Financial Times 17,703 by FALCON

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I thought at first that I was going to breeze through this puzzle, but this offering from Falcon comprises a nice assortment of clues, the latter portion of which required me to think a bit.

I do not see any themes or ninas, but perhaps I have overlooked something.

picture of the completed grid

ACROSS
1 LEMUR
Primate’s capital broadcast (5)
Homophone of (broadcast) LIMA (capital)
4 AMPERSAND
Sign impedes manual worker in Bow? (9)
[H]AMPERS (impedes) [H]AND (manual worker), unaspirated for Cockney (in Bow)
9 FORWARD
Send on bold attacking player (7)
Triple definition
10 TRAVERS
Female writer, briefly cross (7)
TRAVERS[E] (cross) minus last letter (briefly), referring presumably to P. L. Travers, author of the Mary Poppins series
11 PRIME MINISTER
Major was one to brief member of the clergy (5,8)
PRIME (brief) + MINISTER (member of the clergy), referring to John Major. (One definition for “prime” in Chambers is “to coach or cram beforehand with information or instructions,” so I assume this is the intended sense.)
14 ALPH
Poetic river Greek character’s last to leave (4)
ALPH[A] (Greek character) minus last letter (last to leave), referring to Kubla Khan by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
15 SPARTACUS
Small role as accommodating copper in film (9)
S (small) + PART (role) + AS around (accommodating) CU (copper)
18 KNIFE-REST
Frisk teen roughly, finding piece of kitchenware (5-4)
Anagram of (roughly) FRISK TEEN
19 BLUE
Depressed Oxbridge rower? (4)
Double definition
21 ON SOLID GROUND
Having landed in a strong position? (2,5,6)
Double/cryptic definition
24 DEALING
Selling drugs in London borough by day? (7)
D (day) + EALING (London borough)
26 PATRIOT
Nationalist at uprising after start of parade (7)
First letter of (start of) P[ARADE] + AT + RIOT (uprising)
27 NURSEMAID
Au pair? I’d surname wrong (9)
Anagram of (wrong) I’D SURNAME
28 NAKED
Exposed, a king in hideout to the west (5)
{A + K (king)} inside (in) DEN (hideout) reversed (to the west)
DOWN
1 LIFT
Take some cordial if thirsty (4)
Hidden in (some) [CORDIA]L IF T[HIRSTY]
2 MARY POPPINS
Nanny changing nappy, so prim (4,7)
Anagram of (changing) NAPPY SO PRIM
3 ROADIE
Member of band’s crew reportedly travelled with one close to Bowie (6)
Homophone of (reportedly) RODE (travelled with) + I (one) + last letter of (close to) [BOWI]E
4 ADDRESSEE
Letter opener? (9)
Cryptic definition, both in the sense of the person to whom the letter is addressed in the salutation and in the sense of the person who physically opens the envelope
5 PETRI
Dish of boiled tripe (5)
Anagram of (boiled) TRIPE
6 REALISTS
They have no illusions about American catalogues (8)
RE (about) + A (American) + LISTS (catalogues)
7 AGE
Mature and wise? Not initially (3)
[S]AGE (wise) minus first letter (not initially)
8 DISTRESSED
Diane, tense, strung out (10)
DI (Diane) + STRESSED (tense)
12 TICKLED PINK
Pleased as punch, knight wearing kilt picked out (7,4)
N (knight) inside (wearing) anagram of (out) KILT PICKED
13 JACK LONDON
Raise capital for American author (4,6)
JACK (raise) + LONDON (capital)
16 ARTHROPOD
Husband bitten by angry trapdoor spider for one (9)
H (husband) inside (bitten by) anagram of (angry) TRAPDOOR
17 VERLAINE
French poet and some genial reverend coming over (8)
Hidden in (some) [G]ENIAL REV[EREND] inverted (coming over), referring to Paul Verlaine
20 SULTAN
Endless fruit for Muslim ruler (6)
SULTAN[A] (fruit) minus last letter (endless)
22 DOGMA
Worry over mother’s blind faith (5)
DOG (worry) + MA (mother)
23 STUD
Briefly examine large-headed nail (4)
STUD[Y] (examine) minus last letter (briefly)
25 AIR
Appearance of couple heading off (3)
[P]AIR (couple) minus first letter (heading off)

16 comments on “Financial Times 17,703 by FALCON”

  1. Ah, so the good citizens of Bow drop their ‘h’s. That’s ‘andy to know. I tried for an eternity to parse 4a, unsuccessfully. Nor did I know an Oxbridge rower was a blue. A couple of other occasions where my knowledge was insufficient, but overall not too difficult and quite enjoyable, thanks Falcon & Cineraria.

