Financial Times 17,373 by LEONIDAS

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A fun and witty challenge from LEONIDAS today.

FF: 9 DD: 9

ACROSS
1 FIFTY-FIFTY
A couple of lines might be equally shared (5-5)

cryptic def; line = L -> roman numeral for 50; lines = LL
7 BASK
Lie about possible resident in Spain told (4)

sounds like BASQUE ( resident in spain )
9 EDGE
Advantage exposing financial record (4)

lEDGEr ( financial record exposed i.e. without end characters )
10 SQUARE MEAL
Rat circles a room storing energy feed that nourishes (6,4)

SQUEAL ( rat ) containing [ A { RM ( room ) containing E ( energy ) } ]
11 SPHERE
Field agent briefly in this location (6)

SPy ( agent, briefly ) HERE ( this location )
12 LEONARDO
Period captured by fat old artist (8)

[ EON ( period ) in LARD ( fat ) ] O ( old )
13 CHEAPEST
Most affordable mirror stowed in box (8)

APE ( mirror ) in CHEST ( box )
15 TELL
What one shouldn’t do after kissing William? (4)

cryptic def; referring to william tell

17 SPAT
Dispute minor strikes in recession (4)

reverse of TAPS ( minor strikes )
19 EXERCISE
Empty Exchequer overwhelmed by tax use (8)

ER ( ExchequeR, empty, without inner letters ) in EXCISE ( tax )
22 CLERIHEW
Humorous poem minister cut and cut (8)

CLERIc ( minister, cut ) HEW ( cut )
23 TONGAN
Polynesian horse turned on short pitch (6)

TONe ( pitch, short ) reverse of NAG ( horse )
25 ARISTOCRAT
Noble actor moved after sitar played (10)

[ ACTOR ]* after [ SITAR ]*
26 BOLT
Hastily swallow egg-filled sandwich (4)

O ( egg ) in BLT ( sandwich )
27 AMOS
Zoroastrian essentially stuck with second prophet (4)

AS ( zoroAStrian, essentially ) containing MO ( second ); i would have expected essentially to be the central character(s) unless i am missing something here
28 DISTRIBUTE
Hand out black uranium rather than carbon in Area E (10)

DISTRIcT ( area, with B – Black and U – Uranium replacing C – Carbon ) E
DOWN
2 IN DEPTH
Thoroughly tend hip that’s dislocated (2,5)

[ TEND HIP ]*
3 THEME
People other than us finally take subject (5)

THEM ( people other than us ) E ( takE, finally )
4 FASTENER
Stud maybe hoisted in secure net safely (8)

hidden, reversed in "..secuRE NET SAFely"; took me forever to see this
5 FOUR-LETTER WORDS
Trust lewd roofer to abuse language (4-6,5)

[ TRUST LEWD ROOFER ]* – 'abuse' doing double duty
6 YARROW
Dart beneath base of nearby plant (6)

Y ( nearbY , base i.e. last letter ) ARROW ( dart )
7 BOMBASTIC
Inflated charge covers fizz on tap? (9)

BOMB ( charge ) ASTI ( fizz ) C ( tap, Cold ) – not sure if i parsed this right
8 SCANDAL
Gossip upset young man under examination (7)

reverse of LAD ( young man ) under SCAN ( examination )
14 ASTERISKS
Stars commonly acting as stand-ins for 5 (9)

cryptic def ; used to hide foul language in print ( 5d )
16 TESTATOR
One’s last wishes are written in protest at organisation (8)

hidden in "..proTEST AT ORganisation"
18 PILGRIM
9 lifted dismal person on spiritual journey (7)

reverse of LIP ( edge, answer to 9a ) GRIM ( dismal )
20 STARLET
Shirley Temple at first before later being recast? (7)

&lit; ST ( Shirley Temple, first letters ) [ LATER ]*
21 SHROUD
Pair climbing below 11 periodically hide (6)

reverse of DUO ( pair ) below SHR ( alternate letters of answer to 11a, SpHeRe )
24 NABOB
Wealthy man’s arrest over introduction to billionaire (5)

NAB ( arrest ) O ( over ) B ( Billionaire, starting letter )

20 comments on “Financial Times 17,373 by LEONIDAS”

  1. Successfully completed after a bit of a struggle in the north-east corner with Bombastic and Bask my last two in.

    Thanks for helping to parse Distribute (which I found a bit clumsy) and I had the same feeling that the Amos clue isn’t quite right. Surely S is the essential Zoroastrian?

