Financial Times 17,518 by Rosa Klebb

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Puzzle from the Weekend FT of September 9, 2023

This proved harder for me than most of Rosa’s puzzles with terms that are not well known to me at 6 (IRON RATION), 18 (DARKLING) and 29 (EPICENE).

My favourites are 4 (AGLITTER), 5 (GALAXIES), 12 (OWNS) and and the brilliant, multifaceted 19 (BLOOMERS).

picture of the completed grid

ACROSS
1 SYSTEM
Time to probe messy, corrupt organisation (6)
T (time) in (to probe) anagram (corrupt) of MESSY
4 AGLITTER
Sparkling silver sedan (8)
AG (silver) + LITTER (sedan)
10 HEROISM
Female love is the ultimate in calm courage (7)
HER (female) + O (love) + IS (is) + [cal]M
11 LIONESS
England footballer, one with pride (7)
Double definition
12 OWNS
Possesses topless frocks (4)
[g]OWNS
13 IN EXTREMIS
Ex-minister seething on the way out (2,8)
Anagram (seething)
16 ESPRIT
Wit, psychic powers and sex appeal ensnaring Romeo (6)
ESP (psychic powers) + R (Romeo) in (ensnaring) IT (sex appeal)
17 OESTRUS
Heat Irkutsk regularly after toes lost (7)
Anagram (lost) of TOES + [I]R[k]U[t]S[k]
20 DIAGRAM
Spread charitable donations over table? (7)
MARG (spread) + AID (charitable donations) all backwards (over)
21 MORTAL
Human muscle memory returns (6)
LAT (muscle) + ROM (memory) all backwards (returns)
24 UNTHINKING
Tactless, tubby monarch (10)
UN-THIN (tubby) + KING (monarch,)
25 VINO
Plonk seconds of every dish on counter (4)
[e]V[ery] [d]I[sh] [o]N [c]O[unter].  ‘Plonk’ and ‘vino’ are both informal British words for wine, especially for cheap wine in the case of ‘plonk’.
27 TIMPANI
Paint I’m stirring in drums (7)
Anagram (stirring) of PAINT IM
29 EPICENE
Great earl, born sexless (7)
EPIC (great) + E (Earl) + NE (born)
30 STONE-AGE
Ancient savant full of character (5-3)
TONE (character) in (full of) SAGE (savant)
31 DEBRIS
Rubbish finally swamped the British Isles (6)
[swampe]D [th]E BR (British) + IS (isles)
DOWN
1 SCHOONER
Ship wrecked on shore round cape (8)
C (cape) in (round) anagram of ON SHORE
2 STRONG POINT
Potent beer crushing last of maestro’s talent (6,5)
STRONG (potent) + [maestr]O in (crushing) PINT (beer)
3 EXIT
European team close to defeat and departure (4)
E (European) + XI (team) + [defea]T
5 GALAXIES
Party leader in China heartlessly exploits stars (8)
GALA (party) + XI (leader in China)+ E[xploit]S
6 IRON RATION
Emergency food supply helping to keep up strength (4,6)
IRON (strength) + RATION (helping).  ‘Iron Rations’ usually refers to emergency food supplies for soldiers in action.
7 TIE
Articulate SE Asian couple (3)
Homophone (articulate) of “Thai”
8 RESIST
Some theatre sisters do not comply (6)
Hidden word (some)
9 AMEND
The last word on Democratic reform (5)
AMEN (the last word) + D (Democratic)
14 MOUNTAINEER
“I out-earn men!” explodes Hillary, for one (11)
Anagram (explodes) of I OUT EARN MEN
15 PILGRIMAGE
Journey of sanctimonious old girl, oddly repressed figure (10)
PI (sanctimonious) + [o]L[d] G[I]R[l] + IMAGE (figure)
18 DARKLING
Sweetheart transfixed by first of kisses in the night (8)
K[isses] in (transfixed by) DARLING (sweetheart)
19 BLOOMERS
Bread and Roses? (8)
Double definition with the first referring to a particular style of British loaf.  I especially like this because, according to IMDB, there are three movies named “Bread and Roses”.  And I thank PeterO for alerting us to the fact that “Klebb” (?????) is the Russian word for bread (see comments below).
22 BUTTES
Isolated hills rear over outskirts of Eccles (6)
BUTT (rear) + E[ccle]s
23 ANGER
Skinless sausages provoke fury (5)
[b]ANGER[s]
26 MINE
Fund one’s nursing home (4)
IN (home) in (nursing) ME (one)
28 MOO
Low spirits after loss of diamonds (3)
MOO[d]

24 comments on “Financial Times 17,518 by Rosa Klebb”

  2. Fourth Rosa Klebb puzzle I’ve done. Thought it a bit more difficult that the others but enjoyed it and Iook forward to more.

    Favourites included: UNTHINKING, AGLITTER, LIONESS, AMEND, MINE

    DIAGRAM and DARKLING were my LOI and i couldn’t parse the former as well as a couple of others.

    Thanks Rosa and Pete

  3. Thanks Pete

    Nice puzzle with great surfaces as usual, although I feel Rosa Klebb was straying a bit close to the line with such a large number of remote words & references.

    My favourites were different to Pete this week, namely: EPICENE (a new word for me too, but I loved the clue once I had worked it out), TIMPANI (I am a sucker for a good anagram), TIE (lovely surface) and I had two ticks for MOUNTAINEER (just a wonderful clue, I thought).

    Thanks Pete for the great blog, and thanks Rosa Klebb for a typically enjoyable crossword.

