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Thank you to Guy. Definitions are underlined in the clues.
Across
1. An hour after midnight, Ingrid finally satisfied (6)
ATONED : [AT ONE](… o’clock/1 a.m., an hour after midnight) + last letter of(… finally) “Ingrid“.
Defn: Made up to/satisfied an injured party.
4. European warzone sees craft alighting with leading force (8)
FLANDERS : LANDERS(space craft designed to land/alight on a celestial body) placed after(with) 1st letter of(leading) “force“.
Defn: …, significantly, in World War 1.
9. Paganini’s agreed pitch for instrument (5)
SITAR : SI(agreed/yes in Italian, mother tongue of Paganini) + TAR(pitch/sticky black substance – nothing to do with Paganini or his music).
Defn: … – again, not something you would associate with Paganini.
However …
… and …
10. Henry performing love song collects rupees for fees (9)
HONORARIA : [ H(symbol for “henry”, the unit of electrical inductance) + ON(performing/on stage, as in “He’s on at the Apollo tonight”) + O(letter representing 0/love in tennis scores) + ARIA(an operatic song) ] containing(collects) R(abbrev. for “rupees”, monetary unit of some countries).
11. Born a princess, queen is more demanding (7)
NEEDIER : NEE(born/called from birth) + DI(the late Princess Diana, or Di) + ER(abbrev. for “Elizabeth Regina”, the late Queen Elizabeth).
12. Woodland shelter also has rug left inside (7)
TWIGLOO : TOO(also/as well) containing(has … inside) [ WIG(toupee/rug in slang) + L(abbrev. for “left”) ].
13. Shock when Conservative’s ousted from seat (4)
HAIR : C(abbrev. for a member of the Conservative Party) deleted from(ousted from) “chair”(a seat with a back and four legs, or the position held by one heading a meeting).
Defn: A thick mass of which is a ….
14. Manly love god with no ordinary look (8)
BUTCHER’S : BUTCH(manly/exhibiting masculine qualities) + “Eros”(the god of love) minus(with no) “o”(abbrev. for “ordinary”).
Answer: … (or “butcher’s hook”), rhyming slang for a “look”, as in “she had a butcher’s at the hunk passing by”.
17. Bananas get more variable shape (8)
GEOMETRY : Anagram of(Bananas) GET MORE + Y(symbol for a variable quantity in mathematics).
Defn: … and relative positions of the parts of something.
19. English vineyard makes brownish white (4)
ECRU : E(abbrev. for “English”) + CRU(in France, a vineyard).
Defn: … colour.
22. German teacher reverses order in Italian (7)
RISOTTO : Reversal of(… reverses) [ OTTO(a German name) + SIR(form of polite address for a teacher) ].
Defn: A food order in an Italian restaurant.
24. Run around and blow the whistle, an undervalued job? (7)
NURSING : Reversal of(… around) RUN plus(and) SING(to blow the whistle/to inform on someone).
Defn: A job that can sometimes be undervalued and not fully recognised nor remunerated.
25. Addressing function, Eton’s head introduced by new girl Emma (9)
MAILMERGE : 1st letter of(…’s head) “Eton” contained in(introduced by) anagram of(new) GIRL EMMA.
Defn: … in computing, which automatically adds names and addresses from a database for mass mailing.
26. Answer right? That’s strange (5)
ALIEN : A(abbrev. for “answer”) + LIEN(a right to keep or have title to one’s personal property until a debt is discharged).
27. American’s beauty spot very big issue, you must admit (8)
YOSEMITE : [ OS(abbrev. for “outsize”/very big) + EMIT(to issue/to give out) ] contained in(… must admit) YE(the archaic or dialect form of the pronoun “you”).
28. Monotonous males spoiled party in the end (6)
SAMELY : Anagram of(… spoiled) MALES + last letter of(… in the end) “party“.
Defn: …/dull and tedious, especially because of repetition.
Down
1. Drink six-pack at home and tea abroad (8)
ABSINTHE : ABS(short for abdominal muscles, which if well developed and visible, are called “six-pack” in slang) + IN(at home/not out) plus(and) THE(translation of “tea” abroad, in French in this case).
2. Losing millions in August, say, Dallas man taking flight (2,3,4)
ON THE WING : “m”(abbrev. for “millions”) deleted from(Losing … in) “month”(of which August is an example/say) + EWING(any male member of the Ewing family in the soap opera “Dallas”).
3. Bug Darwin uncovered in among others (6)
EARWIG : “Darwin” minus its 1st and last letters(uncovered) contained in(in) EG(abbrev. for “exempli gratia”/for example/among others).
… and with Charles Darwin being a naturalist.
5. Group on the outside having very silly hair on face (7,6)
LUNATIC FRINGE : LUNATIC(very silly/extremely foolish) + FRINGE(front part of a person’s hair that hangs over the forehead/upper face).
