Financial Times 17,376 by GUY

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GUY begins the week…

An excellent puzzle from GUY today, which seemed to get harder and harder to parse the further I got into it.

Note that the pairs of solutions on the top, bottom and sides all go together, though not with any particular theme as far as I can tell.

Thanks GUY!

picture of the completed grid

ACROSS
1. Fine cheese swapped by barrister (5)
BRIEF

F (fine), BRIE (cheese), swapped

4. Nancy’s in bar for rendezvous (9)
ENCOUNTER

EN (Nancy's "in", French) + COUNTER (bar)

9. Bend one’s records (7)
ARCHIVE

ARCH (bend) + I'VE (one's)

10. Warning that Tories would like to stop flying? (3,4)
RED FLAG

Double (cryptic) definition

Red being the colour for Labour

11. North Surrey’s organised runs, some for beginners (7,6)
NURSERY SLOPES

N + (SURREY'S)* (*organised) + LOPES (runs)

14. Couple grabs kiss from behind the door (4)
EXIT

(TIE (couple) grabs X (kiss))< (<from behind)

15. Sting live holds back for encores — wise guy (9)
SMARTARSE

SMART (sting) + ARE (live) holds [encore]S (back for)

18. Tightwad loses money by cooking green pepper (9)
ENERGISER

[m]ISER (tightwad, losing M (money)) by (GREEN)* (*cooking)

19. Guy packs case for sensible pirate (4)
SMEE

ME (Guy) packs S[ensibl]E (case for)

From Peter Pan

21. Nadal blocks a fine shot, moving only moderately well (5,1,7)
AFTER A FASHION

RAFA (Nadal) blocks (A FINE SHOT)* (*moving)

24. Family cycles by healthy little reservoir (7)
INKWELL

KIN (family, cycles, i.e. move the first letter to the last place) + WELL (healthy)

26. Ted surprisingly enters with a bow, showing style (3,4)
ART DECO

(TED)* (*surprisingly) enters ARCO (with a bow, musical term)

27. Dead duck carried by hunter’s top dog (6,3)
NUMBER ONE

NUMB (dead) + (O (duck) carried by ERNE (hunter, an eagle))

28. Try to win love, in short (5)
COURT

O (love) in CURT (short)

DOWN
1. British have pound (4)
BEAT

B (british) + EAT (have)

2. Unable to stop visiting Africa, perhaps (11)
INCONTINENT

Double (cryptic) definition

3. Convent has day on a railway (6)
FRIARY

FRI (day, friday) on A + RY (railway)

4. Poles filling English dykes drink in the morning (9)
ELEVENSES

NS (poles, North and South) filling (E (English) + LEVEES (dykes))

5. Something casual to wear like a diamond, perhaps (5)
CARDY

Double (cryptic) definition

"A diamond" describing a playing card

6. Needless sandwiches left next to roll (8)
UNDULATE

UNDUE (needless) sandwiches (L (left) + AT (next to))

7. Up to one pound missing from cash register (3)
TIL

TIL[l] (cash register, L (one pound) missing)

8. Roger edits cryptic, making ordinary English hit home (10)
REGISTERED

(ROGER EDITS)* (*cryptic) making O (ordinary) E (English)

I.e., replace the O with an E

12. Case of wine chap leaves behind for you (11)
PORTMANTEAU

PORT (wine) + MAN (chap) + TEA (leaves) + [yo]U (behind)

13. Kelly perhaps helping those of a certain age (10)
GENERATION

GENE (Kelly, perhaps) + RATION (helping)

16. Love speed with superior acceleration, heavens! (9)
AEROSPACE

(EROS (love) + PACE (speed)) with superior A (acceleration)

17. Give distress to two Attorneys General (8)
AGGRIEVE

AG (Attorney General) + GRIEVE (Attorney General – historical)

20. Writer pens one set of books relating to living things (6)
BIOTIC

BIC (writer) pens (I (one) + OT (set of books, Old Testament))

22. Turned over soil often contains collection of leaves (5)
FOLIO

([s]OIL OF[ten] (contains))< (<turned over)

23. Delivery that’s standing next to the door? (4)
POST

Double definition

25. Indian novel to read cursorily, skipping the introduction (3)
KIM

[s]KIM (read cursorily, skipping the introduction)

14 comments on “Financial Times 17,376 by GUY”

  1. Thanks for the blog, very comprehensive , everything seems to be sorted. Very good set of clues for a Monday .

  2. Pretty easy but a couple of concerns:

    18A: when did “M” become an abbreviation for “MONEY”? Also does “pepper” really mean “energizer”?

