Financial Times 17,681 PETO

18 comments on “Financial Times 17,681 PETO”

1. 29a: I thought you smoke crack, but maybe it can also be injected IN VEIN?

   Great puzzle, thanks PETO and Turbolegs.

2. 16a PLOTTER very appropriate today – “In March, July October, May | The Ides are on the fifteenth day”

3. I really enjoyed this one from Peto.

   I think 29ac is referring to injecting a drug (crack) into a vein. But I may be wrong not having had personal experience of this activity.

   Thanks TL for the blog.

4. IN VAIN
   vein is a crack in a rock (geology-the blog says the same thing?)
   EXTRAS
   Your parsing seems all right (well. that’s how I parsed it-I just took it as EXTRA S instead of breaking it into two parts)

5. It’s a puzzle in five parts – four mini-crosswords in the CORNERs, only connecting to the central quartet without any helpful first letters.
   And they don’t have any helpful first letters, either. Lovely stuff. Hardest of the three daily GIFts.

6. On clothing EXTRA S = XS = “unusually small”
   [I thought crack was smoked]

7. I did not get the cricket reference for CAUGHT, so thanks for the explanation.

8. A fine puzzle and blog to match although I am not entirely happy with 3dn (are EXTRAS really advantages?) and distinctly unhappy with 11dn. VIOLENT is not equivalent to “very powerful”. The pen, after all, is mightier than the sword.

9. IN VAIN
   I have heard/seen two types of veins in rocks (with the help of geologists working with me).
   One: Sometimes there are veins of one type of rock running through another rock. They are not seen as distinct fissures/joints.
   Two: Two types of rocks meet and have joints between them, which are also called veins. These could be categorised as cracks/fissures in common parlance.
   My explanation may be technically inadequate but we can be sure that crack=vein.
   EXTRAS
   My parsing (@4) matches with that of FrankieG@6 though I didn’t explain it that well. I meant to say that the ‘unusually small’ should be considered as one block to mean EXTRA S(mall) so that the cryptic grammar works better.

10. Beak@8 I had the same thought about VIOLENT but then I felt a violent emotion. Nice to see a golfer other than Els and the Italian not being il.

11. In 12a:

    What is the anagram indicator for “car I’d”?
    How do we know that “ultimately” refers to the s in debris and not the d in found? Sometimes ultimately seems to refer to next word and sometimes the previous one.

    Thanks in advance.

12. As FrankieG observes, this is a horrible grid with its lack of connectivity. EXTRAS raised an eyebrow and I solved IN VAIN with the vein of rock in mind. Chambers does actually define vein as fissure or cavity which works as ‘crack’ for me. Am I wrong in finding NOAH’S ARK a bit odd with ‘fellow’ clueing … well, a fellow?

    Jeff @11: the anagrind is ‘abandoned’. As for which letter is being indicated, the position of ‘abandoned’ tells us which end the def is but, you are right, it could have been cluing ‘Scattered debris’ and begin with D. But with a two letter river coming between that ambiguous first letter and an anagram of CARID, PO it surely must be which in turn forces the S rather than the D. Hope that makes sense.

    Thanks Peto and Teacow

13. PostMark @12 I thought the same BV about Noah but was pleased to see a different island.

14. Beak@8: think of the Beaufort Scale, as used in the shipping forecast. Force 10, Storm, Force 11 Violent Storm.

15. I enjoyed this a lot, especially as in the past I have not been too much of a fan of Peto.

    Other than the mysterious In Vain, I thought the cluing was clear and tremendous with some nice misdirects. Like others, I have no personal experience of crack, but I thought it was smoked. I assumed the cluing was a reference to injection

    At the more difficult end of the spectrum for me, but definitely doable.

    Favourites included Corner, Mischief, Caught and Chessman

    Thanks to all, especially for the clear blog.

16. Thanks Peto. I found this mostly enjoyable but I failed with CHESSMAN, CLANGER (didn’t know the golfer), and DUENNA. My favourites were GOINGS-ON, REASONED, and AT HEART. Thanks Turbolegs for the blog.

17. Thanks Peto

    I enjoyed this. Like Turbolegs, I found the clues increasing in difficulty as I progressed, I started in the NE corner and went clockwise around the grid, spending quite a bit of time finishing the NW corner.

    I had the same questions and grumbles as mentioned already. But these were pretty trivial and there were lots of smiles as I went through the puzzle.

    Thanks Peto and Turbolegs

18. Thanks for the blog, I agree with Frankie about the grid but the clues were very good on the whole. All my points have been covered.

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