Financial Times 17,975 by SOLOMON

by

A super fun puzzle from SOLOMON with some innovative cluing.

FF: 10 DD: 9

ACROSS
1 CHICKEN
Stylish male model’s pecker? (7)

CHIC ( stylish ) KEN ( male model, barbie ref ) ; what a funny clue!! 🙂
5 TRUMPET
It’s made of brass, or strong card, even bits of felt (7)

TRUMP ( strong card ) ET ( fElT, even letters of )
9 SELLOTAPE
Stick with it, even though the end may not be in sight (9)

cryptic def? possibly referring to how its rolled so you cant see one end of it
10 WINCE
Start rotating the face of dice (5)

mINCE ( dice ) with the first letter rotated ( M becomes W ) ; cant say i have seen this device before
11 CLOCK
My hands move around and fasten (5)

C ( around ) LOCK ( fasten )
12 CODPIECES
They covered men’s genitals with bits of fish (9)

COD ( fish ) PIECES ( bits )
13 CAMERA-SHY
Plastic yashmac worn by old queen reluctant to be photographed (6-3)

[ YASHMAC ]* around ER ( old queen )
15 TOWER
Maybe tug bells in here? (5)

cryptic def; a TUG could be a TOW-ER ( something that tows )
17 AUNTY
Relative in smart top going away (5)

jAUNTY ( smart , without first letter )
18 EXPENSIVE
Dear old setter’s nursing swans (9)

[ EX ( old ) I'VE ( setter's ) ] containing PENS ( swans )
20 ESCALATOR
Dynamic steps taken to finally kill Caesar, savagely (9)

[ TO L ( kilL, finally ) CAESAR ]* ; liked the surface
22 SILLY
How might one describe this clue? ‘Like a window shelf’? (5)

cryptic def; word play on SILL ( window shelf )
23 KRILL
Little shrimp stop nibbling diver’s bottom (5)

KILL ( stop ) containing R ( diveR, last letter )

24 CAUTERISE
Sear and saute rice balls (9)

[ SAUTE RICE ]*
26 EXPRESS
US leader briefly surrounded by relations cycling fast (7)

PRES ( us leader, president, briefly ) in EXS ( relations = SEX, cycling i.e. with S moving to the end )
27 BULLDOG
What symbolises Britain? Rubbish hairstyle? Golf? (7)

BULL ( rubbish ) DO ( hairstyle ) G ( golf )
DOWN
1 COS
Start to chop huge lettuce (3)

C ( Chop, first letter ) OS ( huge, OverSize )
2 ISLE OF MAN
Dependency on e-mails collapsing, broken by the beginning of Facebook (4,2,3)

[ ON EMAILS ]* containing F ( Facebook, first letter )
3 KNOCK
Criticise thousands carrying nitric oxide about (5)

[ NO ( nitric oxide ) C ( about ) ] in KK ( thousands )
4 NUANCES
Devout woman covers a church with special shades (7)

[ NUN ( devout woman ) containing A ] CE ( church ) S ( special )
5 TUESDAY
Engineer stayed close to Timbuktu earlier in the week (7)

[ STAYED ]* containing U ( timbuktU, last letter )
6 UNWRITTEN
[ ] (9)

cryptic def
7 PANIC
French bread Solomon dropped on top of cat, causing hysteria (5)

PANI ( french bread = PAIN, with I – solomon, moving down 1 place ) C ( Cat, first letter )
8 TREE SURGERY
Cut street development and advocate railway and plane repairs? (4,7)

[ STREEt ( cut, without last letter ) ]* URGE ( advocate ) RY ( railway )
11 COCK-A-LEEKIE
In audition, singer from Sheffield spilling soup (4-1-6)

sounds like COCKER ( joe cocker, singer from sheffield ) LEAKY ( spilling ) ; i had no idea about this soup and needed internet help for both the solve and the parse
14 ROYAL BLUE
Colour in your label in a slapdash manner (5,4)

[ YOUR LABEL ]*
16 WHIRLWIND
Try and come out on top by the end of naked Twister (9)

WHIRL ( try ) WIN ( come out on top ) D ( nakeD, last letter )
18 ENTICES
Tempts man foregoing starter with desserts (7)

gENT ( man, foregoing first letter ) ICES ( desserts )
19 PERTURB
Ruffle a Sikh’s headwear, dislodging article (7)

