Financial Times 17,461 by BOBCAT

17 comments on “Financial Times 17,461 by BOBCAT”

1. 

   KVa

   @1 - Thu 6th Jul 23, 07:45

   
   

   Thanks, Bobcat and loonapick!
   Liked TAKE ISSUE, HOIST, LEEDS, ROSTI and SKYR.

   ISLAM
   We keep coming across some bridge-related words like trick, trump, slam etc.,
   I parsed as you did. Anyway, we will wait for an expert to confirm how a slam
   works.

2. 

   SM

   @2 - Thu 6th Jul 23, 08:10

   
   

   Thanks to both . A very hard solve and a very smart blog. I learnt that Rishi means a sage and sepia is a cuttlefish .
   A slam at bridge is when a player takes all the tricks (grand) or all bar one (small). Trumps may be relevant but sometimes the contract is no trumps.

3. 

   KVa

   @3 - Thu 6th Jul 23, 08:13

   
   

   SM@2
   So the ‘possible outcome…’ part works fine?

4. 

   SM

   @4 - Thu 6th Jul 23, 08:36

   
   

   KVa@3
   Yes it does.

5. 

   Diane

   @5 - Thu 6th Jul 23, 09:36

   
   

   This was tricky and it was my feeling, like Loonapick’s initially, that the large number of anagrams was what helped me to finish.
   I parsed 1a as per the above. I understood what was going on with AGES but it took, well, ages to see DECODE!
   I liked MALMO, PERMISSIVE, SKYR and BINOMIAL.
   Thanks to Bobcat and Loonapick, especially for the correct parsing of DERRING-DO where I lazily thought of ‘erring’ and arrived at the right answer without worrying about the the remainder.

6. 

   Peter

   @6 - Thu 6th Jul 23, 10:43

   
   

   Thanks loonapick, as usual a great job. At 8A “SUSOENDER” was obviously not what you intended to write.

   25D is unknown to me and, I would guess, most Australians. GDU – well done if you got this one.

7. 

   Loonapick

   @7 - Thu 6th Jul 23, 10:49

   
   

   Peter@7 you’re re right of course. Autocorrect is a weird animal – it sometimes misses obvious errors like this, while telling you several times that s correctly spelled word requires editing. I am always under a time pressure as I have to solve and blog before getting ready for work.

8. 

   WordPlodder

   @8 - Thu 6th Jul 23, 11:00

   
   

   I agree with loonapick that this was tough and as usual with Bobcat needed some effort to complete, with CONVERGE as my last in. I had no idea that a sepia (which I only knew as an adjective) was a CUTTLEFISH and I’ve only ever come across ROSTI in crosswords. I also found BINOMIAL, MORTALLY and especially the misleading def for SMELLIEST hard. I did remember SKYR from a previous appearance.

   Favourite was the naughty surface for PERMISSIVE.

   Thanks to Bobcat and loonapick

9. 

   FrankieG

   @9 - Thu 6th Jul 23, 11:21

   
   

   https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/last_trump
   It’s not just about bridge. Religion, too.

10. 

    Diane

    @10 - Thu 6th Jul 23, 12:50

    
    

    Wordplodder@ 8, I thought the surface for CUTTLEFISH was a indeed a cunning misdirection, making us think of footage browned with age. As for Rösti, it’s a very comforting dish on a winter’s day (but ornate it is not!).

11. 

    Roz

    @11 - Thu 6th Jul 23, 14:12

    
    

    Thanks for the blog, I liked ISLAM , bridge is the wordplay but as Frankie@9 says Judgement Day is the allusion. THEORISER is very neat wordplay, PERMISSIVE is very funny , BINOMIAL is a very good definition.
    I always like the clues from this setter.

12. 

    Cineraria

    @12 - Thu 6th Jul 23, 15:53

    
    

    The parsing on many of these was “not for beginners,” (THEORISER, DECODE, and SAGE, in particular), and I could not quite figure out PERMISSIVE (oh, “jive,” sure). Thanks for clarifying.

13. 

    Tony Santucci

    @13 - Thu 6th Jul 23, 16:10

    
    

    Thanks Bobcat. After a struggle with Picaroon this seemed relatively straightforward. I did miss SKYR and I couldn’t parse everything but overall I thought this was gentler than the usual Bobcat. There were many excellent clues including MALMO, HOIST, LEEDS, MORTALLY, TRIANGLES, and SMELLIEST. I looked in vain for a feline nina. Thanks loonapick for the blog.

14. 

    Moly

    @14 - Thu 6th Jul 23, 18:02

    
    

    Congratulations to all that managed to finish this.

    Is two in two days that were DNF, though I got much nearer today than with Io yesterday.

15. 

    allan_c

    @15 - Thu 6th Jul 23, 21:45

    
    

    Quite a struggle but we got there in the end with a wee bit of help from a wordfinder for our LOI, 21dn; we were about to bung in an unparsed ‘remove’ when we sae DECODE in the list of suggestions.
    SKYR is surely &lit-ish with ‘Afters’ as definition as well as part of the wordplay? Incidentally, we’re not that impressed with the stuff available here, one of us having enjoyed the authentic variety in Iceland (the country) some years ago.
    Thanks, Bobcat and loonapick.

16. 

    Monk

    @16 - Fri 7th Jul 23, 09:27

    
    

    Surprised that nobody’s highlighted the phenomenally good CD for LIP-READER; perhaps the best (as in most elegant and accurate) CD I’ve seen in a very, very long time.

17. 

    Cellomaniac

    @17 - Fri 7th Jul 23, 15:38

    
    

    I agree with Monk@16 that 4a LIP READER is brilliant, but my clue of the day is 16a AGES – equally brilliant, and it made me laugh out loud.

    Thanks Bobcat and loonapick for the fun.

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