Financial Times 17,520 by GOZO

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I breezed through three-quarters of this Gozo puzzle before running into a few tricky clues, which I hope I have parsed adequately.

The unusual structure of this grid led me to suspect a theme, but if one is present, it eludes me.

picture of the completed grid

ACROSS
1 INCITE
Provoke awareness for the audience (6)
Homophone of (for the audience) INSIGHT (awareness). For me, the stress is on different syllables, so this is a bit of stretch for a homophone clue.
4 SPEEDIER
Less respectable parking inside is at a higher rate (8)
P (parking) inside SEEDIER (less respectable)
9/11/14 THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA
Hemingway novel for Dad with the waters (3,3,3,3,3,3)
THE OLD MAN (Dad) + AND (with) + THE SEA (the waters)
10 OIL WELLS
Gushers in good condition in different soil (3,5)
WELL (in good condition) inside (in) anagram of (different) SOIL
11
See 9
12 OCARINAS
Air-con, as represented on instruments (8)
Anagram of (represented) AIR-CON AS
13 APE
Copy of some newspapers (3)
Hidden in (some) [NEWSP]APE[RS}
14
See 9
17 DURNESS
Red sun’s out in northwest Scotland township (7)
Anagram of (out) RED SUN’S
21/27/29 PHOEBE WALLER-BRIDGE
Actress perplexed — Heidelberg below par (6,6-6)
Anagram of (perplexed) HEIDELBERG BELOW PAR
25 IRE
Fury that is consuming king (3)
I.E. (that is) around (consuming) R (king)
26 LETDOWNS
Disappointments are a hindrance on Sussex uplands (8)
LET (hindrance) + DOWNS (Sussex uplands, i.e., the South Downs)
27
See 21
28 ATHLETIC
Sporty husband into tactile dancing (8)
Anagram of (dancing) {H (husband) + TACTILE}
29
See 21
30 ROSETTES
I return holding very large awards (8)
SETTER (I return, i.e., as a hunting dog) around (holding) SO (very), all reversed (“return,” doing quasi-double duty)  SETTER (I, i.e., Gozo) reversed (return) around (holding) OS (very large).  Thanks to Steve@2.
31 TENDER
Sensitive offer for coal truck (6)
Triple definition
DOWN
1 INTIMATE
Suggest being familiar (8)
Double definition with two pronunciations
2 CLEANSED
Freed from sin, is inclined to enter church initially deserted (8)
LEANS (is inclined) inside (to enter) CE (church) + first letter of (initially) D[ESERTED]
3 TALENTED
Having the abi[l]ity to cook tortellini first, al dente (8)
Anagram of (to cook) {first letter of [first] T[ORTELLINI] + AL DENTE}. Note minor typo in the published clue.
5/6/ 7 PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND
Discarded linen wrap around Canadian province (6,6,6)
Anagram of (around) DISCARDED LINEN WRAP
8 RESIST
Buck is surrounded by others (6)
IS inside (surrounded by) REST (others)
12 OPENERS
Batsmen 1 and 2 in key roles (7)
I think this parses as: Double/cryptic definition, i.e., a key has the function (“role”) of opening a lock.
15 AUK
Seabird — one from our shores? (3)
Cryptic definition, i.e., “A UK” seabird might be “one” from “our shores”
16 ASP
Something poisonous in the Christmas pudding (3)
Hidden in (in) [CHRISTM]AS P[UDDING]
18 SHEA TREE
Female disturbed eater at source of nuts and butter (4,4)
SHE (female) + anagram of (disturbed) EATER
19 SECLUDED
Private turned up — deduces lire are inside (8)
L (lire) inside (are inside) DEDUCES inverted (turned up)
20 NEAR BEER
US alcohol almost close at hand all the time (4,4)
NEARB[Y] (close at hand minus last letter [“almost”]) + E’ER (all the time)
22 ALTAIR
Star key look (6)
ALT (key) + AIR (look)
23/24/25 AT THIS MOMENT IN TIME
Matiest month, awfully warm and cosy now (2,4,6,2,4)
Anagram of (awfully) MATIEST MONTH + INTIME (warm and cosy)

20 comments on “Financial Times 17,520 by GOZO”

  1. New to me: NEAR BEER, SHEA TREE. I thought the Scottish town (really a village of about 300, apparently) was a bit mean (although we were told it was northwest, which assisted a bit with the scan of the atlas). Couldn’t see how “intime” was warm and cosy, but I’ve found it now. Never heard of Phoebe Waller-Bridge, which I only got after all the intersecting clues.

