Financial Times 17,558 by HAMILTON

by

Hamilton makes a rare Thursday appearance.

I have blogged Hamilton puzzles before, but not for a while. To be honest, he is not my favourite setter, and although this one wasn't overly difficult, there were, in my humble opinion, too many instances where I put in the answer and then parsed the clue, and was left underwhelmed. Examples include TOT FOR TAT, which is unintentionally meta, the repetition of "made" at 26ac and 17dn as an anagrind (and the use of "considered" as one in 7dn), the incomplete clue for KNIT (unless I'm missing something), etc. On the positive side, some of the clues for his shorter answers (TASK, SKIN etc) were clever.

Thanks, Hamilton.

ACROSS
9 MONUMENTAL MASON
He’s great when it comes to knocking things into shape! (10,5)

(not very) cryptic definition with MONUMENTAL meaning "great"
10 REIKI
Handy therapy for first responders; evidently it’s kicking in (5)

Formed from the initial letters of [first] R(esponders) E(vidently) I(t's) K(icking) I(n)
11 TIT FOR TAT
Retribution for Cockney’s hat, said tasteless thing (3,3,3)

Homophone [said] of TITFER ("Cockney's hat") + TAT ("tasteless thing")

Titfer is a Cockney word from hat from the rhyming slang for TIT FOR TAT, which is also Cockney slang for the hat, plus "for" is in the clue and the answer, so overall an unsatisfying clue.
12 PATIO DOOR
Girl, 10, finds exit that could lead to deck (5,4)

PAT ("girl") + IO (10) finds DOOR ("exit")
14 HYENA
Animal hunger in central Sahara (5)

YEN ("hunger") in [central] (sa)HA(ra)
16 PRETENTIOUSNESS
Pensions trustee charged with arrogance (15)

*(pensions trustee) [anag:charged]
19 ROUEN
Ladies’ man in final French city… (5)

ROUE ("ladies' man") + (i)N [final]
21 UNNATURAL
…where one is spontaneous; that’s extraordinary (9)

Rouen (from the clue before, indicated by the ellisis ("where one is" UN) + NATURAL ("spontaneous")
23 TEST TUBES
Experimental glassware for analysis by part of London Transport? (4,5)

TEST ("analysis") by TUBES ("part of London Underground")
25 INGOT
Searching Ottawa to find a bar (5)

Hidden in [to find] "searchING OTtawa"
26 SOFT FURNISHINGS
Fluffy Finnish rugs made for decorating the home (4,11)

SOFT ("fluffy") + *(finnish rugs) [anag:made]
DOWN
1 EMERY PAPER
Polish army corps rise for the last daily exam (5,5)

<=REME (Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers, so "army corps", rise) + [last] (dail)Y + PAPER ("exam")
2 INDICT
Charge for languages group on Tuesday (6)

INDIC ("langiage group") on T (Tuesday)
3 OMNIVORE
More vino ordered for one who’ll eat anything (8)

*(more vino) [anag:ordered]
4 GNAT
It bites; bite back (4)

<=TANG ("bite", back)
5 MATTERHORN
Peak concern as Spike loses time (10)

MATTER ("concern") + (t)HORN ("spike" losing T (time))
6 SMOOCH
Not least, schoolmates regrouped for slow dance (6)

*(schoom) [anag:regrouped] where SCHOOM is SCHOO(l)M(ates) without the letters of LEAST (not least)
7 AS IT WERE
Sweater one considered, so to speak (2,2,4)

*(sweater i) [anag:considered] where I = one
8 KNIT
Bond problem for host (4)

Not sure of the parsing here. I'm wondering if the setter meant to indicate a homophone as a NIT is cerrtainly a "problem for (its) host".
13 OUTNUMBERS
Has more books around 2nd June, and the 4th in particular (10)

OT (Old Testament, so "books") around [2nd (lettter of)] (j)U(ne) + NUMBERS ("fourth" book n the Old Testament)
15 ABSOLUTIST
Out St Basil, revealed as having totalitarian views (10)

*(out st basil) [anag:revealed]
17 EMULSIFY
Mules, for your information, made ready to be mixed up (8)

*(mules fyi) [anag:made] where FYI = for your information

Not 100% sure of the exact definition here, not being a scientist, but I have plumped for "ready" as a verb.
18 SIT TIGHT
Don’t move, especially when drunk! (3,5)

Cryptic definition
20 NOTIFY
Tell Barry’s finally able to be working at levitating! (6)

<= (Barr)Y ['s finally] + FIT ('able") + ON ("to be working")) [levitating]
22 REGENT
Stand-in is somewhat more gentlemanly (6)

Hidden in [somewhat] "moRE GENTlemanly"
23 TASK
Work engagement ends with question (4)

(engagemen)T [ends] with ASK
24 SKIN
Almost broke cover (4)

[almost] SKIN(t) ("broke")

27 comments on “Financial Times 17,558 by HAMILTON”

  1. loonapick!
    8D is KNOT.
    Looks like a triple def.
    If so, host and knot in the sense of a group? Not sure.

    EMULSIFY
    Your underlined def must be the intended one, I guess. However, I am not sure
    it actually defines the word.

