Financial Times 17,776 by ARTEXLEN

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ARTEXLEN kicks off the week…

An enjoyable puzzle with some neat surfaces.

Thanks ARTEXLEN!

picture of the completed grid

ACROSS
1. Impertinent male adolescent with yen to change sides (6)
MOUTHY

M (male) + YOUTH (adolescent, with Y (yen) to change sides)

4. Concerns some French revolutionary lovingly embraced (8)
CARESSED

CARES (concerns) + (DES)< (some, French, <revolutionary)

9. Long-term cons tons of body-builders avoided (6)
LIFERS

LIF[t]ERS (body-builders, T (tons) avoided)

10. Deciding jointly about getting on ferries (8)
AGREEING

RE (about), AGEING (getting on) ferries

12. Daughter was some time back risk-taker (9)
DAREDEVIL

D (daughter) + (LIVED (was) + ERA (some time))< (<back)

13. Seabirds getting lost in swells (5)
PUFFS

PUFF[in]S (seabirds, getting lost IN)

14. Boldly join insurrection taking place in work (14)
ENTERPRISINGLY

ENTER (join) + (RISING (insurrection) taking place in PLY (work))

17. Horror, as robbers nobbled car parts (5,9)
SHOCK ABSORBERS

SHOCK (horror) + (AS ROBBERS)* (*nobbled)

21. Walk from corner holding mastiff’s lead (5)
TRAMP

TRAP (corner) holding M[astiff] (lead)

22. A sign about hotel services for boozers (9)
ALEHOUSES

A + (LEO (sign) about H (hotel)) + USES (services)

24. Swimmer with lack of hostility discussed pouchlike garment (8)
CODPIECE

COD (swimmer) with "peace" = PIECE (lack of hostility, "discussed")

25. A kid free from anxiety (2,4)
AT EASE

A + TEASE (kid)

26. Suffering Frenchman’s put in plea for help (8)
SORENESS

RENE'S (Frenchman's) put in SOS (plea for help)

27. Shortest route east completely empty road (6)
STREET

S[hortes]T R[out]E E[as]T (completely empty)

DOWN
1. Ailments put mother on toilet (8)
MALADIES

MA (mother) on LADIES (toilets)

2. Happy to participate you said with profit generated (2,3,2)
UP FOR IT

"you" = U ("said") with (PROFIT)* (*generated)

3. Shot stern English dons (5)
HARED

HARD (stern), E (English) dons

5. Gentle sort joining a body of soldiers — he’s producing memoir (7,5)
ANGELAS ASHES

ANGEL (gentle sort) joining A + SAS (body of soldiers) + (HES)* (*producing)

6. Part of potato starter that’s revelatory (3-6)
EYE-OPENER

EYE (part of potato) + OPENER (starter)

7. Lot of alcohol sunk if turning fifty (7)
SKINFUL

(SUNK IF)* (*turning) + L (fifty)

8. Break down joke that’s heard to gradually understand (6)
DIGEST

"die jest" = DIGEST (break down joke, "that's heard")

11. Tips when penning said article succeeded (12)
OVERBALANCES

ONCE (when) penning (VERBAL (said) + A (article)) + S (succeeded)

15. Recording in building having erased top social event (9)
RECEPTION

EP (recording) in [e]RECTION (building, having erased top)

16. Easiest shot blocked by one in my view (2,1,3,2)
AS I SEE IT

(EASIEST)* (*shot) blocked by I (one)

18. One stores aged wine in retirement (7)
HOARDER

HOAR (aged) + (RED)< (wine, <in retirement)

19. Catch characters in veterans’ network after keeling over (7)
ENSNARE

([vet]ERANS NE[twork] (characters in))< (<keeling over)

20. Fills opening in stapler with staples (6)
STACKS

S[tapler] (opening in) with TACKS (staples)

23. Group of performers regularly boycotted tango (5)
OCTET

[b]O[y]C[o]T[t]E[d] (regularly) + T (tango)

10 comments on “Financial Times 17,776 by ARTEXLEN”

  1. I was unaware that “hoar” can mean aged. Collins says it’s obsolete. And I knew not the French for “some”.

    All else hunky dory and enjoyable. Thanks Artexlen & Teacow.

  3. Same dnk as GDU @1 – but I did know ‘hoary’ meant old so was pretty confident that I’d find HOAR in the dictionary and I did. ENTERPRISINGLY, ALEHOUSES, SORENESS, MALADIES, SKINFUL, DIGEST and OCTET were my favourites today. ‘…getting lost in’ is a slightly awkward way to signal the deletion in PUFF(in)S is my sole quibble.

    Thanks Artexlen and Teacow

  4. Lots of really good clues – I’d add AT EASE to those mentioned above. I share PostMark’s quibble about Puffin.

  5. Not my cup of tea at all.

    DNF because I have only vaguely heard of Angelas Ashes and nor could I work it out from the clue. Thought it must’ve been something to do with Angelus. Hmmm.

    A few too many clues fell into the category of solving them from crossers and the definition as the parsing was overly tricky / confusing. Then time wasted then trying to sort out the parsing. Some of us are busy.

    Poor crossword in this solver’s book and an unsatisfactory start of the week for me.

  6. PostMark@3 and Petert@4
    PUFFS
    I tried to check if there was a usage ‘to get ‘something’ lost’ (in the sense of ‘to lose something’).
    I couldn’t find such a usage. I think “get lost in=get ‘in’ lost/lose ‘in'” is as whimsical as ‘remove it’=’to
    move it again’. Tho it doesn’t sound good now, it may become popular one of these days. 🙂

  7. Thanks Artexlen. This was a mixed bag for me and I threw in the towel leaving five clues unsolved. I liked MOUTHY, CARESSED, SHOCK ABSORBERS, SORENESS, and STREET. I had the same quibble about PUFFS that PostMark @3 had. Thanks Teacow for the blog.

  8. KVa@6, I read the subtraction in 13a PUFFS as you did. “Get lost” is a direction to scram, disappear or vanish. Whimsical, yes – fun, yes also. That clue was one of my favourites, along with 17a SHOCK ABSORBERS (great surface and charade/anagram) 1a MOUTHY (another great surface.)

    I found 11d OVERBALANCES very tricky to parse, and it was my LOI. Unlike another commenter, I put that down to my own slowness rather than the setter’s unfairness, and in the end I quite liked that clue (and the puzzle as a whole). Different strokes….

    Thanks Artexlen and Pete for the engaging Monday exercise.

  9. We found this difficult to get into; all we had after our first pass was 1dn but then we got 6dn and 7dn and the rest gradually emerged. LOI was OVERBALANCES once we realised ‘tips’ was a verb rather than a noun.
    Thanks, Artexlen and Teacow.

  10. Thanks for the blog , very good set of clever clues . OVERBALANCES was very neat wordplay along with ENTERPRISINGLY which had a nod to Star Trek – to boldly go .

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