Financial Times 18,067 by STEERPIKE

17 comments on “Financial Times 18,067 by STEERPIKE”

1. I was ashamed when I discovered that, as a high school music teacher, I’d been spelling “ukulele” wrongly for decades. Perhaps misspellings by the thousands of kids I’d misled have been partly responsible for the fact that “ukelele” now appears in most dictionaries as an alternative. But I still regard it as wrong, and I’m still racked with guilt. Perhaps Steerpike was once one of my pupils?

2. Not much to add to the blog. A good level of challenge, and some nice clues. I raced through the NW corner, then slowed significantly as the puzzle became more difficult. Oh so many complicated charades!

   Liked EROS (clever observation and nice surface), and SEXIEST best.

   Thanks, Steerpike and loonapick

   Thanks too to GDU for an amusing post.

3. GDU @1. I know what you mean. Ukelele is a misspelling that has now become accepted by most, if not all, the main dictionaries. I don’t blame you though 🙂 It’s just come about from the way most people pronounce the word. I believe it comes from “jumping flea” in some language or other – I can’t remember and can’t be bothered looking it up.

4. Thanks Steerpike and loonapick.
   Liked FALSTAFF, SPRAY CAN, SCHMALTZ, FINGERS and UNMASKS.

5. That’s a fair summing up, Loonapick; a pleasantly chewy puzzle. Nothing obscure so I completed the grid after tackling some interesting charades (eg SCHMALTZ) though I still needed this blog to confirm/explain the parsing of a couple.
   Like Martyn, I liked EROS best, closely followed by CAPONS, MORTAR and GARB.
   Thanks to Steerpike and Loonapick.

6. My theory, with no supporting evidence, is that since ukulele got abbreviated at some point to just “uke,” someone then arrived at the UKELELE misspelling via back-formation. Anyway, I entered the correct spelling here first, only to realize shortly thereafter that it didn’t match the anagram fodder.

   I was held up here mainly in the upper right, where my zero knowledge of Welsh waterways (natural or artificial) and the tricky construction of FINGERS presented obstacles. Last one in was FALSTAFF, unparsed, so thanks to Loonapick for the River Taff.

7. Hovis @3: Hawaiian.

   In Hawaiian, it’s actually spelled ‘ukulele; that apostrophe is an ‘okina, the letter that stands for a glottal stop. ‘Uku is Hawaiian for flea; lele is jumping. Since English basically doesn’t do glottal stops, we also drop the ‘okina from Hawaiian words that we adopt, including, for example, mu’umu’u (four syllables in Hawaiian, two in English) and…Hawai’i.

   (Actually, an ‘okina is sort of like an upside-down apostrophe, but it’s common to use an apostrophe instead, since most devices (my phone, for example) can’t make a proper ‘okina.)

8. I enjoyed this. Chewy is the word. Unfortunately, I missed decadent. Should’ve persevered.

   Excellent blog. Thanks.

9. Thanks for the blog , clever clues , neat and concise and lots of variety . For UKELELES I was just glad all the letters were in the wordplay to help me spell it for this answer .

10. Thanks mrpenney. Yesterday, we had CORONIS in Eccles, now you are giving me ‘OKINA. Wonder what punctuation is next.

11. A bit chewy but we got everything except SCHMALTZ (we were trying to think of some obscure specialist cheese). We did wonder, too, if 9ac could be ‘Capone’ till we checked ‘capo’ as a Mafia boss. We liked WISECRACKS and UNMASKS among others.
    Thanks, Steerpike and loonapick.

12. A very tough puzzle, for me – so not much fun.
    4ac, I think FALS(E), is the first half. c,f FALS(s).
    Re, the UKULELES (12ac) spelling, I cannot take issue with the setter. I have never had the need to spell it, but that would be my best go!
    Clever setting, but a bit too testy for me. BUZZERS, for example, is too contrived: [worked – up] reversal / of [about = RE] , is hard work, in a poor clue and answer.

    Not my bag, but thanks anyway, steerpike + loonapick

13. Thanks Steerpike for a great set of clues with my top picks being CAPONS (loved the surface), STATUE, MORTAL, SEXIEST, and ROUND. I missed FALSTAFF & DECADENT. Thanks loonapick for the blog.

14. Interesting University Challenge theme which got us putting our thinking capons and helped with the (fingers on) buzzers etc.

15. Thanks to Loonapick and all the commentators, especially Angie F@14. I was starting to think that no one was going to notice!

16. Well spotted, Angie F!

17. I failed on 4a FALSTAFF; my GK was not sufficient to lead me to the Welsh river, and for me, Falstaff is a tragi-comic figure in the Henriad, not a fool. I couldn’t find any justification on line for that definition. (Perhaps a paper dictionary somewhere?)

    I thoroughly enjoyed the puzzle, although 8 on 21 (“fingers on buzzers”) had me thinking of QI rather than UC, so I missed the theme.

    Thanks, Steerpike and Loonapick, for the entertainment.

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