    Everything else happened smoothly. Thanks Gozo & Cineraria.

  2. Thanks to S & B. I parsed 30A as SETTER (GOZO or ‘I’ in this case) reversed around OS (short for over-sized, i.e. very large) with the definition being awards.

  4. Thanks Gozo. The top half went in quickly, the bottom half a bit more slowly. I used a word finder to solve TENDER but all else eventually fell into place including PHOEBE WALLER-BRIDGE, unknown to me until now. I enjoyed many clues including PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND for its anagram, ASP for its surface, NEAR BEER, and ALTAIR. I didn’t understand “warm and cosy” being IN TIME but most of the other parsing made sense. Thanks Cineraria for the blog.

  5. Delighted, as always, with this Gozo puzzle. PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND and the Fleabag actress got me off to a flying start. With AUK following quickly, I wondered, like Cineraria, if a Canadian theme might be in the offing.
    NEAR BEER and TENDER were my last two in; didn’t know that terminology for low (or no?) alcohol beer and didn’t remember the ‘coal truck’ definition but both were gettable.
    No particular favourites, just admiration for Gozo’s inventive use of this grid.
    Thanks to him and Cineraria.

  6. Thanks for the blog, rather strange grid with a triple entry in each corner.
    DURNESS has links to John Lennon and possibly In My Life.
    NEAR BEER is new to me but the clue was fair, I have not seen INTIME before, Chambers says it is French , similar to intimate.
    ALTAIR is quite interesting, rotates very rapidly so it is flattened at the poles.

  7. I assume that the setter’s discovery of the four long 18-letter answers drove the (fairly horrible) form of the grid and the extremely obscure (but very fairly clued) DURNESS.
    I thought the anagrams for PHOEBE WALLER-BRIDGE and PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND were good; I’d have thought the same about AT THIS MOMENT IN TIME had I been familiar with the word intime meaning warm and cosy. THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA, I felt, was a bit meh.
    As Tony @4 observes, the surface for ASP is very neat; finding a clever clue for a very short word is, I think, a test of a good compiler.
    Thanks, both.

  8. “At this moment in time” reminds me of the formidable lady magistrate who was nicknamed “The Dioniger”.
    Because of the number of times she informed a defendant she was about to bang up that in this dye and ige there was too much of this sort of thing going on…
    Just thought I’d mention that to wind up any of the homophone police who are on here 😉

  9. I never quite get along with Gozo’s style. Here we have ‘I’, for SETTER, ‘return’ for example, which cannot be grammatically sound. I don’t think I like ‘I’ for setter in any case, but surely we would prefer the past participle to go with it in the reversal indicator.

    I was glad to have the four three-light entries in this rather trying grid.

  10. Enjoyed this. Good triple definition for TENDER and liked the surface for ATHLETIC. Hadn’t heard of PWB. Tx Gozo and Cineraria.

  12. Ps my humphing re typos is directed at FT editors, not the setters, for whom such errors must be very annoying after all their careful construction. My compliments to them and also the compilers of this site.

  13. Like GDU, Roz and Diane, “Shea Tree” and “Near Beer” were new to me. although obvious when the cross letters were in.

    I drink reduced fat milk: should it be called “near milk”?

    Re 26A: although I grew up near there, I have never understood how the hills in Sussex are known as the “downs”.

  14. All good fun and rattled off in what must be one of our fastest times ever. Our only complaint being that it was all over too quickly.
    Thanks, Gozo and Cineraria.

  16. I would imagine that there are lots of old words for hill. Quite near to us is Pendle Hill , famous for witches. Locals say it means hill hill hill .

  18. PD @ 15: thus Dunkirk is identical in meaning to Churchill

    Peter@13 : Living in teh middle of them I rather assume it’s iron, as they always seem to go up rather than down!

  19. I live in the US and never heard of near beer but had fun with this. Don’t enjoy having to know actresses names. But the multiple word answers are a lot of fun. Thanks Gozo & Cineraria.

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