Financial Times 18,066 by IO

by

Apologies for the delayed posting of the blog today.

IO is on top form with this puzzle – some clues that leave me uncertain on my parsing, some lovely surprises and lots of thinking outside the box!

picture of the completed grid

ACROSS
1. Proper advices on breaking up (7,6)
DIVORCE PAPERS

(PROPER ADVICES)* (*on breaking up) – &lit

10. Rubbish work in theatre restricts independent film musician (5,6)
PIANO PLAYER

(PAN (rubbish) + OP (work in theatre, surgical op) restricts I (independent)) + LAYER (film)

11. Spot on some butter (3)
PAT

Double definition

12. What identifies playground game? (3)
TAG

Double definition

14. One-pic flicks entertaining youngster and mum? (3-2,6)
POP-UP CINEMA

(ONE-PIC* (*flicks) entertaining PUP (youngster)) and MA (mum) – &lit

15. Immediately a ballad singer accepts a reject (7,3,5)
PERSONA NON GRATA

ANON (immediately); (PER (a) + SONG (ballad) + RAT (singer) accepts) + A

17. Top dog Heald a bit worried about news letter (3,3,9)
THE BIG ENCHILADA

(HEALD A BIT)* (*worried) about (GEN (news) + CHI (letter))

18. Cuckoo perhaps heads through turbulent sea (1,5,5)
A SCREW LOOSE

CREW LOOS (heads) through SEA* (*turbulent)

Who knew! More info on heads here.

20. Eye feature of climate change (3)
TEC

[clima]TE C[hange] (feature of)

Tec is an abbreviation for ‘detective’ (private eye)

21. Eggs done as instructed? (3)
OVA

“OVER” (done, “as instructed”)

22. Wee instrument’s dropped by Hardy, say, Nelson’s predecessor (6,5)
OLIVER TAMBO

TAMBO[urine] (instrument, URINE (wee) dropped) by OLIVER (Hardy, say)

IO is referring to Nelson Mandela. Tambo was his predecessor in the sense that he was president of the ANC political party before Mandela. My preference is to have more symmetry between clue and solution – referring to Mandela by first name only, but requiring both names in the solution is a bit odd.

25. Gear saving lives reportedly breaks young men (8,5)
BREECHES BUOYS

“BREACHES BOYS” (breaks young men, “reportedly”)

DOWN
2. Female duck makes such a noise! (3)
IDA

“EIDER” (duck, “makes such a noise”)

3. Invisible to us, this new blue-green: no chrome at first nor ultimately seen (3)
OLO

[c]OLO[r] (green, no C[hrome] (at first), nor ultimately seen)

EDITED:
[c]OLO[n] (i.e. the punctuation mark, no C[hrome] (at first) nor [see]N (ultimately))
Thanks to the commenters who pointed this one out

4. About face: the struggles consuming a spiritual office (9)
CALIPHATE

CA (about, circa) + LIP (face) + (THE* (*struggles) consuming A)

5. To secure sweetfish, two pennies satisfy vendor (3,2)
PAY UP

To secure AYU (sweetfish); P + P (two pennies)

6. Before set piece by Sterling, even score penalty (7,4)
PARKING FINE

Before KING (set piece, chess) by FINE (sterling): PAR (even score)

7. Catch Johnny almost in mid air after launch, torn to pieces (6,5)
RIPPED APART

(TRAP (catch) + DEPP (Johnny) almost in mid AIR)< (<after launch)

8. Memorial for best friend wild pig ate, scoffing heel in soup (7,2,1,3)
EPITAPH TO A DOG

(PIG ATE)* (*wild) scoffing (TOAD (heel) in PHO (soup))

The title of a famous poem by Lord Byron

9. Gain an advantage over child to keep rapper in school (5,1,5,2)
STEAL A MARCH ON

SON (child) to keep (LAMAR (rapper, Kendrick Lamar) in TEACH (school))

13. Part of school melody Dame Judi’s inscribed in seat out back? (6,5)
GARDEN CHAIR

GAR (part of school) + AIR (melody); DENCH (Dame Judi) inscribed

Gar is a type of fish, so part of a school of fish

14. Take supervising function in online business? Sweet (11)
PROFITEROLE

PROFIT (take) supervising E-ROLE (function in online business?)

16. A person insures against overlapping surveys (4-5)
ONCE-OVERS

ONE (a person) + COVERS (insures against) overlapping

19. Cunning exposed location within Greater Manchester (5)
LEIGH

[s]LEIGH[t] (cunning, exposed)

23. Character doing up university (3)
TAU

AT< (doing, <up) + U (university)

24. The fifth PM (3)
MAY

Cryptic definition

I think this may be a bit obscure – May being the fifth month.

27 comments on “Financial Times 18,066 by IO”

  2. I found the top half much easier than the bottom, where the politician (not an admiral!), the life-saving equipment, the sweet, and the part of Greater Manchester that refused to yield to my run-through of football teams all taking a while.

    OLO is C+N taken from COLON, one of which appears in the clue. OLO is a blue-green colour apparently discovered earlier this year.

    1A and 8D made me wonder if Io’s been having a bad time of it!

    Thanks both.

  3. Thanks Oriel and Io. I parsed “olo” as “colon” without “c” (“chrome at first”) and “n” (“nor ultimately seen”), using the colon after blue-green, which describes the colour. However, olo is not invisible to us, just impossible to create using pigments as it relies on stimulating only specific receptors in the eye. If it was invisible, it could hardly be a colour could it? The rest of the construction was a bit clunky I thought.