  4. Thanks Rosa for another gem. I found this straightforward for the most part with a few oddities thrown into the mix. All of it was impeccably clued and ultimately solvable. I had many favourites, all with silky surfaces, including HEROISM, ESPRIT, MORTAL, UNTHINKING, DEBRIS, GALAXIES, MOUNTAINEER, and DARKLING. Thanks Pete for the blog.

  7. Thanks for the blog, the usual high standard of clues, I share the praise for UNTHINKING for the childish idea of the tubby monarch. I agree with Martyn@3 for MOUNTAINEER , outstanding clue, so clever to pick out Hillary as the example and so maintain the female deception.

  8. I really enjoyed this and found it a steady solve with some interesting words.

    I knew EPICENE, had come across it in reading*, but had inferred gay not sexless. The FT I tend to solve with my daughter travelling on my phone, as I queried the word, she looked it up. She knew DARKLING, I knew IRON RATION, but they all were words that went in on a later pass. Clever use of Hillary in MOUNTAINEER – my immediate thought was Clinton not Edmund, but the anagram was clear.

    *whatever I read it in it was coyly describing a young gay man, so I’d assumed gay, not sexless.

    Thank you to Rosa Kleb and Pete.

  10. Wonderful puzzle. I’m someone who prefers to encounter obscure (to me) words rather than themed references, eg a bunch of Agatha Christie characters I’ve perhaps dimly heard of. It feels like an education rather than a frustration. As others have noted there are some nice subtleties in these clues (including a possible &lit in PILGRIMAGE) but my favourites were the very neat and possibly linked chucklers UNTHINKING and ANGER. Many thanks and au revoir Rosa Klebb. Appreciation also to Pete for the blog

  11. I think in IRON RATION the “helping” means “a helping” a portion of food used to maintain strength . Mountaineers use these rations as well, Kendal mint cake etc.

  12. Another gem from Rosa, with my favourites being 10ac HEROISM, 13ac IN EXTREMIS, 20ac DIAGRAM, 24ac UNTHINKING, 1dn SCHOONER, 14dn MOUNTAINEER and 18dn DARKLING, which I knew from Keats’ ‘Ode to a Nightingale’, which I learned by heart for A Level and have loved ever since:

    ‘… Darkling I listen; and, for many a time
    I have been half in love with easeful Death,
    Call’d him soft names in many a mused rhyme,
    To take into the air my quiet breath;
    Now more than ever seems it rich to die,
    To cease upon the midnight with no pain,
    While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad
    In such an ecstasy!
    Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain—
    To thy high requiem become a sod…’

    I also took RATION as helping – ‘keeping up’ (in a down clue) IRON (strength).

    Many thanks to Rosa for the puzzle and to Pete for the blog.

  13. Thanks Rosa and Pete

    6dn: I like Eileen’s explanation@12.

    26dn: I do not think FrankieG’s reading@6 is quite right. I think this should be IN (home) in (‘s nursing) ME (one)

  14. I do not do crosswords any more but regularly read Pete’s analyses. My memory is failing and I am surprised what I do remember. I too remember the quotation of Keats and there is another one which is from Eliot’s “Sunday Morning Service” which I would have read about 70 years ago.

    Along the garden-wall the bees
    With hairy bellies pass between
    The staminate and pistilate,
    Blest office of the epicene.

    Thank you Pete and Rosa Klebb

  18. An enjoyable solve, although there were a few clues that took us a while to work out, such as for EPICENE. Favourite was UNTHINKING (but we thought the clue could have done with a question mark).
    Thanks, Rosa and Pete.

  19. Pelham Barton@13
    It wasn’t my reading – I was just pointing out a typo – the blog originally had “IN (home) in (nursing) MY (one’s)”
    I’d’ve parsed it as M(IN)E. with ME = one, nursing IN = home.
    Thanks RK&PM

  20. Pete @ 15 – Not quite, I’m afraid; there’s a rogue I (should be U) in your parsing of OESTRUS….

    However, I should mention that yours was as efficient, and intelligible, a blog as I’ve seen in 15²! I used to solve the FT daily back in the 20th century – it’s the presence of RK (along with the near absence of Arachne in Guardian puzzles) that has drawn me back. This is why I’ve never encountered a Pete MacLean blog (my kind of blog!) before

    Concerning the crossword itself, I can but echo fully Tony Santucci @ 4 (straightforward, coruscating and creative…. but perhaps not as tricksy as I might hope from this brilliant setter)

    Many thanks to Sarah H and Pete M!

  21. Well I managed more than half of this, which for me is a record for a Rosa Klebb. I usually find her too obscure.

  22. 22dn (BUTTES) defeated me. I have never heard the word and the fact that nobody seems to have commented on the clue suggests that they are well-known enough. I found most of this straightforward but was slow with the last few (MINE (me = one?), EPICENE, DIAGRAM, DEBRIS) and eventually failed to finish with 22dn still unsolved.

  23. Much thanks to Rosa Klebb and Pete Maclean. A couple of points have not been mentioned: in 19D, Rosa Klebb is Bread and Roses (or, rather, vice versa); and there is an alternative reading for 10A HEROISM, with HERO (‘female love’ of Leander).

  24. PeterO @23 grest info, also just to add Rosa Klebb is one of the greatest Bond villains, portrayed onscreen by a vicious Lotte Lenya in From Russia With Love. The Bond vs. Klebb fight scene is highly recommended as a YouTube distraction.

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