Financial Times 18,029 by XELA

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A good challenge for Good Friday from XELA!

FF:9 DD:9

picture of the completed grid

ACROSS
1 DEBACLE
Total meltdown finally ruined a celeb, unfortunately (7)

[ D (ruineD, finally ) A CELEB ]*
5 SAMOSA
Pastry snack sold primarily in part of Polynesia (6)

S ( Sold, first letter ) in SAMOA ( part of polynesia )
8 UPHOLSTER
Provide padding for raised place an arm might go? (9)

UP ( raised ) HOLSTER ( place where arm might go )
9 GRIFT
Republican taken in by donation scam (5)

R ( republican ) in GIFT ( donation )
11 ERATO
Source of inspiration weary author regularly dismissed (5)

alternate letters of "..wEaRy AuThOr.."
12 NONPAREIL
Matchless new open-air building next to lake (9)

N ( new ) [ OPEN AIR ]* L ( lake )
13 MANUALLY
Male colleague grabbing you casually by the hand (8)

[ MAN ( male ) ALLY ( colleague ) ] containing U ( you, casually )
15 LIB DEM
Politician backing some acclaimed bills (3-3)

hidden, reversed in "..acclaiMED BILls"
17 CASTOR
Star players ultimately go under (6)

CAST ( players ) OR ( end letters of "..gO undeR" )
19 PRUNELLA
Plant cut back entirely (8)

PRUNE ( cut ) reverse of ALL ( entirely ) ; i had ***n*L*a, and thought it could only be 'magnolia' and then after an interminable duration, just gave up trying to parse it.
22 ITERATING
It gets the worst of five grades, adding additional stress (9)

IT [ E RATING ( worst of give grades ) ]
23 CAMEO
Showed love for many a Hitchcock film role? (5)

CAME ( showed ) O ( love ); i learnt he did 40 cameo appearances in his own movies
24 AIOLI
Odd chunks from a big loin smothering ordinary sauce (5)

AILI ( odd letters of "..A bIg LoIn.." ) containing O ( ordinary )
25 SENTIMENT
Feeling excited, I intended to ignore the last bit of drama (9)

SENT ( excited ) I MEaNT ( intended, without A – last letter of dramA ) ; didn't know this meaning of SENT
26 STENCH
Horrible smell coming from head of spoiled fish (6)

S ( Spoiled, first letter ) TENCH ( fish )
27 TRANSIT
Wild artist embracing Nationalist movement (7)

[ ARTIST ]* containing N ( nationalist )
DOWN
1 DEUS EX MACHINA
Doctor examined such a contrived solution (4,2,7)

[ EXAMINED SUCH A ]*
2 BAHRAIN
Clever person touring a hot country (7)

BRAIN ( clever person ) around [ A H ( hot ) ]*
3 CELLO
Small chamber orchestra’s lead instrument (5)

CELL ( small chamber ) O ( Orchestra, first letter )
4 ENTANGLE
Twist involving star just after the start? (8)

pENTANGLE ( star, just after the start ) ; i figured out the parse prior to the solve but didn't know the word

5 STRING
Extremely short phone cord (6)

ST ( ShorT, end letters ) RING ( phone )
6 MIGRATION
Plane off ering provision for helping people travel from one location to another? (9)

MIG ( plane ) RATION ( provision )
7 STIPEND
Gratuity included in second and final payment (7)

TIP ( gratuity ) in [ S ( second ) END ( final ) ]
10 TELL ME ABOUT IT
I know what you mean — so give me the details! (4,2,5,2)

cryptic def ( or a literal divine def )
14 AVOCATION
Hobby, or a specified career (9)

A VOCATION ( specified career )
16 DRAGONET
Trawler’s equipment captures old fish (8)

DRAGNET ( trailer's equipment ) containing O ( old )
18 STEP OUT
Leave upset and almost too distraught (4,3)

[ UPSET TOo ( almost, without last letter ) ]*
20 LIMPETS
Permits covering one member and hangers–on? (7)

LETS ( permits ) containing [ I ( one ) MP ( member )]
21 KITSCH
Trashy uniform given to school (6)

KIT ( uniform ) SCH ( school )
23 CHINA
Feature on a global leader (5)

CHIN ( feature ) A

14 comments on “Financial Times 18,029 by XELA”

  1. 1a DEBACLE: D (ruineD, finally) + [A CELEB]*. — 22a ITERATING: give-> five. — 6d MIGRATION: “off ering” -> offering.

