Financial Times 17,877 by ZAMORCA

by

A gentle workout from ZAMORCA today.

FF: 8 DD: 7

Pangram

ACROSS
1 EFFORT
Struggle with part of debrief for troops (6)

hidden in "..debriEF FOR Troops"
4 SCALES UP
Increases range of drink to include cold beers (6,2)

SUP ( drink ) containing [ C ( cold ) ALES ( beers ) ]
10 CUSTODIAN
Carer gets a discount applied (9)

[ A DISCOUNT ]*
11 NOOSE
Slipknot soon to tour Spain (5)

NOOS ( reverse of SOON ) E ( spain, Espana )
12 AMEN
A new setter put in last word… (4)

[ A N ( new ) ] containing ME ( setter )
13 THOUGHTFUL
…but with fault corrected, no ‘a’ needed for ‘kind’ (10)

THOUGH ( but ) [ FaULT ( without A ) ]*
15 GAMBLER
Better to have old King taking stroll inside (7)

GR ( old king ) containing AMBLE ( stroll )
16 RAISED
Suggested taking time-out from angry tirades (6)

[ tIRADES ( without T – time ) ]*
19 SNAZZY
Always oversleep after stag night starts stylish (6)

[ AY ( always ) containing ZZ ( sleep ) ] after SN ( starting letters of "..Stag Night.." )
21 WHEEDLE
Persuade wife to attend to fringes on lampshade (7)

W ( wife ) HEED ( attend to ) LE ( LampshadE, end characters )
23 CELEBRATED
Famous sweetheart’s wearing bracelet shimmering with diamonds (10)

{ E ( swEet, heart ) in [ BRACELET ]* } D ( diamonds )
25 FRET
Brood about stopping newspaper (4)

RE ( about ) in FT ( newspaper )
27 ONSET
Old TV name’s arrested for assault (5)

[ O ( old ) SET ( tv ) ] containing N ( name )
28 OIL PAINTS
Suffering lots, I struggle to comprehend artistic medium (3,6)

PAIN ( suffering ) in [ LOTS I ]*
29 LOOK INTO
Investigate family drawn into stolen goods ring (4,4)

[ KIN ( family ) in LOOT ( stolen goods ) ] O ( ring )
30 VOTE IN
Elect to veto appalling independent nationalist (4,2)

[ VETO ]* I ( independent ) N ( nationalist? )
DOWN
1 EXCHANGE
Suspend former Conservative over drug dealing (8)

EX ( former ) C ( conservative ) HANG ( suspend ) E ( drug ) – is the position of 'HANG' clued sufficiently?
2 FISHERMAN
Fellow’s quiet during marine trip with angler (9)

F ( fellow ) { SH ( quiet ) in [ MARINE ]* }
3 ROOT
Cricketer has shirt underneath jumper (4)

ROO ( jumper ) T ( shirt ) ; joe root
5 CONQUER
Defeat criminal with detailed question (7)

CON ( criminal ) QUERy ( question, detailed i.e. without last letter )
6 LONGHAIRED
Shaggy wanted to cover first of hits broadcast (10)

LONGED ( wanted ) containing [ H ( Hits, first letter ) AIR ( broadcast ) ]
7 SPOOF
Parody of spouse is useless and cruel (5)

[ OF SPOuse ( useless, without letters of USE ) ]*
8 PAELLA
Dad’s essentially fattening everyone up with Spanish food! (6)

PA ( dad ) E ( fattEning, essentially ) LLA ( reverse of ALL, everyone )
9 WITHER
Write sadly about husband’s decline (6)

[ WRITE ]* around H ( husband )
14 ELIZABETH I
Perhaps Taylor Swift’s heartily becoming Queen of England! (9,1)

ELIZABETH ( taylor, perhaps ) I ( swIft, heartily i.e central character )
17 ENDURANCE
Toleration is aim you said organised church is supporting (9)

END ( aim ) U ( you, said ) RAN ( organised ) CE ( church )
18 JETTISON
Harbour yard disregarded current issue with shed (8)

