Financial Times 16,854 by AARDVARK

by

[If you’re attending York S&B please see comments 32&33] - here

Good surfaces, good fun, good puzzle.

A satisfying Tuesday solve. Thanks to Aardvark.

picture of the completed grid

ACROSS
1 SCHOLAR
One learned from the Sun about celebrity hearsay primarily (7)

S.OLAR ('from the sun') around 1st letters of 'Celebrity Hearsay'. 'Learn-ed' as adjective, of course.
5 POTTAGE
Soup ‘eated, temperature controlled by attendant (7)

hOT (i.e., heated with H dropped) + T[emperature] both in P.AGE (an 'attendant').

9 COMET
Satisfied with fellow high-flyer (5)

CO ('fellow', as in 'co-worker') + MET ('satisfied').
10 FRICASSEE
Cooked meat Sue emptied into container on weekday (9)

FRI[day] + SuE, eviscerated, in CAS.E ('container').
11 EQUIPMENT
Supplies endless adhesive to cover crack (9)

cE.MENT ('adhesive' without front end) surrounds QUIP (a joke, a 'crack').
12 ERASE
Delete some lines a reporter retracted (5)

Reversed inclusion in 'linES A REporter'.
13 DIG IN
Work hard with cut finger, note (3,2)

DIGIt ('finger', shortened) + N[ote].
15 INSWINGER
Ball, popular vocalist, gaining weight (9)

IN ('popular') + S.INGER containing W[eight].
18 CARTWHEEL
New teacher and student embracing women’s revolutionary movement (9)

Anagram ('new') of TEACHER + L[earner] around W[omen].
19 MOTIF
Cat knocked back one made by Mr Kipling? It’s a recurring theme (5)

Reversal of TOM ('cat') + IF (poem by Rudyard Kipling).
21 APPLE
Porter perhaps carrying very soft fruit (5)

A.LE (perhaps 'porter') contains PP ('very soft').
23 PARACHUTE
As normal, pilot when outside shed safety gear (9)

PAR ('as normal') + AC.E (good 'pilot') around HUT.
25 GRASSLESS
One blowing whistle that ends football game alas berates such a pitch? (9)

GRASS (an informer, a 'whistleblower') + end letters of 'footbal', 'gamE', 'alaS', 'berateS'.
26 RAKED
Did some gardening in the nude (initially roasting for November) (5)

nAKED, its N[ovember] replaced by 1st of 'Roasting'.
27 SAMOYED
Upsetting to involve doctor with the old dog (7)

SA.D ('upsetting') includes MO ('doctor') + YE (old form of 'the').
28 SHYSTER
Unscrupulous type reserved vacant seat with little hesitation (7)

SHY ('reserved') + emptied 'SeaT' + ER ('little hesitation').
DOWN
1 SUCCEED
Follow broadcast around university colleges (7)

To 'broadcast' is to (scatter) S.EED, which surrounds U[niversity] + 2x C[ollege].
2 HAMBURGER
German course? (9)

Cryptic food, & kinda double def of person & meat bun, both from Hamburg.
3 LET UP
Stop the Alsatian approaching sheep (3,2)

LE (Fr. 'the', hence 'Alsatian') + TUP ('sheep').
4 REFLEXIVE
On escape around unknown island, Victor needs a particular case (9)

RE (about, 'on') + FLE.E contain X ('unknown') + I[sland] + V[ictor].
5 PAINT
Minor hit screening in colour (5)

PA.T ('minor hit') includes IN.
6 TRAPEZIUM
Small bone mirror in Ritz adjusted by posh maiden (9)

APE (to 'mirror') in anagram ('adjusted') of RITZ + U ('posh') + M[aiden].
7 AT SEA
Occasionally Matty, Stefan and Jack found here? (2,3)

Alternate letters ('occasionally') of 'mAtTy StEfAn'. Jack's a sailor, of course.
8 EYEWEAR
Perhaps shades of European tree attracting attention (7)

