Financial Times 17,547 by GAFF

by

A splendid puzzle from GAFF to end the work week.

FF: 9 DD: 8

"A Bear called Paddington" was first published on this day in 1958.

ACROSS
1 PADDINGTON
Quietly putting on weight in place of training? (10)

P ( quietly ) ADDING ( putting on ) TON ( weight )
6
See 30
10 RISHI
Sage leader (5)

double def
11/9 MARMALADE SANDWICH
Snack was ruined with a mild hand cream (9,8)

[ WAS MILD HAND CREAM ]*
12/22 BATHROOM FLOOD
John bore domestic disaster (8,5)

BATHROOM ( john ) FLOOD ( bore )
13 DELTA
Small change of character (5)

double def
15/1 down DARKEST PERU
Doctors kickstart departures from remote part of country (7,4)

[ K ( Kick, start ) DEPARTURES ]*
17 NAIROBI
Robinia misplaced in capital (7)

[ ROBINIA ]*
19 HYDRIDE
Free to enter park or compound (7)

RID ( free ) in HYDE ( park )
21 ATHLETE
Maybe cyclist’s path let everyone be included (7)

hidden in "..pATH LET Everyone.. "
22
See 12
24 SUITCASE
Maybe carry on with double action (8)

SUIT CASE ( two examples of action , court )
27 LISTENS IN
Inn’s toilets need repair to missing taps (7,2)

[ INN'S toILETS ( without letters of TO ) ]*
28 RHINO
Animal created with one horn (5)

&lit; [ I ( one ) HORN ]*
29 SASH
Fighters have head band (4)

SAS ( fighters ) H ( Have, first letter )
30/6 SPECTACLED BEAR
Animal from circus beloved around big top (10,4)

semi &lit? Or &lit? SPECTACLE ( circus ) [ DEAR ( beloved ) around B ( Big, first letter ) ] ; double duty for CIRCUS possibly …
DOWN
1
See 15 Across
2 DESPAIRED
Gave up on seeing first two in action (9)

[ S ( Seeing, first letter ) PAIR ( two ) ] in DEED ( action )
3 IRISH
Sunak puts end to first race (5)

RISHI ( sunak, with last letter moving to the front )
4 GUM BOOT
Soup won’t even be protection against bad weather (3,4)

GUMBO ( soup ) OT ( wOnT, even letters of )
5 OARSMAN
Farsi’s heart in a state with stroke, perhaps (7)

ARS ( fARSi, centre of ) in OMAN ( state )
7 E MAIL
Message from cinema illustrator (1-4)

hidden in "..cinEMA ILlustrator.."
8 REEXAMINES
Again questions concerning deposits after cut back (10)

RE ( concerning ) EXA ( reverse of AXE – cut ) MINES ( deposits )
9
See 11 Across
14 IDAHO FALLS
US city’s aid with problem of inside lobbies (5,5)

[ AID ]* { OF in HALLS ( lobbies ) }
16 EVILDOER
Deliver nothing criminal (8)

[ DELIVER O ( nothing ) ]* – criminal on double duty
18 OVERSPILL
Surplus parts of tests on medicine (9)

OVERS ( parts of tests, cricket ) PILL ( medicine )
20 EASES UP
Takes pressure off with quiet drink (5,2)

EASE ( quiet ) SUP ( drink )
21 AVIONIC
Starts a virtual industry of nerds including collectors of flying gadgets (7)

starting letters of "..A Virtual Industry Of Nerds Including Collectors.."
23 OASIS
Well old in its present condition (5)

O ( old ) AS IS ( present condition )
25 CIRCA
About religion among spies (5)

RC ( religion ) in CIA ( spies )
26 BOND
Connection with author (4)

double def; author referring to ruskin.

23 comments on “Financial Times 17,547 by GAFF”

  1. Thanks, Gaff and Turbolegs!

    A minor omission:
    MARMALADE SANDWICH
    (WAS A MILD HAND CREAM)*

    PADDINGTON BEAR: many theme words must be there.
    I see SPECTACLED BEAR, DARKEST PERU, BOND (Michael), MARMALADE SANDWICH…Sure there must be more.

    RHINO and SPECTACLED BEAR seem to be CAD but not &lit.

    OARSMAN
    The def has an invisible subject? Maybe ‘Farsi (could be anyone) with stroke, perhaps’.

  4. SPECTACLED BEAR I took the definition as just animal.
    OARSMAN just “stroke perhaps” . A stroke is an example of an OARSMAN in a rowing crew.

  7. What a charming puzzle to end the working week.
    Favourites, among many, were MARMALADE SANDWICH and DARKEST PERU. No stares, only smiles, and I’m sure this met with Roz’s approval.
    Thanks to Gaff and Turbolegs.

  8. As KVa mentions @1,
    the Bond author in question must surely be Michael Bond, who besides Paddington Bear, gave us the The Herb Garden.