    5D: I assume that “cardy” is a slang term for a “cardigan” but this was unknown to me and has anyone ever referred to a suit of cards as being like a “cardy”.?

    16A: “superior acceleration” – really? “superior” indicates the first letter? Since when?

  3. Great way to kick off the week. Some quite hard ones, including my last in CARDY. On the way I missed the ARCO sense in ART DECO and didn’t know GRIEVE, which I thought may refer to a specific politician.

    Good to spot the word pairs around the perimeter and it will be interesting to hear if someone can find a link.

    Thanks to Guy and Teacow

  4. Lovely puzzle, with some great clues.

    My favourites were 4ac ENCOUNTER (those Nice / Nancy clues still make me smile) 10ac RED FLAG, 4dn ELEVENSES, a word from my childhood, 12dn PORTMANTEAU and 13dn, which I’ve seen versions of but still good and 2dn INCONTINENT.

    Re the last, am I the only one who took the two definitions as ‘Unable to stop visiting’ (my mother would say she needed to pay a visit or a call but I haven’t heard it for years) and ‘Africa, perhaps?’?

    Thanks for a most enjoyable puzzle, Guy and Teacow for a fine blog.

  5. I enjoyed this, I had a few queries whilst solving but happily all resolved with a brief dive into Chambers, I hadn’t encountered ARCO (briefly or otherwise) before and I initially wondered where the O was coming from as took ARC to be a bow.

    Peter @3 both M for money and A for acceleration are in Chambers. With the latter superior is a positional indicator telling us to put A above EROSPACE.

    Thanks Guy and Teacow.

  6. Peter @2 a few thoughts , M0, M1 , M3 and many more are measures of the money supply in the UK , Thatcher pledged to control this but failed miserably. I often say CARDY for cardigan not for playing cards but it does say – like a diamond perhaps . Superior means above and it is a Down clue, a=acceleration in physics.

  8. Thanks Guy and Teacow

    2dn: I think the second indication has to be taken as wordplay, defining IN CONTINENT (two words) rather than the one word answer. I think you need “visiting” for the IN, contrary to Eileen@4.
    5dn; I think I would spell this cardie, but Chambers 2014 also allows cardi and cardy.

  9. Peter @2, M for ‘money’ and the CARDY abbreviation have been covered by others. Describing a playing card as being CARDY is perhaps taking liberties in the real world but I thought was OK for crossword land. For ENERGISER I saw a ‘pepper’ as whimsically being something or someone that peps.

  11. Thanks Guy and Teacow

    To complete the answer for Peter @2, M = money was already regularly used when I was studying economics over 55 years ago.

  12. Thanks Guy. I found this tough going but I got there in the end. I thought the clues were generally excellent especially ENCOUNTER, SMEE, COURT, INCONTINENT, GENERATION, BIOTIC, and REGISTERED. (I like how the latter incorporated the wordplay into the surface.) Thanks Teacow for the blog.

  13. Quite a challenge, but we did get it all without help – and parsed everything, although we didn’t notice tghe perimeter pairings. Favourite was AFTER A FASHION for its apt surface.
    Thanks, Guy and Teacow.

  14. Great puzzle, thanks, Guy. I enjoyed the cheeky “pepper” and “cardy”. Also enjoyed the perimeter pairings – helped me get COURT and POST once I spotted what was going on.

    Re the RED FLAG, it’s not just the colour of Labour, it’s their anthem.

    Eileen @4 – re visiting – yes, me too!

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