Financial Times 17,846 by SOLOMON

My first Solomon blog, standing in for loonapick

A thoroughly enjoyable puzzle, with some particularly witty and well-constructed surfaces. Hopefully a setter we’ll see a lot more of in the near future, and thanks for the challenge this morning.

picture of the completed grid

ACROSS

1. Charlie, a quiet bully that makes a lot of money (4,3)

CASH COW

C (Charlie) + A + SH (quiet) + COW (bully)

5. Buried aluminium and half of gold in part of Mexico (7)

HIDALGO

HID (buried) + AL (aluminium) + GO[ld] (half of)

9. Flirt with banker on the phone (5)

TEASE

“TEES” (banker, river, “on the phone”)

10. Card-carrying official starts to outcast rebels and extremists thus (9)

THEREFORE

THE REF (card-carrying official) + O[utcast] R[ebels] and E[xtremists] (starts to)

11. Drawn, sick American getting tarted up (11)

ILLUSTRATED

ILL (sick) + US (American) getting TARTED* (*up)

13. My apple contains a bit of bark (3)

YAP

[m]Y AP[ple] (contains)

14. Winton? (4)

TOWN

Cryptic definition

We need to break up the letters to find the instruction: W in TON. Winton is also an example of a town.

Very clever indeed.

15. What can I say? Your unfinished baclava is abysmal (10)

VOCABULARY

(YOUR BACLAV[a] (unfinished))* (*is abysmal)

18. Building with high beams (10)

LIGHTHOUSE

Cryptic definition

A play on the word ‘beams’, which in this case refers to beams of light

19. Notes made by retired English head (4)

TUNE

(E (English) + NUT (head))< (<retired)

21. Colour of dead-headed flower (3)

INK

[p]INK (flower, Dianthus, dead-headed)

To dead-head a flower is to chop it off the plant once it has died to encourage new growth.

23. Ambassador stopping pederasts getting thrown in cells (11)

SPREADSHEET

HE (ambassador, His/Her Excellency) stopping PEDERASTS* (*getting thrown)

24. Old, exhausted pitbull with very large setter’s dangerous (9)

EXPLOSIVE

EX (old) + P[itbul]L (exhausted) + OS (very large, oversize) + I’VE (setter’s)

26. Animal with laugh full of hunger (5)

HYENA

HA (laugh) full of YEN (hunger) – semi &lit

28. ‘Smart one overcome by anger’ — Othello? (7)

TRAGEDY

T[i]DY (smart): I (one) overcome by RAGE (anger)

29. I perform Browning, and I generate cheers (7)

TOASTER

Double definition

DOWN

1. One getting in a flap about time (3)

CAT

CA (about, circa) + T (time)

The ‘flap’ being a cat flap of course

2. Rascal’s stolen goods, including phone, close to telly (9)

SCALLYWAG

SWAG (stolen goods) including CALL (phone) + [tell]Y (close to)

3. Retro show inspired by revolutionary appeal of The Mousetrap (6)

CHEESE

SEE< (show, <retro) overcome by CHE (revolutionary)

4. Painting of owl curator and colleague finally revived (11)

WATERCOLOUR

(OWL CURATOR + [colleagu]E (finally))* (*revived)

5. Some bloke adopting posh tone (3)

HUE

HE (some bloke) adopting U (posh)

6. Doctor that produces bill before treatment of flu? That’s terrible (8)

DREADFUL

DRE (doctor that produces) + AD (bill) + FLU* (*treatment of)

7. Papa John’s introducing topping of yellow bananas (5)

LOOPY

P (papa, NATO alphabet); LOO (John)’s introducing + Y[ellow] (topping of)

8. Act effecting change (11)

OVERPAYMENT

Cryptic definition

A play on the word ‘change’, which in this case means leftover money

11. Clever little engine almost crashes (11)

INTELLIGENT

(LITTLE ENGIN[e] (almost))* (*crashes)

12. Direct coach one’s taken with mum and dad cycling behind (11)

TRANSPARENT

TRA[i]N (coach, I (one)’s taken) with PARENTS (mum and dad) cycling behind

16. Fun arising when a docked mongrel is impregnated (9)

AMUSEMENT

A + MUT[t] (mongrel, docked) contains SEMEN (i.e. is impregnated)

17. German sacrificing time and opportunity to make instrument (8)

OTOSCOPE

O[t]TO (German, sacrificing T (time) + SCOPE (opportunity)

A medical instrument

20. Condition of mat has deteriorated (6)

ASTHMA

(MAT HAS)* (*deteriorated)

22. Part of Greek, apparently (5)

KAPPA

[Gree]K APPA[rently] (part of) – semi &lit

25. She sounds like a drip (3)

IVY

“I.V.” (drip, intravenous, “sounds like”) – semi &lit

27. Belt out the opening of musical number (3)

AIR

Triple definition

Not convinced of my parsing here, so please comment if you have a better idea

13 comments on “Financial Times 17,846 by SOLOMON”

KVa

#1 - Thu 19th Sep 24, 08:07

AIR
musical=(h)AIR —->belt out the opening
Def: number
CASH COW
Should we include the ‘that’ in the def?