PER ( a ) TURBan ( sikh's headwear, without AN – article )
21 CRISP
Martin and Penny take heroin — it’s cool (5)

ChRIS ( martin, cold play lead since ) P ( penny ) , without H – heroin ; my parsing seems iffy to me
22 SWELL
Balloon found inside daughter’s welly (5)

hidden in "..daughter'S WELLy"
25 EGG
That with a shell, say, cracked by goose’s head (3)

EG ( say ) containing G ( Goose, first letter )

22 comments on “Financial Times 17,975 by SOLOMON”

  1. Overall I found it a mix of straightforward clues with nice surfaces and some interesting devices – some worked well and some I felt did not quite make It.

    I particularly liked the surfaces of TRUMPET, TOWER, WHIRLWIND, EXPENSIVE, and BULLDOG while ROYAL BLUE was a nice anagram,

    In CHICKEN, I feel Ken is a male doll, not a male model. I could not parse WINCE (innovative), SELLOTAPE (I see Turbolegs had doubts too) or CRISP (with respect to our blogger, I hope there is a solution that does not need a single person’s surname, no matter how famous).

    Thanks Solomon and Turbolegs

  2. My faves: WINCE (seen this device at least once before), TOWER (the whole clue could be underlined as the def, I think), and COCK-A-LEEKIE (thanks Google).
    SELLOTAPE and CRISP: Parsed them as the blogger. In some puzzles, I have seen ‘take’ used as a removal/deletion indicator.
    UNWRITTEN: In a quoted text, when something not said/written (UNWRIITEN) originally is to be added for clarification [ ] are used. Not sure this is the intended parsing.
    Or does it simply mean that the clue is left UNWRITTEN?
    CODPIECES
    I think it’s better to read ‘bits of fish’ together as COD PIECES.

    Thanks Solomon and Turbolegs

  3. SELLOTAPE just a whimsical definition , used for sticking and the rolls are notorious for never being able to find the end so you can not get started .

  4. Thanks for the blog, great puzzle with a lot of variety , WINCE is very neat but many other fine clues.
    I think you have it just right for CRISP .
    Is KEN a male model in the Barbie film ? I have not seen it .

  5. Loved the puzzle! Some the devices were new to me which is always a treat. My favorites were WINCE, UNWRITTEN, SELLOTAPE and BULLDOG (only because I have owned bulldogs almost continuously for the last 43 years). Thanks Solomon and great blog by Turbolegs.

  6. I’ve got this kind of SELLOTAPE: “Super Clear … With Easy Starter … Easy Tear Dispenser”, making the problem hinted at by 9a a thing of the past.
    L2i: 6d UNWRITTEN, then 10a WINCE 😐. I don’t think of mince and dice as synonyms, but there’s this old citation:
    “1887 Mince the flesh of a hen lobster to the size of small dice. Spons’ Household Manual 284″

  7. I agree entirely with Turbolegs’ preamble – great puzzle, with lots of smiles (SELLOTAPE, CODPIECES (I agree With KVa @2), 7dn, PANIC,11dn COCK-A-LEEKIE and 16dn WHIRLWIND).

    Other favourites were 5ac TRUMPET, 15ac TOWER (&lit?), 10ac WINCE (the device is familiar but I haven’t seen it for a while), 20ac ESCALATOR, 2dn ISLE OF MAN and 8dn TREE SURGERY- great misdirection in both of these.

    I smiled wryly to see that, in 18dn, CINEPHILE (‘dear old setter’) fitted three of the crossers.

    Many thanks to Solomon for a most entertaining puzzle and Turbolegs for a blog to match.

  8. In a bit of a rush today so it’s one of those occasions where “What Eileen said” will have to do. Super surfaces throughout, creative constructions, SELLOTAPE very amusing.

    Thanks Solomon and Turbolegs

  9. I also loved the puzzle. Had no problem with COCK-A-LEEKIE as my wife is Scottish and we often have leek soup. Btw Jarvis Cocker also comes from Sheffield . Googling pecker I learned a slang definition hitherto unknown to me but now obvious.
    I rather agree with Martyn@1 about clues using first names. Quite taxing for old fogies unfamiliar with pop singers.
    Thanks Turbolegs and Solomon. Both excellent.