  9. I thought it odd that E-MAIL has a hyphen and REEXAMINES doesn’t. I don’t like any double duty but can’t see any other way to parse EVILDOER. Surprised how long it took me to get PADDINGTON, even though I’d already guessed the theme.

  10. Thanks for stopping by folks. Hilarious faux pas on 26d – though I should mention that it was amongst the first clues i solved before i latched on to the theme ( which was only after I had gone through 50% of the puzzle so a bit slow on the uptake). Should have gone back and changed it but will leave it be so folks who come by to read it can have a chuckle. 🙂

    Regards,
    TL

  11. What in the world is a “marmalade sandwich”? I guess that it’s from the book that is the theme…

    I agree with Diane that the author “Bond” must be the one in the theme, rather than an Indian author of whom I have never heard.

    Hovis, I agree with you about the missing hyphen in 8D. I was an early adopter of electronic mail via CompuServe in the 1980’s so was used to it being hyphenated, but now I accept it as one word without the hyphen.

    Thanks Turbolegs.

  13. I only had about 30 minutes. I managed to knock several out, but it just was not enough time

    I did not solve enough Paddington-related clues to pick up on the theme, but I am very impressed with how many theme-related clues Gaff managed to include.

  14. Happy Birthday PADDINGTON BEAR – Do you get a pension now, or do you have to wait till you’re 67?
    https://paddingtonbear.fandom.com/wiki/Paddington%27s_Birthday says ‘
    Paddington celebrates his birthday twice every year. When he was found, Paddington wasn’t too sure how old he was so the Browns decided to start again at one. They also decided that he should have two birthdays a year (just like the Queen!) and so he celebrates these on 25th June and 25th December.’
    That’s 3 birthdays a year, starting at 1 in 1958, means you’re pushing 200.
    [I don’t like my nationality being anagrammed or cycled into a PM who shows no sign of sagacity or leadership. Since Brexit We !RISH are treated as a first-class race in European airports – We don’t have to wait in the long queues with the Brits. But I didn’t think Sunak was threatening to put an end to us.]

  15. Solved this on the tube with my daughter and realised half way through the down clues what the theme was, and having loved the spectacled bear all my life, introducing him to my daughter rhrough the books too, the othwr themed clues were quickly cleared up.

    Thank you to Turbolegs and Gaff.

  16. We saw it was a birthday puzzle and were wondering whose birthday was being celebrated. We did wonder about Paul Simon (82 today) but it wasn’t until we unscrambled the anagram of MARMALADE SANDWICH that we realised what was afoot. Most enjoyable; as well as the themed entries we liked IDAHO FALLS and AVIONIC.
    Thanks, Gaff and Turbolegs.

  17. I found this very challenging. I never got into the Paddington lore, so the presence of a theme was not much help. (Curious George was my friend.) I cannot fault the clues, though.

  18. like cineraria, and having grown up in the US, I know nothing of Paddington bear stories.and half the time was trying to guess at whose birthday it might be! and having got many clues wrong I invented that it must have been so many other people! still quite fun.and I can see from this blog that the cluing was clever.thank you.

  19. Martyn @ 13 I’m impressed that you managed to knock several out in 30 minutes, or maybe it’s how my mind works…

  20. Congratulations Gaff on your 100%record of DNFs for mep-No other setter has managed this
    You nearly ruined this fine record but DARKEST PERU and IDAHO FALLS saved you
    Keep up the good work
    Maybe its because I’m a masochist
    And I love Lima town

  21. Delightful puzzle and great blog

    RHINO isn’t an &lit since “Animal” is no part of the wordplay
    (at most, an &littish or WIWD) and exactly same with SPECTACLED BEAR (where again “animal” is no part of wordplay – and, incidentally, “circus” is not part of the definition as you state!)

    KVa@1 – the “stroke” is one of the oarsman; s/he faces the cox(swain) and sets the timing of paddle, or stroke – so no problem as you imply

    Only now catching up on recent FTs (I used to do them daily last century!) and surprised at how straightforward most are (as compared with Guardian and Times in the most part) For example, and not showing off – most won’t see this – but thought my take could be interesting to blogger and setter, who may see this, and noticing someone above mentioning 30 mins to partially solve; it took me about 20 mins to fully solve and parse – and done slowly so that I could relish this rather delightful offering

    Turbo – I’d love to know the meaning of your “FF:9 DD:8” atop your blog; it has me mystified

  23. Hi William,

    FF stands for Fun Factor – How much fun did I have solving the crossword on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being most fun.
    DD stands for Degree of Difficulty – Amongst the crosswords I solve, where do I see the crossword stand in terms of difficulty with 10 being most difficult to solve.

    These are just my ratings and are by design, essentially subjective.

    Apologies for the delayed reply.

    Regards,
    Mahesh

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