Financial Times 17,357 by GOZO

20 comments on “Financial Times 17,357 by GOZO”

1. Scratched my head for half an hour after solving only a handful of clues, then came here to discover that the PDF was missing the special instruction. Grrr …

2. LOL

3. Thanks, Gozo for an enjoyable puzzle (more of a quiptic) and Cineraria for the detailed blog.

4. Enjoyed hunting down the different fruit here and like Cineraria, I did wonder at first if the theme would be apple varieties.
   Didn’t know NANCE or NELIES but the wordplay left no room for doubt.
   Agree that DAVID CAMERON was amusing and I liked GONG, MESH and VICTORIA PLUM besides.
   AMELIE doesn’t seem too cryptic for me being familiar with both but still, the grid was entertaining.
   Thanks Gozo and Cineraria.

5. I learnt four new sorts of fruit – NELIES, MINNEOLA, NANCE and SWEETING – and BERGAMOT and RENNET (as fruits) were at the limit of my knowledge so this was very instructive. Yes, the added non-thematic def for four of the clues was interesting and I’m pretty sure Gozo has done this before in similar puzzles.

   Favourite was the almost cryptic def STRICTLY. Just one slight quibble; I liked the surface of 21d but thought an ‘ex’ means an OLD FLAME rather than just a FLAME.

   Thanks to Cineraria and Gozo

6. WP@5: Good point, although I suppose the implication is that if the sender’s emails are insulting, he or she is unlikely to be a current flame, or, at least, to remain one for very long.

7. Several of the fruits were unfamiliar, although most were clear from the wordplay. I liked the DAVID CAMERON anagram, too.

   Thank you to Gozo and Cineraria.

8. Like others, there were a few new answers for me. As usual, the cricketing reference in 31A eluded me and only the cross letters and the belated finding of the missing instructions allowed me to complete the puzzle.

   After decades in the dairy industry in Australia, I must take issue with 29A. Rennet is an enzyme from cows that is added during the manufacture of cheese. It helps to make the cheese form a solid state.

9. Peter@8: I interpreted the quasi-definition/hint as “[used] for [the making of] cheese,” but, as noted in my preamble, given the theme instructions, the words are redundant for the clue.

10. the pdfs of late seem to have a problem with the “-“ characters.
    they’ve started to appear as a “ó”, which looks very like a “6” if I’m quickly scanning the line.
    most confusing.

11. Thanks Gozo. Like GDU I had difficulty at 1st because there were no instructions on my pdf printout. Fortunately I made a wild guess at an answer and went to check it in the interactive version; I then saw the special instructions. UGLI gave me the theme but I hadn’t heard of NANCE, NELIES, RENNET or SWEETING as types of fruit. In any event there was enough to enjoy with VICTORIA’S PLUM being my top choice. Thanks Cineraria for explaining things.

12. How is rennet a fruit?

13. Rennet does also mean an old variety of apple, according to Chambers

14. PeterT@12: According to Chambers, a rennet is (also) “an apple of certain old varieties.”

15. Looks like I need to get a Chambers.

16. Thanks for the blog, good variety of fruit in the answers, I thought the more obscure ones were clued very fairly.
    Ther are so many varieties of apple that I am sure it could make a theme all by itself.
    Is an “insulting email” a flame? I have never used email.

17. I shall put the time it took for me to get DAVID CAMERON as evidence of how forgettable he was, rather than my own stupidity.

18. To echo everyone else, I thought this was lots of fun, very amusing, and the more obscure solutions were very fairly indicated. Indeed, my FOI was NELIES, which just had to be the right answer, though it left me scratching my head as to what the theme might be until I had a couple more in. (I noticed that NELIES could be inserted into LOT to make LONELIEST and wondered for a moment if the theme might be words with biblical characters removed!)

    Favourite was STRICTLY.

    Thanks, Gozo, and Cineraria for the splendid blog.

19. I solved this reasonably quickly and without the benefit of knowing that the crossers were linked by a theme, although this soon became apparent. My LOI, was 24 across where I spent a while trying to find a fruit which would fit.

    As Mark at 10 has pointed out, something weird is now happening with the printing where dashes are appearing, as an o with a squiggle on the top.

20. Petert@17 – At least the crossers are accusing him of being various kinds of fruit, a NANCE and a PLUM.
    And UMBER = BROWN, the only decent, capable PM we’ve had in my lifetime.

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