  10. Great fun. Loved it.
    I’ve been known to throw rolls of sellotape away having given up trying to find the end – very frustrating.
    I always thought Joe Cocker was from Hull so I now know better.

  11. I thoroughly enjoyed this one, steadily completing and struggling only with the bottom left hand corner where Crisp and Express took a while. Not helped by initially putting Chill in for 21 down. I have plenty of ticks, and particularly like CHICKEN (Ken and Barbie), CLOCK CODPIECES and ROYAL BLUE

    Thanks.

  12. I entered COCK-A-LEEKIE from the definition and clue numbering and couldn’t work it out – Jarvis Cocker didn’t come to mind. I parsed CRISP as Turbolegs and SELLOTAPE as everyone else.

    Fun puzzle.

    Thank you to Solomon and Turbolegs.

  13. This was great fun, with some inventive touches as noted above. COCK-A-LEEKIE was excellent – I thought of Jarvis rather than Joe, not least as many of his songs relate to Sheffield, and his half-spoken style shows off his accent. My eyebrow wiggled at ‘top’ and ‘bottom’ indicating letter positions in across clues, but no matter. TREE SURGERY, EXPENSIVE, ISLE OF MAN, and WINCE were my other favourites.

    Thanks both.

  14. Thanks Solomon and Turbolegs

    1ac: Collins 2023 p 588 gives us “doll n 1 a small model or dummy of a human being, used as a toy”. Having thought about this for a while, I am happy that it justifies describing the doll Ken as a model, although I would have been more comfortable about this if I could have found a definition with the word “doll” in it under the headword model.

    9ac: Neat definition. [To anyone who does not already do this, I recommend folding the corners of the tape over so that the end can be found and opened up more easily next time.]

    10ac and 6dn: A welcome return for two devices I have seen before, and to which I am happy to apply the BBC principle that it only counts as a repeat if you did not see it last time.

    11dn and 21dn: Nice of Solomon to give us two choices each time. I thought of Jarvis Cocker and Chris Martin the New Zealand cricketer, a good bowler but notoriously one of the worst batters of his generation in the international game. [Mind you, his Test match batting average of 2.36 is at least 2.35 more than I would expect to make against professional bowlers.]

  15. Though I’m late in completing this – and any plaudits I might have given are neatly summed up by Turbolegs (and expanded upon by Eileen) – I really did admire the variety of clues and had a good chortle in the process.
    I agree with Roz’s take on the whimsical SELLOTAPE, liked Martyn’s favourite of ROYAL BLUE, and add PERTURB for that sneaky ‘a’ (per).
    Thanks for a lovely puzzle, Solomon, and Turbolegs for a rewarding blog.

  16. I commented unfavourably on yesterday’s Guardian cryptic 29617, but here Solomon has given us a fine and rewarding puzzle, with sometimes inventive and almost always compelling cluing, and without obscure solutions. A lot of fun to complete. Bravo!

  18. A bit of a challenge, but we got it all, WINCE being our LOI which couldn’t be anything else but left us baffled. We’d forgotten about the M > W device, which we had encountered before, and didn’t think of ‘start’ as ‘wince’. However, we think ‘mince’ for ‘dice’ is stretching things a bit; in cooking anyway the two are not synonymous – we would used minced beef to make a lasagna but diced beef to make beef bourginon.
    Thanks, though, to Solomon and Turbolegs.

  19. Thanks Solomon for the entertainment. I had more difficulty with this than I usually do with this setter, especially in the SW corner. I needed outside help with the nho COCK-A-LEEKIE and eventually revealed both ESCALATOR and CRISP. I couldn’t parse WINCE but all else made sense. Favourites included CHICKEN, EXPENSIVE, and WHIRLWIND. Thanks Turbolegs for the blog.

  20. I found this wonderfully entertaining. The surfaces were smooth and hilarious. While the cluing was unique. Funnily enough being from new york I don’t know the term Sellotape and so I had all the checking letters but so couldn’t figure it out! Thank you all.

  21. I’m very happy to have completed this, but I can’t say that I liked it much. Whilst there were some excellent clues which provoked a smile of admiration, there were also a few which crossed the line between admirably witty and smart-alecish.
    My heart goes out to any conscientious solver who has never heard of Chris Martin or who doesn’t know that Joe Cocker came from Sheffield..

Comments are closed.