Financial Times 17,602 by Rosa Klebb

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Puzzle from the Weekend FT of December 16, 2023

If memory serves this was by far the hardest Rosa puzzle I have ever done.  It has two answers that are new words for me (BABYCINO and IRITIS) and several clues that I needed help to solve.  And there were two clues, 9 and 14, for which I am fairly sure I had the answer right while the wordplay totally eluded me!  And minutes after I posted this, Pelham Barton kindly gave us an explanation for each.  My favourites are 29 (VARIES), 31 (WYVERN) and 25 (LITANY).  Sixty-something years ago my mother had a Vauxhall Wyvern.

ACROSS
1 TOOTSY
Piggy in extremely messy sty (6)
TOO (extremely) + anagram (messy) of STY
4 PIFFLING
Passionate at first, though affair is miserable (8)
P[assionate] + IF (though) + FLING (affair)
9 BEASTS
Runs away from Bristol’s brutes (6)
B[r]EASTS (rhyming slang BRISTOL CITY = TITTY) minus R (runs  away)
10 BABYCINO
Cabin boy mixed milky drink (8)
Anagram (mixed) of CABIN BOY. A babycino is a drink intended for children and made of hot milk frothed up with pressurized steam.
11 SQUEAL
Tell tales of picaresque Albanians (6)
Hidden word (of)
13 OUTSHINE
Trump forbidden female nurses at home (8)
OUT (forbidden) + IN (at home) in (nurses) SHE (female)
14 PILES
Sanctimonious boy behind complaint (5)
PI (sanctimonious) + LES (boy).  A very tricky one because ‘sanctimonious’ could clue PIOUS which also fits.
15 REAR
Stern parent (4)
Double definition
17 FLUVIAL
Reportedly floated bottle in river (7)
Homophone (reportedly) of “flew vial” (floated bottle)
20 PAWN
Man and offspring rejecting society (4)
[s]PAWN (offspring rejecting society)
24 PEARL
Outstanding example of peer pressure going forward (5)
P (pressure) + EARL (peer)
26 THORAXES
Hatchet hidden in Norse god’s chests (8)
AXE (hatchet) in (hidden in) THOR’S (Norse god’s)
27 DINGLE
Dell peripheral initially installed for nothing (6)
DONGLE (peripheral) with the ‘I’ (initially) replacing (installed for) ‘O’ (nothing)
28 LIKE THAT
Lieutenant general dons headgear effortlessly (4,4)
IKE (general) in (dons) LT (lieutenant) + HAT (headgear)
29 VARIES
Modifies V-sign (6)
V (v) + ARIES (sign)
30 CONCRETE
Firm conservative in part of Greece (8)
CON (conservative) + CRETE (part of Greece)
31 WYVERN
Monster with very strange name (6)
W (with) + anagram (strange) of VERY + N (name)
DOWN
1 TO BE SURE
Workers accepting orders are leaderless, no doubt (2,2,4)
OBES (orders) in (acceptable) TU (workers, i.e. Trade Union) + [a]RE
2 ORACULAR
Enigmatic vampire heading off to puncture men (8)
[d]RACULA (vampire heading off) in (to puncture) OR (men, i.e. other ranks)
3 SATRAP
Governor posed on carpet (6)
SAT (posed) + RAP (carpet)
5 ICARUS
Wings of idiotic aviator, useless flyer (6)
I[dioti]C A[viato]R + U[seles]S
6 FLY ASH
Blaze is full of unknown combustion particles (3,3)
Y (unknown) in (is full of) FLASH (blaze)
7 IRITIS
India ignoring case of British disease (6)
I (India) + [b]RITIS[h]
8 GLOWED
Characters in igloo got married and were radiant (6)
[i]GLO[o] + WED (got married)
12 LISLE
I sell spun yarn (5)
Anagram (spun) of I SELL
13 OEUVRES
Works ever so excitedly, embracing university (7)
U (university) in (embracing) anagram (excitedly) of EVER SO
16 BAIRD
Set designer exposed on radio (5)
Homophone (on radio) of “bared” (exposed) with a cryptic definition referring to John Logie Baird, the inventor of television.
18 SANGUINE
Cheerful son regularly earns almost 21 shillings (8)
S (son) + [e]A[r]N[s] + GUINE[a] (almost 21 shillings)
19 IN SEASON
None is as recklessly ready to mate (2,6)
Anagram (recklessly) of NONE IS AS
21 ITALIC
One-time Tea Party member mostly leaning to the right (6)
I (one) + T (time) + ALIC[e] (Tea Party member mostly)
22 BODKIN
Family supporting person in sewer (6)
BOD (person) + KIN (family)
23 FASTER
One refusing to eat more quickly (6)
Double definition
24 PEDANT
Nit-picker in strop about book (6)
DAN (book, that is the book of Daniel in the Bible) in (in) PET (strop)
25 LITANY
Set fire to some tedious list (6)
LIT (set fire to) + ANY (some)

