Financial Times 18,049 by GAFF

17 comments on “Financial Times 18,049 by GAFF”

1. I enjoyed the theme, and some clues like MENS ROOM, but alas not the puzzle overall. Far too many liberties taken, such as ‘covered’ for ‘containing’, ‘started’ for ‘starting letters’, ‘begin with’ for ‘starting letter’, and ‘in steady frame’ for ‘frame of steady’.

   And the NUT hasn’t existed since 2017. Get with the times, daddy-o!

2. Ah yes, Turbolegs, the Little Miss and Mister Men series. I struggled with this and was thinking of the film Little Miss Sunshine which then triggered the Hargreaves theme though I did have to Google his d.o.b. for confirmation and it occurred too late to help with many answers but I did persevere and I’m glad I did. Took me ages to see SHY! Although I don’t think I was on the right wavelength today, I do think it was a clever grid and appreciate the effort that went into setting it. But where’s my favourite, Mr Bump?! 🤕
   Thanks to Gaff and Turbolegs.

3. Oops sorry for the repetition

4. I forgot to look for the theme, but am not sure it would have helped. As with Muggeridge@1 a few clues felt a bit “off”. I don’t get the definition of “isometry” which is well-defined in mathematics to be more than just “of equal height” and has no other meaning I can find. And should it not be “isometric” anyway?

   I also had “rest room” instead of “mens room” which seems to me to fit equally well apart from the slightly obscure crosser “isostasy”.

   Nevertheless, thanks to Gaff and Turbolegs for the blog.

5. I got the theme pretty quickly with CLUMSY, BOUNCE and NOSEY, plus obviously MISTER.
   NOBODY – Can insignificant be a noun? A NOBODY is an insignificant? But I liked the investigation clue.
   And 2 ISO-somethings!
   Thanks a lot for the crossword and blog.

6. I have never seen DECAFF spelled with two Fs before. Is that common in Britain?

   ISOSTASY and ISOMETRY are both way more commonly seen in their adjectival forms, and in fact both nouns look a little odd to me. And like Muggeridge @1, I was a little peeved that the clue for the former was very clearly directing us to put something into the letters SY, when it turns out that he meant not “in” but “on.” Gah!

7. Sadly, I struggled to get on the setter’s wavelength, and I decided to abandon ship with 5 or 6 clues left unsolved.
   Not surprisingly, ISOSTACY and ISOMETRY were two of my nemeses.
   Can’t quite put my finger on my useless performance, but little things like, “a bit of yellow” = YE, and “chess openings” = CH, didn’t click. A bit of [word] as a first-letter indicator, makes sense, but where is the line drawn? Is YEL, a bit of yellow?
   Ditto, “chess opening” = C, but does “openings” actually work? Surely one word can only have “one” opening?
   Niggly things, and I get the idea, but too many clues felt ( to me) similarly slightly “off”
   In retrospect, it’s a crossword that works much better, after the grid is filled, than during the solving, ( or is that, stating the bleeding obvious? )
   Viz.,it’s a crafty puzzle with a well- concealed theme, and it’s not Gaff, it’s me.
   Thanks, to setter & Turbolegs

8. Seeing the preamble we googled for people born on 9/5/1935 and the only one we knew of was Roger Hargreaves (1935-1988) so once we got MISTER and CLUMSY we knew what the theme was. Nevertheless we struggled with this; not only the obscurities like ISOSTASY and some poor cluing (e.g 14ac – ‘mad’ should surely be ‘nuts’ and the teachers’ union has long since changed its name) but the Hargreaves characters as well since it’s a very long time since we read the books with our children or even our grandchildren.
   Sorry, Gaff, this didn’t float our boat, but thanks, Turbolegs for the explanations.

9. I agree with all the negative comments on some of the clues, especially ISOSTASY. The only exception is that, although MAD equates to ‘nuts’, the clue has CRAZY. This, I believe (but haven’t checked the dictionaries) can be a noun – he’s a crazy/nut.

10. Yes, in 5d, not the usual meaning, ‘in the frame of steady’, but ‘in [the word] “steady”, [the] frame’.
    And in 7d, “these objects have isometry/equal height”, hmm …
    And in 21ac, this is an all-men’s club, an only-men’s club? … there’s probably a better instance…
    … but they’re all a bit ‘bent’
    So, did not do well, lots of check button, but thanks anyway Gaff and Turbolegs.
    PS knew of Mr Men, but nothing about them.

11. I gave up with about 50% still to go. I found it a horrible crossword.

    Unworthy of the FT.

    Well done those who finished it.

    At one time I enjoyed Gaff but increasingly less so, especially this time wasting, misery inducer

12. Disagree with much of the above. Loved it.

13. Delighted to read the comments above and discover that I’m not alone in my opinion of this obscure crossword.

14. A lot of people turned 90 recently like dame judi dench, merry berry, and even Elvis Presley about now if he was alive m but I don’t know Rodger Hargreaves at all or what clues may be related to him whatsoever. So I found this quite hard. But learned a lot about iso things! Thank you all

15. Also really liked this puzzle. Missed the theme until my LOI and it helped get NONSENSE. (Which I shouldn’t probably have had such a hard time with anyway!)
    I’m assuming we’re squeezing Mister TIEDYE in as Tidy?

16. Thanks for the blog , too late yesterday after a tough Guardian for once . I also really enjoyed it and very glad to see Mr Tickle appear , he was the first .

17. Is that the same Martin Brice I used to work to/with at One Southwark Bridge, I wonder?

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