JETTy ( harbour, without Y – yard ) I ( current ) SON ( issue )
20 YEAR OUT
In the past you sorted out a tour for career break (4,3)

YE ( you, in the past ) [ A TOUR ]*
21 WEEKLY
Maybe every Sunday eke out money in extremes of worry (6)

{ [ EKE ]* L ( money ) } in WY ( WorrY, extreme letters )
22 SCHOOL
Child’s hidden in toilets, upset with swimming group (6)

CH ( child ) in reverse of LOOS ( toilets )
24 LASSO
Gauchos salsa with some spinning rope (5)

hidden, reversed in "gauchOS SALsa.."
26 HALO
Look beneath odd hoax for a sign of saintliness (4)

HA ( HoAx, odd letters of ) LO ( look )

21 comments on “Financial Times 17,877 by ZAMORCA”

  1. Gentle, as you say, Turbolegs. With just ‘j’ left to go, the pangram helped to confirm JETTISON.
    Besides making full use of the alphabet, Zamorca often has some lovely surfaces like the one for LOOK INTO, while that for WHEEDLE just plain tickled me.
    A good week of FT puzzles.
    Thanks to Zamorca and Turbolegs – nice to see your blog up so early!

  2. Kainda liked THOUGHTFUL.
    NOOSE: ‘tour’ in the sense of ‘go around’ works as a reversal indicator?
    EXCHANGE
    Is it to be read as ‘HANG -EXC over’ —->’EXC over HANG’ (the ‘over’ is not essential
    for placing the E at the bottom)? I don’t know if this word order is okay.

    Thanks Zamorca and Turbolegs.

  3. Spot the Playtexes in 19d SNAZZY and 23a CELEBRATED. Then the ‘lift and separate’ in 14d ELIZABETH I. (Her favorite [sic] Essex appeared yesterday in the G.)
    1d EXCHANGE: HANG ( suspend ), with EX ( former ) C ( conservative ) “over” it, … – is the position of ‘HANG’ clued sufficiently? Yes.
    7d SPOOF: “cruel” as an anagrind?
    Thanks Z&T

  4. Lots of lovely surfaces, good fun, and I don’t think I have any quibbles, which is rare for me. No “Huh?” list and no NHO list either. That’s rare, too.

  5. Especially liked 24d LASSO: GauchOS SALsa – a Spanish word in two other Spanish words, and the very apt “with some spinning” for the hidden reversal.
    Great surface: those Argentinian cowboys taking a break from the tango and dancing the salsa instead, while twirling their lassos.
    [Also a favourite album Gaucho (1980) by Steely Dan, and comedy Ted Lasso (2020-3)]

  6. Lovely surfaces and straightforward solve.

    My only huh was jetty for harbour – lots of jetties in harbours, a jetty alone a harbour does not make. According to Chambers a jetty is a pier or projecting structure, while a harbour is a haven. I’ve spent too much of my life dancing up and down jetties, some of them in harbours. Unsurprisingly, JETTISON was my last in.

    Thank you to Turbolegs and Zamorca.

  7. I agree with our blogger’s overall assessment. I think the positioning of HANG is just about indicated though it’s not my favourite bit of construction. I also wonder whether we will still be seeing the cricketer turn up long after he has hung up his bat – such a useful definition and used so often. I thought FISHERMAN was very nice and it’s interesting to see a different parse making use of Taylor Swift.

    Thanks Zamora and Turbolegs

  8. 21A – “wheedle” was new to me.

    28A: Isn’t “paints” plural and “medium” is singular? So the definition should have been “artistic media”.

    3D: I assume that “Root” is the name of a person who plays cricket. That word has a very different meaning here in Australia.

