Financial Times 17,692 JASON

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Jason’s the FT setter today.

This was mostly plain sailing until I came to the last two solutions. I have never heard of AGAPE being Christian love, but then I’m an atheist, and then it took an age to see the parsing of BONE-IDLE.

AGAPE and RIVE seemed a little out of place in an otherwise straightfoward puzzle, but I liked that.

Thanks Jason

ACROSS
9 ADORATION
Praise a knees-up ahead of budget (9)
A + DO (“knees-up”) ahead of RATION (“budget”)
10 AGAPE
Love a yawn (5)
A + GAPE (“yawn”)

Agape is a religious term for selfless Christian love.
11 STERILE
Lifeless street close to here to get one’s back up (7)
St. (street) + [close to] (her)E + RILE (“to get one’s back up”)
12 TORNADO
Rent trouble is a big blow (7)
TORN (“renat”) + ADO (“trouble”)
13 NOD
Gesture of respect from mob boss going west (3)
<=DON (“mob boss”, going west, i.e. from right to left)
14 ULTRAMARINE
Blue material run amok (11)
*(material run) [anag:amok]
17 OPERA
Old school exercises right before a musical drama (5)
O (old) + PE (physical education, so “school exercises”) + R (right) before A
18 PHI
Athenian character’s positive greeting (3)
P (positive) + HI (“greeting”)
19 IMPLY
Mean really no hint of sarcasm (5)
(s)IMPLY (“really”) with no [hint of] S(arcasm)
21 TRAVEL AGENT
Who arranges great Levant tours? (6,5)
*(great levant) [anag:tours] and semi &lit.
23 OPT
Choose some from top table (3)
Hidden in [some from] “tOP Table”
25 AMNESIA
Is a name lost with this? (7)
*(is a name) [anag:lost] and semi &lit.
27 ARCHIVE
Public records American church in old- style split (7)
A (American) + Ch. (church) in RIVE (old word for “split”)
28 CEASE
Stop clubs gaining wealth (5)
C (clubs) gaining EASE (“wealth”)
29 AVALANCHE
Terrible fall as Ms Gardner left an old poster boy? (9)
AVA (Gardner) + L (left) + AN + CHE (Guevar) (the subject of many student posters, hence “poster boy”)
DOWN
1 PARSON
Burning passion under quiet cleric (6)
ARSON (“burning passion”) under P (piano in music, so “quiet”)
2 BONE-IDLE
Lazy check when rook is solitary (4-4)
B(r)IDLE when R (rook) becomes ONE (“solitary”) is B(ONE)-IDLE
3 MANIPULATE
Messily eat a plum in work (10)
*(eat a plum in) [anag:messily]
4 DINE
Uproar over English banquet (4)
DIN (“uproar”) over E (English)
5 INITIATIVE
Four probing novice’s gumption (10)
IV (“four”, in Roman numerals) probing INITIATE (“novice”)
6 FAIR
Beautiful feminine manner (4)
F (feminine) + AIR (“manner”)
7 SAFARI
Not quite sure going on pretty much dry adventure holiday? (6)
[not quite] SUR(e) (“safe”) going on [pretty much] ARI(d) (“dry”)
8 RECOVERY
Rally such as AA supports (8)
Double definition, the second referring to Alcoholics Anonymous
15 TOP BANANAS
Take the lid off crazy VIPs (3,7)
TOP (“take the lid off”) + BANANAS (“crazy”)
16 ARISTOCRAT
Noble actor’s art I trashed (10)
*(actors art i) [anag:trashed]
17 OUTMATCH
Run rings round blooming union (8)
OUT (“blooming”) + MATCH (“union”)
20 PROVINCE
Area for little lad (8)
PRO (“for”) + VINCE (“little lad”, short for Vincent)
22 ANNUAL
Flower book (6)
Double definition
24 THEMED
Where we might cruise with repeating motif? (6)
THE MED (“where we may cruise”)
26 STEW
This anxious state upset liberal Tories (4)
[upset] WETS (“liberal Tories”)
27 AWAY
Absent means off (4)
Double definition

17 comments on “Financial Times 17,692 JASON”

  3. Knew AGAPE from Greek (Ancient or Modern) – The alphas are short, but the E is an eta, so I’d pronounce it a-ga-pee.
    Parsed AWAY as KVa@2. Loi BONE-IDLE – That took a while to parse.
    {typo – ‘[not quite] SAF(e) (“sure”) going on [pretty much] ARI(d) (“dry”)’}
    Thanks J&L

  4. AGAPE rang a bell so that was one to check in Chambers and, yes, it has the accent on the E at the end. No idea where I have encountered it before in a context where I’ve heard the pronunciation. And, yes, RIVE was unusual – though I have encountered the past tense, riven, often enough to be surprised to find the root word is archaic. I’d agree with KVa’s nomination of BONE IDLE as COTD for a very neat substitution and would throw in ULTRAMARINE for the neat surface.

    Thanks Jason and loonapick

  5. Like Postmark, I’d heard of both AGAPE and RIVE but the parsing of BONE-IDLE eluded me. Great idea though.
    There were many pithy surfaces I liked such as the aforementioned AGAPE, ULTRAMARINE and ANNUAL, as well as the amusing ‘burning passion’ and ‘poster boy’.
    Thanks to Jason and Loonapick.

  6. I think AGAPE has been in previous FT puzzles but can’t remember when.RECOVERY could also refer to the Automobile Association which has recovered my vehicle more than once.
    I also needed the blog to parse BONE-IDLE
    All good fun.
    Thanks Jason and Loonapick.

  8. SM and KVa: the last two comments made me realise I had missed that particular parse in the blog. Yes, I took the AA reference to be associated with drink-related recovery in the surface but with vehicle recovery in the cryptic.

  9. I took AWAY to be a triple definition with a way as in KVa@1.
    My thanks to Loonapick for the parsing of BONE-IDLE, which had eluded me: otherwise a fairly straightforward run-through.

  10. We knew AGAPÉ and RIVE but needed a wordfinder for OUTMATCH, our LOI. Favourites were ULTRAMARINE and AVALANCHE.
    Thanks, Jason and loonapick.

  11. Some nice clues with great surfaces. TORNADO and THEMED made me smile, and I also liked TRAVEL AGENT and OUTMATCHED for their surfaces.

    Like everyone else, I did not get BONE IDLE. Not only could I not parse it, but I do not like that we are expected to get BONE IDLE from “lazy” alone. Bone idleness is but one of many degrees of laziness.

    Never heard the phrase TOP BANANAS and took me a long while to work out why ANNUAL is book.

    Thanks Jason, and great job loonapick

  12. Subscribed to the paper FT yesterday so this was my second ever FT crossword (have only been learning/attempting cryptics since start of January) and… I finished this, although I definitely couldn’t parse all of them! And I did seek help with four letters via the app. Still. I’m calling it a small victory. Was dying to read this blog to make sense of it all, so thank you!

  14. Thanks Jeff @13 – but the paper edition was/is on a special offer to get delivered for one year. Joy.

  15. Is there an equivalent to Jorum for a word you discover from the wordplay? If so, Rive was one such for me. Normally I am ambivalent about puzzles that are generally accessible with a couple of tricky ones, but I enjoyed this one.

  17. Peter@15 , you should try Azed , often you will get something like – obscure word inside obscure word giving obscure word as the answer , and maybe the definition in the clue itself is obscure.
    I am late to this but I did find it a very enjoyable puzzle.

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