Financial Times 17,865 by SOLOMON

37 comments on “Financial Times 17,865 by SOLOMON”

1. OHM
   My guess:
   It’s a homophone of cockney ‘ome.
   (because West Ham’s stadium is London Stadium—of course, I Googled!)

2. OHM is just an East London soundalike for home . West Ham is in East London but I think their ground has moved.

3. Thanks for the blog , very good puzzle lots of neat and clever clues .
   I liked the SHE thinks in PHILOSOPHER and the clever reference to KY jelly in HANKY PANKY .
   Sergeant BILKO a famous US TV series from the 50s, Phil Silvers , influenced Top Cat .

4. To clarify 23D: the definition is “I say,” referring to The Independent, for example.
   I found this tough sledding, although in retrospect, I am not sure why.

5. Too many unfamiliar references. I got all out, but have never heard of ELEPHANTOID, ISA, DARTAGNAN, and there were eight I couldn’t parse.

6. A few random comments and questions

   Good to learn WestHam supporters do not pronounce their hs. Thanks Roz for confirming my guess-parsing.

   So ISA is a savings account in England is it?

   And there is a novel called BIRDSONG? I read a lot but do not know this or its author.

   How is KIDNAPPED “after his bedtime reading” please?

   CO-OP means co-operative. What supermarkets in UK are COOPs vs companies?

   So the PIED PIPER had 13 children did he?

   I somehow knew WARREN St. I have been to and highly recommend Euston Tap at the entrance of so-named station but I cannot think I have ever been to nearby Warren St – the street or the station.

   What is the purpose of “say” in PAPER?

   Only 2 of the ABBA quartet wrote the songs (along with a third person). Does this make them a songwriting quartet? songwriting trio maybe.

   Lots of mysteries for the non-English solver. Like GDU , I found this quite difficult in places even on top of the GK test.

   I liked PINOCCHIO, ASSOCIATION, YAKITORI, and ABBA (LOI)

   Thanks Solomon and Turbolegs

7. Martyn @6: addressing your comments

   Yes, West Ham – being an East London club – is a Cockney indicator for dropping the H

   ISA is an Individual Savings Account

   Sebastian Faulks wrote Birdsong

   KID NAPPED, I parsed as boy = KID slept = NAPPED after with the def being ‘his bedtime reading’

   13 refers to KIDNAPPED – the Pied Piper kidnapped children

   ‘say’ has been explained by Cineraria; it’s the DBE indicator for ‘i’ as a UK newspaper

   Hope that’s helpful

8. I’d agree with Turbolegs that this was not Solomon at his tricksiest but there will still several trademark cryptic defs and some fun constructions along the way. Particular faves for me include BIRDSONG, ASSOCIATION, ROLLER SKATE, INKED, OHM, PHILOSOPHER, HANKY PANKY and CHEAP SHOT – though our setter could have been kinder with some kind of indication of a reverse cryptic. Nice to be reminded of B[ILK]O.

   Thanks Solomon and Turbolegs

9. I hoped I would be an early commenter, with the time advantage whilst in Perth WA. However I failed to complete before lunch at a nearby winery. As a “Irons” supporter “ome” was straightforward.
   Like GDU however ELEPHANTOID was new, could not shake ELEPHANTINE out of my mind initially.

10. Geoff, re 6D: Dartagnan is the fourth musketeer in the famous novel (and various movie adaptations of) “The Three Musketeers” by Alexandre Dumas.

    Now that sentence doesn’t make sense mathematically, does it?

    “Birdsong” was a great novel but hard to read for someone who suffers from claustrophobia…

11. Martyn@6: KIDNAPPED = his bedtime reading, i.e., the novel by Robert Louis Stevenson.

12. Like Ken@9,
    My earlier time zone made no difference today as I also enjoyed wine over a leisurely lunch (public holiday here) so completed – and enjoyed – this puzzle early evening.
    I liked both literary references, the PIED PIPER and WARREN (Street) – ah, my old stomping ground as a student.
    Thanks to Solomon and Turbolegs.

13. 15D is a double definition in that “jelly that lubricates it” refers to the lotion that assists with “hanky panky” as well as “it” means “hanky panky”.

14. Is an albatross a cross in the sense of a cross to bear/ albatross around one’s neck?

15. One of the first I’ve pretty much managed entirely (after some wrong guessing on the app). But I’ll take that as couldn’t do single clue before January. 19a was my first in. I can see why this would be hard for those overseas. LOVED “she thinks” for 14d as am fascinated by gendered language. And 26a made me laugh. Thank you.

16. Martyn @6, forget to change your name before posting? More of a Frieda comment, that one.

17. Thanks Solomon and Turbolegs

    24ac: “The co-op” is how we in (at least parts of) Britain refer to a chain of businesses, originally grocers or supermarkets, but they have diversified. I remember as a boy in the 1960s, long before the days of the internet or personal computers, we had a Co-op as one of my local shops. Every time we bought something there, we would give the account number of one of our neighbours, and the shop assistant would set this up on the till. Our neighbour then got a share of the profits from our shopping. We did not have an account ourselves.