  2. COTD: ADDRESSEE (a tiny clue for the setter! A big leap for my heart!)
    & loved AMPERSAND (What the H!).


    PRIME MINISTER
    I parsed PRIME as in the blog.

    FORWARD:
    Call this a stretch:
    Send (a message/mail)
    On (as in go on)
    Bold
    Attacking (in the sense of rude/impudent)
    Player

    Theme???
    With a few authors in the grid, I suspect a literary theme. JACK LONDON was a REALIST but Paul VERLAINE wasn’t. TRAVERS wrote magical REALISm. DOGMA isn’t about REALISm but being ON SOLID GROUND is. Even FORWARD could mean REALISTic? NAKED truth?
    Actually, I must wait for someone to reveal the theme if there is one.

  3. Travers wrote Mary Poppins which is set in London and I believe she wore Blue quite often. Otherwise no idea of a theme or nina. Thanks Falcon and Cineraria.

  4. I wondered about a MARY POPPINS theme too. I thought about it as possibly thematic, but doubt that our heroine would have described herself as a NURSEMAID. How do you think Dick Van Dyke would have pronounced ‘impedes manual worker’; I’d rather not think about it!

    I missed it when solving so thanks to Cineraria for pointing out the cleverness of ADDRESSEE, a cryptic def with a double meaning.

    Thanks as well to Falcon

  5. Was Mary Poppins a Nursemaid? Of sorts?

    Now in Bhutan. Marvellous country which I thoroughly recommend.

    Wi-Fi works perfectly

    Finished very quickly by my standards, though Travers took a little time.

  6. ADDRESSEE is the stand out clue for me in this fairly gentle and pretty tightly clued puzzle. Like others here, I thought I was onto something with the TRAVERS/MARY POPPINS combo but it doesn’t seem to go any further than that. I’d agree, NURSEMAID is hardly the same thing. (Mind you, I’m not 100% sure that it’s the same as an AU PAIR either) ARTHROPOD, DEALING, JACK LONDON, PETRI and the smile-inducing AMPERSAND were my other ticks.

    GDU @1: you have done well to survive for so long in crosswordland without encountering BLUE for Oxbridge rower (or any other Oxbridge sporting representative for that matter.) It’s a useful one to file away as it comes up quite frequently.

    Thanks Falcon and Cineraria

  7. I enjoyed this and made steady progress with the NE last to fall.

    Favourites included: AMPERSAND, ALPH (which I hadn’t heard of), SPARTACUS, VERLAINE, PATRIOT

    Thanks Falcon and Cineraria

  8. Glad you are enjoying Bhutan Moly @5. One of my favourite countries. Perhaps we could see Bhutan as the country for the Sunday FT puzzle? Or the Himalayas for the place?

    Enjoyed this puzzle which I did breeze through. Thanks Falcon for the fun and Cineraria for the faultless blog

  9. I’d imagine the dark BLUEs are more “Depressed” than the light ones.
    MARY POPPINS(1964) – a 60th (DIamond) anniversary.
    And P.L ,TRAVERS moved from Australia to LONDON in 1924 – a centenary.
    Especially liked ‘AMPERS ‘AND, being from Bow.
    Thanks F&C

  11. I enjoyed this and found plenty to smile about. I started in the SE corner and went clockwise, and found the NE corner needed more thought than the rest

    ARTHROPOD was my favourite

    Thanks Falcon and Cineraria

  14. Enjoyable and not too difficult. Our fsvourites were ARTHROPOD and AMPERSAND (the latter our LOI).
    Thanks, Falcon and Cineraria.

  15. PostMark @ 6, you have done well in turning a potential insult into a compliment! Is there a word for that?

  16. As an aside, GDU, it is comparatively easy to get a blue at oxford or cambridge. All you need to do is compete in the oxbridge match/regatta etc. The university I attended only gave out blues sparingly, and you pretty well had to win the national championship to even stand a chance.

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