Financial Times 18,088 by MUDD

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MUDD kicks off the week…

A very enjoyable puzzle with a number of interesting clues.

Thanks MUDD!

picture of the completed grid

ACROSS
8. Toilet seat chucked, did you say? (6)
THRONE

"thrown" = THRONE (chucked, "did you say")

9. Drug, used daily originally, in curious manual (8)
LAUDANUM

(U[sed] D[aily] (initially)) in (MANUAL)* (*curious)

10. Falling over, legs cut (4)
SNIP

(PINS)< (legs, <falling over)

11. Ten under arrest, new Met policy involved quality (10)
COMPLEXITY

X (ten) under arrest, (MET POLICY)* (*new)

12. Storyteller in Sinatra I love to recall (4)
LIAR

([sinat]RA I L[ove])< (in, <to recall)

13. Game, no cab? (10)
BACKGAMMON

NO CAB being BACON (gammon) backwards

17. Eye of giant looking evil, initially (4)
OGLE

O[f] G[iant] L[ooking[ E[vil] (initially)

18. A trick to lob over Russia’s top seed (5)
ACORN

(A + CON (trick)) to lob over R[ussia] (top)

19. Bloke serving turkey with last of sauce (4)
DUDE

DUD (turkey) with [sauc]E (last of)

21. My Lord God seems no different (8,2)
GOODNESS ME

(GOD SEEMS NO)* (*different)

23. Reversed hit driving game (4)
GOLF

(FLOG)< (hit, <reversed)

24. Stirring on ward, such early calls! (4,6)
DAWN CHORUS

(ON WARD SUCH)* (*stirring)

28. We need help with nothing ordinary (2- 2)
SO-SO

SOS (we need help) with O (nothing)

29. Back end is loose, worried (8)
AGONISED

AGO (back) + (END IS)* (*loose)

30. Briefly, shock on for long-distance runner (6)
AMAZON

AMAZ[e] (shock, briefly) + ON

DOWN
1. Fine ruler for theory (8)
THINKING

THIN (fine) + KING (ruler)

2. Coin, one side of it showing snake (10)
COPPERHEAD

COPPER (coin) + HEAD (one side of it, coin)

3. Vegetable grabbed, a courgette’s skin roughed up (3,7)
RED CABBAGE

(GRABBED + A + C[ourgett]E (skin))* (*roughed up)

4. Preferred fruit (4)
PLUM

Double definition

5. Sign that’s at the centre of a board (4)
BULL

Double definition

6. Red blotches, we hear? (4)
MARX

"marks" = MARX (blotches, "we hear")

7. Cavalier jousts very neatly (4,2)
JUST SO

(JOUSTS)* (*cavalier)

14. Snappy labradoodle, for example (5)
CROSS

Double definition

15. Biscuit grannies made, doctor eats (6,4)
GINGER SNAP

(GRANNIES)* (*made), GP (doctor) eats

16. Muslim leader’s vehicle trailing loco in island country (10)
MADAGASCAR

(AGA'S CAR (Muslim leader's vehicle)) trailing MAD (loco)

20. Unsoiled pants, fancy! (8)
DELUSION

(UNSOILED)* (*pants)

22. Endless honey topped with golden fruit (6)
ORANGE

ANGE[l] (honey, endless) topped with OR (golden)

25. Number thirteen I need: four off that? (4)
NINE

[thirtee]N I NE[ed] (four off that), also 13 – 4 = 9

26. Tool containing small pipe (4)
HOSE

HOE (tool) containing S (small)

27. Travel documents kept in middle of bureau (4)
RIDE

ID (documents) kept in [bu]RE[au]

11 comments on “Financial Times 18,088 by MUDD”

  1. A quick solve, this one from Mudd, but smiles all round and some great surfaces.
    SO-SO, DAWN CHORUS, GOODNESS ME, ACORN (topical with the grass court season underway), GINGER SNAP, CROSS, COPPERHEAD (keen to avoid one whilst here in Oz) and the naughty DELUSION all earned ticks.
    Many thanks to Mudd and Teacow, especially for clarifying BACKGAMMON which I could only half parse.

  2. When I saw it was Mudd I thought Oh no – surely not on a Monday. But it was a Monday puzzle and, as Diane @ 1, says some great surfaces.

    Favourites were: COPPERHEAD, MARX, GINGER SNAP, THINKING, LAUDANUM but I could have had a longer list.

    Thanks Mudd and Teacow

  3. BACKGAMMON, NINE & MADAGASCAR were my top picks.
    THRONE
    I saw teo defs & one WP
    1. Toilet
    2. Seat
    WP as in the blog.

    Thanks Mudd & Teacow

  5. Wrote in BACKGAMMON but in terms of parsing it was completely thrown by the fact that NO CAB are the first and last parts of BACKGAMMON written backwards. Total coincidence, I guess

  6. Quite a few colours in the background ( ORANGE/ RED/ PLUM/ COPPER/ GINGER) but I’m sure that’s not a theme, just happenstance.
    BACKGAMMON was fine, once I got the crossers in, but by gum, it took me a long time to decode the wordplay. The closing ” ?”, was a fair indicator from the setter.
    A very fine puzzle all round, not a hint of a quibble.
    Thank you, Mudd & Teacow

  7. Borrowing from above: “a number of interesting clues”, “a quick solve” but “smiles all round”

    Favourite clues are covered above too.

    Thanks Mudd and Teacow

  8. We too were mystified by the parsing of BACKGAMMON, which went in from definition and crossing letters. And we couldn’t work out the limitless honey in 22dn; we were trying to think of ?ange? as a variety of honey.
    When J, X and Z turned up in the answers we started looking for a pangram but in the end it was short of Q and V.
    Thanks, Mudd and Teacow.

  9. A quicker than usual solve for me, which is a rare beast… everything just made sense, which made a pleasant change; altho BACKGAMMON relied heavily on crossers, rather than parsing… no further repetition of comments required…
    Thanks Mudd for a grand puzzle n Teacow for the clear blog

  10. For some reason it took me a long time to understand bull as the center of a dart board and so I got hung up in the upper east of the puzzle! But once done all fell into place! Thank you all

  11. Having done UK crosswords for over 15 years now, it’s rare lately that I run into transatlantic language differences that I haven’t seen before. But GAMMON as a name for a cut of pork (one which we wouldn’t call bacon in any case) is new to me. So that one I entered strictly based on its definition.

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