Financial Times 16,066 by CHALMIE

13 comments on “Financial Times 16,066 by CHALMIE”

1. Thanks (at last) PD.

   30a is supposed to be GER in LINE + D = old penny = once copper, but I can see that it’s parsable a different way to make the “once” redundant. Your version’s better, actually.

2. Thanks PeeDee.

   I think in 13a you need to abandon a DS (Detective Sergeant), not a DI.

3. Thanks Chalmie for what was for me a challenging puzzle. FOI COWLED, LOI POMMEL. It’s a pangram , BTW.

4. Very enjoyable crossword, medium difficulty, with the ‘theme’ well worked out.

   My last one in was BOYZONE. Had to be it, of course, but I’m afraid I’d never heard of that paper.

   In the years I lived in The Netherlands, it was always OLYMPIAKOS (as googling Dutch sites will confirm). But, yes, I saw that the club’s own website mentions OLYMPIACOS (which looks quite odd to me). Moreover in the Greek language it is written with a “?” (kappa).

   I took 30ac as Chalmie intended and perhaps liked LEVERETS (20d) the most [though a new word for me] because of the smooth surface (bar set high).

   Thanks once more PeeDee, & Chalmie.

5. Apparently, Fifteensquared doesn’t do Greek characters but “?” should be something that resembles “K”.

6. Thanks to PeeDee and Chalmie

   I have only recently started solving at the FT and have been delighted at the standard of setting. Chalmie, for me, is up there with the best.

   Re: 27ac I know there seems to be some sort of convention against “double duty”, but I don’t have a problem with it – I see it as simply another level of “encryption”, especially when employed in, as PeeDee says, “a great clue”.

7. Thanks to Chalmie and PeeDee. I struggled with a lot of the clues (e.g., OLYMPIAKOS and the red in LINGERED) and failed to get BOYZONE along with EYOT.

8. Thanks  to the commenters, particularly Dansar for the flattering reference.

   I fiddled around with the MAFIOSI clue trying to get it technically correct, but couldn’t find an elegant way of doing it. (I’m not Richard Rogan.) But I was recently reminded of George Orwell’s style guide for journalists, which finishes with Rule 6 – Break any of these rules rather than say something outright barbarous- and reckoned something similar ought to apply.

    

9. Thanks Chalmie and PeeDee
   Another entertaining puzzle from this setter with a clever play on ‘players’. A lot of variety with the clue devices and liked some of the clever definitions – ‘double teapotting’, ‘3 of 27’, ‘cycling excessively’, ‘Hare’s children’ and of course the ‘players’.
   Had parsed LINGERED the same way as the blog.
   Finished up in the NW corner with the same two clues as some others. Had initially written in BEYONCÉ at 10a – but couldn’t resolve BE for ‘sound like paper’ and of course 3D didn’t work. Eventually saw EYOT and Ronan Keating’s lot finished it off. Really nice crossword !!

10. Many thanks, Chalmie, for the puzzle, and PeeDee for the blog.

    Two comments.

    Not sure that there is double duty in the MAFIOSI clue if one sees “they” as the definition, aided by all that goes before it in the clue.

    Also from keeping in touch with football, esp Champions League, over recent years, OLYMPIAKOS and OLYMPIACOS seem pretty much interchangeable.   Sometimes one is used, sometimes the other, but I think it’s definitely the same team!      Something I guess to do with putting Greek characters into what we are used to, but I’m no expert on that.

     

11. Thanks for the blog, PeeDee.

    This was a greatly enjoyable challenge except for 1ac, which I thought was a complete aberration.

12. Grumpy – I see now that I should have written “neat female” for COW, not just “female”.  Neat is another word for cattle, so a neat female is a cow.

    I don’t know if this makes any difference to your view of the clue, but I have updated the blog anyway.  Thanks for bringing the omission to my attention.

13. Thanks for taking the trouble to further explain 1ac, PeeDee.

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