Financial Times 17,664 by Buccaneer

13 comments on “Financial Times 17,664 by Buccaneer”

1. Thanks Buccaneer and Pete!
   SPOT
   I took it as
   Wonderful =tops (slang?)
   Tops reversed

2. Yes, I had the same interpretation of SPOT and KVa

   I do not really remember much about this crossword. My one tick was against REUBEN. The same setter (as Picaroon) did the Guardian crossword on the same weekend

   Thanks Buccaneer and Pete

3. 20a REUBEN – The EU a ‘country club’? – Four days later Rodriguez (aka Buccaneer) called the UN one in 13d UNEVENNESS

4. Another enjoyable puzzle.

5. Thanks for the blog, neat and tidy clues throughout, I liked the reference to Happy in COLD WAR and LIP BALM flowed very nicely.
   Map=FACE ? has to be right but I do not really see it.

6. Green’s Dictionary of Slang ‘map n. 1. the human face.
   [? predating in J. Taylor, ‘The Water Poet’, Works (1630): ‘Being willing to take slender acquaintance of any map whatsoever, viewing, and circumviewing every man’s face I met’]
   1971 [UK] Wodehouse Much Obliged, Jeeves 71: Not a ripple appeared on the stern and rockbound coast of her map.

7. Nice crossword.

   Placebos do really help – they just shouldn’t be effective. Obvious from the cluing but a bit annoying.

   Thanks Buccaneer and Pete

8. Roz@5 – Yes, Happy made a nice change from that other pompous dwarf who’s forever questioning his identity.

9. FACE for map didn’t worry me, but I’ve read a lot of P G Wodehouse, and because it had to be that from the wordplay. The sense of SPOT in the crossword is not just from ballet, but also gymnastics, I also saw it as tops flipped.

   Double Picaroon/Buccaneer Saturdays seem to be fairly regular.

   Thank you to Buccaneer and Pete Maclean.

10. Double Picaroon/Buccaneer Saturdays could occur every weekend, as far as I’m concerned. (I can’t remember if they’ve ever included a Rodriguez.)

    I’ll go along with Pete’s favourites (as ever, there are great surfaces throughout but POSTAGE STAMPS is just wonderful) and add (whittled down from a longer list) REUBEN, DANKE SCHOHN and BIG BROTHER.

    Many thanks to Buccaneer and Pete.

11. I generally enjoyed this one though I didn’t understand Face (still unconvinced by Map) and thank you for explaining that Happy is a Dwarf.

12. Thanks Buccaneer and Pete

    1dn: Further to the sources given by Frankie@6, Collins 2023 has “map 5 a slang word for face (1)”, Chambers 2016 has “a person’s face(sl)”. Interestingly ODE 2010 also has “a person’s face” marked “informal, dated”. We all have to accept that some words in English are used in ways that are outside our own normal vocabulary.

13. oed.com has ‘map n1 – I. A chart, plan, diagram, etc. … II. Extended uses. … II.9. colloquial. A person’s face. 1899–‘ with these citations: ‘
    1899 I sees d’ map of a skirt—a goil, I means, on a drop curtain at a swell t’eatre once. – A. H. Lewis, Sandburrs 9
    1902 It was Benedict Murgatoyd—the lad with the map like a cow! – G. V. Hobart, It’s up to You iv. 78
    1908 Hauling off wifey hangs one on Alla’s map. – K. McGaffey, Sorrows of Show Girl 200
    1922 The portrait..was that of a man in the early thirties… ‘What a map!’ exclaimed the young man. – P. G. Wodehouse, Clicking of Cuthbert ix. 205
    1935 It’s mostly a case of having a map that photographs well. – P. G. Wodehouse, Luck of Bodkins xv. 178
    1936 What d’you want to sit there staring at me for? I’m not a bloody oil-painting. You ought to know my map by now. – ‘J. Curtis’, Gilt Kid xiv. 144
    1971 No mistaking that map. – J. Curtis, Banjo 255
    1996 That look on your map there mean something there, Randy? – D. F. Wallace, Infinite Jest 280

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