Financial Times 17,675 NEO

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A fun challenge from NEO.

FF: 9 DD: 7

Thematic puzzle on MONKEYS. 🙂

ACROSS
1 MARMOSET
Butter returned by doctor hardened for 10 (8)

reverse of RAM ( butter, an animal that butts ) MO ( doctor ) SET ( hardened ) – 10 is MONKEY and is represented multiple times in the puzzle
5 LANGUR
10 in dreamy inertia denied oxygen (6)

LANGUoR ( dreamy inertia, without O – oxygen )
9 MANGABEY
Fellow not straight trapping live 10 (8)

MAN ( fellow ) [ GAY ( not straight ) containing BE ( live ) ]
10/27 MONKEY BUSINESS
Shenanigans on island transport home, covered in trifle (6,8)

[ ON KEY ( island ) BUS ( transport ) IN ( home ) ] in MESS ( trifle )
12 CURSE
Remedy without sulphur brings disaster (5)

CURE ( remedy ) outside S ( sulphur )
13 SALAD BOWL
The French appearing in blue — black winger’s a dish! (5,4)

[ LA ( the, french ) in SAD ( blue ) ] B ( black ) OWL ( winger )
14 BABOON
Proclamation involving shout that startles 10 (6)

BOO ( shout that startles ) in BAN ( proclamation )
16 TINKERS
10s insert bananas, fed by king (7)

[ INSERT ]* containing K ( king ) ; monkeys as a verb
19 TUSSLED
Fought close to valiant American Bob (7)

T ( valiant ) US ( american ) SLED ( bob )
21 FAERIE
Foxtrot by a Great Lake brings enchantment (6)

F ( foxtrot ) A ERIE ( great lake )
23 PROBOSCIS
Sort of 10 behind employer rounding Channel Islands (9)

PRO ( behind ) [ BOSS ( employer ) around CI ( Channel Islands ) ]
25 AMATI
Violin-maker, character standing on a rug (5)

A MAT ( rug ) I ( character standing )
26 VERVET
10 almost dead seen by animal doctor (6)

VERy ( dead, almost ) VET ( animal doctor )
27
See 10
28 RESIST
Support outside is making stand firm (6)

REST ( support ) outside IS ; REST referring to snooker
29 CAPUCHIN
10 backed up companion stopping first murderer (8)

[ PU ( reverse of UP ) CH ( companion ) ] in CAIN ( first murderer )

DOWN
1 MIMICS
Does doomed seamstress eviscerate colobuses? (6)

MIMI ( doomed seamstress ) CS ( ColobuseS, without inner characters )
2 RING ROADS
Are they bypasses or roundabouts? (4,5)

cryptic def
3 OSAGE
Love shown by wise Native American (5)

O ( love ) SAGE ( wise )
4 EMERSON
Writer Neo topless individual inspires (7)

ME ( neo ) in pERSON ( individual, topless i.e. without first letter )
6 AVOIDANCE
5-0, then one intercepts a ball, sidestepping (9)

[ V ( five ) O ( 0 ) I ( one ) ] in A DANCE ( ball )
7 GEKKO
Greedy Gordon all right with cask lifted (5)

reverse of OK ( all right ) KEG ( cask ) ; from the wolf of wall street
8 ROYALIST
Taylor freely admitting one’s a Queen fan? (8)

[ TAYLOR ]* contaning IS ( one's)
11 FLAT
Learner coated with lard entirely (4)

L ( learner ) in FAT ( lard )
15 ONLOOKERS
Spectators working with lovely sons (9)

ON ( working ) LOOKER ( lovely ) S ( sons )
17 ELIZABETH
Nasty bile and hate devouring Zulu monarch (9)

[ BILE HATE ]* containing Z ( zulu )
18 STOP OVER
Break during trip — check deliveries (4,4)

STOP ( check ) OVER ( deliveries )
20 DOCK
Remove tail as GP mentioned? (4)

sounds like DOC ( gp ) ; could remove alone be a def too?
21 FISTULA
One among faults corrected in narrow duct (7)

I ( one ) in [ FAULTS ]*
22 GIBSON
Dambuster’s conk mostly enormous, retroussé? (6)

reverse of NOSe ( conk, mostly ) BIG ( enormous )
24 ORRIS
Traditional dancing master’s initially taken root (5)

mORRIS ( traditional dancing, without M – master )
25 ADIEU
Make ultimate sacrifice in a uniform? Farewell (5)

DIE ( make ultimate sacrifice ) in [ A U ( uniform ) ]

28 comments on “Financial Times 17,675 NEO”

  1. What a splendid puzzle. I had to resort to a word finder for MANGABEY.

    Thanks to NEO for refreshing my knowledge of primates and to Turbolegs for an excellent
    blog.

  3. Thanks Neo and Turbolegs!
    Perfect 10!

    TENtative, on TENterhooks, TENse…that’s how it started (…a MONKEY on my back).
    TENacity paid off eventually!

    DOCK (Collins)
    to remove (the tail or part of the tail) of (an animal) by cutting through the bone
    to dock a tail
    to dock a horse

    ‘Remove tail’ as the def seems fine. ‘Remove’ might not have worked tho ‘reduce’ might have (I think).

    GIBSON
    retroussé (TILT)
    (of a nose) turned upwards
    (so apt in the surface reading as well as the cryptic reading)

  4. Missed Baboon – easy – but got all the others. Though I got Emerson, I wasn’t convinced it was right as I just couldn’t understand the Parsing. so thanks very much for that. foolishly gave up before getting baboon, as I was in a rush. I thought it was a marvellous crossword, though I didn’t like the violinist clue which held me up for ages, but now understand the character standing!! Never come across that before

  5. A good puzzle and a nice working of the theme though a few of these were unknown to me and hard to fathom. ROYALIST is a splendid clue with the Taylor reference. I seem to be encountering tribes of OSAGE in puzzles these days!

