Financial Times 15,344 by GAFF

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Today we celebrate the 100th anniversary of Roald Dahl’s birth, and in some style…

I really enjoyed this puzzle. Always nice to have a theme, of course, but I also thought the surfaces were universally stylish and the twists and turns of the wordplay were fun and just nicely challenging for a week-day solve. Many thanks to Gaff. A good ‘un.

completed grid
Across
1 FISTULA Jumping fault is problem for horse (7)
  Anagram (‘jumping’) of FAULT IS. ‘Fistulous withers’ is very unpleasant-sounding disease of horses.
5 MATILDA Story of girl on fire turned into unbalanced article (7)
  Our first thematic clue (and my favourite Dahl story). LIT (‘on fire’) is reversed in MAD (‘unbalanced’), then ‘A’.
9 CELEB Once Lebanon featured small star (5)
  Inclusion in onCE LEBanon, to give an abbreviation of ‘celebrity’.
10 GUFFAWING Laughter at bunk where some prisoners sleep (9)
  GUFF (‘bunk’) then ‘A’-WING, which might be a prison block.
11 ONE-AND-SIX 7-7.5p (3-3-3)
  Double definition. 1+6=7, natch, and in pre-decimal British currency ‘one-and-six’ – or ‘eighteen pence’ as my grandmother used to say – was, idiomatically, one shilling (= 12 old pence or a twentieth of the former 240-pence pound) and six pence. Today, its metric equivalent is exactly 7.5 pee.
12 EASEL Stand to rest Labour leader (5)
  EASE (‘rest’) + ‘L’ for Labour.
13 YOGIC Meditative about following bear (5)
  ‘C’ (‘about’) follows the cartoon bear YOGI.
15 UNPAID-FOR Found pair surprisingly not yet purchased (6-3)
  Anagram of FOUND PAIR.
18 CHOCOLATE Sweet cold drink in sweltering mid-September (9)
  ‘C’ for ‘cold’, then COLA in HOT + E (mid-septEmber). Thematic, of course.
19 DANNY Champion of the world and windy city (5)
 

‘Danny, Champion of the World’ is another Dahl novel. Anagram (‘windy’) of AND then NY for ‘city’.
21 ABYSS Deep in baby’s subconscious (5)
  Inclusion in bABY’S Subconcious. ‘Deep’ as noun, of course.
23 ROALD DAHL Author had a droll style (5,4)
 

Today’s 100th birthday chap. Anagram (‘style’) of ‘HAD A DROLL’. A very fitting surface.
25 LUCRATIVE Developing vital cure is profitable (9)
  Anagram (‘developing’) of VITAL CURE.
26 LOTTO John keeps dry in game (5)
  ‘TT’ (teetotal or ‘dry’) in LOO (‘John’).
27 ENTITLE Give right measure of print to Herald, say (7)
  EN (a printer’s measure) + TITLE, ‘Herald’ being the name of many a newspaper over the years.
28 TWITCHY Nervous that we’re starting to be irritating (7)
  Starts of That & We’re, then ITCHY (‘irritating’)
Down
1 FACTORY Fry, perhaps, cutting his border plant (7)
  The ‘borders’ of the surname of Stephen FrY, the ACTOR surround his profession.
2 SOLFEGGIO Staggered if Google’s singing Do- Re-Mi (9)
  Anagram (‘staggered’) of IF GOOGLES.
3 URBAN Built up city outlaw (5)
  UR, the Chaldean biblical city, then BAN.
4 ANGOSTURA Bark of rabbit ingesting soft drugs regularly (9)
  ANGORA, a type of rabbit, surounds the STU of SofT drUgs, omitting those lower-case groups of 2 letters (‘regularly’)
5   See 17
 
