Financial Times 17,432 by VELIA

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A fun challenge from VELIA today.

FF: 9 DD: 7

ACROSS
1 SOUND AS A BELL
Ring in excellent condition (5,2,1,4)
double def
10 UNFOLDS
Found special case confusing as the story develops (7)
[ FOUND SL ( SpeciaL, case I.e. end letters ) ]*
11 ROPES IN
Persuades awkward person to house one (5,2)
[ PERSON ]* containing I ( one )
12 NINON
Fabric or linen, in one piece (5)
hidden in “..lineN IN ONe..”
13 VIOLATOR
Miscreant’s instrument backing rubbish (8)
VIOLA ( instrument ) reverse of ROT ( rubbish )
15 BEEKEEPING
Making a noise about stretch of apiculture (10)
BEEPING ( making a noise ) about EKE ( stretch )
16 LOOP
Backwater circuit (4)
reverse of POOL ( water )
18 SEPT
Month nine, or seven, in Paris for part of Irish family (4)
triple def
20 APOSTROPHE
Perhaps too badly misplaced by grocers (10)
[ PERHAPS TOO ]*
22 NINETEEN
Where to find pink gin and score? Not quite (8)
cryptic def, referring to the solution for 19d, and a little less than a score ( 20 ) is 19
24 AGREE
A European, mostly OK (5)
A GREEk ( european, mostly )
26 SEGMENT
Firm providing cover for FBI division (7)
SET ( firm) containing G MEN ( fbi)
27 TITULAR
City centre turns ultra-fashionable, but in name only (7)
reverse of IT ( cITy, centre ) [ ULTRA ]*
28 NOTICE BOARDS
Steam or water gets on deck: read announcements here (6,6)
NOT ICE ( steam or water ) BOARDS ( gets on deck )
DOWN
2 OFFENCE
Crime of one type of criminal (7)
OF FENCE ( type of criminal )
3 NO LONGER
12 divided by 50, carrying one over, finishes as previously (2,6)
[ NOON ( 12 ) containing L ( 50 ) ] GER ( last letters of “..carryinG onE oveR..” )
4 APSE
Primates turning tail in this part of the church (4)
APES ( primates ) with the last two letters reversed
5 ADROITNESS
Having a dab hand will produce no disaster (10)
[ NO DISASTER ]*
6 EXPEL
Throw out former politically extreme leftist leaders (5)
EX ( former ) PEL ( starting letters of “..Politically Extreme Leftist..”)
7 LESOTHO
Monarchy love to be in fancy hotels (7)
O ( love ) in [ HOTELS ]*
8 FUNNY BUSINESS
Comedy of deception (5,8)
cryptic def
9 ENTREPRENEURS
Business folk have seen Turner perform (13)
[ SEEN TURNER PER ]* ; form in “PERform” is the anagrind
14 APOPLECTIC
Each Celtic half-back getting furious (10)
A POP ( each ) LEC TIC ( half of CELtic reversed )
17 CREAM TEA
In the morning to be found in island with a West country offering (5,3)
[ AM ( in the morning ) in CRETE ( island ) ] A
19 PINK GIN
New King’s heart dropped after constant drink (4,3)
PI ( constant ) N ( new ) KGIN ( heart of kINg moving to the end )
21 PAROLED
Wild leopard set free (7)
[ LEOPARD ]*
23 TWEET
Times gripping little message (5)
TT ( times ) containing WEE ( little )
25 STAB
Try and use a knife (4)
double def

31 comments on “Financial Times 17,432 by VELIA”

  1. Thanks, Velia and Turbolegs!

    Liked BEEKEEPING, APOSTROPHE, NO LONGER, ENTREPRENEURS and APOPLECTIC.

    APOSTROPHE
    grocer’s apostrophe (learnt today)
    an apostrophe placed before a final s intended to indicate the plural, but in fact forming the possessive.

    I think the def should be ‘misplaced by grocers’ (with badly being the anagrind).

  10. Haha .. sorry for the mess myself. Solved on the phone and hastily moved to the comp.

    Cheers
    TL

  14. Hovis@11
    thefreedictionary.com says

    ‘Not now as formerly’.
    This is pretty close to what you say.

  15. I know CLEAR AS A BELL, which I put in, despite it not parsing properly. I don’t understand NO LONGER/”as previously”. Apparently “stretch” is an archaic meaning of “eke”, so perhaps my great great grandparents might have understood. Didn’t know a fence was a criminal, nor SEPT nor NINON.

