Financial Times 18,110 by XELA

by

A light workout from XELA this Friday.

FF: 8 DD: 5

I think this is a good crossword to get acquainted with our world for freshers.

picture of the completed grid

ACROSS
1 FEDORA
Provided sustenance or a cover for the head (6)

FED ( provided sustenance ) OR A

4 IMPACT
Consequences of exploit led by one politician (6)

I ( one ) MP ( politician ) ACT ( exploit )
8 BASSIST
Musician requiring help on middle part of album (7)

B ( alBum, middle ) ASSIST ( help )
9 ON BOARD
Supporting a plan, as company directors often are? (2,5)

cryptic def
11 DEMOCRATIC
Popular, fresh comedic art (10)

[ COMEDIC ART ]*
12 TO-DO
Commotion excessively overwhelming daughter (2-2)

TOO ( excessively ) containing D ( daughter )
13 INDIE
Fashionable, regularly admired low- budget film? (5)

IN ( fashionable ) DIE ( aDmIrEd, regularly )
14 COMPERED
Was an MC matched on record? (8)

sounds like COMPARED ( matched )
16 PUNDITRY
Bit of wit? It breaks up dull experts talking (8)

PUN ( bit of wit ) [ IT in DRY ( dull ) ]
18 LEEDS
Lights surrounding the far edge of the city (5)

LEDS ( lights ) around E ( thE, last letter of )
20 GRID
Good, clear feature of crosswords? (4)

G ( good ) RID ( clear )
21 CONSORTIUM
Business group against rampant tourism (10)

CON ( against ) [ TOURISM ]*
23 OFF ROAD
Where adventurous drivers may go, travelling far with food (3-4)

[ FAR FOOD ]*
24 PREACHY
Republican entertained by excellent moralising (7)

R ( republican ) in PEACHY ( excellent )
25 NATURE
Old city in the centre of Benin had character (6)

UR ( old city ) in [ N ( begin, centre of ) ATE ( had ) ]
26 MENTOR
Teach guys to run (6)

MEN ( guys ) TO R ( run )
DOWN
1 FLAKE
Speck of snow beginning to fall above Windermere? (5)

F ( Fall, starting letter ) LAKE ( windermere )
2 DISCORD
Lack of harmony in club never ceased in the end (7)

DISCO ( club ) RD ( last letters of "..neveR ceaseD.." )
3 RESURGENT
Renewed inactivity mostly calling for immediate attention (9)

RESt ( inactivity, mostly ) URGENT ( calling for immediate attention )
5 MANIC
Mad fella in charge (5)

MAN ( fella ) IC ( in charge )
6 APOSTLE
Messenger and mailmen periodically carrying letters (7)

ALE ( mAiLmEn, periodically ) containing POST ( letters )
7 TIREDNESS
Exhaustion that is primarily accompanied by inflammation (9)

TI ( That Is, first letters of ) REDNESS ( inflammation ) ; nice use of 'that is'
10 STICKY END
Instant money from abroad injected into extremely stupid calamity (6,3)

[ TICK ( instant ) YEN ( money from abroad, japan ) ] in SD ( StupiD, end letters of )
13 IBUPROFEN
New pub on fire? This might help with flare-up (9)

[ PUB ON FIRE ]*
15 MELBOURNE
Lumber on around eastern metropolis (9)

[ LUMBER ON ]* E ( eastern )
17 DIDEROT
French intellectual drawn in by splendid erotica (7)

hidden in "..splenDID EROTica"
19 EXTRACT
Take out vanilla flavouring (7)

double def
21 CHAIR
Orchestra position in church broadcast (5)

CH ( church ) AIR ( broadcast )
22 USHER
App customer absorbs first section of how-to guide (5)

USER ( app customer ) containing H ( first letter of How-to )

14 comments on “Financial Times 18,110 by XELA”

  1. We have had a run of relatively easy puzzles this week. Most enjoyable. I expect next week may be different.
    Thanks to Xela and to the always reliable Turbolegs.

  3. Very enjoyable, not least because a) I actually finished it and b) got it all right – a rare event for me.

  4. Surely 4ac. should be Consequence. Consequences indicates the answer should be impacts. Or am I missing something?

  5. Thanks Xela and Turbolegs

    4ac: An action of a politician will have consequences for a number of individuals. These collectively form the impact of the action.

  6. Very enjoyable. The only one I didn’t parse was NATURE (and there’s a typo in your parsing, Turbolegs).

  7. Tilloubill @ 4 & PB @ 5

    You can make an even easier equivalence: “The impact / consequences of this will be…”.

    Thanks Xela and Turbolegs

  8. It’s kind of fun that today’s FT is easy, today’s Indy is chewy but very doable, and today’s Guardian is beyond brutal. Something for everyone today!

  9. I managed three quarters of this puzzle in about ten minutes, then ground to a halt over the SE corner which needed well over an hour. I struggled with LEEDS as I’d never heard of a LED. Also, I have never heard of an orchestral position being referred to as a chair. I thought the term used was “desk”. The orchestral use of “chair” doesn’t feature in my Chambers whereas it does for “desk”.
    Others may think it was easy. Relatively speaking I suppose it was, but it verged on the challenging for me.

  10. I also slowed in places.

    Liked DEMOCRATIC, TO DO, PREACHY, and TIREDNESS

    I think the UK English & GK was what slowed me mainly. CHAIR was new for me too

    And, if DD5 on the Turbolegs scale means suitable for beginners, I wonder what DD1 would look like.

    Thanks Xela and Turbolegs

  11. Not exactly all write-ins but we got all except 3dn and 16ac where we needed help. Favourite was STICKY END because it seemed unlikely at first and then we saw the parsing.
    Babbler@9: an LED is a Light-Emitting Diode, rapidly becoming universal because of its low power consumption and long life. But we too were doubtful about CHAIR.
    Thanks, Xela and Turbolegs.

  12. Thanks Xela for the enjoyment. I failed with the nho COMPERED but all else made sense. My top picks were PUNDITRY, APOSTLE, and IBUPROFEN. Thanks Turbolegs for the blog.

  14. Jeremiah

    One of the regular bloggers, I think Turbolegs, introduced this scoring system out of ten points: FF is fun factor and DD degree of difficulty .

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