6 TRADE WIND Prepare top of dam to retain water for main source of power (5,4)
  TRAIN (‘prepare’) then ‘D’ (top of ‘dam’) surround DEW. Trade winds, a vital resource in the days of sail, blow towards the thermal equator and are deflected westward by the earth’s rotation.
7 LOINS Fruit producers’ pride slightly dented (5)
  We are all the fuit of our parents’ loins. LIONS may constitute a ‘pride’ and give us a forgiveable invisible anagram.
8 ANGULAR Having spaces between planes spare (7)
  Double definition. ‘Spare’, of a person’s build as in ‘thin and angular’, a good descscription of Dahl, btw, and the rest of the clue is geometry.
14 CROISSANT Sort out 1 across before finishing bran and toast for breakfast, perhaps (9)
  Lovely anagram of ‘1 ACROSS’ + ends of braN and toasT. Heartless misdirection. Nice.
16 PREVALENT Dominant reverend father’s around after Ash Wednsday (9)
  PA around REV then LENT. Again, a pleasing, internally consistent surface.
17, 5 FANTASTIC MR FOX Drinks fit criminal from unknown story of animal cunning (9,2,3)
  This went straight in once I had the theme, but it takes some parsing…  ‘Drinks’ = FANTAS, ‘fit’ = TIC (as in involuntary movement) then an anagram (‘criminal’) of FROM and finally ‘X’ for ‘unknown’. Phew.
18 CHARLIE Angel’s chief character on radio (7)
  DD. Charlie’s Angels was a 70s/80s cop show and recent Hollywood film (Charlie, the boss, was always OOV, as we say in the trade). ‘Charlie’ is also the letter ‘C’ in radio code.
20 YELLOWY Slightly jaundiced old solvers extremely likely to maintain depression (7)
  Another head-scratching parse. To our setter, we solvers are ‘you’, the ‘old’ form of which is YE. Then take LY (the ‘extremes’ of LikelY) and use both groups to surround the noun LOW (a meteorological ‘depression’). Phew, again.
22 YACHT Coordinate German eight in boat (5)
  ‘Y’ (a Cartesian ‘coordinate’) and ACHT.
23 RAISE Lift from Sierra is exciting (5)
  Inclusion in sierRA IS Exciting.
24 DELHI Shop said to be in Indian district (5)
  Homophone of ‘deli’.

*anagram

7 comments on “Financial Times 15,344 by GAFF”

  1. (Guffawing) 19A I wrote in “Danny” straightaway because Danny Willett is this year’s champion (golfer) of the world.

  3. A “good ‘un” indeed”! No problem with spotting the anniversary as I’d just finished a puzzle using the same theme in another place! Enjoyed 11 (cheeky!) and 14ac very much.

    Thank you Gaff & Grant.

  4. wonderful.. missed out on a few here.. kicking myself.. the theme !! the theme.. not really happy with A wing being ref to as prison block 🙁 dont think thats right.. loins was great 🙂 so also trade wind..

  5. Thanks Gaff and Grant

    This is my first current puzzle for a while as I tidied up an out of control back log. A relatively easy theme to pick up after getting the author and CHARLIE CHOCOLATE quite early on. It actually helped get a few of the other clues thereafter.
    Lazily parsed FANTASTIC MR FOX as a complete anagram without checking and now see that it was quite complex !

    Finished with LOINS (quite clever) and DANNY (which I solved with the word play and only knowing one of his books, had to go looking for what Danny and Champion of the World meant).

  6. Thanks for the blog, Grant.

    Gaff loves his anniversary puzzles and, as June says, he’s in good company today. 😉 I have to say that I enjoyed each one in its own way – very ingenious.

    Lots of nice clues here – my favourites were ONE-AND-SIX, CROISSANT and ROALD DAHL [great anagram].

    I also liked MATILDA, where I think ‘girl on fire’ must refer to Hillaire Belloc’s Matilda [who told such dreadful lies] http://monologues.co.uk/Childrens_Favourites/MatildaBelloc.htm .

    Many thanks to Gaff for a fun puzzle.

  7. Well if you didn’t know what day it was before you started all the crosswords, you’d soon work it out.

    Were I to type out my comments, they’d (as usual) be more or less the same as Eileen’s.

    Thanks to the two Gs

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