  16. APOSTROPHE
    ‘misplaced by grocers’: Guess it should be considered a cryptic def.
    May not be fair to grocers in general, but we can’t do much
    as the relevant phrase here is ‘grocer’s apostrophe’.

  18. Thanks for the blog, good set of clues, APOPLECTIC was put together neatly and NOTICE BOARDS was clever.
    For NINETEEN I was thinking a typical drink for a golf club but I think it is nineteenth hole.
    It seems unusual to have the actual answer to another clue in a reference.

  19. Perhaps, as KVa says @3, we need to take the definition as just ‘previously’. If something ‘was ok previously’ then it ‘is ok no longer’ is more-or-less implied. Still don’t like it though.

  20. GDU: the Lynne Truss book was inspired by an old Aussie joke about a wombat who has a meal with a female wombat, has sex with her and then departs. The final line was “eats, roots and leaves”. The comma is important but this fine distinction may be lost on our American friends who know “roots” as a word for supporting something – usually a sporting team. I think that most English people associate “root” with a pig digging in the dirt. Whereas we in Oz associate it with a much more pleasurable activity.

    Re 12A: I spent eight years working in the fashion industry but did not know this word.

    GDU: re 2D. A “fence” is someone who accepts stolen goods from a thief and sells them on, accepting a cut of the proceeds. You’ve obviously led a much more sheltered life than I have – or never watched “Minder”!

  22. Yes KVa@3 and Hovis@19, the definition is just ‘previously’ implying no longer – ‘as previously’ would imply the opposite.
    Liked the “A POP” in APOPLECTIC and the “NOT ICE” in NOTICE BOARDS.
    And RIP Tina Turner (9d) and Mary Quant (elsewhere)
    Thanks V&T – (Arthur Daley’s drink)

  23. I just remembered NINON (as opposed to the possible “nenin”) but became stuck on the “Is it ‘as previously’ or just ‘previously’ as the def?” conundrum at the end and couldn’t think logically enough to work it out. Anyway I did work out the wordplay, so something to salvage from a not properly understood clue.

    Peter @20, good to see the old “eats, roots and leaves” joke again; possibly more than just wombats! I always like a “Minder” reference too.

    Thanks to Velia and Turbolegs

  24. Thanks Velia and Turbolegs

    20ac: I have a copy of Lynne Truss’s book Eats, Shoots & Leaves. The back cover has the joke in the version about the panda. This is also mentioned in the acknowledgments (page ix) and in the introduction on page 2. I could see no reference to any other version and will need strong evidence to believe that it has priority.

    3dn: This held me up for a while, but, as I read it, “as previously” would mean the same as it used to be, while “previously” on its own fits the answer, so I agree with those who say that “as” must be a link word.

  25. I agree about Lynne Truss , the picture on the cover is a panda holding a smoking gun. Maybe she did adapt the wombat joke ? I did hear on the radio once that the wombat version came first (1980s) but I have no actual reference or evidence.

  27. Roz@25: There are all sorts of possibilities, are there not? It could very well be that the wombat version was the earlier one, but it had changed to the panda one before Lynne Truss heard it. The acknowledgements say “Nigel Hall told me the panda joke”. (I should really have given that quotation last time.) I would like to believe that, if Lynne Truss had adapted it herself, she would have said so, and it may be referenced again in some part of the book I did not check.

  28. Probably a T-Rex in the original version, it’s that old. Doesn’t matter, it’s all the same joke anyway. (It was a panda first time I heard it.)

    Thanks for the fun, Velia, and the blog, Turbolegs.

  29. Very difficult to disentangle something like this. I suspect you are right about Lynne Truss , she only heard the panda version. The wombat version could have been the source of the panda version but she was not to know this.

  30. Velia is a trickster. without this parsing blog I never would have understood half of it maybe I still don’t understand half of half of that actually. But still fun in parts

  31. This is probably too late for anyone to read (or care) but whether the original joke was about a panda or a wombat, the wombat version has been around a very long time in Australia. I recall working with a chap whom others called Wombat for the very reason you probably are thinking, but I am too well-bred (read inhibited) to mention!

    I can’t add to which was the original herbivore in the joke, but perhaps the panda has greater universal recognition.

    I enjoyed the puzzle, by the way. Thanks, V & T

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