34 comments on “Financial Times 17,602 by Rosa Klebb”

  1. Thanks Rosa and Pete

    9ac: This is BRISTOLS (rhyming slang BRISTOL CITY = TITTY) minus R
    I can’t help with 14ac

  5. Thanks Rosa for another top notch crossword. I like puzzles with odd words clearly clued so this fit the bill nicely. I had lots of favourites including TOOTSY, PAWN, THORAXES, LIKE THAT, WYVERN, ICARUS, SANGUINE, and ITALIC. I also had PILES for 14a but I needed all the crossers to see it. Thanks Pete for the blog.

  7. Wonderfully witty throughout.. always a fan of a Rosa… got to love any clue including guinea..
    Thanks Rosa Klebb n Pete MacLean
    … Bonnes Fêtes

  8. I agree with PB’s parsing for BEASTS and PILES, but given there must be tens if not hundreds of boys’ names of three letters, I can see why the ever-reliable Pete did not get the latter.

    I could not parse TO BE SURE – knowing but not being sufficiently familiar with either OBEs or TU

    I liked BABYCINO for its surface (despite never having heard of the drink), and I thought VARIES and FASTER were clever.

    I am also a big fan of Rosa Klebb, but for me this was the least enjoyable of her puzzles – the reason being there were so many of my least-favourite clue types (drop a letter and the “straight” part of the clue being cryptic). I hope it was not just because this was the hardest Rosa to date, as Pete wrote. I do want to stress, this is comparative and I still enjoyed the challenge overall.

    Thanks to Rosa Klebb for an enjoyable challenge and making sure we were all on our feet last Saturday, and thanks to Pete for a great blog.

  9. As an aside – I have been reading about John Logie Baird – his achievements were quite interesting and impressive.

  10. I did most of this waiting for a doctor’s appointment, and I think the SE quarter was the biggest challenge. It definitely seemed harder than usual, although I cannot point to anything in particular that was really confusing or all that tricky–just reliably solid clues throughout. I had no idea who BAIRD was, but now I see how the clue works.

  11. Cineraria – I find it fascinating how we react differently to a puzzle. For me, the SE corner was the easiest quadrant and the place I finished first! I am sure you understand – this is in no way a criticism of you, just an observation of how much individuality there is in solving a puzzle

  13. Full of Rosa’s customary wit and too many favorites to list. BABYCINO made me laugh when the penny dropped as did TOOTSY, though I grew thinking there were five little piggies in that ‘messy style.
    Thanks for the fun, Rosa, and to Pete, as always.

  15. Rosa uses Bristol’s for the surface of course. Thus we remove R from BREAST’S as the CRS for titty is singular.

    An excellent puzzle.

  16. Interesting to see that you thought this the hardest Rosa Klebb puzzle you had done. I also found this more difficult than previous puzzles from Rosa Klebb and it took me several goes to finish. But as always I enjoyed it.