  2. This was an unexpected mix of write-ins and quite difficult clues

    I appreciated many succinct clues with great surfaces. Ticked STRING, GRIFT, CELLO, MANUALLY, LIB DEM, LIMPET. I liked CHINA for its combative definition.

    Then there were the jorums and some clues I simply did not have the required knowledge of fish, plants or English to parse. I will not bore you with the details, but I hope someone can tell me how showed = came and excited =sent?

    Thanks Xela and Turbolegs

  3. Thanks for the blog , very good set of neat and concise clues , ITERATING is very clever , CASTOR has lost Pollux since yesterday .
    Perhaps a mini theme for Cellomaniac – CELLO , STRING , MANUALLY , NON-PAREIL , ERATO , SENT .

  4. Excellent puzzle. Agree with Martyn in that the top half was steady but I found myself slowing in the SW corner. Liked CHINA too, along with UPHOLSTER, SAMOSA and GRIFT. Lovely solve overall, though, with some very smooth surfaces.

  5. Martyn@2 . The invisible ink was treated with heat , after a few seconds the message showed/came .
    SENT according to Chambers 93 is from jazz – roused to ecstasy , which is rather excited .

  7. Thanks Xela and Turbolegs.

    ITERATING was very good.
    Should the def include ‘adding’? Seems to work without it, but ‘adding’ is hanging loose.

    Liked SAMOSA, UPHOLSTER and ENTANGLE.

    MIGRATION
    I think ‘people’ is not part of the def.
    Then ‘offering provision for helping people’=RATION?
    Or
    Read it as: MIG offering ‘provision for helping people’ is MIG RATION?

  8. We waited but they never showed. Elvis:really sends me (past tense, not as good). A few vague bits — the fish and the hobby, knew ’em before, but… Deus ex I haven’t seen for decades but it popped straight up. Cruisy overall, ta Xela and Turbolegs.

  9. XELA-NT.
    I concur with KVa@7, on the wordplay for MIGRATION (6d); it is the only clue I found a bit over-worked and over-worded, in an otherwise full house of excellent plays.
    ERATO (11ac) is a frequent flyer, but I enjoyed the surface reading giving us an apposite and original route to the answer.
    Cream of the crop, for me, is the Hitchcock clue, (13ac).
    No problem with “CAME”: “I waited for hours, but my blind date never showed/came”.
    I love Hitch’s films ( who doesn’t?), and I have spent many happy hours trying to spot all of his cameo appearances, some are obvious, many not so much. When I was 4, I called him “the man with the dummy”, which my old mum always quoted. ( from his silhouette in the 50s/60s US tv mystery series).
    Ah! Nostalgia. It ain’t what it used to be.

    Lovely puzzle, lovely blog, thanks Xela and Turbolegs

  10. A bit unfair to have the plant I’d barely heard of and the fish I’d never heard of crossing each other. Those were my last two in–first the plant from the wordplay, then the fish from a word-finder. Which, yes, is cheating.

    In most of his later films, Hitchcock got the by-then expected cameo out of the way very early on, so that the audience wouldn’t spend the whole film looking for it.

    Wouldn’t the MIGRATION clue have been cleaner if it were just “Plane helping people traveling”?

    Thanks to Martyn’s query above, today’s earworm is from Belle and Sebastian: You Don’t Send Me.

  11. Thanks Xela. I found this fairly straightforward with many excellent clues including UPHOLSTER, PRUNELLA, TRANSIT, CELLO, STRING, and KITSCH. I knew ‘excited’ could be ‘sent’ from the Sam Cooke classic You Send Me. Thanks Turbolegs for the blog.

  12. The things I learn on fifteensquared. Thanks mrp@10 and apologies for the earworm. I do not think I knew You Don’t Send Me before today. And thanks Tony S@11. I have heard You Send Me countless times without really being aware of the lyrics. Aside from learning what the song is about, I read up on Sam Cooke. What a story!

  13. I flew through about ¾ of this and then got really bogged down in the bottom right hand corner. Unfortunately, I had Iteration rather than Iterating, and so also missed Dragonet which I have never heard of, despite being an enthusiastic fisherman.

  14. Naturally 3d was my favourite clue, especially as the surface describes exactly how it should be.

    And yes, Roz, I appreciated the mini-theme. I even included 19 PRUNELLA, as I hate practicing my scales.

    I didn’t know what a dragonet looks like – what a beautiful fish it is.

    Thanks, Xela and Turbolegs for the excellent diversion, and Roz for the shoutout.

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