Financial Times 18,048 by STEERPIKE

16 comments on “Financial Times 18,048 by STEERPIKE”

1. A very rewarding grid from Steerpike – the suspected pangram helped land EQUIPOISE. All cleanly clued with some fine surfaces, of which my favourite was MOULTED (referencing The Orange one’s treatment of the media, perhaps).
   I also liked TROLLEYED, SMOULDER and the one which eluded me the longest, FOSSILS. UNCLOG was indeed chewy and was my penultimate entry.
   Thanks to Steerpike and Loonapick.

2. TROLLEYED/drunk was new to me. British? EQUIPOISE also was unknown. And I couldn’t think of what letters to surround ELIE in 15a — pretty obvious now.

   Good fun. I didn’t notice the pangram, but I seldom do.

3. Geoff @2 There is a (tongue-in-cheek) school of thought that suggests almost any word can be turned into a synonym for drunk in the UK. See https://www.tu-chemnitz.de/tu/pressestelle/aktuell/12314/en

4. In my case, K for the pangram helped me get SHRANK. Strange how different minds work. I thought UNCLOG was straightforward and was one of my firsts ones in. TIME LAPSE took longer than it should as I initially didn’t read ‘Leading European’ as saying ‘Put before the letter E’.

5. Fascinating, thanks Loonapick. I’d always thought that toilets and sex had acquired the largest range of euphemisms, but perhaps this is a contender!

6. Same for me re unclog. Lesson: try simple first, if not, only then go to curtailed block around turn, def relative. Slow in the SW too, don’t know why; no obscure parts to bandit, stanf-off or jaunty, and ditto the downs. An enjoyable chew, thanks Steerpike and loonapick (sounds like you two could go hunting and fishing 🙂 l

7. GDO@2; I can go one better than you – I have never yet spotted a pangram, I’m blind to them.
   An enjoyable puzzle, with an array of devices and nice surfaces.
   Perhaps some of the wordplays are a bit too clearly, “instructions to the solver on what to do”, but I’d probably have a moan if they weren’t!
   For me, TROLLEYED, 14(d), was good fun. I think (?) it alludes to those supermarket trolleys that have wonky wheels and veer all over the shop.
   PERV YOU 4(d), also raised a smile.

   Lovely setting, from an unfamiliar setter ( to me), and I look forward to another one.
   Thanks to Steerpike & loonapick

8. [Downunder we’re worried a mogul will shed free-to-air sport. Blavatnik has bought the broadcast rights. Fear it’ll be “Pay up; add to my $50 bill or go without”]

9. I’m another who did not spot the pangram and, yes Hovis – it would have helped me get my LOI, SHRANK which would not come to mind. I found a few tricky ones which needed several goes before parsing TIME LAPSE, PURVIEW, EQUIPOISE and UNCLOG. That last one, as Hovis noted, is not difficult but the clue structure does allow for several potential arrangements and the cunning use of the ‘Quite the opposite’ trick as part of the def is very neat.

   Thanks Steerpike and loonapick

10. Another pangram-misser here. I do often spot them so this one snuck in without resort to too many obvious awkward words.

    GDU@5: I always thought it was drugs and money at the top of the list. My theory is that we have most synonyms for the things which are (a) most important in life and (b) we like to talk about least. The overlap of those two sets is surprisingly large…

    NE was last to fall for me too, for no reason other than my own stupidity. Many thanks steerpike and loonapick.

11. Thanks Steerpike and loonapick. My last five were the linked answers JAUNTY, TROLLEYED, DISPELLED, SEIZE, and SHRANK. I did not suspect the pangram until I had got the first four of them, but it helped with SHRANK.

    14dn: I have a clipping from the Radio Times dated 10-16 August 2024 which makes the same point as Loonapick@3. However, trolleyed meaning “drunk” is explicitly in Collins 2023 p 2112 (marked Brit slang) and in Chambers 2016 (simply marked sl). I could not find it in ODE 2010.

12. I also found this a mix of easy and challenging clues, with the NE corner requiring some time for me too. Overall it was a pleasure with many concise and clear clues with great surfaces

    I ticked SMOULDER, LADLE, ASTRONAUT and LOATHE – I thought them all clever – as well as PURVIEW and FORMULAS.

    Thanks for the education on “drunk”. It makes me wonder that Britain has so much slang for drunk and also prison

    I was not sure my parsing of UNCLOG was correct so thanks to loonapick for the confirmation. I wondered why the setter used “having beaten” in 15ac, when “beat” would have done the job

    Thanks Steerpike amd loonapick

13. All fairly straightforward and solved without help, although there were a few head-scratching moments, notably for PURVIEW and UNCLOG. We spotted the pangram (after finishing) and also noticed that the unches down the RH side spell out A GREEK E – but we guess that’s just coincidence rather than anything deliberate as it doesn’t appear to have any meaning.
    Thanks, Steerpike and loonapick.

14. Very enjoyable, even if I did misspell Purview as Perview ….should have checked it.

    I found this a mix of easy and tricky though got there reasonably quickly by my standards

15. Lots of fun. Enjoyed the pangram! Thank you Loonapick and Steerpike

16. Thanks for the drunkonyms link, Loonapick, that’s excellent.

    Good puzzle too – thanks, Steerpike. Nice mix of easier clues with some that made you think a bit harder.

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