    Favourites were: TOOTSY, ICARUS, FLUVIAL, SPAWN, VARIES, ORACULAR, BODKIN, SANGUIN

    Thanks Rosa Klebb and Pete MacLean

  17. Thanks Pete M and Rosa K.
    Happy to be able to solve this, and really enjoyed it as well. Maybe I was just in the zone.
    The surfaces as always tell a great story.
    Amongst many, loved BODKIN, BAIRD, PEDANT, LITANY, LISLE, IN SEASON, GLOWED, PEARL.
    TOOTSY, PIFFLING and PILES made me laugh.

  18. Thanks for the blog, I thought this was really good for a Saturday puzzle, my favourites already listed. Diane@13 only one of the little piggies stayed at home in the messy sty.
    Did not know BABYCINO and not in Chambers93, seemed right from rthe anagram but I had to ask someone what it was. Hard to believe that even capitalism would stoop this low.

  19. I liked this as a chewier Saturday puzzle, although, per normal, I saved it to solve on the tube with my daughter later in the week, and it satisfyingly filled that journey, and some.

    Thank you to Pete Maclean and Rosa Klebb.

  20. I don’t remember finding this more difficult than usual but I certainly thought it was Rosa on top of her form and, like paddymelon, I really enjoyed it, especially the surfaces, as always.

    I’d never heard of BABYCINO, either but it was a brilliant anagram spot. I see that I have more clues ticked than unticked and so I won’t list them all. Perhaps top favourite was ICARUS for the hilarious surface. (I parsed it slightly differently: I[dioti]C A[viato]R U[seles]S.) It reminded me of Carol Ann Duffy’s ‘Mrs Icarus’ from her anthology ‘The World’s Wife’:
    ‘I’m not the first or the last
    to stand on a hillock,
    watching the man she married
    prove to the world
    he’s a total, utter, absolute, Grade A pillock’.

    I also admired the ‘lift and separate ‘peer pressure’ in 24ac and tittered at the ‘behind complaint’ at 14ac.

    Huge thanks, as ever, to Rosa for the fun and Pete for the blog

  21. I too found this trickier than many a Rosa Klebb crossword – it was definitely a ‘start with the Downs’ day – but the fun factor was excellent as usual

    Many thanks to Rosa and Pete

  22. 5dn (ICARUS): Collins 2023 gives the abbreviation U/S as either “unserviceable” or “useless”, as does ODE 2010 (for US). Chambers 2016 has only “unserviceable”. The parsing given by Eileen@20 had not occurred to me, but I like it.

  24. [Roz @18: How can anyone be surprised at the marketing of something as ridiculous as a BABYCINO when people spend $3 in the US for a bottle of “smart water”? I need to resist the temptation to tell people that their “smart water” clearly isn’t working.]

  26. [The VIAL in FLUVIAL doesn’t need to be homophoned.] THORACES used to outnumber THORAXES.
    In the US the axe took over in 1996. In the UK the ace held out till 2002. I liked the clue.

  27. Parsed ICARUS as Eileen@20 – “IdiotiC AviatoR, UselesS”
    [And Happy Birthday Carol Ann Duffy – 68 today. Thanks for the poem 🙂 ]
    Thanks RK&PM

  28. Roz @18 brilliant commentary on capitalism. And Tony S @24 not far behind with the take on Smart Water. Many thanks to you both.

    It is a Jumbo Julius today- always a good thing

  29. 10ac (BABYCINO): One of the cases where an anagram given us enough to form an unfamiliar word. Although in principle all 12 possible ways of fitting two Bs, a C, and an N into the spaces make possible words, the correct one is so much more likely than any other. The definition as paraphrased by Pete first appeared in Chambers in the 2014 edition. The word is given as formed from baby and cappuccino. Collins 2023 adds “designed as an alternative to coffee for young children” to the definition. Perhaps I am missing something, but, from that definition, I cannot see how this is an objectionable product.

  31. Thanks for the blog Pete.
    I am another supporter of the Eileen explanation for ICARUS because the “wings” are the outside letters of the words.
    I also agree that this was a more difficult crossword, but that did not make it unenjoyable – it just took a brain reset in the middle.

  32. I parsed ICARUS the same way as Eileen Mystogre and others. But I thought Pete’s way was interesting and perfectly fine.

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