Defn: …, ie. outside the mainstream.
6. Hash in large hookah (7)
NARGILE : Anagram of(Hash) IN LARGE.
7. Loner forced to become a member (5)
ENROL : Anagram of(… forced) LONER.
8. Name unfinished skyscraper in advance (6)
SHARON : “Shard”(a skyscraper in London) minus its last letter(unfinished …) + ON(advance/continue, as in “he talked on”).
Defn: … for a girl.
10. Crossing a line, poor Hitler clue upset solver (7,6)
HERCULE POIROT : Anagram of(… upset) [“l”(a.”line”) deleted from(Crossing a …) “poor Hitler clue” ].
Defn: Fictional … of murder mysteries.
15. Pouch provided during Chinese food giveaway (9)
SACRIFICE : SAC(a hollow flexible structure resembling a pouch) + [ IF(provided/in case) contained in(during) RICE(Chinese food staple) ].
Defn: …/something given up/foregone.
16. Red shoot, first sign of dogwood in Lancashire town (8)
BURGUNDY : [ GUN(to shoot with a gun, as in “His aim was to gun down his enemies”) + 1st letter of(first sign of) “dogwood” ] contained in(in) BURY(Lancashire town).
Defn: A … colour or wine.
18. Perfect time with single mother after work (7)
OPTIMUM : [ T(abbrev. for “time”) plus(with) I(Roman numeral for “one”/single) + MUM(an informal word for one’s mother) ] placed after(after) OP(abbrev. for “opus”, a major literary or musical work).
20. Public transport emptied possibly suiting homeless people (6)
TRAMPY : TRAM(public transport in some cities) + All inside letters deleted from(emptied) “possibly“.
Defn: …, viz. tramps.
21. Gary shelled nuts on American warships (6)
ARMADA : “Gary” minus its 1st and last letters(shelled) + MAD(nuts/crazy) placed above(on, in a down clue) A(abbrev. for “American”).
Defn: A fleet of …
23. Runner I forgot to mention jumps over rope (5)
SKIPS : SKI(a runner/one of the two long thin blades used by a skier) + PS(abbrev. for “postscript”, used to introduce additional text that one forgot to mention in the main body of text).
This was quite tough with some words that were new to me:TWIGLOO and NARGILE. I did not like TRAMPY but was forced to change from TRAMPS by the crosser. Needed the great blog for some of the parsing.
Thanks Guy and scchua.
Another excellent puzzle from Guy whose setting style I’ve really come to appreciate.
I had more ticks than otherwise including smooth surfaces like HAIR, ENROL and ABSINTHE and the playfulness of BUTCHERS among others.
I was curious to see if some parsing checked out here, such as HONORARIA and BURGUNDY. Happily, they did.
Thanks to Guy and Scchua.
Liked BUTCHERS, ABSINTHE and BURGUNDY.
Thanks both.
Thanks for the blog , a lot of neat clever clues here. BURGUNDY has a further layer, dogwood has beautiful red stems in winter. NARGILE has many spellings, seven in Chambers 93, it turns up in Azed quite often.
Same two unknowns as others – and had to look up NARGILE – but was pleased to get a jorum out of TWIGLOO. Ridiculous word – but you do have to acknowledge it’s a fortuitous construction.
FLANDERS, BURGUNDY, BUTCHERS and EARWIG my faves today.
[Pamela @4: The datedness of this anecdote, perhaps excuses it but I recall hearing Simon Nicol of folk-rock band, Fairport Convention, describe how they recruited the wonderful Sandy Denny into the band in the 60’s: they placed an advert asking for a ‘chick singer’. My partner is the vocalist for a 21st century folk-rock band and when she introduces the band members by name at the end of the show, she always finishes with, ‘… and me? I’m just the chick singer.’ ]
Thanks Guy and scchua
Marvellous blog. Congratulations.
And a pretty good crossword as well. I particularly enjoyed Butchers. I also recall Twilooo from some months ago. Never heard of Nargile, with its various spellings.
I thought 8 down was a terrible clue, with “name” as the definition. Only a few million of them across the globe……
I sailed through this reasonably quickly until I got the top right corner, which took me more time than it should’ve done.
Thanks
Perhaps 20 and 8 should have been combined:
Grant and Phil’s partner: desperately shy, or mantrap? (6,6)
5d hints at the reason for both entries
Thanks Guy I enjoyed this with SITAR, NEEDIER, HAIR, NURSING, ABSINTHE, and HERCULE POIROT being favourites. I didn’t like “name” for a definition of SHARON, the only answer I actually revealed. Thanks scchua for the parsing help I needed for SHARON and YOSEMITE.
I liked a lot of this. But didn’t really get half work words like twigloo, Sharon, nargile being hard for me to parse. As an American, I don’t have easy access to towns in lancashire in my mind to get bury. But I’m learning!
