Financial Times 17,546 by LEONIDAS

19 comments on “Financial Times 17,546 by LEONIDAS”

1. It has been a lovely week of puzzles so far and this one is no exception.
   Found it fairly steady on the whole and enjoyed STAMP COLLECTOR and BETTER HALF above all.
   21d didn’t seem very cryptic to me and I wondered about my LOI in, MING, which particular emperor this might be. I was thinking of the Ming dynasty (many emperors) and thought the answer a bit of a stretch but having read your blog, Loonapick, it must be one of those you mentioned.
   Anyway, I was most entertained!
   Thanks both.

2. Hey, we had cow parsley just the other day. Hitherto I’d never heard of it.

   Didn’t quite finish but I enjoyed what I did. Had a chuckle at BRAINWASH. Shouldn’t “grown-ups” in 9a be singular?

   Thanks Leonidas & Loonapick.

3. I think, GDU, that a film “for grown-ups” is an ‘adult’ movie.

4. GDU@2
   ADULT (adjective)
   ‘for grown-ups’

5. Diane@3
   Crossed. Sorry.

6. Another lovely puzzle from Leonidas, for which I had lots of ticks.

   Pick of a big bunch were 1ac SKEDADDLE – great surface and I love the word, anyway, 11ac PRISON CAMP and 15ac SHOWBIZ, both for the wordplay, 19ac PIPETTE, for making me smile, 2dn ERUDITION, for the groan it induced when I realised that ‘education’ was wrong, 5dn ERASMUS – brilliantly hidden and another groan, after searching for a musician including DD and 16dn BATTALION, for another great surface – not that there were any poor ones.

   One tiny quiblet: I remember learning in Geography that climate and weather were different things – but I think they’re near enough in Crosswordland.

   Many thanks to Leonidas and loonapick.

7. I agree with Eileen that SKEDADDLE is a very satisfying word and I had the same near miss with EDUCATION/ERUDITION; thankfully, Rugby Union (topically enough) saved the day!

8. Eileen@6
   CLIMATE vs weather: Agree with you.

9. Good puzzle – and like Eileen @6: thought SKEDADLE was great, failed to see ERASMUS for ages and also thought 2d was education at first.

   Also liked: DEBACLE

   Right hand side took longer than left.

   Thanks Leonidas and loonapick

10. Eileen @ 6, yes climate and weather aren’t the same, but as you say, there have certainly been more approximate synonyms in the surreal world of cryptic crosswords!

11. Time for an intervention, I think. Not for the first time, I am looking at one of my clues and thinking ‘Why on earth did I write that?’. Climate of course is not the same as weather, sloppy setting. Hair shirt on. Thanks loonapick and to all who have commented.

12. SCHNOZZLE – thought this might be Yiddish, like all the words – including the rude ones – my !rish Mother picked up and passed on to her children, working as a home help for nice old Jewish widows in the East End in the ’60s. But https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/schnozzle says ‘The OED suggests the word may be pseudo-Yiddish coined in English. Attested since 1930.’ – OEDipus SchmOEDipus…
    PIP ETTE – I usually don’t like whimsical clues, but “extra-tiny Apple product” was fun, as was BRA IN WASH.
    Thanks L&l

13. Thanks Leonidas and Loonapick

    10ac (BRAINWASH): When Azed set that for his competition puzzle in December 1973, the first prize went to the clue “Bust down reason?” (bra in wash & lit). See this link (if my attemp to include it works)

    8dn (SCHNOZZLE): Chambers 2014 gives this as derived from” Yiddish shnoitsl, dimin of German Schnauze snout”

14. It looks as though clicking on the sentence relating to 8dn in comment 13 gets you the link I wanted for 10ac. It could have been worse.

15. Agree with all the above. The more I see of Leonidas, the more I enjoy his puzzles.

16. Pelham Barton@13,14 – a clue with a golden anniversary.
    Your link includes a “VHC” for “D. F. Manley” who has been entering the contest for over 52 years, and is cluer number one:
    http://www.andlit.org.uk/azed/by_cluer.php?cluer_id=1

17. FrankieG@16: As you probably knew, but some readers will not, Don Manley is well known here as Bradman, and to Guardian solvers as Pasquale. I think he no longer writes as Quixote in the Independent (on Sunday or otherwise) and has various other pseudonyms.

    While I am back in, can I say that 21dn (HOCKS) is my favourite type of double definition (or “two meanings” as I prefer)? It is essentially defining two words of different origins which have converged in spelling. They are given as hock¹ and hock² in Chambers 2014 – could be the same or different in other dictionaries.

18. Thanks Leonidas for a great set of clues. CLIMATE, SHOWBIZ, RISKY, ASTRONAUTS, DEBACLE, ERASMUS, FUDGE, and MARY were among my picks. However wrong, CLIMATE and weather are used interchangeably in common parlance so the setter gets a pass from me. Thanks loonapick for the blog.

19. Tony Santucci @ 18 – that’s exactly what I meant by my comment re CLIMATE and weather: I was simply trying to forestall any possible objection (forgetting that I was not on the Guardian thread. 😉 )

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