  9. I thought this was a lovely puzzle with great surfaces and I had lots of ticks but will just mention WHEEDLE, CELEBRATED, LONGHAIRED, JETTISON

    Thanks Zamorca and Turbolegs (spellcheck tried to change you to turbojets)

  10. Frieda @8 – oil paints/oils is a medium for portraiture, as against watercolours, pastels or charcoal. Paints because although monochrome is a thing, most people use more than one paint and colour in their creations.

  11. Frieda. you are so naughty but I love you. You are a breath of fresh air in this forum. I am in awe of your grasp of Aussie words and expressions given that your native language is German. How long have you been living here? I am from Austria but I cannot claim to be as able in English / Australian as you are.

    Ohh… also thanks to all the other contributors tonight and the past few weeks.

  12. Siegfried, I moved here twenty years ago and became an Australian citizen in 2014. Thank you for your comments. What else can I say? I do hope that you also renounce your German citizenship and become an Australian. Germany is a good country but Australia is better and further away from the wars in the middle east and Ukraine/Russia.

    With all my love,
    Frieda

  14. Thought there might be something extra going on with the ellipses in 12a AMEN… …13a THOUGHTFUL:
    Correcting the fault in AMEN by removing the unnecessary “A” gives MEN. Adding on ‘kind’ gives “menkind Now rare. a1470– With plural agreement.
    The male sex collectively; the men of a particular group; = menfolk n. Also (occasionally): = mankind n. A.1. Cf. mens-kind n.” — Exemplary sightings: ”
    1898 Where the family meals take place, and where the Basque menkind are served first. Month June 637
    1938 Mrs. Woolf implies throughout that it is a conversation between her and her friends..though bits of it are directly or indirectly aimed at those women’s menkind. Scrutiny vol. 7 2/203″

  16. A very pleasant solve – started with the acrosses at lunchtime, finished with the downs over tea. A pangram as usual from Zamorca so we checked off the letters as we went; last one was K.
    We liked SNAZZY, WHEEDLE, LONGHAIRED and JETTISON.
    Thanks, Zamorca and Turbolegs.

  17. Thanks Zamorca for a crossword full of readable surfaces with my top picks being THOUGHTFUL, LOOK INTO, FISHERMAN, CONQUER, and a fresh take on PAELLA. I had a few minor quibbles e.g. in CUSTODIAN we have definition ‘gets’ wordplay instead of wordplay getting the definition; in YEAR OUT we have ‘out’ in the clue and answer; and in HALO ‘odd’ seems insufficient whereas ‘odd pieces of’ seems more accurate to me. Despite wearing my pedant’s hat today I still found this highly satisfying. Thanks Turbolegs for the blog.

  18. Thanks Zamorca and Turbolegs. Nice challenge. One question/quibble:
    2D What is the ‘s doing in fellow’s?(other than helping the surface)

  19. piratewitch@18
    There has been much well- founded criticism of the misuse of apostrophes on this site of late.
    However, the apostrophe you query indicates the omission of a letter: in this case the letter « i ». The fellow is late.
    Enjoyed this puzzle so thanks to both.
    I also learnt some Aussie slang « root » from Frieda@8. Not certain I am grateful for this information.

  21. Thanks Turbolegs. I agree with Tony@17 that “odd hoax” in 26dn is not a satisfactory indicator for “the odd numbered letters of the word hoax”: I think it stretches the language too far. As always, I am not happy with the unsignalled requirement to split the word “oversleep” in 19ac, however many other people show approval of this device. Are we soon going to be expected to interpret “oddness” as an indicator for NS? Thanks to Zamorca for the rest of the puzzle.

    2dn in reply to 18-20: I think the “‘s” should be read in the cryptic reading as “has” meaning “is followed by”. The word that I cannot fit into the cryptic reading is “with”. I do not think “[wordplay] with [definition]” really works, but that is really a minor issue.

    3dn: I am quite sure that a higher proportion of the Australian population than of the English population would recognise the name of one of the world’s leading cricketers of today, even though Joe Root himself is English.

    12ac: I wonder if the timing of today’s puzzle, and this clue in particular, was a deliberate allusion to the FT debut of Xela yesterday.

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