Financial Times 18047 by NEO

26 comments on “Financial Times 18047 by NEO”

1. Morally challenged = scarlet? Some setters it seems are occasionally stretching the friendship on synonyms IMHO.

2. Michael @ 1

   It’s not just a synonym, Collins Dictionary has one definition of ‘SCARLET‘ as ‘sinful or immoral, especially unchaste’ and also refers to a ‘SCARLET‘ woman’ as a ‘sinful woman’, so I think ‘morally challenged’ is fair for a crossword clue definition.

3. Even though I twigged CARL as the likely Sagan, I still had to think for minute before entering SCARLET; my go-to dictionary is Chambers and there’s no mention there of immorality. I made the connection from ‘scarlet woman’ but as a bit of a guess. Although I got that one, ACEROSE defeated me as it’s just one of those formal terms that I simply don’t encounter except in crosswords and, if I’ve met this one before, I do not recall. My other failure was CHOLERA where I spotted neither ‘turn’ = ARC nor ‘mine’ = HOLE though both are fair. ‘Disease’ is a chilling definition to come up against – there are so many of them.

   EARTH, RAVEN, WHETHER, ENGLISH, PAMPHLET, SKIT and BETROTH were my favourites.

   Thanks Neo and the hard-working duncan

4. The most difficult clue for me was the nho GESUNHEIT. I also liked the clue for PETER MANDELSON although I am puzzled by the mention of years of birth?

   Enjoyed the puzzle so thanks to NEO and to Duncanshiell for a very clear blog.

5. Hmmm, I found this one pretty tricky, mostly being unable to tune in to the setter’s thinking on quite a few clues.

   Even so there was quite a bit I liked: SEE THE LIGHT, RAVEN, SCARLET, WHETHER and ROLLING PIN did it for me.

6. Being classically naive apart from some osmosis, I thought Atlantis was a bit of arcana, like ley lines etc (not averse, agnostic rather). Plato’s account, otoh, is not to be sneezed at. A few other unknowns were sand eel, Mandelson’s current job, and acerose of course. Great set of clues thought, very neat, thanks Neo, and duncan again!

7. SM @ 4
   Whenever I mention a person in my blogs, I always give their dates of birth and death. if dead, or date of birth if alive. It’s just a quirk of mine.

8. Got most of this, but wasted a lot of time unsuccessfully trying to solve the UK gentleman unknown this side of the Channel. I was unaware of this meaning of SCARLET, but sure enough, it’s in Collins (as pointed out above). As is RAVEN/black, which was new to me. I failed to parse SAND EEL, and had never heard of such a creature.

9. A clever bag of clues and surfaces, though ACEROSE and SAND EEL were not the best, and an awkward “pairing” in the top left quarter.
   Dare I suggest that Neo selected his anagrind quite archly, based on the solution to 13/4 ….(“shifty”) ?
   I’m waiting for a setter to use “FEET” in some crafty way, to produce ” LEG ENDS” as a solution.
   I always assumed “gesundheit” would mean “bless you”: another school day.

   Very good stuff, from Neo & the ubiquitous duncan, thanks.

10. Once when a friend of mine sneezed, I said “Gesundheit”. She didn’t know the word and, looking a bit concerned, replied “I don’t know. Whose son died?”. True story.

11. A little tricky in the NW where I thought “acerose” worth a google from the wordplay and lo, I learned something. “Gesundheit” was common in our family and it has equivalents in related langauges Dutch (“gezondheid”) and Afrikaans (“gesondheid”, where it is also used as a “cheers”) so that went in OK.

    I enjoyed the long anagrams, as I enjoy the glory-of-the-snow which comes up after the winter aconites and crocuses under my ash tree each year. It was good to see the author of Cosmos get a shout-out (not Humboldt, the later book of that title) once I realised “francoise” would not fit!

    i did muse for a while if the correct plural would be “pianosforte” or, indeed “pianoforti/pianiforti” depending on how Italian we wanted to be, but I am a firm advocate that once a word is adopted as English it behaves as an English word. Hence “two Americanos, a couple of lattes and 4 paninis please”. My inner pedant squeals…

12. I thought this was OK, though I had to ponder the parsing of ‘Two’ and ‘Scarlet’ for a while.
    GDU@8 : re that “gentleman”, think yourself lucky . . .

