Financial Times 17,352 by BASILISK

23 comments on “Financial Times 17,352 by BASILISK”

1. DEFENDER
   I saw a wordplay
   Does perhaps: DEER
   start off From: F
   goal: END
   FEND lines DEER (fend in deer).

   Clue as Definition.

2. Quite right KVa @2. Not sure how I missed that – I’ll amend the blog. Thank you!

3. After an hour had only got five out — and one was wrong. So I abandoned ship. At times like this I wonder whether I’m losing the plot, but I’ve successfully enjoyed several other puzzles in recent days …

4. Always enjoy a Basilisk/Serpent crossword. KVa beat me to it again re DEFENDER. On a minor note, I feel that F is more naturally seen as “start of from” and “start off from” more naturally seen as ROM.

5. “The Cockney English accent drops the H” and sticks it on the front of AITCH to make HAITCH!

6. My kids’ teacher’s surname was Meena. He was a Mister Meena. Call the homophone police.

7. Hi Oriel: Your parsing of 20d WELDER as “W (with) + ELDER (father?)”:
   The “?” could be taken as you questioning the equivalence of elder and father. I take it that’s not what you mean.

8. ioritz @7. It is common practice amongst bloggers to include the “?” from the clue.

9. I’m surprised that no-one has mentioned 22D. My initial thought was to write in “ERUPT” even though I couldn’t see how “PURE” related to “SMOKE”. As this was my last one in, I had to resort to an Internet search to discover the answer, which was a new word to me.

   My hastily, unparsed writing in of “MISBEHAVIOUR” for 18A also slowed me down until I realized that 4D had to be “LORD OF THE *****”. Luckily I opted for the William Golding answer, rather than the JRR T. option.

   Re 23A: I cannot see how “spread to the west of river” tells one to remove the “r” from “butter”. What am I missing?

10. ioritz @7: As Hovis says, I am copying the ? from the clue. This denotes that FATHER is just one possible example of an ELDER, rather than a direct synonym.

    Peter @9: If R is the east-most letter of BUTTER (a spread) and R = river, that makes BUTTE the letters west of R.

11. Hovis@8: Common practice to include it in the parsing without interpreting it? Really?

12. Okay Oriel, thanks for 23A.

13. My understanding is that for a clue to be an “& Lit”, the whole of it must provide both a definition and wordplay. What constitutes a “semi & Lit” is perhaps more open to question: the only reference I’ve been able to find on the web (this is on the Crossword Unclued website) says that it is a clue where the whole is definition and only a part is wordplay. According to these definitions, 27A and 9D here are semi & Lits and not & Lits, although they are near misses, because, although the whole of these clues provide definitions of the answers, the word “he” does not contribute to the wordplay. As far as 17D is concerned, it seems a bit of a stretch to me to interpret the whole of the clue as providing a definition of the answer.

14. Another splendid crossword from Basilisk

    Many thanks to him and Oriel

15. Thanks for the blog, I really like the stylish clues from this setter. OMINOUSLY very neat and I like the idea for BUTTE , many more to enjoy.
    Clever to get both novels in the grid along with STRAND

16. Oriel@10:
    I didn’t need the personsplaining – I solved the clue interpreting the “?” as ELDER = father, say. A newbie might not get the nuance.
    This is the most common use of question marks in clues, but not the only one.
    https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2010/may/03/how-to-solve-cryptic-crossword
    says: “5. … A question mark means the setter is not quite playing by the rules.”
    https://www.crosswordunclued.com/2010/08/how-to-interpret-punctuation-in-clues.html
    says: “The Special Role Of ?: … ? can mean that:
    the clue is a cryptic definition if the ‘?’ is placed at the end of the clue
    FT 13475 (Bradman): Two in chemical water? (9) SUBSCRIPT
    A cd; ‘2’ is a subscript in the chemical symbol for water, H2O.

    the part of the clue preceding the ‘?’ requires some lateral thinking
    Guardian 25103 (Paul): Poet writing about primo donno? (4) OVID
    ‘prima donna’ is DIVA, so ‘primo donno’ is DIVO. Turn it about and you get OVID, the Roman poet. The question mark nudges the solver to think of ‘primo donno’ from an unconventional perspective.

    the part of the clue preceding the ‘?’ is a definition by example
    Times 24382: Possessive type’s first son? (5) THEIR
    T[ype] HEIR (son). The question mark is a hint to look for an example – not a synonym – of ‘son’.

    the setter is taking a small liberty with the accepted rules of fairness and wants you to let it pass
    Guardian 24925 (Orlando): Bound to believe in pronouncement? (7) TRUSSED
    TRUSSED sounds like TRUST (believe). We might question the correctness of ‘in pronouncement’ as homophone indicator (it isn’t the same as ‘in pronunciation’) but we accept it because of the ‘?’. ”

    If the convention is simply to copy the “?” from the clue into the parsing without explaining it, I think it’s a fault.
    An extra line under your parsing would surely be more helpful, especially to newbies.
    “The ? denotes that father is just one possible example of an ELDER, rather than a direct synonym.”

17. I think 4D is &lit, with “book” indicating that all of the preceding LOOFTHEFLIES goes around or “books” the RD. Otherwise, there is no wordplay to include the RD element on the midst of the rest. And FLIES = “tears out of.” An even more ingenious clue!

    I could not see the wordplay for WELDER, even though that had to be the answer, so thanks for that.

18. *in the midst*

19. Thanks Basilisk. I definitely found this on the more difficult end of the Basilisk/Serpent spectrum and I resorted to using the check button to confirm several wild guesses. Most of it fell into place eventually with WRITHE, TRIBUTE, RATIO, and the nicely hidden ESSAYIST with its apt surface being favourites. Thanks Oriel for the blog and filling in my numerous gaps in parsing.

20. I agree with Geoff @3. I think sometimes the setters are to clever for their own good. It is only because I am retired that I came even close to finishing this, and it needed a lot of crosswordsolver help. If this had been some years ago when I commuted to work, sadly it would have languished half empty on the seat at the end of my trip. My two cents: if it’s that difficult, it’s just no fun.

21. For homophones BUTTE is a beaut.

22. Many thanks to Oriel for the excellent blog and to everyone who has taken the time to comment on the puzzle.

23. Basilisk@22
    And thanks for a classy puzzle
    I remembered butte from Butte de Montmartre in Zola

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