Financial Times 17,537 by FALCON

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FALCON provides this morning's entertainment…

A nice mix of clues that provided a satisfying challenge.

Thanks FALCON

picture of the completed grid

ACROSS
1. Book one occupies young children very much (2,4)
TO BITS

(B (book) + I (one)) occupies TOTS (young children)

4. Model intoxicated? Refrain from taking action (3,5)
SIT TIGHT

SIT (model) + TIGHT (intoxicated)

9. Handsome youth, coming from a party, turned evil (6)
ADONIS

A + DO (party) + (SIN)< (evil, <turned)

10. Flying through in it on a special (8)
AVIATION

VIA (through) in (IT ON A)* (*special)

12. Put on ring (gold) in players’ entrance (5,4)
STAGE DOOR

STAGED (put on) + O (ring) + OR (gold)

13. Discover the whereabouts of leader of toppled nation (5)
TRACE

T[oppled] (leader of) + RACE (nation)

14. After parking it by centre, row about stray dog (3,4,7)
PIT BULL TERRIER

P (parking) + IT + BULL (centre) + (TIER (row) about ERR (stray))

17. Cheeky kid, one stealing fish (14)
WHIPPERSNAPPER

WHIPPER (one stealing) + SNAPPER (fish)

21. Suffer at home having endless wind (5)
INCUR

IN (at home) having CUR[l] (wind, endless)

22. Small blue train, one lagging behind (9)
SLOWCOACH

S (small) + LOW (blue) + COACH (train)

24. Fail to see our island state (8)
MISSOURI

MISS (fail to see) + OUR + I (island)

25. Immoral type almost executed (6)
SORDID

SOR[t] (type, almost) + DID (executed)

26. Business centre in Newry, for example (8)
DOWNTOWN

Double (cryptic) definition

Newry being a town in County Down.

27. Western county in former kingdom (6)
WESSEX

W (western) + ESSEX (county)

DOWN
1. Time artist spent working in part of church (8)
TRANSEPT

T (time) + RA (artist) + (SPENT)* (*working)

2. Resilient, lad reportedly tense following article (7)
BUOYANT

"boy" (lad, "reportedly") + (T (tense) following AN (article))

3. Hallucinatory experience on Ecstasy? Nonsense! (5)
TRIPE

TRIP (hallucinatory experience) on E (ecstasy)

5. Running in red vest, toff, one who identifies with the lower classes? (8,4)
INVERTED SNOB

(IN RED VEST)* (*running) + NOB (toff)

6. Restaurant served up excellent crumble and pastry dish (9)
TRATTORIA

(AI (excellent) + ROT (crumble) and TART (pastry dish))< (<served up)

7. Formidable champion may make one pull a face (7)
GRIMACE

GRIM (formidable) + ACE (champion)

8. One behind the other inside Accident and Emergency (6)
TANDEM

[acciden]T AND EM[ergency] (inside)

11. Result of game if grass allowed to grow wild? (8,4)
GOALLESS DRAW

(GRASS ALLOWED)* (*to grow wild)

15. Top university job enthralling for each male (9)
UPPERMOST

(U (university) + POST (job)) enthralling (PER (for each) + M (male))

16. Established writer curtails broadcast (8)
ORTHODOX

"author docks" (writer curtails, "broadcast")

18. Journalist noticed hand tool (7)
HACKSAW

HACK (journalist) + SAW (noticed)

19. The characters one shouldn’t forget? (1’1,3,1’1) (7)
P’S AND Q’S

Cryptic definition

20. Shot of Mike in queue with daughter (6)
FILMED

M (mike) in FILE (queue) with D (daughter)

23. The end is nigh (5)
CLOSE

Double definition

14 comments on “Financial Times 17,537 by FALCON”

  1. Never heard of whipper/one stealing. Nor bull/centre (I’ve found one reference that says it’s “mainly British”).

    A good wholesome puzzle with plenty of smiles. Thanks Falcon & Teacow.

  5. BBC Pointless fans will know that when the question involves a “British city” the Northern !rish ones are always low-scoring:
    Belfast, Bangor, Derry, Armagh (also a County), Lisburn, Newry (in County Armagh and County Down)
    The obvious earworm – ArmaghCity

  7. Not a lot to say today as it was all pretty easy. I was held up for while on 20D, thinking that the “queue” was “line” but I got it in the end.

    Thanks Teacow.

  8. GDU @6. Same here but I’ve often heard people saying ‘hitting a bull’ using ‘bull’ for ‘bull’s-eye’. Chambers suggests ‘bull’ in this sense refers to the shot rather than the target though. This doesn’t match with my experience but I was never much of a dart’s player.

  9. Re BULL: I’m not much of a darts player either, but I am a pub-goer and I’ve often heard players say ‘Go for the bull’.

  10. Thanks Falcon and Teacow

    14ac (PIT BULL TERRIER): Here is what Chambers 2014 actually says under bull n: “a bull’s eye, (a shot that hits) the centre of a target”. Then under bull’s-eye we get “the centre of a target; a shot that hits it (also fig)”. The way I read that, it refers equally to the shot or to the part of the target.

  12. Fairly straightforward but there were a few traps for the unwary, such as thinking ‘toff’ was part of the anagram rather than a standalone ‘nob’ in 5dn, and ‘file’ rather than ‘line’ for ‘queue’ in 20dn. Favourites were AVIATION, TRANSEPT and ORTHODOX.
    We did wonder if it was going to be a pangram, but in the end J and Z were missing.
    Thanks, Falcon and Teacow

  13. Thanks Falcon. I revealed GOALLESS DRAW and couldn’t parse ORTHODOX but I managed to solve and parse everything else. Favourites were ADONIS, INCUR, and GRIMACE. Thanks Teacow for the blog.

Comments are closed.