Financial Times 16,791 by BUCCANEER

by

A super puzzle from BUCCANEER to liven up my Friday.

One of those gems where parsing was a puzzle on to itself.

 

FF: 10 DD : 9

ACROSS
1 SUDOKU
Heard solver initially gets kudos, cracking puzzle (6)
[ U ( sounds like you, solver ) KUDOS ]*
4 MNEMONIC
Help to recall retreating soldiers during day in charge (8)
[ ( NEM – reverse of MEN, soldiers ] in MON ( day ) ] IC ( in charge )
9 ERSATZ
Everton’s lead star trashed unknown substitute (6)
E ( Everton, first letter ) [ STAR ]* Z ( unknown )
10 O SOLE MIO
Hint of olive oil, some tossed: an Italian standard (1,4,3)
[ O ( hint of Olive ) OIL SOME ]*
12 LARGHETTO
Run into US city slum at a leisurely pace (9)
R ( run ) in [ LA ( us city ) GHETTO ( slum ) ]
13 ENSUE
Republican’s left to guarantee result (5)
ENSUrE ( guarantee, without R – Republican )
14 HIGH-HANDEDNESS
Majesty’s clothing given imperious quality (4-10)
HIGHNESS ( majesty’s ) containing HANDED ( given )
17 MISINFORMATION
Note evil establishment’s fake news (14)
DMI ( note ) SIN ( evil ) FORMATION ( establishment ) / I had this as ‘Disinf ..’ initially. Thanks Hovis@1 .
21 DEGAS
Perhaps suck the oxygen out of artist (5)
cryptic def; read as DE-GAS ( perhaps suck the oxygen out )
22 POWER LINE
Cable from detainee I don’t know, short message (5,4)
POW ( detainee ) ER ( i don’t know ) LINE ( short message )
24 BONHOMIE
Warmth from aristocrat backing US neighbour (8)
BON ( aristocrat = NOB, reversed ) HOMIE ( american slang for neighbour )
25 OFF-AIR
Not broadcasting old dalliance, a non- starter (3-3)
O ( old ) aFFAIR ( dalliance, without starting letter )
26 ELEMENTS
He and I, say, heating devices (8)
double def; first is chemical symbols of HElium and Iodine
27 LEGEND
Key aspect of female gender and male gender (6)
hidden in “..femaLE GENDer..” and in “..maLE GENDer”
DOWN
1 STEALTHY
Sneaky way to get fit topless (8)
ST ( way ) hEALTHY ( fit, without first letter )
2 DISHRAG
Cross-dressing apparel’s kept somewhat drier (7)
DRAG ( cross dressing apparel ) containing ISH ( somewhat )
3 KETCH
Wiping up sauce boat (5)
KETCHup ( sauce, without UP )
5 NO-SCORE DRAWS
Number 20 pulls out matches that won’t set the world on fire (2-5,5)
NO ( number ) SCORE ( 20 ) DRAWS ( pulls out )
6 MILLENNIA
Philosopher has terribly inane periods (9)
MILL ( philosopher, john stuart ) [ INANE ]*
7 NEMESIS
Undoing Natalie’s jacket I covered in jam (7)
NE ( NataliE’s jacket, end characters ) [ I in MESS ( jam ) ]
8 COOLER
Jug in the fridge, perhaps (6)
double def; didnt know that jug could mean prison until i looked it up on a hunch
11 AT KNIFE-POINT
One wearing fine tank-top out maybe mugged thus (2,5-5)
I ( one ) in [ FINE TANK TOP ]* – clever surface
15 HAILSTONE
Ethanol is drunk, a drop of something hard (9)
[ ETHANOL IS ]*
16 INTERRED
Italian side like Liverpool in the ground (8)
INTER ( italian side ) RED ( ~ like liverpool )
18 INGENUE
Unsophisticated girl and Frank moving in (7)
GENUinE ( frank, with IN moving to the front )
19 IMITATE
Take off tie, and I’m at work! (7)
[ TIE IM AT ]*
20 EDIBLE
Like nosh the European President’s almost thrown up (6)
EL ( the , spanish , ~ european ) BIDEn ( president, almost ) , all reversed
23 RIFLE
Sack or fire one (5)
cryptic def

22 comments on “Financial Times 16,791 by BUCCANEER”

  1. Think 17a should be MISINFORMATION. I take it that “initially” in 1a is there to signify the use of a single letter but, personally, I think the clue would work better without it. Sure many will disagree. Great crossword though.

