Financial Times 17,625 by GOLIATH

28 comments on “Financial Times 17,625 by GOLIATH”

1. The usual Goliath sneaky little clues. Managed to parse them all and had a lot of fun doing so. Particularly liked the last two, 19d and 20d.

2. I didn’t parse MEANDERING. I’ve mentioned previously that there are about five German words for “the”, so I won’t mention it again. The southwest corner was last to fall.

   Good fun, thanks Goliath & Oriel.

3. BACKROOM
   Does it have a wordplay?
   BACK ROOM=MOOR=secure.

4. Thanks for the blog , a really good puzzle , many fine clues, MEANDERING has a very neat Playtex, clever use of is to remove the letter i twice for MERCHANT BANK .
   BACKROOM is a sort of reverse , reverse clue , MOOR = back ROOM.

5. Thanks KVa @3 and Peter @5 – you are both correct! I will amend the blog.

6. Good blog with some tough parsing. I agree with the additional notes@3, 4, & 5. There were a lot of cryptic devices packed into one puzzle here, certainly things that would have frustrated me when I was a novice. I enjoyed limbering up my brain.

7. I’m in a rush to get out this morning, so will just agree with Hovis @1 – no time to add all my other favourites!

   I parsed 4ac as E (drug) + IF (providing) in DYING – definition ‘enlightenment’, EDIFYING as a gerund.

   Thanks to Goliath for the fun and Oriel for the blog.

8. I’m late in commenting (though I did the puzzle this morning, my time) but I had to share my appreciation for a much awaited Goliath, long one of my favourite setters.
   I’ll echo Hovis’s pick of HOT TUB, Roz’s selection of MERCHANT BANK (and for the same reason) and add my delight at seeing ‘Slim Shady’ in the surface for MUESLI.
   Thanks again to Goliath and to Oriel for a fine blog.

9. I liked all the -ings, MEANDERING, EDIFYING and ENDING. I would have completed earlier if I hadn’t had THE SMOKE for BIG SMOKE.

10. For EDIFYING my parsing had IF from “providing” in wordplay. Though my parsing no less contrived, it feels more likely to be the one intended? But I could be wrong (your view was mine initially!)

11. I could not parse 7d or 11d. The use of “is” to mean two I’s was beyond me. And Inuit for northerner didn’t come. Otherwise a most enjoyable outing.

12. Took ages to even get a start on this one and then it all went in pretty easily … weird how this happens sometimes.

    couldn’t parse 13 though. bit too sneaky for me

13. MUESLI – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Real_Slim_Shady – ‘Recorded 1999’ – a silver anniversary.

14. Always good, every time — thanks Goliath. My top picks were STEAK TARTARE, OMNIPOTENT, LEMONADE, INTUIT, MERCHANT BANK (liked the “is” trick), TENDENCY, and ENDING. I missed MEANDERING; I’m generally on the lookout for words that can be split but “insignificance” slipped by. I parsed EDIFYING like Oriel did; otherwise what tells you where to place “providing” in the solution? In that vein, what indicates putting “distant” around “infec” in 5d? Thanks Oriel for the blog.

15. Tony@15 Far out implies distant OUTSIDE infec,

16. john @12
    The Is device is well worth remembering: it’s something of a favourite of Goliath’s. I think I remember him using ‘without us’ similarly.

    Tony Santucci @15
    The grammar in either of our interpretations is rather abstruse, as William F P @11 implies, but (@8) I took “‘in moribund setting ‘providing'” as an ‘ablative absolute’ construction. It means having to attach ‘given’ to ‘drug’ but I can’t equate ‘given’ with ‘if’. We often see if = providing in crosswords.

17. Roz@ 16: Thanks. Of course, out and outside are synonyms. Sometimes the obvious goes right by me.

18. I thought of 12a as a split double def. NEON as a gas, and NEON as in lighting ( neon lighting, neon lamp etc ).

    Regards,
    TL

19. Eileen @17: Thanks for the response. The “ablative absolute” is abstruse, at least to me, but I see your point that “provided” does not equal “if “. (“Provided that” would, however.) I generally don’t venture too deep into the grammatical weeds but lately I’ve been setting my own crosswords and the “weeds” have become more important to me.

20. I see you what you mean TL@19 , so a triple really, each separate part plus the whole thing.

21. Tony Santucci @20.
    Re your comment:I see your point that “provided” does not equal “if “.
    I think we have crossed lines: I didn’t say that. ‘Provided’ doesn’t appear in the clue, in any case.
    I think we’d better leave it there. I can’t think of another way of expressing what I did say. 😉

22. [Eileen @22: I apologize for the mistake. I meant to say “given” not “provided.” I should not reply when I’m in a hurry.]

23. Missed Meandering.

    Grrr

    Was trying to find a word starting DER

    And couldn’t work out what “insignificance” had to do with it.

    Quite a few I couldn’t parse so thanks

24. Thanks, Tony @23 – no apologies necessary: a misunderstanding from both ends.

25. Thanks Oriel, and Eileen for an alternative view of EDIFYING – it took me a while to understand Eileen’s take but now it is most, er, edifying. I had no problem with if = given as I recall being set problems eg Given x > 1 find y such that… but it’s nice to see it working from a different angle. I struggled with “out” without “with” or “side” too, but prompted to rethink by discussion above realise I would have no problem with a bare IN so it must just be my lack of familiarity holding me back. And I was stuck trying DER… for a good while too Moly so hope this makes you feel a bit better (I had looked up Goliath and learned his Graun alter ego which definitely helped with parsing of that and more today). A number of clever tricks kept me on my toes and enjoyed some witty clues, thanks Goliath.

26. gazzh @26

    I think it was also William’s @11 take, with which I agreed, but I think I rather complicated, things, for which I apologise.

27. Eileen @27 – I initially thought along the same lines as you, with providing=if. It seems grammatically sound to me, though I wouldn’t have known to call this construction the ablative absolute! My only problem with this interpretation is that “providing” is required for the definition so would then be doing “double duty”.

    That said, this is Goliath so I wouldn’t put it past him.

    Anyway, fun puzzle. Thanks, G & O.

28. Great puzzle and very helpful comments.

    I may have missed something but one thought is that

    “if” can also mean “given” as a noun in an “if…then… ” construction.

    The if clause is in a sense a given.

    Thanks to Goliath and Oriel and all of the commentators.

Comments are closed.