Financial Times 15,410 by NEO

by

Straightforward this morning, with a mini-theme to keep things interesting.

A somewhat workaday offering from Neo today, leavened by THE LABOUR PARTY, CORBYN, SOCIALIST and possibly SMITH and NEOLIB constituting an undisguised mini-theme.
Ah, well, relaxing after last Tuesday’s slog, I suppose. Thanks to Neo.

completed grid
Across
1 PSYCHOANALYSIS In treatment, Pliny says chaos is revolutionary (14)
  Anagram (‘is revolutionary’) of PLINY SAYS CHAOS.
10 OGRES Giants substitute seen after blunder in field (5)
 

RES (for ‘reserve’ or ‘substitute’) after OG (own goal, a ‘mistake in the [football] field’).
11 EXCLUSION Rude lexicon entertains us in bar (9)
  Anagram (‘rude’) of LEXICON includes US.
12 BOWHEAD Perhaps Cockney leader protected swimmer (7)
  A Cockney is, traditionally, born within earshot of Bow Bells (those of St. Mary-le-Bow church). Thus a ‘Bow head’ might be said to be a ‘Cockney leader.’ A bowhead is a whale, of course.
13 ROSEHIP Fruit girl pursues latest trends (7)
  ROSE (a girl) followed by HIP, nominalised adjective of ‘latest trends’, I guess, although I struggle to make them synonymous.
14 NAOMI Neo grumbles about the mother- in-law (5)
  Neo, our setter today, is thus ‘I’. Follow that with ‘MOAN’ (‘grumble’), reverse the lot, and we get NAOMI, Ruth’s mother-in-law in the Old Testament. I trust Neo is as fond of his as I am of mine.
16 SOCIALIST Left-winger, stoical, is thrown out (9)
  Anagram (‘thrown out’) of STOICAL IS.
19 HOLLANDER National president meets resistance (9)
  Francois HOLLANDE (president, pro tem, of France) + R for ‘resistance’.
20 ANTON Man soon consumes ton (5)
  T for ‘ton’ in ANON’ (‘soon’).
22 DETROIT Half-dead left-winger tours one Michigan city (7)
  DE (half of ‘DEad’) then TROT (‘left-winger’) around 1.
25 ARAPAHO Native American soldier brought back to a little house (7)
  PARA (a ‘soldier’) reversed then A+HO (short for HOuse).
27 ABSTAINED Sailor getting damaged kept dry (9)
  AB+STAINED (‘damaged’) with cryptic definition.
28 SUSHI South American greeting for tasty Asian dish (5)
  S (south), US (American) + HI.
29 THE LABOUR PARTY Pub, rat-hole, wrecked by clever group in opposition (3,6,5)
  Anagram (‘wrecked’) of PUB RAT HOLE, then ARTY fo ‘clever’.
Down
2 STRAW POLL One checks opinion in walk round area with Penny (5,4)
  STROLL around A (‘area’)+W (‘with’)+P (‘penny’).
3 CASTE Persons with class throw eggs at first (5)
  CAST (‘throw’)+E (Eggs ‘at first’).
4 OVERDOSED Ever so odd, Dicky took too many pills (9)
  Anagram (‘dicky’) of EVER SO ODD.
5 NICER Better diamonds found in northern river (5)
  ICE (‘diamonds’) in N (‘northern’) + R (‘river’).
6 LOUISIANA State girl entraps Scotsman (9)
  LOUISA surrounds IAN.
7 SMITH Commonest name for a forger (5)
  Double definition.
8 SUNSPOT Cool solar area in holiday resort (7)
  And again.
9 CORBYN Old jokes to entertain by 29’s leader (6)
  ‘Old jokes’ are ‘CORN’ which surrounds BY, giving the leader of 29 across, bless him (or whatever).
15 INAMORATA Very soon scoundrel gets a girlfriend (9)
  IN A MO is ‘very soon’, then RAT+A. I can’t see the word ‘inamorata’ without an image appearing in my head of the hippopotamus’s girlfriend adjusting her garter in the Flanders & Swann song.
17 CORIANDER Uniform-free messenger loading with spice (9)
  COURIER without its ‘U’ for ‘uniform’ surrounds AND (‘with’).
18 IN TRANSIT Popular new artist wasted or on the wagon? (2,7)
  IN (‘popular’) then an anagram (‘wasted’) of N+ARTIST, plus cryptic def.
19 HYDRANT Nine-headed monster nut eviscerated in main outlet (7)
  HYDRA (the ‘monster’ killed by Hercules as one of his labourts) + NuT without its centre (‘eviscerated’), plus cryptic def.
21 NEOLIB Privatiser’s point, in writing, about large Old English uprising (6)
  A neo-liberal is one who advocates, inter alia, the privatisation of all means of production. NIB (a ‘point, in writing’) around the abbreviations L+O+E, reversed.
23 TASTE Judgment important as teaching shows (5)
  Inclusion in ‘importanT AS TEaching’.
24 TANGO Beat to suit musical piece (5)
  TAN (‘beat’) + GO (to ‘suit’, as in ‘that shirt and tie really go’). Well, that’s close as I can get it.
26 AT SEA Among ex-drinkers, Thomas Stearns Eliot initially confused (2,3)
  AA = Alcoholics Anonymous (‘ex-drinkers’), in which place TSE.