    Thanks to all

  2. Very pleasurable solve this Friday with amusing surfaces, like 2d, 5d and 14d, and clean cluing which helped land the stubborn last one, for me, 22a.
    Also liked ‘sandwich’ cluing BLT, ‘LL’ for FIFTY FIFTY and EXERCISE defined by ‘use’. Much more besides.
    Thanks to Leonidas and Turbolegs.

  4. 27a I’ll just come clean here, it was a mistake. A(MO)S was my intention and for some reason my counting skills deserted me. Sorry all, must do better …

  5. Bravo, Leonardo, for ‘coming clean’! (Sometimes even the good Homer nods. 😉 )

    A minor slip in a characteristically fine puzzle. I had ticks for FIFTY-FIFTY, LEONARDO, SQUARE MEAl, CLERIHEW, BOLT, FOUR-LETTER WORDS and the associated ASTERISKS.

    Many thanks to Leonidas and Turbolegs.

  6. A pleasant experience, nothing too obscure. The only word that’s new to my lexicon is CLERIHEW, which I must remember to toss into the conversation at our next dinner party. To my mind scandal and gossip, while related, aren’t quite the same, but no doubt someone will tell me it’s in Chambers.

    I get the artful misdirection, but is the clue for ASTERISKS cryptic?

  7. I don’t think “abuse” is doing double duty in 5d. Chambers gives “bad language, swearing” as a definition of “language”. Older readers may remember the catchphrase “Language, Timothy!”.

  10. Thanks Leonidas and Turbolegs

    5dn: I agree with Andrew here. I do not think that either “abuse language” or “to abuse language” would work grammatically as a satisfactory definition for the answer, but the definition “bad language, swearing (inf)” is given in Chambers 2014 for the noun language.

  11. Thanks to Eileen @8 for those examples which should help to cement the word CLERIHEW in my brain (I feel I have seen it here before but clearly forgot all about it).

  12. Apologies for having forgotten the middle sentence of Andrew’s comment 7 when writing my agreement @10. Of course, the final clause of my comment is merely repetition of what he had already put.

  13. Thanks Turbolegs, I wondered about the off-centre AS too, so bravo Leonidas for popping in and – would “Zoroaster’s essentially…” work? This assumes we can ignore the apostrophe in the cryptic mechanism, though it is needed for the surface, but maybe that’s also naughty.
    I thought there were some great clues here and a nice reminder of ‘Sorry’ as per Andrew@7 – it helped me to solve it, though that’s all I remember of the programme, apart from the theme music.
    So despite now being bracketed as one of the ‘older readers’ I enjoyed solving this, thanks Leonidas.

  16. Most enjoyable, despite the hiccup over AMOS.
    Thanks, Leonidas and Turbolegs – and thanks to Eileen and Petert for the clerihews!

  17. Thanks for the blog and thanks Leonidas@4, such a long word it is hard to find the centre and I did not notice when I solved. Many fine clues, DISTRIBUTE the winner for me.

  18. I also noticed something was amiss with the AMOS clue so thanks Leonidass for admitting the error, to err is … I’ve seen CLERIHEW several times in the Times and Daily Telegraph. Thanks setter and Turbolegs.

  19. Thanks Leonidas for a super crossword. I’m a bit irritated that I couldn’t parse TESTATOR when it should have been obvious but otherwise this had a high “fun factor” for me. I particularly liked SPHERE, EXERCISE, TONGAN, BOLT, and DISTRIBUTE. Thanks Turbolegs for the blog.

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