefficient or helpless person or organization [sic]; passenger – someone carried along by others’ efforts (fig).
    I think the general point to note is that words which have specific meanings are often used informally outside the context of that specific meaning. Loonapick @4 has of course given us a good example of a specific context in which the informal definitions of avalanche and flood coincide.

  8. A very pleasant and not too taxing solve.
    SNAFFLE, RISOTTO and CHELSEA TRACTOR were among our favourites.
    And after fruitlessly looking for a pangram in today’s Indy it was nice to find one here – in fact with only D and Q missing 16dn and 18ac had to be SQUADRON and QUARTERSTAFF, thus helping us to finish.
    We did wonder, apropos QUARTERSTAFF, if the river was sufficiently well-known, particularly for non-UK solvers. The name, incidentally is a bit of a curiosity; the Welsh name is simply ‘Taf’ with the F pronounced more like a V; English usage has added the second F to give the ‘soft’ F pronunciation as if that were the Welsh pronunciation, Welsh using FF for the ‘soft’ F sound. End of linguistics lecture.
    Thanks, Falcon and loonapick.

  9. Having grumbled about Gaff yesterday, I can report I thoroughly enjoyed this one. Not too taxing as somebody else commented.

    I wouldn’t have thought squadron was necessarily a large group of people.

    Just a group of people. I was trying to fit an L into the answer for a while. The large seems superfluous.

    Thanks to all.

  11. Late to correct this one and was only able to get to it in four shortish sittings – maybe that was why I missed the pangram (not sure whether is an oddity for this setter – can’t recall many, if any previously) and the chance to correct the erroneous HOTS FOR THE BOSS instead of JOBS FOR THE BOYS at 9d ! :-/

Comments are closed.