  3. I couldn’t parse KNIT either.

    I thought those ellipses in 19a to 21a were just decorative garnishes, as ellipses often are, but didn’t realise that they were functional. Hence I couldn’t parse UNNATURAL. Stumped for a while by two UK-specific things: REME & SMOOCH. I haven’t heard the latter to mean a dance, although it’s not hard to see why it could be. Collins tells me it’s a British use.

    Most enjoyable, thanks Hamilton & Loonapick.

  5. Seems an age since I’ve seen a Hamilton grid. I found this enjoyably straight-forward but for 8d where I had KNIT for ‘bond’ (nits being a ‘problem’ for their ‘host’ but couldn’t figure out the ‘k’); I couldn’t parse KNOT either!
    I liked the pithy GNAT and also the apt anagram ‘Finnish rugs’ for FURNISHINGS (SOFT ones).
    Thanks to Hamilton and
    Loonapick.

  6. SM@4
    Looks like there is a difference in size (assuming that I am referring to the right
    synonyms of these words) between a KNOT (small) and a host (quite large).
    Maybe we are missing something.

    REIKI
    Is there an extended def?

  8. I liked the use of the ellipses – ROUEN making a Nice change from…
    6d took me back 50 years to a college disco, where I asked a woman if she wanted to SMOOCH, meaning “slow dance”. She didn’t know that meaning.
    And I’m surprised to find that https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/smooch doesn’t either. Nor does Chambers, but it’s in the OED.
    https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/knot#Noun – ’15. A group of people or things’ – not really a host, which would be more numerous.
    On the other hand TEST TUBES is too numerous. In London it’s The Tube, singular.

  11. Re 1D: I really cannot see how “emery paper” (a rough paper used for sanding) and “polish” (a liquid used on surfaces) mean the same thing.

    6D: “smooch” as a slow dance was unknown to me. I only know it as meaning a kiss (not that I have had to many of those!). Too bad that I didn’t go to school dances as a teenager because my parents moved around too much.

  13. I put ornamental mason for 9a which was a bit dim in retrospect, but seemed reasonable as it fitted all the crossers except for 1d which I didn’t have. I didn’t spot ‘great’ as a hint for monumental. The clue is obviously just a cryptic definition, but great is wordplay, just one word at random out of ten, so hardly fair imo. Agree with Peter about EMERY PAPER not being polish, Frankie about tubes, Loonapick on considered, to which I’d add charged & revealed.

  15. I thought this was a solid puzzle.

    As others have noted, 8D is KNOT and a triple definition, the third I think in the sense of a (confused) mob or horde of people.

    I think to EMERY PAPER could be used as a verb, just like “to sandpaper” something, so that works for “[to] polish.”

  16. EMULSIFY (second thoughts)
    Def: ‘to be mixed up’ or ‘be mixed up’ should work better than ‘ready to be mixed up’.
    In that case, ‘made ready’ has to be ‘considered’ as an anagrind.

  17. Thanks for the blog, I agree with Frankie@8 , it is good to see the ellipses actually providing a link between the answers , it is rarely the case. OUTNUMBERS was a good construction .
    My other points have been covered above.

  18. Peter @11, James@13, Cineraria@15: The retired cabinet maker in me thinks that 600 grit emery paper is used to buff out any final imperfections (dust motes) in the finish coat on a piece of fine woodworking, hence it is used as a polish.

  19. I agree with Loonapick – I needed far too many wild guesses to complete this for it to be enjoyable.

    I had KNOT for bond, and I had no idea how it means host, despite the helpful comments above. My OED says SMOOCH is a kiss, or a kiss during a slow dance although I have a vague memory of reading in previous blogs it means dance in parts of UK. I had the same thought as Peter @11 on EMERY PAPER (thanks SSB@18 for giving the setter a way out) and thought the same as GDU@3 about the ellipsis in UNNATURAL. I had no idea of TITFER and still have no clue what a MONUMENTAL MASON is. Finally, I did not like “levitating” as a reversal indicator – it means float, not reverse or lift. There were other clues I did not really get, but Lookapick cleared them up for me – many thanks.

    I am afraid I did not have any favourites today.

    Thanks Loonapick for the great blog and thanks Hamilton for the puzzle.

  22. I feel you’re generally being a bit hard here. I quite enjoyed this one, although Matterhorn took far too long to find and was my LOL.

    I also had Knit, not Knot, assuming it to be a not very clear homophone.

    Thanks.

  23. Surely the answer to 8D is GNAT – definition is “it bites” and reversal of that being tang meaning “bite”.

  25. 8D LOI for me too. Another vote here for KNOT. Came to 125 to find out why, but relieved to see greater minds than mine having struggles.

  26. Thanks Hamilton, I enjoyed this. My favourites were GNAT, OUTNUMBERS, PRETENTIOUSNESS (nice anagram), and SKIN. Like others I found the use of the ellipses in 19/21 meaningful for once. I had an unparsed KNOT for 8d, could not fully parse TIT FOR TAT, and needed a nudge to get EMERY PAPER. Thanks loonapick for the blog.

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