Financial Times 17,516 by BOBCAT

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Today's puzzle is brought to us by Bobcat.

When I saw the clue to 1across, my heart sank as it looked complicated and I was worried I would fail to complete the puzzle and therefore the blog, however after my first pass of the clues, I had six across answers and eight down answers in place, and a second pass added eight more solutions. I was now left with one long down solution that turned out to be PATCHWORK QUILT which gave me crossers to some of the others. I was left with 1 across and down to solve and SCOTLAND to parse. Once I thought of Fats Waller and got WALLET, the only possible answer to 1dn was WEST SIDE, which took me a second or two to parse. It took me a couple of minutes of Paddington-style hard staring at SCOTLAND before ASCOT popped into my head and ta-da! the puzzle was done. Great fun, and I learned a new meaning of GNOME along the way. My favourite clue was that for LONGEVITY, but I gave ticks to a load of others.

Thanks Bobcat.

ACROSS
1 WALLET
Heavyweight jazzman finding time for right notes in this case (6)

(Fats) WALLE(r>T) ("heavyweight jazz man") finding T (time) for (i.e. instead of) R (right)
4 APPLE PIE
Something appetising caught by grapple attached to pier (5,3)

Hidden in [caught by] "grAPPLE PIEr"
10 SOUTHPORT
Young people avoiding Head being absorbed by golf, perhaps, here? (9)

(y)OUTH ("young people, avoiding head) being absorbed by SPORT ("golf, perhaps")

Southport is home to Royal Birkdale Golf Club and very close to Lytham St Annes Golf Club, both of which have hosted the Open Championship.
11 VAPID
Flat where retired prima donna briefly stores a piano (5)

[retired] <=DIV(a) ("prima donna", briefly) stores A + P (piano, in music notation)

12 SADDLER
One providing support not so happy about student (7)

SADDER ("not so happy") about L (learner driver, so "student")
13 HARPOON
No chat show host retracted something barbed (7)

<= (NO + OPRAH (Winfrey) "chat show host", retracted)
14 DIRGE
It’s very slow with e-network going west (5)

<=E-GRID ("e-network", going west)
15 SCOTLAND
Country place hosting races is short of a ground (8)

(a)SCOT ("place hosting races") is short of A + LAND ("ground")
18 FRETWORK
Foot’s holding on to Labour saw cuts in production (8)

Ft. (foot) holding RE ("on") + WORK ("labour")
20 NICER
Short cut … I’m not sure it’s better (5)

[short] NIC(k) ("cut") + ER ("I'm not sure")
23 MILDRED
Liberal Democrat’s plugging involved woman (7)

LD (Liberal Democrat) plugging MIRED ("involved")
25 UNEQUAL
50% of equity seized by a Spanish lawcourt at the outset? That’s unfair (7)

[50% of] EQU(ity) seized by UNA ("a" in "Spanish") + L(awcourt) [at the outset]
26 NAIAD
Scotsman returns bill for classical water feature (5)

<=IAN ("Scotsman" returns) + AD ("bill")
27 NULLIFIED
I’ll find EU in disarray — or abolished? (9)

*(i'll find eu) [anag:in disarray]
28 APHORISM
Gnome beginning to snort morphia is high (8)

*(s morphia) [anag:is high] when S is [beginning to] S(nort)
29 HYENAS
Extremely hardy eutherian Africans (6)

[extremely] H(ard]Y E(utheria)N A(frican)S and &lit.
DOWN
1 WEST SIDE
This is the location of part of New York (4,4)

Double definition, the first referring to the location of the answer in the grid (on the left side)

2 LAUNDER
Disguise provenance of one coming ashore around mid-January (7)

LANDER ("one coming ashore") around [mid] (jan)U(ary)
3 ETHELBERT
Young singer on the up enthrals the old king (9)

<=TREBLE ("young singer", on the up) enthrals THE
5 PATCHWORK QUILT
Badly exposed backs left QPR without cover (9,5)

*(ack l qpr without) [anag:badly] where ACK is [exposed] (l)ACK(s) and L is left
6 LIVER
Clergyman raised under £1 for organ (5)

<=Rev. (Reverend, so "clergyman", raised) under L (£, in old notation) + I (1)
7 POPCORN
Spooner’s raunchy police movie provides fodder for Cineworld (7)

If Spooner had been around these days, COP PORN ("raunchy police movie") may have come out of his mouth as POP CORN
8 ENDING
What Schoenberg and Grieg do in a coda (6)

Both "SchoenberG and GrieG" END IN G
9 CORRESPONDENTS
Censors prod ten wayward journalists (14)

*(censors prod ten) [anag:wayward]
16 LONGEVITY
Hoped-for outcome for people tying love knots? (9)

*(tying love) [anag:knots]
17 PRELUDES
Pieces performed by old maids entertaining Ethel on vacation (8)

PRUDES ("old maids") entertaining E(the)L [on vacation]

I wasn't sure about "prudes" being the same as "old maids", but the second definition of "old maid" in Chambers is "an fussy or ex essively cautious person", so it appears to be fine.
19 RALEIGH
Elizabethan variety of hair gel (7)

*(hair gel) [anag:variety of]

Refers to Sir Walter Raleigh, the English courtier and explorer.
21 CAUTION
Promotion of cocaine in sale leads to formal warning (7)

Promotion (i.e. moving up) of C (cocaine) in AU(c)TION ("sale") leads to (C)AUTION
22 AMANDA
Female drivers’ club introducing male joiner (6)

AA (Automobile Association, so "drivers' club") introducing M (male) + AND ("joiner")
24 RADAR
Device setting pulses racing monitors those on the rebound (5)

Cryptic definition

22 comments on “Financial Times 17,516 by BOBCAT”

  1. Thought ENDING and WEST SIDE were cute.
    I needed Loonapick’s blog for a handful not properly parsed. SCOTLAND, for instance, was the clear answer but it had me scratching my head, likewise MILDRED.
    Liked the surface for WALLET. Enjoyable!
    Thanks both.