A mixed bag for me
As tony wrote @9 in his first sentence, similar favourites for me. Same new words as others. And as Roz wrote @5: a lot of neat clues.
I thought there were some fairly ordinary clues too. Name has been well covered, and I add Lancashire town, Italian order, American’s beauty spot, Chinese food and TRAMPY.
Thanks Guy and scchua for adding to my enjoyment of the day
AS@10. FT has more readers outside UK than in it. It seems this has not registered in the crossword department, which expects all its readers to know there is a ceremonial county name Lancashire that contains a town called Bury. Apologies to others who have seen me harp on this point before.
Thanks Guy and scchua
With apologies to those who have heard me say this before, FT readers are not the same group of people as FT crossword solvers, and being currently outside the UK does not equate to having no knowledge of or interest in UK geography.
Further to 13, something I have not said before is that the front page of the FT each day carries the words “NATIONAL NEWSPAPER OF THE YEAR” immediately under the name of the paper. It seems to me entirely right that at least the vast majority of crosswords should reflect this status: the FT is a British newspaper open to worldwide readership.
PB @13: I agree – I also enjoy learning about UK geography. But, it does get obscure at times, assuming knowledge only available to someone who has lived there for some time.
PB@14: FT is certainly based in UK, but it has multiple foreign editions all of which are tailored to the location in which they are published. But, from what I can tell, they all carry the same UK-focused crossword.
This is a subjective preference and I am not trying to convince anyone to change their view. I am just expressing mine. In particular, I am certainly not expecting the FT to make any changes based on this.
And again, apologies to those that have seen me express this before, but I thought it relevant to the comments of AS@10.
I normally complete FT crosswords or get to within one or two of doing so.
With this however, I started in the top left corner, got 1dn, 3, 11, & 13 quickly, saw sitar for 9ac but couldn’t parse it, didn’t clock satisfied = atoned for 1ac, couldn’t see 12 or 10 and just lost interest. Having now seen the answers in the blog, I’m glad I didn’t waste any more time on it.
Very late comment which few will see. Hard work, but very satisfying to tease it out after a few roadblocks along the way.
Thanks to Guy for popping in; unfortunately your hint @8, which I’m sure many will have understood, has gone over my head. I did however notice the appearance of a couple of well-known characters across the top and bottom rows and right side there are probably others I’ve missed.
Thanks to scchua for the usual excellent blog and to Guy
Me @17: “… right side; there are probably…”.
Sorry; missed the 3 minute edit deadline by that much.
And, I think I understand your hint now, Guy. Add the left side (first down column) as well. V. neat.
Ah yes, very good. How on earth did I miss them?!
I especially liked SHARON even before reading WordPlodder@17/18 – Nice spot! 😉 – “You stay classy, San Diego!“ …
I can see ATONED – “Son of a diddly!“ …
… and SAMELY – “And I ain’t no namby pamby!“
But who’s in ABSINTHE TRAMPY? – help me out, WP or Guy
FrankieG @21 – it’s (ABSIN)THE TRAMP(Y)= Charlie Chaplin character.
For NARGILE Chambers ’93 has — as Roz@5 says — 7 spellings ‘narghile, nargile or nargileh … Also narghilly, narghily, nargilly, nargily’
Wiktionary has these and adds 7 more – ‘nargeela, nargeelah, narghil, narghileh, nargil, nargili, narguileh’
oed.com has citations for the 8 in bold, plus 4 more – ‘narguillet, narghilé, nargill, nargeel‘ – making an even dozen. Thanks Roz, for naming those “beautiful red stems in winter”.
And pleased to hear that PostMark@6 is a fellow fan of “the wonderful Sandy Denny” https://www.sandydennyofficial.com/ links to her youtube channel:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGv8Ex15CUd5bc-6J0SVHsQ – the Early Home Recordings are gorgeous. Some ‘chick singer’.
Thanks G&s
WordPlodder – Guy’s hint also mentions Grant and Phil who are 14a
Oh no, hang on, that’s not right – they’re Mitchells. Getting my fictional east end families mixed up.
Thank you to the commenters who picked up on the perimeter names, which I of course didn’t spot. That is further proof that the blog and comments make most puzzles even more enjoyable than they would be on their own.
Thanks, Guy for the great puzzle and for joining the conversation, and scchua for the useful and colourful blog. (Where do you find those great pictures?)
Martyn turned up. James has been active too! Great. They really have no agenda.
WP@22 – But CC doesn’t have a 3-letter name (or even any name at all). Nor a catchphrase, being from silent films until — “…Voulez-vous le taximeter?”
Thanks v. much FrankieG @28, I hadn’t seen that before. I see what you mean about the lack of a 3-letter name, unlike the others on the LUNATIC FRINGE, but I still think it counts, particularly given Guy’s comments about the use of TRAMPY.