Financial Times 17,468 by JULIUS

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An excellent challenge from JULIUS this Friday.

FF: 10 DD: 9

One clue where my parsing needs to be sharpened.

ACROSS
9 MAD AS A MARCH HARE
Crazy as Adam in retirement, walk in step then run like billy-o! (3,2,1,5,4)

reverse of [ AS ADAM ] MARCH ( walk in step ) HARE ( run like billy-o )
10 THETA
Temperature got heated, beginning to annoy a character from Greece (5)

T ( temperature ) HET ( heated ) A ( Annoy, beginning letter )
11 ALGORITHM
Maths program a doctrine of ex-VP, says Ms Bott? (9)

sounds like AL GORE ( ex-VP ) ITHM ( by extension? not sure of the ms bott parse )
12 UNTIDIEST
It’s United getting beaten, extremely poorly organised (9)

[ IT'S UNITED ]*
14 BONCE
Head bishop in the old days? (5)

B ( bishop ) ONCE ( ~ in the old days )
16 IMMERSION HEATER
Julius’s steam iron here used this to make water warm (9,6)

I'M ( julius's ) [ STEAM IRON HERE ]*
19 HOVER
Hang motionless above vacuum starved of some oxygen (5)

HOoVER ( vacuum , without O – oxygen )
21 ALDERSHOT
Sporting leotard around quiet Hampshire town (9)

[ LEOTARD ]* around SH ( quiet )
23 FARMSTEAD
Relaxing, ma reads FT in grange (9)

[ MA READS FT ]*
25 REALM
Obsolete royal kingdom’s last province (5)

REAL ( royal, obsolete use ) M ( kingdoM, last letter )
26 BACKGROUND MUSIC
Acid rock bum sung discordantly which is ubiquitous (10,5)

[ ACID ROCK BUM SONG ]*
DOWN
1 AMATEURISH
Scream at EU Rishi? A bit unprofessional! (10)

hidden in "screAM AT EU RISHi.."
2 ADVENT
Coming escapade with no Scottish Midges! (6)

ADVENTure ( escapade, without URE – midge, scottish musician )
3 ISLANDER
Leaders of India, Sri Lanka & Spain start to restrict key resident (8)

ISL ( starting characters of India, Sri Lanka ) AND ( & ) E ( Espana, starting letter ) R ( Restrict, starting letter )
4 EMMA
West Ham player is flipping naked, which is novel (4)

reverse of central characters of "hAMMEr" ( west ham player ) without end letters ( naked )
5 FRIGHTENED
Terrified fellow made good, as we used to say (10)

F ( fellow ) RIGHTENED ( made good, archaic usage )
6 CHERUB
An angelic figure, diva put on uniform (black) (6)

CHER ( diva ) U ( uniform ) B ( black )
7 CASTANET
Spanish type of shell fish? (8)

cryptic def; read as CAST A NET ( fish )
8 HELM
Steering wheel made from lower half of diseased tree (4)

wycHELM ( diseased tree, half of ) ; had to google this for the parse. i was initially thinking tree was just 'ELM' but couldnt fit the H in front of that .
13 EVITA PERON
I’ve turned up to record Republican working politician (5,5)

EVI ( reverse of I'VE ) TAPE ( record ) R ( republican ) ON ( working )
15 EURYTHMICS
Superstar pop duo remixing my Cure hits (10)

[ MY CURE HITS ]*
17 MAVERICK
Pilot filmed landing in Blossom Ave, Rickmansworth (8)

hidden in "..blossoM AVE RICKmansworth" ; referring to top gun
18 EARDRUMS
A murder’s afoot one hears (with their help) (8)

[ A MURDER'S ]*
20 RESIGN
Leave or extend contract? (6)

cryptic def; with a hyphen between RE and SIGN, it would mean to extend a contract
22 HOARSE
Rasping, greyish frost covering Home Counties (6)

HOAR ( greyish frost ) SE ( home counties )
23 FIBS
Revolting rosbifs gobbling down pork pies (4)

hidden, reversed in "..roSBIFs.."
24 DINK
Just a wee shot, having run out of booze? (4)

DrINK ( booze, without R – run )

29 comments on “Financial Times 17,468 by JULIUS”

  1. The literary character Ms Bott (Violet Elizabeth in Just William) has a lisp.
    AL GORISM (Doctrine of AL GORE) said by her would sound like ALGORITHM.

  2. HELM
    WEECH ELM (alternative spelling of WYCH ELM) should work better as we can take exactly half of WEEC-HELM.

    Found this online:
    Wych elm is highly susceptible to Dutch elm disease, a fungal disease that has devastated populations of elms since it arrived in the UK in the 1960s. Hence diseased tree?

    Just extending your parsing. I had no idea of this particular tree or its disease.