  2. I started very slowly, and came close to abandoning ship, but stuck with it and surprised myself by finishing. Tried for quite some time to parse PATCHWORK QUILT after verifying that it was correct, and failed. Groaned when I saw the explanation here. SCOTLAND & RADAR were the other two I didn’t parse, and I still don’t understand RADAR after coming here. If someone could explain it to me in monsyllables that would be appreciated.

    I was unaware of APHORISM/gnome and hadn’t heard of Ethelbert.

    Thanks Bobcat & Loonapick.

  3. Great puzzle today with many clever and fun clues. My foi was WALLET but found it quite hard thereafter and needed the blog for some parsing. Bobcat has mellowed a little,or maybe I am more on his wavelength now.
    Thanks to Bobcat and Loonapick for a faultless blog.

  6. GDU@2
    RADAR
    Let me attempt…
    A RADAR system sends/transmits signals in the form of short pulses (at a very high speed)—>Device setting pulses racing.
    The pulses will be reflected by objects on their path. —————–> those (pulses) on rebound.
    The system receives a part of the reflected pulses (the pulses get reflected in many directions)
    and monitors the same——————————————————> (The device) Monitors…

  8. SOUTHPORT
    We have a clue referring to the location of the solution in the grid in WESTSIDE.
    Is SOUTHPORT another such clue? in the NW part of the grid and England?

  12. POPCORN – Cineworld is in administration. Like Paperchase recently, appearing in a crossword seems to be the kiss of death for companies.
    HYENAS looks &littish.

  14. Thanks to KVa for the explanation of RADAR. It was the obvious answer after the cross letters were in, but I’m still not sure that I understand fully.

    I enjoyed the solve but I’m not too happy about “female” being the clue definition in 23A and 22D. Both of the answers are female names but is the definition really enough? Just a personal opinion …

  15. In 23A the definition in the clue is “woman”, and the first definition of “female” in Chambers is “woman or girl”.

  16. Thanks Rudolf. I am not quibbling about the definition of a female person of the opposite sex. I just don’t get how the answer to a woman/girl/ female’s name can be defined by her gender as there is no indication in either clue that the answer is a name.

    I don’t have a “Chambers”. When I was growing up in England, the dictionary of choice was the EOD.

  17. Peter @16 I think what Rudolf is saying is that female does not just mean the gender, it means ‘a person of the female gender’, in which case a name being the solution is no different to eg. Wembley being the solution if stadium were the definition.
    If it is just the vagueness of the definition you dislike, then you are not alone, as this is a perennial complaint for many solvers. Personally, I like having names clued that way, though it was odd to have two so close in the same puzzle.
    Thanks to Bobcat & loonapick
    LIVER made me laugh.

  18. Peter, if the Chambers Dictionary app is available where you live I can certainly recommend subscribing for it. It’s inexpensive and incorporates a very useful search facility. James’s explanation of what I was saying is correct – thanks to him for that.

  19. Thanks for the blog, a Paddington stare is used to show disapproval, usually for indirect anagrams or people talking about IT or cricket. A very good set of neat clues .
    I cannot resist RADAR,( sorry KVa ) the pulses are microwaves travelling at the speed of light, the echoes from ships, planes etc are monitored to give position and speed, the clue is trying to make us think of someone romantically on the rebound.

  20. Thanks everyone

    I seem to be making a habit of midweek puzzles. I hope I can keep it

    I agree with much but not all of the above, so at the risk of repetition….. I had the same experience as our blogger in reading 1ac and thinking “oh no”. I got going in the SE corner and completed the east side quite quickly. The WEST SIDE took some time. In the end I completed and parsed all but one clue, failing to even solve FRETWORK. Favourites were HARPOON, NULLIFIED, HYENAS, POPCORN (a first for me for a Spoonerism), and CORRESPONDENTS.

    I completely agree with comments about vague clues. I loved the surface of MILDRED, but agree with Peter@16. Same could be said of more than one clue today – nice surface followed by a negative reaction to the vague straight clue

    All in all, I enjoyed the crossword and agree with comments about the good variety of clever devices.

    Thanks loonapick for a great blog and thanks Bobcat

  21. A bit of a struggle but we chipped away at it and finished unaided although we couldn’t parse one or two answers. As for MILDRED and AMANDA, we don’t have a problem, seeing them as definitions by example; the clue for NAIAD is similar in the use of ‘Ian’ for ‘Scotsman’.
    Favourites were APHORISM, WEST SIDE and ETHELBERT.
    Thanks, Bobcat and loonapick.

  22. Thanks Bobcat. I got to this late but I wanted to document my approval of this well-crafted crossword with ENDING, AMANDA, and RALEIGH among my notable clues. Thanks loonapick for the blog.

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