Financial Times 16,059 by NEO

by

Enjoyable puzzle with some very pleasing surfaces.

Slow out of the blocks this morning but nothing troublesome in the end and plenty to admire on the way. Thanks to Neo for the fun.

 

completed grid

 

Across
1 OCTAVE Group of eight taking time in old grotto (6)
T[ime] in O[ld] + CAVE (‘grotto’).
5 BACKBONE Courage shown in personal column? (8)
Cryptic def, as in a person’s spinal column.
9 GRADIENT Peter out in allotment finds incline (8)
DIE (‘peter out’) in GRANT (‘allotment’).
10 SMARTS Work in texting service is painful (6)
ART (‘work’) in SMS (a texting service).
11 DETEST Really dislike exam after two low grades (6)
D & E wd be poor TEST results.
12 SKELETON Poet retaining English structure as basis (8)
John SKELTON (poet, 1460-1529) contains E[nglish].
14 SNAKE CHARMER Musical performer doubly caddish? (5,7)
‘Snake’ and ‘charmer’ are not epithets a decent chap would wish to attract.
18 VIDEO NASTIES Sedation abused during fights in sick films (5,7)
Anagram (‘abused’) of SEDATION in VIES (‘fights’).
22 TEMPLATE Model and casual worker behind schedule (8)
Simply TEMP (‘casual worker’) + LATE (‘behind schedule’).
25 STREET Dreadful setter in the way (6)
Anagram (‘dreadful’) of SETTER.
26 CARESS Irritant gas about Mars causing stroke (6)
CS (irritant tear gas) surrounds ARES (Greek god of war, ‘Mars’ to the Romans).
27 PROHIBIT Greek character’s piece about men reversing ban (8)
PHI (‘Greek character’ we know well) + BIT (‘piece’) surround O[ther] R[anks] (‘men’, reversed).
28 NEPENTHE Write article on nearly-new drug (8)
PEN THE (‘write article’) after NEw, or nearly, to give a drug. I, er, forget which sort.
29 MATTER Mother drinking Tango becomes issue (6)
T[ango], radio code, in MATER.
Down
2 CURFEW Not many supporting scoundrel in travel restriction (6)
FEW (‘not many’) beneath CUR (‘scoundrel’). Plenty of bounders about today.
3 ADDRESSEE One sent letter in area with Don feeding Dee (9)
A[rea] + DRESS (to put on clothes, to ‘don’, more or less) in DEE.
4 EYESTRAIN Irritation right in retina that needs treatment (9)
YES (‘right’) in anagram (‘needs treatment’) of RETINA.
5 BATISTE Fabric is held in short wooden strip (7)
IS in BATTEn, (‘wooden strip’, shortened). From the French ‘Baptiste’, to do with baptismal robes, Chambers informs us.
6 CASTE Hard to be expelled from immaculate social group (5)
ChASTE (‘immaculate’) without H[ard].
7 BRAVE Courageous Victor breaking into Bank of Scotland (5)
V[ictor] in BRAE, Scottish river ‘bank’.
8 NITROGEN Get iron transmuted to new element (8)
Anagram (‘transmuted’) of GET IRON + N[ew]. Not difficult, or original, I think, but very pretty.
13 LEA Bluejay appearing regularly in meadow (3)
Alternate letters of ‘bLuEjAy’.
15 HAILSTORM Morals hit badly when Sky drops The Stones? (9)
Anagram (‘badly’) of MORALS HIT. Another nice surface.
16 RESTRAINT Tutor in break makes check (9)
TRAIN (to ‘tutor’) in REST (‘break’).
17 LITERATE Educated to use repetition following lecturer’s lead (8)
ITERATE (‘to use repetition’) after 1st letter of L(ecturer).
19 OWL Creature from Old World lakes originally (3)
O[ld] + 1st letters of W(orld) + L[akes].
20 STEEPLE Tower viewed in modified telescope firm put out (7)
Anagram (‘modified’) of TELEScoPE minus CO[mpany], i.e. ‘firm put out’.
21 FELINE Persian for one using iron railway (6)
FE (‘iron’) + LINE (‘railway’).
23 PIECE Artwork for King or Queen (5)
Double definition.
24 ASSET Ship loads drink that’s brought back strength (5)
SS (‘ship’) in TEA (‘drink’), reversed.

*anagram

13 comments on “Financial Times 16,059 by NEO”

  1. Thanks Neo and Grant
    Hope that you both had a good New Year. Good workout here – not too easy / not too hard and as you say, some nice clues throughout. (Seems as though your workings for 6d and 7d have gone missing).
    Particularly enjoyed working out the anagrams if VIDEO NASTIES and STEEPLE.
    Took a while to nut out the SW corner – but eventually ‘unforgot’ NEPENTHE and the tricky ASSET finished it off.

  2. Most enjoyable — BACKBONE made me laugh. However, I’m sorry to say I just couldn’t get 26ac, and needed Grant’s help on other parsing. My fault, just one of those days. Thanks, Grant — and of course Neo.

  4. I’d agree with the not too easy, not too hard with quite a few smiles along the way

    Thanks to Neo and Grant

  5. Enjoyable but hard work down in the SW. I eventually had the ‘N’ and the ‘P’ the wrong way round in 28a and couldn’t parse CARESS.

    Worth sticking with though. I liked VIDEO NASTIES and the surface for SNAKE CHARMER. Never heard of the fifteenth century poet before and BATISTE was another to go into the ‘new words’ file.

    Thanks to Neo and to Grant.

  6. Thanks to Neo and Grant. I struggled with VIDEO NASTIES (new to me), SNAKE CHARMER, and BATISTE-batte(n) so I ended up spotting EYESTRAIN and ADDRESSEE. A good workout.

  8. Thanks for the blog, Grant Baynham.

    I’ve never heard of BATISTE or NEPENTHE.
    A steeple isn’t a tower. It sits on top of a tower.
    Every time I see men = OR I groan and remember the great Goldwynism “Let’s have some new cliches!”

    I rate this 6/10.

  9. Thanks Neo & Grant.

    Collins suggests that Batiste may be named after Baptiste of Cambrai, a 13th-century French weaver reputed to have invented the fine plain-weave cotton.

  10. To Grumpy @8…
    I’m presuming you grump for fun, which is is fine and endearing (keep posting) but…
    1) Re: BATISTE & NEPENTHE
    Not knowing a word is part of the game. As it goes, I knew ‘nepenthe’ but not ‘batiste’
    2) For ‘STEEPLE’, Chambers gives at Def 1 ‘A church or other other TOWER [my emphasis] with or without, or including or excluding, a spire’, so yah-boo-sucks to that one.
    3) O[ther] R[anks]. If that’s your predictability test, stop bothering. You & I cd come up with a thousand such.

  12. I am a very inexperienced crossword solver, so I do like my clues to be super-precise.  So when I see for example: “Clue: Dreadful setter in the way (6)Answer: STREET  Explanation: Anagram (‘dreadful’) of SETTER”, I was looking at the clue and thinking “what is the word IN doing in that clue, it directs me to putting an anagram of setter or me or neo inside a short word meaning the way or a road etc.  In my amateur view the right clue for this answer would be something like “Dreadful setter makes way”, so you have an anagram of SETTER making STREET.  So why did NEO choose to go for “in the” way? I’d really like your views.

  13. To Cafrin@12:
    Happy to oblige but I think this is one for General Discussion, buttton above. If you re-post there I’ll come back to you in detail…

Comments are closed.