Financial Times 18,158 by GOZO

23 comments on “Financial Times 18,158 by GOZO”

1. I often begin by marking the divisions in each clue and then kick off with some of the shortest ones. Today’s had a surprising number of divided answers, including ten with fifteen letters, and hardly any short clues.

   I don’t understand STROKES either. And I didn’t think AWRY meant “not true”, although it sort of does if you think of another meaning for “true”. Never heard of CERNE ABBAS GIANT (Google helped) or LOVAT GREEN. I’d forgotten about that distinctly British use of “kettle”. Has RED BALL got something to do with pool or snooker?

2. Novel

   A few crossers made the answers flow pretty easily

   Thanks for the blog. I had the same NHOs as GDU. I still need to ask (1) why is RED BALL “one’s pointer”?, (2) why is UNDER ONE’S BATH “new-born’s bedtime wash”? (3) why is KETTLE “areas within a cordon”?

   I was also going to ask why UT is a note, but I was able to find in the dictionary what I am sure is obvious to others: the first note in Guido d’Arezzo’s hexachords.

   Thanks Gozo and loonapick

3. RED BALL
   As GDU says, it’s a snooker term. A RED BALL carries one point.
   (a baby) UNDER ONE—>a newborn (possibly)
   KETTLE is a police term (area cordoned off to control protesters)
   STROKE
   Chambers has ‘to milk, strip’ for STORKE. Someone will help us with the usage.

   DA VINCI was my top fave.

   Thanks Gozo and loonapick

4. Was thinking of that other large figure, the Angel. Don’t remember seeing the Dorset man, and had no idea of his title. Of other bits, we’ve had ‘ut’ before, and also the crowd-control meaning of kettle. As for red balls that point, and strokes that strip, I await further insights from among our multitalented global community. Thanks all.
   Oh and great surface for Leonardo.

   Thanks KVa, of course, red = one-pointer

5. UT is more commonly known as “do” or “doh” representing the tonic — think doh re mi.

6. [On the strength of the one-pointer, just watched Ronnie O’Sullivan score 147 — masterful!]

7. Enjoyable, especially being reminded of the Cerne Abbas giant’s impressive ‘banana’.

   17d I think true here is in the carpentry sense of straight where out of true means awry

8. Great fun, as always, from Gozo.
   Indeed, James P @7 – that was one saucily apt anagram. I really enjoyed the sheer number of anagrams today, my absolute favourite, like KVa’s, being the marvellous Da Vinci clue. The green-themed ROMAINE LETTUCES and STINGING NETTLES also appealed.
   That use of ‘kettling’ is used in HK too.
   Thanks, Gozo, it was a blast. And cheers Loonapick.

9. I like long anagrams; though they’re relatively easy, this grid made them a bit more difficult. Lots of new items for me; in addition to those mentioned above, I didn’t know BLACK as boycott or BLU-TACK. Thanks Gozo and loonapick

10. Like you said: a real feat of setting, and admirable for that, but I didn’t find it that much fun, most went in far too quickly and without needing any real thought.

    I think the strips/strokes things may be lashes of a whip.

    Thanks both.

11. I solved it quickly as I like long anagrams but I understand that that may have made it too easy for some. My favourite, for being both anagrammatic but also descriptive, was CERNE ABBAS GIANT. I did wonder how many of our overseas solvers might know it. ON A REGULAR BASIS was clever too for keeping you guessing which words were included in the anagram. I only tumbled to the Oasis wordplay late in the day.
    For those who are interested in knowing where Do Re Mi etc come from, it is worth looking it up. (Too involved to explain here but I’m sure there will be explanations on the internet.) The puzzle for me is how Ut came to be changed to Do. I expect there’s a website that explains that too.

12. Solvers may like to know that Tom Johnson’s book All Squared about his life setting crosswords is available from him Includes puzzles from the many newspapers and magazines that he sets for.

13. With so few clues this was quite a quick solve, particularly as two or three obvious (to us, anyway) answers provided plenty of crossing letters for the rest. The only one we came a bit unstuck on was 10ac where we had ‘in’ instead of ‘on’ so didn’t make the Oasis connection and couldn’t think of a suitable word to complete the phrase – an instance of “d’oh!” when we got it. Favourite was 9ac.
    Thanks, Gozo and loonapick.

14. Unlike everyone else, I found this a seriously slow solve. My usual way into a crossword is the short entries, to pin down some letters for the long ones. Well, I was SOL* on that today, obviously. I had to Google Dorset landmarks to get the chalk giant with the impressive banana, and we don’t have that particular proprietary adhesive over here. But yes, I did know of UT: if you want to move from casual to intermediate in the game of Scrabble, you must memorize the list of valid two-letter words! (It’s not long, and probably two-thirds of them are everyday words to you.)

    * In the event that’s an Americanism, it stands for “s*** outta luck”.

15. [In the US, it’s AB AD AG AH AI AL AM AN AR AS AT AW AX AY BA BE BI BO BY DA DO ED EF EH EL EM EN ER ES EW EX FA GI GO HA HE HI HM HO ID IN IS IT JO KA LA LI LO MA ME MI MO MU MY (the letter M gets the grand slam!) NO NU OE OF OH OK OM ON OO OP OR OS OW OX OY PA PE PI QI RE SI SO TA TE TI TO UH UM UN UP US UT WE WO XI XU YA YE YO ZA. Note that C and V are difficult letters since they form no two-letter words. Meanwhile, an X is spun gold, since it can form a two-letter word with all five main vowels, and is an eight-pointer; never play an X if you’re not getting at least 20 points out of it (except in the endgame, obviously).]

16. I left out IF somehow.

17. I found impressive and a lot of fun. nothing have to much trouble but it wasn’t quick! thank you all

18. I missed two and didn’t find it quick.

    Pleased that so many of you found it easy, especially the blogger – “over too quickly”.

    Being not very good at crosswords, I find it dispiriting when I’m told a crossword is easy when I didn’t find it especially so.

    .

19. Moly

    It is not unusual for people I regard as very skillful to have different views about the level of difficulty of the same puzzle.

20. I never ceased to be amazed by Gozo’s grid construction skills. To squeeze in ten 15-lettered answers into a 15×15 grid, without any obscure Azed-style words must be a rare achievement. Bravo !

21. Thank you, Martin@19

    Of all the comments I read in the blog, it is always you that I regard as making observations which are closest to my own.

22. Why is it Leaves rotten locust tree in state and not Leaves state in rotten locust tree?

23. 15ac: The wording used for the first sentence makes for a better surface. The requirements for the cryptic reading are corrected by the words “Quite the opposite”.

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