    Thanks Neo and Turbolegs.

  6. Thought this was great fun – just like yesterday’s. Don’t think I have done a Neo puzzle before.

    Like Moly @ 4 didn’t parse EMERSON.

    Also had to look up the violin-maker.

    Used a list of monkeys to help find a couple of those but managed to parse them all.

    Favourite monkey clues were: CAPUCHIN, BABOON, LANGUR

    Also liked: MIMICS AVOIDANCE GIBSON

    Thanks Neo and Turbolegs

  7. nho MANGABEY – a jorum, and now I have heard of it.
    Liked AMATI – the “character standing” reminded me of “the perpendicular pronoun” in Yes Minister(1980-4): ‘
    Sir Humphrey: The identity of the official whose alleged responsibility for this hypothetical oversight has been the subject of recent discussion is not shrouded in quite such impenetrable obscurity as certain previous disclosures may have led you to assume; but not to put too fine a point on it, the individual in question is, it may surprise you to learn, one whom your present interlocutor is in the habit of defining by means of the perpendicular pronoun.
    Hacker: I beg your pardon?
    Sir Humphrey: It was… I.’
    [Learning it was Thatcher’s favourite TV series spoiled it for me, though]
    Dead good – Thanks N&T

  8. This was a romp!
    Like SM, I needed an online trawl for MANGABEY though the parsing was fair enough – was too busy thinking of ‘bent’ and ‘wonky’!
    And I share Postmark’s admiration for ROYALIST’S surface.
    I also really enjoyed SALAD BOWL, the surface seeming somewhat suggestive of Thierry Henry (more striker than winger, I know, but still, a striking ‘bleu’ nevertheless!).
    Thanks Neo and Turbolegs (agree with your FF and DD).

  12. Great fun – didn’t know LANGUR or MANGABEY, but both were enjoyable to tease out from the wordplay & crossers.

    Thanks Neo & Turbolegs

  13. Thanks Neo, that was great. Guessing 10/27 very early helped a lot. My top picks were LANGUR, TUSSLED, AVOIDANCE, GEKKO, ELIZABETH, and ADIEU. I missed GIBSON. I wondered if ‘blue’ in 13a and ‘ball’ in 6d was a hidden reference to VERVET or just a coincidence? Thanks Turbolegs for the blog.

  14. After some time I resorted to revealing 10a, then came to the conclusion that I wasn’t going to enjoy this, not being a monkeyologist. So I abandoned ship.

  15. Thanks for the blog, enjoyable puzzle with a well worked theme. However I do hope the FT is not going down the Guardian path of endless themes. We had one on Monday for the RNLI because of the date, this one could have been put in a different week.

  16. [ Frankie@ 7 you are safe. Thatcher never watched Y(P)M or liked it . It was spin from her PR people trying to give her a semblance of humanity . She once performed a sketch with the actors at an awards ceremony for the writers. Watching it was like 18th century dental surgery. ]

  18. Throw me a banana someone. Hey hey they’re the monkeys.

    Thanks to all for comments, and esp to Legs for the blog.

    Perpendicular pronoun is going on my single-letter indicators list 😀

  20. Neo stays as ME , topless individual= pERSON , so E ME RSON .
    Inspires means takes inside as in breathing in.

  21. Thank you Turbolegs and Neo.

    I really enjoyed this one but needed a list of monkey types with me. Don’t know what a Gibson is as a dambuster. Is that an English reference? Meaning uk reference?

  23. AS @ 21 & MB @ 22

    Guy Gibson was more than a pilot, he was Commanding Officer and lead pilot of 617 Squadron, and was involved in the planning and training for the raid.

    He was awarded the Victoria Cross for his exploits.

  24. Roz@16 – I was unaware of this, but it’s all recorded here at the Margaret Thatcher Foundation ‘1984 Jan 20 Fr – Speech (and sketch) for BBC1
    Yes, Prime (sic) Minister … supposedly of her own composition – with Paul Eddington and Nigel Hawthorne … Themes: … Media, Religion & morality.
    The British Comedy Guide has a deeper dive on Margaret Thatcher: sitcom star, her complete lack of a sense of humour, and this occasion, when
    ‘Mary Whitehouse’s noisy mouthpiece, The National Viewers’ and Listeners’ Association, announced its intention to honour Yes Minister at its annual awards ceremony for exemplifying ‘wholesome television’ (a previous recipient had been Jim’ll Fix It)’
    Bernard Ingham wrote the script for The PM’s Plan: ‘abolish economists’ – hilarious, eh? Neither the two left-wing thespians nor the writers (Antony Jay and Jonathan Lynn) wanted anything to do with it, but chickened out about turning it down. Lynn’s backhanded acceptance speech: ‘I’d like to thank Mrs Mary Whitehouse for this award, and I should also like to thank Mrs Thatcher for finally taking her rightful place in the field of situation comedy.’

  25. You can watch a clip of it here in black and white (not colour for some reason) on that evening’s BBC News
    [After “Division Four – Stockport 1 Northampton 0” – the real news of the day]
    Thanks N&T

  26. Watching it once was enough for any lifetime, I remember she had Sir H having a PPE degree , anyone watching the show would know he did Classics.

  27. [Frankie@25 if you ever read this, I am sure your post @24 was NOT there when I replied @26 ( I was @25 then , very confusing ) . Perhaps held up because of the links and the length ?
    Interesting point about Jimmy Savile, Thatcher was a big supporter and protector of him , he would spend the New Year at Chequers every year . ]

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