  3. A delightful way to end the working week. This was so much fun and I ticked a good half of the answers. FIBS, BONCE, DINK, the music references in 2, 6 and 15 were all amusing but I’ll nominate 1D for being such a great hidden answer.
    Thanks to Julius and Turbolegs (and KVa for reminding us of Violet Elizabeth).

  4. Thanks for the blog, great puzzle, delightful as Diane says.
    I think the tree is just DutcH ELM. It is not the reason for the name of the disease but it is a species of elm that suffered from it.

  6. A fair smattering of smiles, but quite a few unknowns, including weecHELM, BONCE & DINK. I struggled (and usually failed) to parse the many clues requiring British knowledge, viz. ALGORITHM, EMMA, ALDERSHOT, SE for home counties and Midge Ure.

  8. Enjoyed this ,thanks to Julius and Turbolegs.

    In pedants’ corner, Dutch elm disease is not the species of elm tree but it was so named because the disease was discovered in the Netherlands.

  9. Super fun as always, thanks, Julius and Turbolegs. As a lifelong fan of the William books, I loved the Ms Bott clue in particular. I also assumed Dutch elm.

  10. Another vote for Dutch elm disease here: the elm tree was one of the emblems adopted by my local county decades ago, sadly necessitating a revamp when the species largely disappeared. As others have pointed out, it was work in the Netherlands in the 1920’s that highlighted the disease.

    Having just returned from a week’s holiday in the Highlands, ADVENT made me laugh. A nice attempt by the setter to disguise the singer but, even in Scotland where they might deserve to be highlighted, that capital M would have stood out. Interesting snippet: you can purchase midge capturing machines these days (personal experience says they DO catch midges but DO NOT result in a midge-free environment). As many as two million have been caught by a single machine in one night!

    Thanks Julius and Turbolegs

  11. It didn’t take long to solve but what fun while it lasted.

    I too thought 8d referred to the Dutch Elm

    Many thanks to Julius and Turbolegs

  12. A Dutch elm isn’t necessarily a diseased tree, as I’m sure there are at least some without the problem, so I thought that one was rather weak. Pretty high-quality stuff just about everywhere else though, in this fine puzzle.

  14. FYI – according to Google Maps there is a real BlossoM AVEnue in RICKmansworth
    Another for DUTCH ELM because of:
    https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Dutch_elm_disease
    ‘Etymology – Named after the country in which the disease was first identified. (It is not specific to Dutch elms.)
    (phytopathology) A disease of elm trees caused by ascomycete fungi in the genus Ophiostoma and spread by bark beetles.
    2018, Tim Flannery, Europe: A Natural History “The process began 50 years ago when Europe’s elms were ravaged by the beetle-borne fungal malady misnamed ?Dutch elm disease? (which, in fact, is Asian).”‘

  15. Ui Imair@12
    I was thinking that weecHELM should work if dutcHELM worked. Weech elms were and are affected by the D E disease, quite often it seems.

    Having said that, ‘diseased tree’ can be cryptic def. A tree in the name of which there is a disease (whimsical & cryptic. It’s clear that the disease wasn’t named after this tree).

    dutc-HELM seems to be a better choice in the overall analysis.

  16. Thanks for the blog, dear Turbolegs, and thanks to those who have commented.
    I’m sorry about Dutc/HELM, which I now see is a rubbish clue.
    Best wishes to all, Rob/Julius

  18. @KVa
    Dutc/helm. It was poor thinking on my part…the tree isn’t called a Dutch elm as has been pointed out

  20. Thanks Julius – very entertaining and brainteasing.
    For me – a relative newcomer to cryptics – most clues were direct without too much play on words.
    WOOFY MADRID
    (never to old to start – 83)

  22. Julius there IS a Dutch elm tree, Ulmus Hollandica , it does not name the disease but like the English elm it does suffer from it and not many are left. So it a diseased tree, you were channelling your inner Eric Morecambe.

  23. I always appreciate it when the setter drops in so thank you Julius.
    Roz is quite right. Interestingly some varieties of Ulmus Hollandica are moderately resistant to the disease.

  24. Thanks Julius. I enjoyed this despite my problems parsing EMMA, HELM, the missing “ure” from ADVENT, the “ithm” from ALGORITHM as well as failing with DINK. Fortunately my deficiences were eclipsed by the satisfaction from the crossword itself. Thanks turbolegs for the blog.

  25. Wouldn’t 2D have been better if it had been “escapades” (or alternatively “midge”)?

    Midges doesn’t quite work for me

  26. 13D wasn’t sure of.
    I’ve heard of her called Eva Peron or Evita but not Evita Peron.

    Other than that, cracking crossword

  27. I thought I didn’t understand how royal equals real, then I thought of the old tennis game.

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