Financial Times 17966 Slormgorm

Thank you to Slormgorm. Definitions are underlined in the clues.

Across
1. One mostly aiming for a threesome in bed? (5,6)
DARTS PLAYER : Cryptic defn: In the game of darts, one might mostly be aiming for that particular section/bed of the dartboard that gives a triple score/treble.

7. After having bottom pinched, beat jerk (3)
TIC : Last letter deleted from(After having bottom pinched) “tick”(a beat/a regular short sound made by a clock or watch).
Defn: A sudden involuntary contraction/a … of a muscle

9. Unhealthy-looking food parcel from Cornwall? (5)
PASTY : Double defn: 1st: …/sickly pale; and 2nd: A baked folded pastry case/food parcel with a savoury filling of, in the case of the variation originally from Cornwall, beef and potato.

10. Directors after top player to create the right side (9)
STARBOARD : BOARD(collectively, the directors of an organisation) placed after(after) STAR(top player/headliner).
Defn: … of a ship or aircraft when facing forward.

11. Will nurses start to suture with complete ease? (5,4)
HANDS DOWN : [HAND DOWN](to will/to pass on to the a younger person or successor in one’s will) containing(nurses) 1st letter of(start to) “suture”.
And, an experienced nurse will be able to suture a wound or incision with complete ease.

12. Old folk at home gyrating on methamphetamine (5)
ICENI : Reversal of(… gyrating) IN(at home/not out) placed after(on) ICE(slang for a concentrated form of the drug methamphetamine).
Defn: …, specifically, a tribe of ancient Britons.

13. A seaman needing to be picked up in storm (7)
ASSAULT : Homophone of(… needing to be picked up) “[a salt](informal term for an experienced sailor/seaman).
Defn: …/to carry out a military attack on an enemy position.

15. With head of Battersea off, mind cats and dogs? (4)
RAIN : 1st letter of(head of) “Battersea” deleted from(With … off) “brain”(a person’s mind).
Defn: Informally, short for “rain cats and dogs”/rain very heavily.

18. In the sack, foremost of lushes spilled claret (4)
BLED : BED(slang for which is “sack”) containing(In the …) 1st letter of(foremost of) “lushes”.
Defn: Spilled/caused to flow out claret/an informal term for blood.

20. Who has pants stuffed with German baloney? (7)
HOGWASH : Anagram of(… pants/of inferior quality/rubbishy) WHO HAS containing(stuffed with) G(abbrev. for “German”).
Defn: …/nonsense.

23. Turn and fall asleep (2,3)
GO OFF : Double defn: 1st: …/to become sour, as does, say, milk; and 2nd: Informal term for “…”.

24. Following manhandling, rusted tap began to move (7,2)
STARTED UP : Anagram of(Following manhandling) RUSTED TAP.

26. It’s so rude to relocate immigrants (9)
OUTSIDERS : Anagram of(… to relocate) IT’S SO RUDE.

27. Fancy that looker? I seriously doubt it! (2,3)
MY EYE : MY(like “fancy”, used to express surprise at something) + EYE(the organ that looks/looker).
Defn: “…”/”Nonsense!”

28. Be in terror of missing out on female attention (3)
EAR : “fear”(to be in terror of/afraid) minus(missing out on) “f”(abbrev. for “female”).

29. Visit the races or decline in a shocking manner? (2,2,3,4)
GO TO THE DOGS : Literally, go to the dog races.
Defn: Metaphorically, to worsen/decline very much.

Down
1. First of dudes DEA hope to bust? (8)
DOPEHEAD : Anagram of(… to bust) [1st letter of(First of dudes) “dudes” + DEA HOPE].
Defn: What the US Drug Enforcement Agency hopes to bust/catch in the act.

2. Function held by Supremes singer is ruddy quality (8)
ROSINESS : SINE(trigonometric function) contained in(held by) ROSS(Diana, once the lead singer of the Supremes).
Defn: …/having a rose red colour.

3. One Direction’s Harry taking line gets complaints (5)
STYES : “Styles”(Harry, vocalist in the pop boy band One Direction) minus(taking – usually a containment rather than a deletion indicator) “l”(abbrev. for “line”).

4. Endure life primarily with drop of alcoholic beer (4,3)
LAST OUT : 1st letter of(… primarily) “life” plus(with) 1st letter of(drop of) “alcoholic” + STOUT(a strong dark beer).

5. With bit of yeast, bread maker takes longer (7)
YEARNER : 1st letter of(bit of) “yeast” plus(With …) EARNER(the bread/money maker).
Defn: …/one who longs for.

6. Religious type can initially grimace expelling gas (9)
RABBITING : RABBI(a Jewish religious leader/type) + TIN(a metal vessel/can) + 1st letter of(initially) “grimace”.
Defn: …/talking at length about trivial matters.

7. Tenor associated with composer and Journey (6)
TRAVEL : T(abbrev. for “tenor”) plus(associated with) RAVEL(Maurice, French composer).

8. I follow with clubs if villain switches lead to clubs (6)
CADDIE : “baddie”(a bad person/villain) with its 1st letter changed to(switches lead to) “c”(abbrev. for “clubs”, a suit in a deck of playing cards).
Defn: As one, I follow a golfer with his/her clubs.

14. What a Wonderbra is doing is raising spirits (9)
UPLIFTING : Double defn: 1st: Descriptive of a Wonderbra, a type of push-up underwire brassiere that works wonders, as implied by the trademark, enhancing a woman’s cleavage.

