Financial Times 15,616 by ARMONIE

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Apologies for late blog, busy moving house… Fortunately a pretty steady solve today only held up by my own incompetence with 30a.

Nothing to frighten the horses but plenty of effortless cluing and the odd spark of wit from Armonie to keep us entertained.

completed grid
Across
1 CREASE Screw up credit facility (6)
  CR[edit] + EASE (‘facility’).
4 SENTENCE Decision put in a string of words (8)
  Double definition.
9 LARIAT Rope in a trial becomes tangled (6)
  Anagram (‘tangled’) of A TRIAL.
10 AT RANDOM Reading joiner gets into scrap by chance (2,6)
  R[eading], one of the ‘3 Rs’, + AND (a conjunction or ‘joiner’) all inside ATOM (a ‘scrap’).
12 MEAN Workers keeping one close (4)
  A (‘one’) in MEN (‘workers’).
13 POUND The poet’s pen (5)
  Double def: Ezra POUND, US poet and animal ‘pen’.
14 STUN Overcome rejection of madmen (4)
  NUTS reversed.
17 TAKE THE FLOOR Rise to make a speech or dance (4,3,5)
  Double def.
20 EVERY MAN JACK Each bloke’s a knave – without exception (5,3,4)
  EVERY (‘each’) + MAN (‘bloke’) + KNAVE (‘Jack’, in card games).
23 RULE Regret keeping Liberal in control (4)
  L[iberal] in RUE (‘regret’).
24 PAINT Page is not commonly in colour (5)
  P[age] + AIN’T (slang or ‘commonly’ for ‘is not’).
25 NOUN Sister hides ring that’s substantive (4)
  O (a ring, from shape) in NUN (‘sister’).
28 ARCHIVES Old records of playful American composer (8)
  ARCH (‘playful’) + Charles IVES, US composer.
29 HOMAGE Tribute to safe environment that has a silver lining (6)
  HOME (‘safe environment’) contains AG (Ag = silver). I always pronounce this ‘hommidge’ tho’ the French/American ‘Oh-marge’ seems to be gaining ground.
30 DISCLOSE Record waste and make it known (8)
  DISC (‘record’) + LOSE (to ‘waste’). In haste, I had this as DISCOVER until the very end. More haste…
31 REGARD Watch bearing (6)
  Double def. To have bearing is ‘to regard’, I s’pose.
Down
1 CALAMITY Briefly state friendship is a disaster (8)
  CAL[ifornia], as in e.g.’Caltech’ + AMITY, (‘friendship’).
2 EARMARKS Sets aside rare mask for review (8)
  Anagram of RARE MASK.
3 SPAR Boom in health resort by river (4)
  SPA + R[iver].
5 ENTANGLEMENT Affair of gentleman, all at sea, in hospital department (12)
  Anagram (‘all at sea’) of GENTLEMAN in E[ar] n[ose] and T[hroat] dept.
6 TRAM Redhead wears beret in vehicle (4)
  ‘Head’ of R[ed] in TAM (O’Shanter, Scots ‘beret’).
7 NUDITY Awfully untidy in the natural state (6)
  Anagram (‘awfully’) of UNTIDY.
8 ERMINE Queen has an abundance of fur (6)
  ER, the Queen, obvs, + MINE (an ‘abundance’).
11 CODEBREAKERS Charlie’s poem on waves is crackers (12)
  C[harlie] + ODE (‘poem’) + BREAKERS, plus cryptic def.
15 STAVE Piece of wood to recover? About time! (5)
  SAVE (‘recover’) around T[ime].
16 BOUND Spy to capture union leader? That’s certain! (5)
  James BOND around U[nion}.
18 PANORAMA Prospect for gold in the country (8)
  OR (heraldic and Fr. ‘gold’) in PANAMA.
19 SKINHEAD Girl accepts family notice alienated youth (8)
  KIN (‘family’) in SHE (‘girl’), then AD[vertisement, ‘notice’) with one social definition of the aggressive youth phenomenon of the 70s.
21 ERRAND Make a mistake with commission (6)
  ERR + AND (‘with’).
22 FLICKS Head of firm flogs cinema (6)
  F[irm] + LICKS (‘flogs’, in a Tom Sawyer-ly way).
26 VIAL Small vessel going through lake (4)
  VIA (‘going through’) + L[ake].
27 ROBE Take award for costume (4)
  R[ecipe], Latin for ‘take’, hence start of cooking instructions, + OBE (‘award’).

*anagram

6 comments on “Financial Times 15,616 by ARMONIE”

  3. A nice straightforward puzzle that could be recommended to those fairly new to crossword solving, containing as it does, quite a few old friends of those who’ve been solving these things for more years than we are probably prepared to admit

    Thanks to Armonie and Grant – hope you remembered where you packed the kettle and tea bags 😉

  4. Thanks Grant, nice and easy in the familiar Armonie / Chifonie style.
    I still have one question (about 12ac).
    Can anyone give me an example which shows that MEAN can be ‘close’?

  5. “Mean” can mean “miserly”. “Close” and “close-fisted” can also mean “miserly”.

    Please excuse the puns on mean.

  6. Thanks Armonie and Grant

    Found this had a bit more meat than usual from this setter, perhaps made a little more testing with the grid that was used with a higher number of words having the initial letter blocked.

    Needed the blog to properly sort out AT RANDOM and I parsed ROBE a little differently, opting for ROB (take) + E-award (a US export award apparently that I was very chuffed to have found!). Anyway … That was my second to last in – followed by the tricky CODEBREAKER as the last.

    Enjoyed this one more than normal from Armonie.

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