Financial Times 16,645 by REDSHANK

19 comments on “Financial Times 16,645 by REDSHANK”

1. A curate’s egg today. I’ve mentioned in the past that the FT seems particularly bad at proofreading clues and yet again we see an anagram error at 25a. Strangely, I remember a similar error for “smell a rat” some years ago. If 20a is supposed to be an &lit, then it fails badly IMO. It has been said many times that clueing YE as “the old” (as in 22d) is a bit iffy. Since ye for the still exists in some dialects (“Be off with ye”), “the local” works better. Apart from these gripes, the puzzle as a whole was pretty good.

2. Thanks PeeDee. 19a was my least favourite clue: clueing the SOCCER part as “game” is very weak – without crossers it could equally well give HOCKEY MOM, which is also a common phrase.

   Not impressed by 10a either: the two definitions are basically the same.

   I thought 20a was perhaps trying be an &lit, but if so it doesn’t really work.

   In the interests of balance, I did like the simple but elegant 1d.

3. Hovis @1

   Anagram error at 25a? Pl check and clarify. TIA.

4. I don’t understand why we should object to the use of ‘the old’ for YE. After all, it’s obsolete. In the illustrative phrase “Be off with ye,” I think ye means ‘you’. It is not the definitive article.. Pl set me right, if I am wrong.

5. I’m with Rishi. Pull yourself together, Hovis! 😀

   I don’t see how “the local” could be seen as an improvement, and ye (old) is a reference to how ‘the’ used to look, isn’t it?

   I can’t see that BOW AND SCRAPE could have been an attempt at an &lit. More likely a draft clue without definition for the time being that inadvertently wasn’t returned to.

   My favourite was IMPERISHABLE, a nice surface for an unpromising word.

6. I always like Duggie’s puzzles but I smelt a lat here.

   So the Graun doesnt have a monopoly on lack of editing!

7. I’m with copmus (and Hovis and Turbolegs) and wonder how Rishi @3 and Nila Palin parsed 25ac.

   But I agree with you re BOW AND SCRAPE, Nila and with Andrew re SOCCER MOM.

   Rather disappointing for a Redshank but I did have ticks for ACCESSIBLE, IMPERISHABLE, ETCH and PHLEBOTOMY.

   Thanks to Redshank and Turbolegs.

8. My comment stemmed from the following wording in the Hovis Comment above: “It has been said many times that clueing YE as “the old” (as in 22d) is a bit iffy.”

9. Rishi @8 – I was referring @7 to your comment @3, querying Hovis’ query re 25ac.

10. Eileen, 25a is RAINFOREST. If you mean SMELL A RAT, that’s obviously an inexplicable R for L error. I was pulling Hovis’s leg about 25a not being an anagram clue and ye meaning ‘you’ not ‘the’ in his example, as Rishi had pointed out.

11. Apologies. Of course my example was ye for you which makes no sense at all. The reason I used “iffy” as opposed to “wrong”, is that the use of “y” for the thorn character makes ye a representation of the old word for “the”. Admittedly, it is a representation that has been around for a long time but that doesn’t stop it being iffy.

    And yes I meant 15a not 25a. Think I need to get somebody to proofread my posts 🙂 Maybe I need to go back to bed.

12. Oh dear – lots of cross-purposes and misunderstandings!

    My apologies, Nila and Rishi: I ‘borrowed ’25ac’ from Hovis’ comment rather than the blog.

13. I hope RDA pops in to call this Comments section a curate’s egg!

14. In 20a, I took PERFORMANCE to be doing double duty i.e. also the def.

    How about “ye old curiosity shop”? Much fun, thanks to Redshank and Turbolegs.

15. John @14, I can’t see any support for BOW AND SCRAPE as a noun, so I doubt performance is intended as a definition too. I don’t think performance can mean anything like kowtow either.

16. John @14. Apologies if I didn’t understand your question. ‘Ye olde curiosity shop’ was spelt with an initial thorn, not a Y, so ‘Ye’ was pronounced ‘The’. The thorn had disappeared from the alphabet when printing presses were invented, so printers used a Y   as the closest character in form. Hence why I said “ye” was a representative for the old form of “the”. I agree I am being a bit overly pedantic, so I won’t say any more on this (now, or ever again, much to most people’s delight I suspect 🙂 ).

17. Thanks to both for the entertainment and explanation. I think this is the second time “Rudd” has appeared over the last couple of weeks and it made no sense to be there in either case. Maybe the setters are repressed Australians hankering for an ex-PM. Along the way I found Rudd and ling are different families so that ruled the approach of using an old crossword favourite.
    I too wondered if I could call BOW AND SCRAPE a performance. Then I got to “box” meaning “scrap” and could not make that fit either.
    Thoroughly enjoyed the rest.

18. Despite not understanding BOW AND SCRAPE I rather enjoyed solving this crossword in bit and pieces throughout the day. Favourites were RAINFOREST, STUPEFYING, SHATTERPROOF, and YETI. Thanks to both.

19. Thanks Redshank and Turbolegs

    Was able to complete the grid in around the hour, although there was some interesting navigation required to account for a couple of the ‘dodgy’ clues and needed a word finder to get the obscure PHLEBOTOMY as my last one in.

    Had initially entered BOW AND STRIPE at 20a, thinking that was some sort of ‘end of performance’ process but couldn’t find it in a dictionary after which I saw the CRAP + E rather than TRIPE.  Didn’t know of the DEATHWATCH beetle until having to check the only logical answer to the word play.  Can only vaguely recall ‘jolly’ being a British term for a PARTY too.

    An interesting solve for not all of the right reasons.

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