Financial Times 16,633 by WANDERER

13 comments on “Financial Times 16,633 by WANDERER”

1. With only one clue solved on my first reading, I was prepared for a tough battle and so it proved. After a valiant effort, my LOI was NYLON, with just 23d needing a search to confirm.
   It was well worth the trouble, however, and I appreciated the cheeky wit of 10a/22d (was puzzled at first by the enumeration and the grid layout – wondered if there was a cock-up!) and 20a. Also enjoyed the repetitions of words like ‘blind’, ‘idea’ and ‘dud’ across fodder and answers. 9a was my pick of the day.
   Thanks for the strenuous workout, Wanderer, and Turbolegs for the blog, esp 14d and 16d.

2. Another witty and entertaining puzzle from Wanderer, being rather audacious today, setting the scene with the brilliant 1ac, perhaps my favourite of the lot, with ticks too for 12, 20 and 25ac and 16dn. (I can’t say that 12ac is the epithet that springs most readily to my mind for 20ac!)

   Strange typo in the clue for 20ac – ‘that’s who’s’? (Turbolegs, I think ‘someone’ is part of the definition.)

   I’m not entirely happy with 11dn, as it uses two versions of the same meaning of ‘thoughtless’. For quite a while I dallied with ‘HAVING NO CARE’. And I haven’t decided whether the link with 24ac is very clever or a bit weak.

   That’s but a small quibble – I thought the rest was brilliant and enjoyed it immensely.

   Many thanks to Wanderer and Turbolegs.

    

    

    

    

3. Eileen,
   The same thought occurred to me regarding ‘having no idea’. I tried ‘care’ and ‘tact’ first, thinking ‘idea’ seemed too obvious.

4. A solid and enjoyable puzzle, not without some head-scratching along the way.  We can see several answers which might be associated with 20ac – which we needed all the crossing letters for, even after working out the anagram for 12ac.  And fortuitous timing too, we thought, seeing there’s something of a 16dn at No 10 at the moment.

   We had ‘idea’ in 11dn straightaway from “I haven’t a clue” = “I’ve no idea”.  Sometimes it’s better not to think too cryptically!  On the other hand you have to be alert to devices such as the ‘reverse engineered’ clue (25ac) and the enumeration that differs from the light lengths (10/22).

   Thanks, Wanderer and Turbolegs.

5. Tough but worthwhile — I needed a word finder for 9a, 7d, and 14d and I needed the blog to parse NYLON, BLIND DRUNK, and MIEN but otherwise I was quite satisfied. Favourites included SUFI, DUDE, and NONET. Thanks to both.

6. allan_c @4 – I’ve always loved IMBROGLIO as a word. As you say, it couldn’t be more topical. O tempora …

7. Not helped by having ‘helplessness’ for 3 (which I think works) and Boris came late even after getting FLAXEN-HAIRED, but got there in the end. Good, stiff puzzle. Thanks to both.

8. Am I reading too much into the answers:
   Boris Johnson, plus, of course the following:
   Mock heroic
   Ill advised
   Lost causes
   Blind drunk
   Balls ups
   Having no idea
   Helplessness
   Girlfriend
   Imbroglio
   (Plus reference to Churchill with the result being a clown.)

   Methinks this is far more intelligent Crossie than it seems at first sight….

9. Martin Brice, I agree with you!

10. Me too, as I hinted @2.

11. Eileen@2 – Ref 20a, I agree. I thought the ‘that’s’ was superfluous but didn’t want to underline a clue with a break in between. Also, I would have liked for the connection between 11d and 24a to have been less direct / more cryptic.

    Martin@8 – Excellent catch. The unflattering characterization of the current leadership with the associated foreboding that follows the day of the puzzle (Friday, the 13th!) is indeed remarkable.

    Regards,

    TL

12. This had me laughing-esp not being in UK

13. Thanks Wanderer and Turbolegs

    Was upcountry without a printer so was only able to get to this brilliant puzzle when back home yesterday.  Took about the average time to solve, but it felt much longer.  Did not see the reverse anagram in BLIND DRUNK – saw that DUBLIN was part of the fodder but didn’t twig to how it really worked.  Also didn’t put together all of the theme – so can pick up on the relevance now that you guys are starting along the journey that we did back in June.

    Lots of clever tricks used along the way and especially enjoyed those at 10A-22D (like where a setter can play around with the enumeration of an answer across two parts of the grid and keep both grid components with bona fide words), 18A (seen the less abstract way of using these two cities to get to the answer), 20A (for its complexity), 25A (after it was explained), 13D (the time it took to see it) 14D and 16D (for their complexity too).

    Finally finished with MIEN that took much longer than it should have to see how it worked.

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