Financial Times 17,886 by GAFF

12 comments on “Financial Times 17,886 by GAFF”

1. Liked LARGO (The Mar-a-LAGO seems all right–I got the solution first and then parsed it), CARGO CULT and SOH.

   FELON
   Does ‘end’ as a verb (in the sense of ‘conclude’) work? Not sure.
   Even if the ‘of’ is doing double duty, don’t we need ‘ends’ (of course, the surface won’t make sense then) for the cryptic reading?
   RALLIES
   I think the first def is just ‘recovers’.
   SOH
   Read it as ‘Mendelssohn’ has SOH/fifth. Sorry if I am repeating what the blogger said in different words.

   Thanks Gaff and Cineraria.

2. Despite saturation US election coverage, I still managed to miss the theme, as usual. Lots of things were new to me — turn/chance, sap/energy, esse/being, dup/party. And I’d not heard of POSTHERDS or HAM-HANDED (ham-fisted, yes). But it was enjoyable nonetheless.

   Off to get some popcorn for watching the election coverage. 🙂

3. HAM-HANDED
   Does this qualify as an indirect anagram?

4. Hadn’t heard of, so looked up: 20a HAM-HANDED (1918, used of pilots, replaced by ham-fisted in 1928), and 3d CARGO-CULT (1949, New Guinea).
   [Had heard of 14d POTSHERDS (487 BCE, used in ostracism – a practice that should be reintroduced)] — A fine puzzle. Thanks G&C

5. I took ‘end’ in 6d as an imperative verb telling the solver to end (take the ends of) the following words, rather like ‘doctor’ is often used as an anagrind.
   Thanks Gaff and Cineraria.

6. Thanks Cineraria. I always feel when solving that Gaff takes more liberties with the language than I would like, for example 6dn, which I read the same way as Sourdough. When I count them up at the end, there are usually not all that many that I do not like.

   25dn: I think I am agreeing with KVa@1 that this is just a hidden clue, with the apostrophe S being the hiding indicator and the definition “fifth [note of the scale]” as in “soh/sow a needle pulling thread”. In the blog, Cineraria seems to be making it too complicated.

7. I wonder if any irony was intended by using ‘close-miss’ in the clue for SOLECISMS. It would be nice to think so, but I don’t. Pelham Barton puts it very well.

   KVa @3 The anagram for HAM-HANDED is strictly indirect as you have to find the fodder from an instruction, but repetition of part of the fodder is commonly used and never seems to cause any bother.

8. The third of my three solved-in-a-hospital-waiting-room crosswords – well you have to do something to while away the time your husband is seeing the physiotherapist! Quite a tricky solve but I was amused when I realised what the theme was at the same time as two people next to me started discussing the US Election

   Thanks to Gaff and Cineraria

9. I thought I’d organise a dup to watch the coverage of the US election, having discovered here a new word for “party”. But hang on — no, it’s an acronym for a British political party. So much to learn, so little time …

   🙂

10. I’m another in the ‘end is an instruction’ camp for FELON, and with James@7 re HAM-HANDED.

    I considered 2d (LIBERTY), and perhaps 16d OVERWHELM and 19d ZILLION, as possible themesters too – I’m pretty sure they have all been in the discourse these past weeks.

    Great crossword.

11. Thanks Gaff and Cineraria. Only ones I didn’t get were CARGO CULT and SOH (different spelling for that syllable). Agree that “of” does double duty in FELON; didn’t really have a problem with it. Jvector@9, ZILLION is perhaps topical as Zionism is an issue currently – and of course Harris in 1d.

12. Having solved this just today I found it depressingly unenjoyable – the fault of the American electorate, not the setter. Had the result been at all rational, I would have said this was a very good puzzle.

    I hope we don’t get a stream of orange-hued puzzles over the next four years, although he is such a tempting target. I don’t need to be reminded of my existential despair while engaging in this diversion.

    Thanks Gaff all the same for the well-crafted puzzle, and Cineraria for the equally well-crafted blog.

Comments are closed.