Financial Times 18,147 by ZAMORCA

21 comments on “Financial Times 18,147 by ZAMORCA”

1. Yeah, pretty easy. Enjoyable without overtaxing the grey matter. My knowledge of the lingo of Yorkshire was insufficient to allow me to parse TWOPENCE (which word, incidentally, I thought was tuppence).

2. Thanks for the blog, Turbolegs – nice and early. I’m sure it’s an oversight, but the grid and blog are missing 3d: XRAYS, with ‘ten’ being ‘X’.
   It was a gentle grid, indeed, with the usual pangram revealing itself quite naturally.
   The pangram reminded me that I needed a Q for 23A but it was plain sailing all the way and nonetheless enjoyable for that. BRIDLE PATH was my favourite.
   Thanks Zamorca.

3. Diane@2,

   Thanks for spotting that inadvertent miss. Was blogging from my phone whilst in a car and didn’t realise that I had missed it.

   Regards,
   Mahesh

4. Pronounced tuppence however spelt. Accessible, but isle was stubborn. No lightbulbs today.

5. Maybe I am not in the right mood, but I found this a bit unimpressive.

   I did like JEER, CHRONIC, and IMPASSIVE. GANG did not work for me and funnily enough I could not parse X RAYS, so I await the update with bated breath. I had the same problem with tuppence as GDU@1 (I felt it was a poor clue on top of its UK-only content).

   As an aside, I wonder whether Zamorca ever regrets making the pangram her signature feature.

   Thanks Zamorca and Turbolegs

6. BRIDLE PATH was my favourite as well. Also liked AUTODIDACT.

   MISSED
   Is ‘fell short’ the right def? Or should it be ‘fell short of’?
   X-RAYS
   Looks like a cryptic def with ‘ten’ providing a partial WP.

   Thanks Zamorca and Turbolegs.

7. Thanks KVa for X RAYS. I am afraid I still do not see how the clue gives “rays”.

   Ten is obviously X. I read the cryptic definition as “ which provide inside information”. That makes me think whatever was meant to define RAYS may have been accidentally omitted.

   I am probably missing the obvious.

8. X-RAYS
   Agree Martyn@7.
   Someone will have a better explanation.

9. The closest one can come to , is that Chambers has for the definition of rays as a transitive verb, ” to provide with rays”.

   Regards,
   TL

10. 3D X Rays show you what’s on the inside of someone’s body. Which is information about your insides.

11. I wonder if there’s a word, suggesting rays, missing from the clue for 3D, but I got it from the Inside information element of the clue.

12. Thanks Zamorca and Turbolegs. I have the same concerns as others about 3dn. The irony is that, if Zamorca had just put something like “Providers of inside information”, people would have regarded it as a fair one part clue.

    7ac/12ac/26ac: I think the “last letter” indications in these clues stretch the language further than is desirable. However, I would rather have more than one of these than just one. The solver gets three chances to see what the setter is doing, and can then apply that to the other two clues.

13. PB@12 I think you are being generous about 7, 12 and 26A – the grammar used in those clues is just sloppy and there is no justification for it at all in my view. It would have been easy enough to have reworded them so that the construction is valid for both surface and cryptic readings. For example, in 26A, “in last place” would have been OK.

14. A little bit of serendipity…autodidact appears in the New York Times crosssword today as well. Greetings from NY!

15. Thanks Zamorca for a breezy crossword. I enjoyed clues like AS EXPECTED, SAGA, & CONSOLED. I had no hope of parsing TWOPENCE & I was unaware that G was a valid abbreviation for ‘girl’ in URGED. Thanks Turbolegs for the blog.

16. Pelham Barton @12: Regarding 7, 12, & 26a — it’s my understanding that letter selection indicators should either be an adverb (e.g. finally, lastly) or reflect possession in some way (e.g. last of, the end in). It seems Zamorca stretched this convention. Additionally, ‘last’ was used twice; ideally such indicators should not be repeated in the same crossword.
    Rudolf @13: I agree that this is ‘sloppy grammar’ which surprises me — a setter like Zamorca usually is careful about such things.

17. Very enjoyable

18. Enjoyable, but I was completely stumped by ISLE. i think “European agreement” is a bit too vague for “sí”.

19. This is exactly at my level – I am working to improve, but some days I’m completely stumped! I also struggled with ISLE and didn’t understand the “RAYS” bit either. Any tips for someone trying to improve would be very useful, thanks!

20. 15ac: I assumed that Zamorca put “European agreement” because SI (possibly with some sort of accent) can mean “yes” in more than one European language.

21. But wonderful surfaces @10,15,19,22,8,16 and particularly 21.

    Thanks both.

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