    [I see I crossed with Dai and Amoeba]

    Not being a long-term FT solver I have yet to get used to different setters’ ways. Is IO always this convoluted? Parsing everything was tough, but doable, which is fun but solving things was tough!

  4. Ah, yes. I had thought of ‘colon’, but the brain didn’t connect that word to the punctuation mark which is of course very obvious now! I’ll amend the blog. Thanks to all who pointed it out.

  5. [C]OLO[N] (:) minus C[HROME] minus [SEE]N
    I think the “almost” is a mistake in RIPPED APART. I cannot see what it adds to the clue, and I thought maybe Io thought that Depp is spelled “Deppe,” or some such?
    I had the right idea for TAMBO, and thought it was just TAMBO[UR], but I think the “urine” reference was probably intended there.
    Good job on parsing the rest.

  6. I’m going to whisper this quiet quietly because last time I referred to Io as this setter’s friendly alter go, he upped the difficulty level of his FT puzzles

    I enjoyed the battle so thank you to Io and Oriel

  7. Great puzzle. Matching blog.
    Liked POP-UP CINEMA, PERSONA N G, A SCREW LOOSE, OLIVER TAMBO, IDA, OLO,
    STEAL A MARCH ON and ONCE-OVERS.

    OLO
    Maybe the whole clue is the definition.

    MAY
    Agree with Oriel that it’s a bit obscure. Or may be there is more to it.

    RIPPED APART
    ‘almost in mid air’: Does it possibly mean that ‘DEPP is in the middle of AIR-not exactly, but almost’?

    Thanks Io and Oriel.

  8. Upon reflection, I think it is “almost in mid air” because AIR is a three-letter word, so there no middle insertion point without displacing the central “i.” Got it now.
    Was there a theme? Io usually has something extra going on. I saw TEAL and OLIVE, but that did not take me anywhere. I thought the three-letter solutions might lead to something???

  9. Thanks Oriel. Most of my grid was blank, but, having seen the answer, I would take 24dn as a double definition: May is the fifth month, and the surname of former British Prime Minister Theresa May.

  10. re May as “the fifth” we might readily say that Star Wars day is on the “4th of the 5th” so I think it’s a term in common usage, and possibly a neat new constructor’s trick. I often pass a Chinese restaurant in Oxfordshire called “The Mayflower” whose Chinese characters actually say “5(th) month flower”. Seems close enough.

  11. Thanks for the blog , pretty tough and pretty good but nothing special , all my points have been covered above .
    OLO certainly visible , by itself or within part of the spectrum , it is just a very narrow wavelength range .
    Amoeba@2 you should have tried Rugby League .
    JOFT@3 , Io is Enigmatist , in the FT we usually get Io Wednesday once a month although last time was Thursday for a reason .
    THE BIG ENCHILADA is taking crossword cliques a little bit too far .

  12. Too difficult. Too obscure. No fun. 1 clue first time around. None the second. Moved onto the telegraph.

  13. I think I remember a scene from Independence Day where Brent Spiner’s mad scientist asks the president something like “do you want to see him – THE BIG ENCHILADA?”

    It certainly helped here…

  14. I agree with your general point for Oliver Tambo but the clue is trying to make us think of Horatio Nelson and Captain Hardy .

  16. Gnarly word order in 22, looks like wee is the bit you need, not the bit you drop. Some setters do this (Vlad .. Boatman …?).
    Liked the loos for the crew. Some dnk bits — tec for eye, those kinds of buoys, and Lamar the rapper — made the going a bit slow.
    The only bit of Byron I remember is Roll on thou deep and dark blue ocean, roll; ginf snr was wont to declaim it on occasion.
    All enjoyable, thanks IO and Oriel.

  18. I was pleased to see Io today, I do like a chewier puzzle. Although there were moments when it felt very chewy.

    OLO was all over the news earlier this year, at least in the UK, and I remembered the story to remember the colour. I did know heads were the name for toilets on a boat, but it took me a click and remember the name for a BREECHES BUOY – can’t remember why I’ve seen that in action, but I was in boats a lot when I was younger. TEC in my head is Raymond Chandler era, the dictionaries say old-fashioned.

    Thank you to Oriel and Io.

  19. First time doing a puzzle in a month, I thought the FT is generally the easier of the Fifteensq list, just how wrong can you get? Well done and thank you Oriel getting a blog out at all, at least I almost finished the grid with a few to parse later – I never did. So much for a lazy day off 🙂 Thanks John/IO I think.

  20. A stiff challenge as always with Io, but we persevered and got everything in the end although quite a few went in unparsed from crossing letters and enumeration. OLO was our LOI after we spotted the colon in the clue and confirmed our guess by googling (after which we remembered hearing about it!)
    As well as 3dn we didn’t know 17ac – the latter is indicated as American slang in Chambers. But we liked 14ac, 14dn and 25ac.
    Thanks, Io and Oriel.

  21. Thanks IO and Oriel.
    Completed, after being battered and bruised badly.
    How many I did not parse fully shall remain a secret.
    POP-UP CINEMA top fav.

  22. Surprised the blogger thinks MAY was obscure- it seems fine to me. @Roz OLO is not visible, “seeing” it requires individual cells in the retina to be stimulated, there’s no natural colour or combination of colours causing that combination of cell excitement.

  23. Soffocone I think you are taking a rather anthropocentric view of this , the spectrum of the human cones may overlap but it is not the case for many animals .

  26. Too exhausted yesterday.
    I liked the Byron clue
    Nice to discover Nelson ‘s predecessor
    Thought the simplicity of IDA was great
    Took ages getting RIPPED APART as I was thinking rubber for Johnny
    Thanks JH and blogger.

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