Loved TOWN.
Other faves: LIGHTHOUSE and HYENA.

Thanks Solomon and Oriel.

Fiona

#2 - Thu 19th Sep 24, 08:12

I think this is the first time I have done a puzzle by this setter.

Got off to a quick start in the NW slowed down a bit in the SW and took quite a lot longer to do the right hand side.

Some lovely clues including: SCALLYWAG, TOASTER, HIDALGO, LIGHTHOUSE, HUE, OVERPAYMENT

Thanks Solomon and Oriel

#3 - Thu 19th Sep 24, 08:13

An excellent puzzle. TOWN was a little gem. I had never heard of Dr Dre the producer .

Thanks Solomon and Oriel for an immaculate blog.

KVa

#4 - Thu 19th Sep 24, 08:14

KAPPA
apparently, part of gree-K’
(but what is the Greek name for Greek?)
An intended &lit?

Geoff Down Under

#5 - Thu 19th Sep 24, 08:25

Trickier than my most recent experience of this setter. Never heard of Dr Dre or the river Tees.

Still don’t get INK. Why is see show? And I’ve never been a fan of “up” as an anagrind.

Shanne

#6 - Thu 19th Sep 24, 08:47

INK in is used to mean colour in, it’s in Chambers as a verb in that sense.

The River TEES is very pretty upstream, I’ve walked sections of it on the Pennine Way. Not so nice through the very industrialised Middleton-on-Tees.

I enjoyed this as light relief (after today’s Paul). Thank you to Oriel and Solomon.

FrankieG

#7 - Thu 19th Sep 24, 10:25

KVa@4 — Greek ‘(Modern Greek: Ελληνικά, romanized: Elliniká, pronounced [eliniˈka]; Ancient Greek: Ἑλληνική, romanized: Hellēnikḗ’
Geoff Down Under@5 — I had the same problem with see = show in 3d CHEESE — Maybe “I’ll show you to the door” = “I’ll see you to the dooor”?

KVa

#8 - Thu 19th Sep 24, 10:38

Noted. Thanks. Ellinika has a KAPPA in it. 👍🏼

PostMark

#9 - Thu 19th Sep 24, 11:22

I have not had enough time to tackle the FT for a while but glad I was able to catch Solomon whose puzzles I have generally enjoyed. Lots of lovely definitions and gentle misdirection as well as some super/amusing surfaces and some clever constructions. TOWN, VOCABULARY, HYENA, TOASTER, CAT, SCALLYWAG, CHEESE, OVERPAYMENT, INTELLIGENT and TRANSPARENT is my (fairly long) list of likes.

Thanks Solomon and Oriel

Undrell

#10 - Thu 19th Sep 24, 13:09

All good, last 3 took the most time, which were the pederast cells, whereas I was thinking mitochondria or similar, and TOASTER, where I was trying to include an I somewhere, given it gets a mention TWICE in the clue, finally AIR, where the triple def is still on, but maybe a weighting towards the decapitated musical.. many enjoyable bits, of which I’d pick OVERPAYMENT given the apparent paucity of actual information, which is revealed as exactly how much one needed.. reminded me of a clue in the Indy earlier..
Thanks Solomon n Oriel

Martyn

#11 - Thu 19th Sep 24, 13:50

I made steady progress, then needed to spend a lot more time in the SE corner. I too enjoyed this and agree there were a lot of interesting clues. My favourites were HYENA, VOCABULARY, SPREADSHEET, TOASTER.

I am another who did not know dr dre, wondered why see = show and was unsure how to parse AIR. I also wondered why the parents were cycling in TRANSPARENT.

Thanks Solomon and Oriel

allan_c

#12 - Thu 19th Sep 24, 15:43

We got there in the end despite barking up a few wrong trees, notably with SPREADSHEET where we were trying to think of cells in a biological sense, and we weren’t aware of the Mexican state, HIDALGO meaning only a /spanish nobleman to us. Favourites were CAT and SCALLYWAG.
Thanks, Solomon and Oriel

Roz

#13 - Thu 19th Sep 24, 16:56

Thanks for the blog, very enjoyable puzzle , neat and clever clues with many nice touches .
Dr DRE make very expensive headphones that are popular with gullible students .

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