  3. Thanks for the blog . Think 1ac is U for solver heard with anagram of KUDOS ( initially ) coming first.

  4. Roz @3. Of course you are right. I was taking the first U and never even considered the final one. D’oh!

  6. Super puzzle indeed, Turbolegs.

    Lovely surfaces, as always: I particularly liked 4ac MNEMONIC, 9ac ERSATZ, 10ac O SOLE MIO, 12ac LARGHETTO, 27ac LEGEND, 6dn MILLENNIA, 11dn AT KNIFE-POINT, 15dn HAILSTONE and 18dn INGENUE.

    I was pleased to remember the chemical trick at 26ac!

    I didn’t know HOMIE until last week, when I blogged it in Brummie’s puzzle.

    Many thanks to Buccaneer and scchua.

  8. What Eileen said (again) (apart from the name of the blogger!)

    A splendid testing of the cryptic grey matter – thanks to Buccaneer and Turbolegs

  10. It was only later when I sat admiring all the surfaces that I realised DIS was the wrong start for 17
    DI is a cop! His clues are so precise (and of course misleading)

  11. Thanks to Buccaneer and Turbolegs. Very enjoyable. I slowed myself down by starting with highmindedness rather than HIGHHANDEDNESS but after a course correction all went smoothly.

  12. Good surfaces, as everyone agrees (I particularly liked 12a and 16d), but overall a bit too easy for my liking – less than 15 minutes of my day occupied!

  13. A fine tussle was this, with immaculate cluing which made parsing a joy. I admired many of the clues already mentioned such as ELEMENTS and NO-SCORE DRAWS, along with the nimble KETCH. As mentioned @11, 14a held me up for a while: HIGHHANDEDNESS was my instinctive solution but then I stopped to consider the more apt HIGHHATTEDNESS (abetted by ‘clothing’) until ‘the fine tank top’ forced a return to the original answer.
    Thanks both to Buccaneer and Turbolegs.

  14. Re my comment @12. I have been looking at the comments on yesterday’s Guardian puzzle and see that someone took offence at those who had described it as easy or straightforward. I hope I didn’t give anyone similar offence: I certainly didn’t intend to come across as showing off or undervaluing other people’s experience. Perhaps “too easy” was tactless.

    In my defence, it was a genuine reflection of my experience and I would have preferred something which I found a bit tougher. I would say the same about the average Monday Vulcan in the Guardian. And if it is OK to say that something is hard, should the reverse not also be acceptable? It’s an individual experience: my wife will tell me that her killer sudoku was “easy today” and I don’t take it as reminder that I wouldn’t have the faintest idea how to start one.

    I’ll try to be rather more restrained in future!

  15. Perplexus @ 14: You’re expressing an opinion, which is fine. Others may disagree with your opinion, which is also fine. But you shouldn’t be criticised for expressing it in the first place.

    In my view, criticising someone for expressing a view says more about the second poster than the first.

  16. A lovely puzzle which was pitched just right for me – although I thought it was going to be a struggle with only 3 on the first pass. I had ticks against MNEMONIC (if only for including such a wonderful word) DEGAS ELEMENTS (it took me a while to see the old periodic table trick) LEGEND NEMESIS EDIBLE and IMITATE but I could have ticked more. I didn’t parse POWER LINE as I missed POW=detainee! Thanks to Buccaneer and Turbolegs.

  17. Simon S@15, thank you. I’m quite new to the site, so don’t want to tread on any toes.

  18. A very satisfying solve; plenty to savour, such as MNEMONIC, ERSATZ, O SOLE MIO, LARGHETTO, HAILSTONE and ELEMENTS. HOMIE was new to us – Chambers has it as a variant of ‘homeboy’ and gives the ‘neighbour’ meaning under ‘homeboy’.
    Thanks, Buccaneer and Turbolegs.

  19. Many thanks to everyone for commenting, and especial thanks to Turbolegs for the terrific blog.

  20. Thanks Buccaneer – superb fun, although I was another DIS in 17a. Thanks Turbolegs for putting me right.

  21. Struggled… but in a good way… had to get some help for BONHOMIE …still don’t see NOB as anything apart from a derogatory term for someone who thinks they’re an aristo.. but clear enough apart from that.. some outright genius in there as already detailed..
    Thanks BUCCANEER n Turbolegs

  22. Thanks Buccaneer and Turbolegs
    Very late to the party here and just got to this one today. Took about average time and enjoyed every minute of it – everything in OK and all parsed, including the MISINFORMATION but it did take longer than it should have to see the chemical ELEMENTS at 26a.
    Think that this is the first time that Mr Biden has made it into an FT puzzle and cleverly done too – let’s hope that he doesn’t appear as much as his predecessor did.
    Started up in the NW corner with ERSATZ and ended up finishing there as well with LARGHETTO (eventually remembered it), STEALTHY and DISHRAG (which took a while to get and a bit longer to parse).

Comments are closed.