18. 1a ACROSS: In cricket scoring notation a “wide” is recorded as A CROSS: “+”
    [Liked that the solution to ONE ACROSS was ACROSS. Interpreted the “albatross” as Petert@14]

19. […but it could be a -3 in golf]

20. 1ac further to Frankie@18: I like the reference to cricket scoring notation – I actually use a diagonal cross rather than a vertical one. However, that would leave us with two lots of wordplay. I think the intended definition is to do with the definition of wide for which Collins 2023 give the usage example two yards wide.

21. Nice stuff from Solomon today – all went down quite smoothly, with one exception…

    The new-to-me YAKITORI caused me some concern at the end, as the final letter could’ve been A (cf. yakisoba) or I (cf. as it turns out, yakitori), either of which can be clued by ‘one’. I decided cluing an unchecked and ambiguous A as ‘one’ would’ve been bordering on the sadistic, and Solomon is usually a generous chap, and was duly proven right.

    Thanks both.

22. Thanks Solomon for a great set of clues. I found this to be medium difficulty and I missed ROLLER SKATE and COOP. My top picks were KIDNAPPED, ASSOCIATION, ELEPHANTOID (nice anagram), ABBA, SEWER (good surface), HANKY PANKY (liked ‘it’ as a definition), CHEAP SHOT, and ILK. Thanks Turbolegs for the blog.
    [Roz @3: You commented yesterday on the word ‘halogen’ saying you would never be fooled by ‘A’ or ‘I’ at the beginning of a clue. Did the clue for PAPER give you any pause whatsoever? 🙂]

23. A few anagrams took a bit of teasing out but otherwise this proved a nice straightforward solve. In 23dn we think the paper is the i rather than the Independent (of which it was originally a spin-off) since the latter is now online only. The name of the i is always in lowercase but uppercase was needed here at the start of the clue, maybe providing a bit of misdirection as a bonus.
    Thanks, Solomon and Turbolegs

24. Thanks PM@8 for your patient responses. I had worked out most of them, and thanks for the confirmation. The one I still did not know was KIDNAPPED, so thanks Cineraria@11.

    I guess the broader points are that I was not on Solomon’s wavelength at all today and, no matter how often I visit UK, I am still apparently bad at UK GK tests. I did finish but it took some time.

    Thank you again all

25. Tony@22 I think I said I or As ( arsenic ) . Today my first thought of Iodine clearly wrong but second thought was paper, this is getting very common in puzzles.
    Co-op supermarkets still going strong in NW England , no dividend or stamps these days .

26. Further to me@17 and Roz@25, the co-op is still going here in Birmingham as well, although the big one I used to use occasionally has become a Morrison’s. There is also a co-operative funeral care, one of whose shops I passed two or three times on buses today. I have remembered an old advertising slogan “Buy better for less at the L. C. S.” This referred to the more formal name London Co-operative Society, whose catchment area was where I grew up, but similar societies covered much or all of the rest of the country.

27. This was a lot of fun though pushed it a little with the clues? Ck is a label but so are a thousand other things which opens an unbearably huge box of things for setters if used indiscriminately. And coco for movie. Again true but recent, again opening a box of hundreds of recent movies. I’d prefer if these kinds of references in the cluing where a bit more tried? But they have to be used a first time I guess. I’m new so maybe they’ve been used a lot and I didn’t know. Thank you all

28. Pelham Barton@26 , the Co-op started in Rochdale so still going strong in the NW . Good point about funeral care , I suspect this is the main business now and probably the largest firm in the UK .

    DARTAGNAN I first met watching the legendary Banana Splits , it was a cartoon interlude called the Three Musketeers. Very confusing when you are young, four of them and they had swords not muskets.

29. Roz@28: Thank you for reminding me about the Rochdale origins of the co-op. I had been remembering bits of a song about the co-op, and your mention of Rochdale got me to search for Gracie Fields. The song I wanted is Stop and Shop At The Co-op Shop dated 1930, with “Co-op” pronounced almost as if it was the single syllable “quop”.

30. Help please – 1 across What has a cricket wide got to do with an albatross?

31. Michael@30: I do not think that the cricket wide is an intended part of the clue. I think the albatross is a cross to bear in the sense as suggested by Petert@14 and then the wide is in the sense two yards wide equals two yards across.

32. Help needed please with 1a
    What does a cricket wide have to do with an albatross?

33. I seem to have double-tapped but thank you PB and Petert@14.

34. James @16 – am I supposed to be flattered or insulted by “a Frieda comment”?

    I have never posted anything that long before and I haven’t been on this site long enough to gain a “reputation” for a style of writing.

    This is meant as a friendly comment and not a complaint. I wish you well.

35. Michael @32 I’m late to this but if you’re asking, an albatross is a cross around the neck of the protagonists in The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, the epic poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

    I reckoned there was a theme of literary references or books. The Pied Piper of Hamelin refers to another long poem by Robert Browning, the eponymous lead character stole all the children from Hamelin when the town wouldn’t pay for his rat catching, except the lame narrator who couldn’t keep up.

36. Probably too late in commenting, but my mother, from Lancashire always said ‘quop’ for the supermarket, and as a child just learning to read and spell it was thus that it appeared in my mind, spelt with a q!
    Super crossword
    Thank you Solomon and turbolegs

37. Panthes@36: thank you for that.

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