Financial Times 17,946 by Leonidas

14 comments on “Financial Times 17,946 by Leonidas”

1. As always a lovely puzzle. I too found the bottom half more difficult.

   Favourites included: THESEUS, HARPOON, TREACLE, ORCHESTRA PIT, TERRAIN (made me laugh)

   Thanks Leonidas and Pete Maclean

2. Thanks Leonidas and Pete

   I just have a couple of very small amendments to suggest.
   5dn: the parsing should end TREE (plane?);
   20dn is PA + anagram of IS SON.

3. Thanks Leonidas. Aside from failing with BALMIER and having no hope of parsing SWEET PEPPERS this was quite enjoyable with my favourites being HARPOON, TERRAIN, DELICATESSEN, OPERATE, and CONGA. Thanks Pete for the blog.

4. I really liked Leonidas when he started setting for the FT, then for a while he and I did not see eye to eye. I felt his puzzles started to contain too many complex charades and not enough variety.

   This time I was delighted to see the Leonidas of old shining through, and I thoroughly enjoyed this puzzle with its variety, many well-crafted clues, and great surfaces. I was surprised to see I only had two ticks – POTENTATE and AITCH (two ticks for that clue) – as it understates my overall appreciation..

   I had a similar experience to Pete and Fiona@1 in that the bottom half took more time. ROENTGENS was about the only clue I did not like, it being an anagram for a word that requires specialist knowledge (that I did not have) resulting in lots of googling. Guardiola needed similar treatment in 10d.

   Thanks for the great blog Pete, and thanks Leonidas for a nice puzzle

5. [1d: “EVER (always)…”] and [19d: “…SILL (ledge) backwards (twisted)”]
   Liked 22d CONGA because the surface perfectly describes what happens when people dance it.
   [What’s the point of delaying a Saturday blog till first thing on a Monday?]

6. FrankieG@5 I appreciate the day delay in the blog. It is a weekend puzzle and I would like the flexibility to treat it as such

   My problem to deal with, perhaps, but I do feel pressure to complete the puzzle before the blog is published and publishing the blog on Saturday would deprive me of the weekend experience.

7. @5 we received word that prizes were not going to be reinstated, so we decided to change the blogging day – it used to be a week later.

   For various reasons, we decided that midnight Sunday was the best compromise

8. I agree with Frankie G’s assessment of CONGA – nice image. Amusing to see the HARPOON construction as another puzzle recently showcased the comic family with Harpo being thus hidden. ROENTGENS may be a tricky word but, of the more obscure metrics, it’s one the average solver might be slightly more likely to encounter. I thought the teacher/HECTARE anagram was clever, DRESS UP is very smoothly done, the definition for SEVERAL is splendidly misdirectional especially with the nod to NaCl, I liked the almost unnoticed substitution in OPERATE and the combo resulting in PASSION is very satisfying. Super puzzle

   Thanks Leonidas and Pete M. (One tiny and exceedingly pedantic observation: I think ‘at’ is part of the definition for REVISIT?)

9. Like Martyn @ 6 I like the delay in the blog for the Saturday puzzle – for the same reason.

10. It’s odd how different we are, I wrote ROENTGENS in from the anagram, just from crossword knowledge. I know what it is, but it’s not something I’ve come across in practice (I read Chemistry and have taught secondary science, briefly, before being sidetracked into special needs).

    Nice dependable puzzle from Leonidas. Thank you to Pete MacLean for the blog.

11. Another lovely puzzle from Leonidas.

    I agree with Pete’s favourites, with the addition of 25ac BALMIER 9 (I’ve always loved the word ‘barmy’ – don’t hear it so much these days), the well-hidden 2dn RISSOLE, 5dn TREACLE, for the surface and 6dn OPERATE, for the neat substitution noted by PostMark.

    I had no problem with ROENTGENS: I once briefly taught Social and Economic History, so had to learn the spelling of the name of the discoverer of X-rays.

    Many thanks to Leonidas for a fun puzzle and Pete for the blog.

12. A very solid puzzle, with lots of nice touches.
    I’m not sure that I like MIC = bug, in 21(ac), POLEMIC, but the definition is clear.
    I was also disappointed by “twisted” as a reverso indicator in 19(dwn): more like an anagram indicator?
    But, hey, LLIS is an anagram of SILL. However you look at it, it’s a weak surface reading.

    At the end of the day, if Leonidas can smuggle Theseus and Hector into a puzzle, then it’s good ‘un.
    CONGA, 22(dwn), is a much better clue than I first realised. ( thanks, Frankie@5 ).
    Eileen@11: sadly, I hear the word barmy a lot lately, whispered when they think I am dozing off. I doubt they mean fragrant.

    sevasmos, Leon kai Petros

13. Thanks for the blog, the timing suits me but the important thing is the blogger’s opinion .
    ROENTGENS one of many legacy units for ionising radiation , none of them much good.
    Wilhem Roentgen the first ever winner of a real Nobel Prize.

14. A good puzzle to me is one I can finish, which I did here. Roentgens was new to me but as it was an anagram and I had all the down clue letters it was the only logical choice.

    I sometimes wonder if some solvers do not fully appreciate the bloggers who also have to solve the crossword before the blog can be published. Is waiting until Monday morning really that much of a problem for what is a weekend paper? Some of us (me specifically) can’t sometimes solve the crossword in a week, let alone a day, and having the blog available earlier is a serious temptation to give up.

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