16. Ideas go all over the shop on necking new port (3,5)
SAN DIEGO : Anagram of(… all over the shop) IDEAS GO containing(on necking) N(abbrev. for “new”).
Defn: … in California, USA.

17. Very large pork pies and fast-food burgers (8)
WHOPPERS : Double defn: 1st: …/gross and blatant lies; and 2nd: Hamburgers that are the signature offering of fast-food chain, Burger King.

19. Soprano visiting dry place will have peach Melba? (7)
DESSERT : S(abbrev. for “soprano”) contained in(visiting) DESERT(waterless desolate area/a dry place).
Defn: An example of which/? is the ….

20. Chief expression that a call centre worker wears? (7)
HEADSET : HEAD(chief/boss) + SET(expression/the way something appears/looks as in “the disdain in the expression on her face”).

21. Disregard V-sign or earthily-gesticulated displays (6)
IGNORE : Hidden in(… displays) “V-sign or earthily-gesticulated”.

22. Agent about to take on extravagant snooker player? (6)
POTTER : Reversal of(… about) REP(short for a “representative”/an agent) containing(to take on) OTT(abbrev. for “over the top”/extravagant).

25. Locum employed originally in ancient Greek valley (5)
TEMPE : TEMP(short for a “temporary worker”, specifically one who stands in for professional, say, a doctor/a locum) + 1st letter of(… originally) “employed”.

18 comments on “Financial Times 17966 Slormgorm”

I didn’t know the material of a dartboard was referred to as a ‘bed’ so was unsure if I was missing some parse in DARTS PLAYER though it seemed possible and gave me the correct starter for a bunch of downs so in it went. I liked the footballing surface for STARBOARD; the cheeky one for HOGWASH; the &littish DOPEHEAD; the double use of clubs in CADDIE and the misdirect in HEADSET. Not so sure about ‘takes’ as a link word in YEARNER if I’ve understood it correctly.

Thanks Slormgorm and scchua

Parsed 27a MY EYE with “My!” = “Fancy that!”. Maybe we need to read 5d YEARNER as “With bit of yeast, that bread maker takes: longer”?

I can’t see how SET can mean expression In 20d HEADSET, though.

Thanks Slormgorm and scchua. The setter’s name is shown as SLORMORGM on the copy I printed from the FT website. Did anyone else spot this, and was it a problem only on some ways of accessing the puzzle?

I parsed 27ac the same way as Frankie@2

5dn: I am not sure about the best way to read this. I wondered if “bread maker” should have been given as one word for the cryptic meaning, but I was thinking of breadwinner, which is given as a single word in all of the usual print dictionaries (including my latest acquisition, the Pocket Oxford English Dictionary 2013), none of which appears to have a special meaning for “bread maker” as one word or two.

Postmark @1 The material of a dartboard is not referred to as “a bed”
As stated in the solution, it just refers to getting 3 darts in the same place on the board (usually the treble twenty) i.e. “three in a bed”

Mark A: thanks for that. NHO the phrase ‘three in a bed’ in a darts context.

@Pelham Barton yes I spotted the misspelling, also via printing the web site version. Or do we have a new setter?
That was probably the easiest crossword this year – 10 mins Managed to write in all the across answers before any of the downs. Mostly good surfaces though, exception possibly 29A. Favourite maybe DOPEHEAD

Thanks for the blog, very good puzzle, almost an audition for Cyclops.
Three in a bed – often heard in the pub during darts games, not I hasten to add after I have just thrown.
Bread maker, I am okay with this as wordplay , someone who earns is making bread , would not be so keen for a definition.
Dare I quibble about Wonderbra ? The forces are more lateral than vertical .

I did quite enjoy this. I was another who didn’t know the darts terminology, but it was easily inferred. I did not, however, know the Greek valley (to me, of course, Tempe is in Arizona), so I needed to Google-check that one.

The surface reading of 26 across is all too sadly topical right now over here. I know that given usual publication lead times for puzzles, it was probably written during the previous administration, but even so.

Thanks Slormgorm. (I missed the misspelling.) I found this quite easy but I still failed with CADDIE and ICENI, old folks I should know by now. Lots of humour in the clues, my top picks being HANDS DOWN, BLED, HOGWASH, DOPEHEAD, and RABBITING. Thanks scchua for the blog.

Gentle and enjoyable indeed, but it generated many thoughts

I had almost the same list of favourites as Tony@10. IGNORE was cheeky with its misleading use of hyphenated words.

There seemed to be quite a bit of GK needed, most of which I had. So saying, I am yet another who wondered about the parsing for DARTS PLAYER. I know ICENI only from crosswords, and I did manage to conjure them up. There seemed to be a lot of filler words too.

I did not like OUTSIDERS for immigrants. I agree with mrpenny@9. Additionally, by immigrating they stop being outsiders, don’t they?

Thanks Slorgmorm and scchua

5d YEARNER – An earner doesn’t necessarily have to be a person: it can be a “bread maker”, a money-making plan, one of Arthur Daley’s nice little earners.

Martyn@11
ICENI a word usually learnt at school in the UK. It is the name of the tribe led by Boudicca.

Thanks to Slormgorm and scchua.

Thanks SM@13. I know of Boudicca (and her many spellings). I even remember the name of the Roman governor who eventually defeated her. But I did not know it was the iceni that she led. Yet again, the education on this site goes way beyond the crossword.