Financial Times 17,724 SOLOMON

16 comments on “Financial Times 17,724 SOLOMON”

1. Thanks for the blog, very enjoyable with very neat clues.
   TELESCOPE=concertina as a verb meaning to fold up.
   I had THEFT slightly different, just the END ( intention ) of thieves is THEFT .

2. A DNF for me, couldn’t get “Theft”, (didn’t know this particular example of cockney slang), but it’s a great clue, as are all the others. Liked it a lot.
   Thank you to Solomon and Turbolegs, especially for parsing “Seaweed” (was unfamiliar with this slang term as well, unfortunately)

3. Kudos to Solomon on a fine debut.

   The app gives 6D answer as NAVAL, and that is how I read the clue, with ‘the maternal bond’ being the ‘delivered’ part of clue. Could have gone either way, though.

   Thanks also to TL.

4. Also had NAVAL but marked it as a bad clue due to its ambiguity. Liked the rest though. THEFT has been clued fairly similarly in the past but this was nicely disguised making it my loi. Parsed it as Roz but that’s how I interpreted the blog. Also had ‘telescope’ = ‘concertina’ as verbs.

5. Thanks Solomon and Turbolegs!
   Liked BLACKBIRD, THEFT and BACKSPACE.

   BILLIARDS
   Not sure it’s an &lit. The whole clue seems to be the def but the wordplay doesn’t involve
   some of the words.

   STRETCH
   I think
   try to be sick=RETCH (though it means to vomit, here I think the setter hints at the sense of ‘to try to vomit’)
   AVAIL
   Def: Make use (I feel the ‘of’ is not part of the def).

6. I’m another for whom the online puzzle is giving a thumbs up for NAVAL rather than navel. To my eyes, the grammar is not ambiguous and could not have delivered the latter: Solomon has used ‘for’ as a link which clearly indicates the definition – and I don’t see how ‘delivered for’ could be telling me to take a homophone of ‘marine’. It would need to be ‘delivery of marine’ or ‘marine delivered’, surely. At a stretch, possibly, ‘delivery for marine’.

   Thanks Solomon for a gentle debut and Turbolegs for the blog

7. Only one that I couldn’t parse, after trying very, very hard, and sure enough, it’s rhyming slang. Oh dear. The only other clues I wasn’t completely comfortable with were for BANANAS (I know it’s and &lit but I wasn’t sure whether it was right) and LEAVE for “hand over”.

   I didn’t think the clue for NAVAL was ambiguous. Perhaps it would be without the “for “. But it doesn’t matter anyway.

   Like Roz, I took TELESCOPE as a verb.

   This was a refreshing and entertaining experience from a new setter. Thanks Solomon, and welcome aboard!

8. I thought NAVAL was ambiguous as I took ‘naval’ = ‘for marine’ as a possibility. If you take ‘naval’ = ‘marine’ then I would take ‘for’ as a link to the solution which is then NAVAL.

9. A new setter! A treat, indeed. It was a refreshing experience to have no idea how tough or easy this might be. In the end, pretty accessible as it turns out with just a guess for THEFT. I didn’t hesitate over NAVAL – just how I read it at the
   time.
   I liked THOUSANDS, MARSEILLE, BILLIARDS and HELLO.
   Welcome to the fold, Solomon, and thank you. Cheers to Turbolegs on the usual fine blog.

10. I went NAVEL, but wasn’t surprised to find it was the other one.. seems to happen a lot, for me anyway. I started with Bluebeard which slowed things down a bit. I guess LEAVE can be ‘hand on’ in the last will n testament sense… but ENTER is 2 below ‘backspace’…
    I didn’t think the 7 stone weakling/weed was particularly cryptic or warrants a slang pigeon-hole? Weedy is used to describe humans on a fairly regular basis I feel..
    Thanks Solomon n turbolegs..

11. For 18d THEFT I took “This” as the definition. Solomon is saying 13a HELLO The FT – Hi, Solomon.
    First came across the word 14d LARRIKIN fairly recently — as did Mary Beard — from her interview of Clive James in the BBC’s Front Row Late shortly before his death in 2019.
    Liked the Latin Ablative Absolute of 10a VICE VERSA, but wondered if an elk even has an ANKLE (21d).
    Thanks S&T

12. Hovis@4 I was almost the same as the blog, but “This” being THEFT rather than The FT .

13. Chalk me up as another one who enjoyed this. I also thought NAVAL and did not think the clue was ambiguous. Same as Roz and GDU with TELESCOPE.

    Like GDU I toiled mightily trying to parse THEFT and was equally disappointed to find it is rhyming slang.

    I should have kept notes, as I remember thinking a few times “that’s a nice clue”, but I cannot put my finger on which ones now. Most of them look pretty good in hindsight. I love the word LARRAKIN, so I name that as my favourite. (I was hoping for a comment from GDU).

    The puzzle seems to have clues with a wide range of difficulty, from the very easy to some that took me some time & head scratching. I echo the sentiment – a nice debut.

    Thank you Solomon and Turbolegs

14. Thanks Solomon and congratulations on your FT debut. There was a lot to like here including WHISKERED, OVERLAP, KITTIWAKE, MOHAWKS, and AVAIL. I missed LARRIKINS (both the word and poet were new to me), THEFT, and TELESCOPE. Thanks Turbolegs for the blog.

15. Undrell@10, yes, a good explanation for LEAVE.

16. Just to be awkward, how about 11A THOUSANDS – THOU (‘you, at one time’) plus SAND (‘the front’ – i.e. seaside) plus S (‘back of SelfridgeS‘). I have come across worse alternative parsings.
    27A SISTERS. By no means do all nuns wear dark habits: some even wear white, for purity.
    Undrell @10
    5D BACKSPACE The clue does not specify how far beneath.
    FrankieG @11
    I think that an elk has a homologue of an ankle; it is called a hock in horses, but, for all the wonders of the internet, I am having difficulty tracking down the corresponding deer anatomy.

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