Financial Times 17,524 by Zamorca

13 comments on “Financial Times 17,524 by Zamorca”

1. Not sure I understand the wordplay for 16A…

2. HURRAH —I took it as:
   Def: Cheer
   Up/reversal of ‘HARR(y) at U H

   BASMATI
   There is a typo, I think. BASA.

3. NEIGHBOUR
   homophone of ‘nay’, you meant.

4. Thanks Zamorca for a well contructed crossword with excellent surfaces throughout. I had many favourites including HONESTLY, EARWIG, TIRESOME, HURRAH, CONFESSOR, ADULTHOOD, HELPLESS, and CREPE. I had a few gaps in parsing so thanks Pete for the blog. By the way, just as Serpent always has a nina and Qaos always has a theme, Zamorca always has a pangram.

5. A couple of more observations:
   SNIPER
   S+reversed (REP+IN)

   TO A DEGREE
   natterjack=TOAD, for example=EG, rare=R, outside of Europe=EE.
   EG in TOAD REE (EG is protected).

6. An academic question:

   Do you say, ‘a couple of more observations’ or ‘a couple more observations’?

7. First time doing a Zamorca puzzle – took a while (especially the bottom half) but got there in the end (yesterday).

   Favourites were: HONESTLY, TO A DEGREE, EARWIG, SPEEDY, CONFESSOR

   [ KVa @ 6 The latter]

   Thanks Zamorca and Pete

8. HE(SPELL*)S “broken by”

9. Thanks for the blog, a very good set of clues , EARWIG was my favourite .
   For TO A DEGREE , the Natterjack toad is pretty rare in the UK now , (we are outside Europe politically) , heavily protected and can stop any developments.

10. KVa, Thank you for the correction on TO A DEGREE.

11. To a rhotic speaker talk and TORQUE (21a) are not homophones, but they make excellent aural wordplay. (hint hint, Pete 😉 )

    I know I was wrong, but at 2d NEIGHBOUR, I had “next door” doing double duty as definition and aural wordplay with “nae rub” as the Scottish way of saying “no problem”. It got me to the solution.

    Thanks Zamorca and Pete for the fun.

12. That was enjoyable for me too. I noted that I either did not write down or was unable to parse NEIGHBOUR – probably the latter, so thanks Pete. Wheeze meaning an idea is new to me. And would someone please explain the purpose of the ellipses in 5A and 9A? For the life of me, I can see no connection between either questions or answers.

    Favourites were the great anagram of Cartier in 19 and the clever homophone and surface for TORQUE.

    Thanks Zamorca, and thanks Pete

13. Yes, an enjoyable solve. We always look for a pangram in a Zamorca puzzle, and thought we were going to be disappointed till we got WHEEZE as almost our LOI.
    Lots to savour, including CONFESSOR and FRIENDLY.
    Thanks, Zamorca and Pete.
    Martyn@12: we think the ellipses are simply to ‘improve’ the surface reading and the clues are otherwise quite separate.

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