E[uropean] + YEW + EAR ('attention')
14 NEW JERSEY
Home of Newark’s latest cheese producer? (3,6)

NEW ('latest') + JERSEY (cow, possible 'cheese producer').
16 SCLEROSIS
Complaint from family member after dancing closer (9)

SIS[ter] after anagram ('dancing') of CLOSER.
17 GUTBUCKET
Jazz-playing style good? According to German male: out of this world (9)

GUT ('good, according to German') + BUCK ('male') +E[xtra] T[errestrial]. 'Gutbucket' jazz is loud, hard-swingin' & down-homey.
18 COAL GAS
Leaves to gather seaweed for fuel (4,3)

CO.S lettuce containing ALGA ('seaweed').
20 FIELDER
Motor racing by oldster leading to slip possibly (7)

F[ormula] 1 + ELDER.
22 PSALM
Religious song Saint’s taken in hand, partly (5)

S[aint] in P.ALM.
23 PLEAD
Beg with quiet restraint (5)

P ('quiet') + LEAD (restraint, as in a dog-lead).
24 CORNY
Old-fashioned seamen, with modest exterior (5)

CO.Y ('modest') contains R[oyal] N[avy].

10 comments on “Financial Times 16,854 by AARDVARK”

  3. Needed a bit of work to get this out. Had to “hit and hope” in going with the wordplay for the never heard of GUTBUCKET. Others were at least familiar, though I don’t really understand how REFLEXIVE = ‘a particular case’.

    I also had a minor quibble with SCLEROSIS as a ‘Complaint’. When preceded by a word like “multiple” or terms such as “athero-” or “oto-” it refers to a specific condition or pathological process, but by itself it just means “hardening”.

    I enjoyed the cricket related clues and spotting the pangram at the end.

    Thanks to Aardvark and Grant

  4. WordPlodder@3: REFLEXIVE is a case in the grammatical sense, referring to the relation of a noun or pronoun to another word in the sentence. In the reflexive case the subject and object of a verb are the same person or thing. In English it’s expressed using reflexive pronouns – “The man blamed himself”.

  5. Hello and thanks, Tom_I @4. I’d heard of REFLEXIVE verbs but when it came to cases – nominative, vocative, accusative, genitive, dative and ablative are the only ones I know – REFLEXIVE just didn’t come up.

    Thanks again for the explanation.

  6. A minor quibble on 11ac: “endless” usually means “unfinished”. I don’t recall seeing it mean “unstarted” before. And as a Yank, I had to look up why an “inswinger” was a ball (similar to an inside pitch in baseball).

    Otherwise, a lovely pangram puzzle and great fun. Thanks to both.

  8. Very entertaining puzzle from Aardvark. Mental ticks by several I enjoyed and nothing I could quibble with. Thanks to Grant for elucidating one or two where I was too lazy (or dim) to sort out the wordplay. GUTBUCKET was a lovely new word for the day and as a cricket fan INSWINGER was a particular favourite.

  9. A bit of thought required to finish this, but we did manage it. LOI was EYEWEAR – we could see the three elements of the word but it didn’t click till we stood back and looked at it as a whole.
    We wondered if there was a mini-theme of food, with POTTAGE, FRICASSEE, APPLE and HAMBURGER, plus reference in the clues to soup and cheese.
    Thanks, Aardvark and Grant.

  10. Thanks Aardvark and Grant
    A meaty early-week puzzle with a lot going on in most of the clues and took a good part of what turned out to be a busy work day to get it finished. No hard words to negotiate, apart from the unknown GUTBUCKET, only very well crafted and nicely disguised word play or definitions to negotiate in the solve. Liked the concise ‘German course’ at 2d and as allan@9 says, EYEWEAR was cleverly defined and was also needed to be pieced together from the word play to sit back and recognise what was going on.
    Finished in the NW corner with LET UP, SCHOLAR (which shouldn’t have taken as long as it did) but most likely caused by having to change the initial INFLEXIVE to REFLEXIVE for it to eventually fall.

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