13. Thanks Duncanshiell@7.
    I am most impressed that you have three of today’s blogs on this site. Well done.

14. I echo the positive comments so far, although there was a bit too much GK needed.

    I ticked ROLLING PIN, the nice diversion in ATLANTIS, the nice surface in RELATED, and SEE THE LIGHT

    Let’s see if I attract a snarky comment from Neo, who snipes at me when I comment on his puzzles. It would be interesting to hear the reason

    Thanks Neo and duncanshiell

15. I think Duncan knows me better than he realises, as he’s blogged Tees on any number of occasions (in his uniformly magnificent style). Hi there Dunks!

    And thanks Martyn for popping in. You are always welcome, and there is no e-doorbell on this site to allow the deterrence of ne’er-do-wells. Turn up to a meet and have a pint. Perhaps old Jim, who has been rumbled, will stick his head around the door too. If I’m lucky. Thanks also to JOFT, who saw that the FGTH clue was all about flowers.

    Thanks to all for comments, and to DS for the (uniformly) excellent blog.

16. Good to see FRANKIE GOES TO HOLLYWOOD. For those unfamiliar, they were openly gay back in an era when that was still unusual to the point of being shocking. (Obviously, “openly” is the key word there; seemingly half their contemporaries in the synthpop world eventually joined them in coming out, with “eventually” being the key word there.) You can still hear their song “Relax,” which was banned from the airwaves by the BBC for a time, playing at your favorite gay bar.

    Merriam-Webster tells me that “scarlet” for “sexually immoral” began as a biblical allusion; they cite Isaiah 1:18 and Revelation 17:1-6. But I was also thinking of The Scarlet Letter (which, like many Americans, I read in high school). Makes you wonder about Miss Scarlet from Clue(do), though.

17. mrpenney@16: As you say, good to be reminded of Frankie. “Relax” is about as unsubtle as they come (excuse the pun) and I am amazed it passed the censors in the UK. “War” is clever lyrically and musically and worth study.

    Not only is “scarlet” a indication of immorality, it seems that the whole of the red end of the spectrum is, what with “red light districts”. Setters often use “blue” for something lewd too, so that really only leaves green and yellow as morally pure!

18. Thanks Neo for a very satisfying crossword. I revealed the nho PETER MANDELSON but all else fell into place though I needed the blog for a bit of parsing beyond my abilities. Top picks included RELATED, ANTSY, BETROTH, ATLANTIS, and SCARLET. (I tend to enjoy quirky definitions.) Like mrpenny @16, I learned in high school about Hester Prynne, forced to wear the ‘scarlet A’ for adultery. Thanks duncanshiell for filling in my parsing gaps.

19. [Jack of Few Trades @ 17: Green with envy & yellow journalism may tinge those colours with a bit of vice 😁]

20. Excellent puzzle and marvellous blog.

    You’re welcome here more often, Duncansheil. Exemplary explanations!

    Loi was Acerose – nho. It’s so pleasing when you think a word must be the answer and you look in the dictionary and, lo, there it is.

21. Thanks for the blog , very good set of clues , just a bit disappointed with star=VEGA right at the end . Just my usual gripe , all setters seem to park their imagination for anything remotely scientific , Vega is special in so many ways .

22. Roz: do aliens from Vega eschew meat and dairy products?

23. [Roz @ 21: Rodents repelled in triangular formation during summer (4)].

24. [Tony Santucci @19: Yellow journalism is new to me – we have “tabloids” here. Italy, of course, has “yellow books” for crime fiction.

    @23: Nicely done. How about “Lyra’s brightest gave up (4)”]

25. [Jack of All Trades @24: That’s very good.]

26. The greatest film ever made* is about yellow journalism, and one of its principal proprietors, indirectly.

    * some say.

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