Financial Times 18,119 by JASON

19 comments on “Financial Times 18,119 by JASON”

1. I’ll go with elusive and subtle. I too solved one quadrant at a time. But one of Jason’s best efforts for me — it just felt different, except for CLUELESS, an old crossword standby. Thanks to him and Cineraria.

2. This seemed to be a mix of very easy and very difficult clues. So I started quickly, then took ages to finish. I must say, the puzzle seemed a little lacking in variety too

   My favourites were REPORTER, MEGA, PARADISE, and the old favourite CLUELESS

   I do not understand how anyone can call Greenwich a village – it is quite large. And it is a borough, is it not? Also, why does clog = BALL?

   Thanks Jason and Cineraria

3. Martyn@2: I assume the intended reference is to Greenwich Village, a neighborhood in New York City, thus the “perhaps.”

   For “clog,” I imagined that the reference was to an obstruction in a drain, for example, which I think might fairly be described as a “ball” sometimes.

4. Cineraria @3.

   These puzzles always seem so UK-centric, that I did not even think of NY. It is good to see, actually. Ball is a new way for me to describe a blocked sink. Thanks for the steer.

5. I don’t care if it’s definition number 23 or something in Chambers, as far as I’m concenred “rare” and “excellent” are not synonyms. Cholera is rare.

6. Greenwich in London has a central area also described as Greenwich VILLAGE, complete with market, as well as having a sizeable park and surrounding borough, which also contains Blackheath Village – they are both the old settlements that have been swamped by London, but were originally towns and villages. There are a lot of London villages, still called that – Putney and Wimbledon Villages come to mind.

   I found I filled a lot of this fast, and then slowed down to complete each quadrant, ending in the north-east.

   Geoff Down Under@5 – in my Chambers, under RARE, the first definition as listed: (of the atmosphere) thin; not dense; sparse; seldom encountered; uncommon; excellent; especially; extraordinarily good; used as a mere intensive – so it’s 6th on the list.

   Thank you to Cineraria and Julius.

7. Definition number 2 in Chambers for ball : transitive verb is to clog. An entirely new one for me. I think ROUT is a bit of a stretch. There are some puzzles where you think, “I’m never going to solve this” and then they come together and others like this where you think, “This is going to be straightforward” and then you get stuck in one corner.

8. Thanks Jason and Cineraria

   5dn: Collins 2023 p 1735 has rout¹ vb 6 (tr) “to defeat and cause to flee in confusion” – the only meaning as a verb. To me, this seems to fit with the transitive option for run vb 13 “to move or cause to move with a specified result or in a specified manner” (p 1741; emphasis added).

   11dn further to Shanne@6: Collins p 1653 has rare¹ adj 6 exhibiting uncommon excellence. As far as I am concerned, “excellent” is a valid definition for rare.

9. Pb@8 I thought for the clue to work “run away”, as a phrasal verb, would have to be transitive, and I struggled to think of an example when it would be.

10. Oh. I have just seen it. It’s the opposite of a lift and separate where you have to join the words as in ” a runaway victory” a ROUT.

11. Petert@9,10: I took it quite simply (with the definition cited in comment 8) as “run away” = “cause to move away”. None of this mucking about with the spacing in the clue seems to me to be necessary. I think Cineraria as blogger was essentially along the right lines.

12. Yup another tricky one but more doable than yesterday!

13. Contrary to James P @12 we found yesterday’s puzzle much more doable than this. We solved yesterday’s unaided even if it was a bit slow; today we had to cheat of finish the NE corner.
    Thanks, though, to Jason and Cineraria.

14. It was the SW corner defeated me. It may be my imagination, but I think today’s puzzle had an unusually large number of clues where the wordplay consists of a single word to which you have to add or subtract a letter to get another word. Unless I am in the right mood, I find clues like that more difficult than e.g. anagrams, especially if the only letters I have are vowels.
    I got ROUT and BALL but didn’t feel they were right.
    I don’t normally notice these things, but we had porter in the NW corner, lager in the NE and bitter in the SW. I haven’t been able to find any beer in the SE corner though.

15. I have complained in the past about the SOED on my phone missing things, but it offers the answer to ROUT. “verb intrans & refl. Retreat in disorder”

16. Thanks, Martyn.

17. Martyn@15: That meaning is on p 2620 of the printed edition of SOED 2007, but is marked with a dagger sign for obsolete and dated mid to late 17th century. I am sticking to the reading I gave in comment 11, taking both verbs as transitive. The usage example given by Collins for the relevant meaning of run is to run a ship aground.

18. Hello. May anyone comment here, or does one have to ‘join something’ first?

19. Nathan@18: I believe anyone may post comments, subject to moderation and subject to the site policies, listed on the home page.

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