*anagram

8 comments on “Financial Times 15,410 by NEO”

  1. I didn’t find this quite as easy as our blogger. I missed out on ARAPAHO and couldn’t get the parsing for OGRES. Had never come across the BOWHEAD whale before (for which I think the def is ‘protected swimmer’ by the way) and NEOLIB isn’t a term I’ve heard very often, at least compared to ‘neocon’ which wouldn’t have exactly fitted the theme.

    Thanks to Grant and Neo.

  2. The bottom half went in well, with smiles along the way, and then I was called into the dentist so the last few at the top went in on my return home

    Thanks to Grant and Neo too

  3. Hmmm ‘workaday’ eh? Not sure I like the sound of that. I’m trying to understand whether or not it implies ‘mediocrity’ 🙁

    Anyway thanks Grant for the blog, which I think is very nice. Just two things: WordPlodder is right about the ‘protected swimmer’, and at 15D the ‘a’ is needed in the wordplay element.

    There were two changes made after submission as far as I can tell, one at 7D, where Owen Smith’s contention for leadership of Labour is now a bit old hat (a container and contents job with a ref to 29 was originally sent in), and unfortunately 13A in being changed lost its correct part of speech (originally I’d sent in ‘following’ rather than the published ‘pursues’).

    These bloody workaday compilers though. Pshaw. They get what they deserve.

    Cheers
    Neo

  4. Once I got going I enjoyed his style. I didn’t get 25a but it is my custom to leave at least one for the angels.

    And it is really delightful when the setter enters into the spirit of the game. Thank you NEO and Grant.

  6. Thanks Neo and Grant

    Enjoyed this one and although the clock indicated that it wasn’t too hard, it certainly didn’t feel that way as I was doing it, especially with the parsing of a number of them.

    At 13a, I had HIP = ‘pursues latest trends’, then I think it works OK !

    There were a couple of instances where the wordplay looked as if it wasn’t right at first – but with more care, they were exactly right – STRAW POLL (where the last three words all were involved with a particular letter) and SUSHI (where the South and America needed to be separated).

    OGRES was tough until finally saw the RES bit = substitute but still had to chase down the OG abbreviation (assume that it is written up in sports scores). With soccer being the third layer of football down here, after AFL and Rugby, I have never seen it before. That was my last one in …

  7. Thanks to Neo (and all) for posting back. In saying ‘workaday’ I wasn’t for a second implying mediocrity, of course. I’m not a setter and still stand amazed at their skills. The Tuesday FT is, by convention it seems, at the easier end of the daily cryptic spectrum and it’s a pleasure & privilege to blog it. As I said last time, I could sometimes wish for a puzzle that stretched one a little more but then I got one and blogging it was bloomin’ stressful, I’ll tell you. I know my place.
    The errant ‘A’ in 15d was just a fat-finger mistake in the underlining, as my parsing suggests.
    The ‘protected’ omission in BOWHEAD was a miss, pure and simple.
    D’you know, I’d completely forgotten about Owen Smith: my reason for tentatively including SMITH in the mini-theme was the late and much-lamented John, one-time Labour leader.
    But it was nice to know that my problems with the grammar in 13a (ROSEHIP) weren’t just me being over-pernickety.
    It is indeed fun when the setter joins back in. Thanks again, Neo.

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