Financial Times 18,085 by GURNEY

17 comments on “Financial Times 18,085 by GURNEY”

1. Solid work, no complaints from me: I love a puzzle where I’m self sufficient and not googling etc

2. At last an easier puzzle! Although for me the NW corner took a bit of time.

   No ticks today. Though POLLEN, MANGER, and ECONOMIC had a nice surfaces

   I thought saint is st and did not realize it can be just s, so I wondered whether the t was missing from PROPRIETOR. I could not parse NEXT DOOR either. It had some synonyms I would never have seen. Thanks for the help on both counts.

   Agree with James P

   Thanks Gurney and loonapick

3. Loonapick, your first sentence mirrors my progress through this grid though in my case, TONGAN was the key to finishing off in the SW corner.
   I liked VIGILANT, MACAROON and ADONIS best.
   Thanks, Gurney, for the coffee break treat and Loonapick for the blog.

4. James@1 has used the exact word, “solid”, for this puzzle.
   No fireworks, no damp squibs.
   I had a double-think, on BRAINSTORM, 18ac, in terms of “noun or verb”, but it is valid, both ways.
   27(ac), why “tour” = “do”, is beyond my ken. I suppose Chambers has it, but do setters have to go for the obscure?
   6(d), I don’t equate ECONOMIC with profitable.
   15(d), I’m not even convinced that ” not lacking” equates to ABUNDANT. Agree with loonapick, the “in” word rather cocks up the clue.
   ADONIS (24ac), is interesting. Many of my Greek friends, are named ANDONIS, which means “manly/tough”. Never call them “Adonis”. I will say no more.
   I liked the TOMCAT deletion (20d);and “the horse reversal”, at 26ac.
   So…solid stuff, nice surfaces, and enjoyable.
   Big thanks, Gurney and loonapick

5. E.N.Boll& @4,
   While it’s not a pretty expression, I think ‘to do a country’ as in ‘Have you done Laos’? is fairly commonplace, especially when people talk of visiting places that are suddenly fashionable.
   As for ‘not lacking’, I think n this example, it’s using understatement to intensify the opposite meaning (litotes).

6. Diane@5 Many thanks…I live and learn!
   DO/TOUR:- I get your reference, in context: e,g. ” have you done Glyndebourne? ” . But whether it stretches its legs to “tour”, well, OK, but it doesn’t quite click, for me.
   Litotes. ( ABUNDANT).
   Yes… I can now see it; “I’m not short of a penny or two”, is an ironic understatement, for ” I’m filthy rich”.
   The affirmative, being ironically implied, by the lesser negative. But, I would say, in a cryptic clue, there might be an indicator that the “contrary” is being used?
   Or should I more properly say, an understatement.
   (Here in Greece, λιτοτης/ “lee-toe-tess”, is roughly speaking, simple or meagre, so it implies that one is making an understatement.)
   To cut to the chase , I’m sure that you have it right.
   Every day is a school day.
   Thanks again, IanB

7. Thanks Gurney and loonapick. I too got stuck in the south west corner, but this was relative to the quick solve of the other three parts of this poorly connected grid.

   27ac further to Diane@5: Collins 2023 p 584 has do 22 informal to visit or explore as a sightseer or tourist: to do Westminster Abbey.

   6dn: Collins p 628 has economic 2 Brit capable of being produced, operated, etc, for profit; profitable: the firm is barely economic.

   15dn: I was completely happy with the structure of this clue, as follows:
   Not lacking = existing in plentiful supply (Collins p 8 first definition of abundant);
   good grades = A B
   in German and = UND
   model of industry = ANT.

8. PB@7 I wouldn’t dare to disagree with you….or Chambers, or Collins! An economic operation, is one which makes the most of savings, versus potential cost, so I suppose relates to profit.
   It’s one of those, where I see it as the other way around.
   “It’s not economic to keep our London office open”, implies “we’re making losses on it”.
   For me, ” economic” is not the opposite, of “not economic”.
   Our London office may be making profits, but so little, we can use the capital invested, to make better returns, elsewhere. So it’s profitable, but not economic.
   But I concede.

   I admit defeat, too, with gritted teeth, on “to do”.

   And with good grace, on ” in German, and”; I always forget that punctuation is discretionary in cryptic clues!
   (or to be ignored when provided).
   Another day in the classroom.
   Yamas, IanB

9. I echo the comment above about at last an easy Crossword. Lots to like in this one and I finally got to fill in most of the grid.

10. Thanks to Gurney and loonapick,
    I agree with loonapick’s judgement, completed too quickly with a slight delay in the SW corner.
    I enjoy the erudition of all the contributors above. My O level in German 58 years ago was not wasted!

11. Re “do=tour”: It feels like if we allow that, we can let DO stand for pretty much any action verb, since people use it that way whenever the action in question is understood from context. We’ve seen do=tour (“let’s do the Louvre tomorrow) and do=cook (“let’s do chicken cacciatore for dinner”), so why not do=clean (you do the kitchen floor and I’ll do the bathroom), solve (I’m doing the FT crossword), exercise (he’s doing his legs today at the gym), etc? Where does it end?

12. E.N.Boll& @8. My father always used to hate it when people said “they made a loss”. He insisted that you “make a profit” but “suffer a loss”. No idea if there’s any truth in that. Ofttimes an English teacher’s bias leads to a life-time belief. A colleague of mine at University always said “providing that” should be “provided that”. I always use the latter but know the former has been acceptable for donkey’s years.

13. More:
    Eat: let’s do lunch
    Zip: do up your trousers
    Button: do up your shirt
    Tie: do up your shoelaces
    Perform: they’re doing Midsummer Night’s Dream
    Dance: do the lambda
    Have sex with: I’d do him

    The objection, really, is that these meanings of “do” are all context-dependent, and in a cryptic clue, it’s almost always stripped of the context necessary to make it mean these things.

14. Hovis@12, with my accountant’s hat on, businesses make their own fortune……they make a profit, or they make a loss.
    But dads are always right.
    To suffer a loss, is more a question of bad luck.

    Totally with you, on “provided that”. But darn, I do lapse into the other version.

    MrP@11 +13. You must be reading my mind. I had a post typed up, then read yours, much funnier than mine.
    The one that I don’t mind is, amazingly, IMITATE.
    Mimics always refer to their act, as, “this is who I do”.
    Thanks, both, IanB

15. mrp@11,13: it seems to me that this only becomes a problem when people try to justify definitions from their own experience of language. That is why I always prefer to use the standard dictionaries as the relevant authorities, for do as a verb just as for any other word. The lists of meanings for do are long, but not impossibly so.

16. Thanks Gurney. Like others I got delayed in the SW corner & eventually revealed MACAROON because I needed to get on with my day. Favourite clues included BRAINSTORM, VIGILANT, CULINARY, and APPRENTICE. Thanks loonapick for the blog.

17. Many thanks, loonapick, for the excellent blog. Thanks also to all those who commented.

    Gurney would be very much guided by Collins Dictionary, which is available free on-line.

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