Financial Times 16,874 by MOO

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A clever puzzle from Moo.

For me, this was the kind of puzzle where steady progress was the order of the day. My first scan of the across clues yielded a few answers, giving me crossers that allowed me to slot in a few gimmes among the down answers. Then I repeated the exercise, and was then only left with the tricky NW corner, which held out for a bit longer, until I saw PLOUGH and that was enough to allow me to complete.

My favourite clues were BEARSKIN, STAMPEDE and ROULETTE (for their simplicity), COUCH and BECAME.

Thanks Moo

ACROSS
1 TRIFLE
The gun he left behind? It’s nothing (6)

T(he) RIFLE ("gun") with HE left behind
4 ROYAL OAK
Boozer providing sanctuary for Charles? (5,3)

ROYAL OAK is a common pub name, and the future King Charles II sought refuge in a tree, now dubbed the Royal Oak, while escaping the Roundheads after the Battle of Worcester
9 PLOUGH
Cultivate the stars (6)

Double definition, the second referring to a group of the seven brightest stars in the Great Bear constellation.
10 APRICOTS
Fruit from American tropics going off (8)

A (American) + *(tropics) [anag:going off]
12 EDUCATOR
Teacher raced out unexpectedly (8)

*(raced out) [anag:unexpectedly]
13 GANDER
Look! A goose! (6)

Double definition, the first a colloquialism.
15 ROAM
Wander round dictator’s capital (4)

Homophone of [dictator's (think "dictation to a PA" rather than Mussolini)] ROME ("capital")
16 BLUE-PENCIL
Censor pornographic writer (4-6)

BLUE ("pornographic") + PENCIL ("writer")
19 SWEETHEART
Girlfriend giving you an E? (10)

The HEART (i.e, middle (letter)) of SWEET is "E"
20 MATE
Couple having tea (4)

Double definition, the second referring to a South American infusion.
23 BECAME
Was appointed bishop by reactionary church? Answer me! (6)

B (bishop) by [revolutionary] <=CE ("Church" of England) + A (answer) + ME
25 BEARSKIN
Cover naked flesh, you say? (8)

Homophone [you say] of BARE SKIN ("naked flesh")
27 ROULETTE
Game allowed to block path (8)

LET ("allowed") to block ROUTE ("path")
28 ADVERB
Sailor holding vicar back, foolishly perhaps (6)

AB (able-bodied seaman, so "sailor") holding <=REVD (reverend, so "vicar", back)
29 ACHIEVER
Successful chap running European archive (8)

*(e archive) [anag:running] where E = European
30 NEEDLE
Annoy junkie using this? (6)

Double definition
DOWN
1 TOP GEAR
TV show describing Panama thus? (3,4)

A hat could be described as GEAR for the TOP (head)
2 INOCULATE
To guard against infection I clean out wound (9)

*(I clean out) [anag:wound]

Wound = past tense of wind
3 LEGMAN
FBI agent tailing the French errand boy (6)

G-MAN ("FBI agent") tailing LE ("the" in "French")
5 OOPS
Rings when dumped by husband? Oh dear (4)

(h)OOPS ("rings" dumped by H (husband))
6 AGITATED
I’m worried, a soldier said, heading off (8)

A GI (American "soldier") + (s)TATED [heading (i.e. first letter) off]

The "I'm" in the clue refers to the answer, as if the answer were talking to us. I haven't seen this device often in crosswords, but it is common in other word games.
7 OF OLD
Nothing written by congregation in times past (2,3)

O (nothing) written by FOLD ("congregation)
8 KESTREL
Bird among quickest released (7)

Hidden in [among] "quicKEST RELeased"
11 COLLIER
Pitman increasingly happy with new leader (7)

(j>C)OLLIER ("increasingly happy" (jollier) with new leader (i.e. first letter))
14 HEARTEN
Encourage woman to acquire English guile (7)

HEN ("woman") to acquire E (English) + ART ("guile")
17 CRACKHEAD
Excellent teacher but an addict (9)

CRACK ("excellent") + HEAD ("teacher")
18 STAMPEDE
MP teased about career (8)

*(mp teased) [anag:about]
19 SIBERIA
Southern peninsula, a place of exile (7)

S (southern) + IBERIA ("peninsula")
21 ENNOBLE
Honour east German city, overthrown and left half-abandoned (7)

E (east) + <=BONN ("German city", overthrown) and LE(ft) [half-abandoned]
22 BRIDGE
Contract defaced? It makes you cross (6)

(a)BRIDGE ("contract" defaced, i.e. having its front removed)

I'm not sure a bridge MAKES you cross, it LETS you cross, but there's rarely any compunction about the act of crossing a bridge.
24 COUCH
Where one might seduce Conservative? That’s a sore point (5)

C (Conservative) + OUCH! ("that's a sore point")
26 STYE
Some nasty eye infection (4)

Hidden in [some] "naSTY Eye"

15 comments on “Financial Times 16,874 by MOO”

  2. Funnily, PLOUGH was my foi. Thought the clues for ROYAL OAK & BEARSKIN were a bit weak but others more than made up for these. Held up parsing BRIDGE for a while thinking “contract” was a reference to “contract bridge”. I took “cross” as the definition with “it makes you” as link words between wordplay and definition.

  3. I had a similar experience to Loonapick but with the SW corner taking longest.
    There seemed to be clues within clues in this grid: SWEETHEART put the notion of HEARTEN into my head, CRACKHEAD easily led to NEEDLE and 13’s GANDER (again!) was followed by ‘wander’ in 15 suggestive of the goosey nursery rhyme.
    Favourites were KESTEL and ADVERB. Didn’t see BRIDGE, though obvious in hindsight, and put GRUDGE.
    Still, most enjoyable from Moo and thanks, Loonapick.

  4. Thanks Moo and Loonapick
    22dn: I agree with Hovis @2, taking “cross” = “bridge” as verbs.

  5. SE corner held me up longest. 28ac fooled me for some time.
    I seem to remember OOPS in another crossword recently. But some clever clues and excellent blog.

  6. Re 28A, I just could not see where the “D” came from. I have never seen this abbreviation of “reverend” before.

  7. Another victim of 22d for which I also had an unparsed ‘grudge’. Yes, seeing it now the clue does work with BRIDGE as a verb. I solved ADVERB from the def (helped by the same answer elsewhere in the last few days) but like Peter @6, I couldn’t work out where the extra D came from; ‘vicar’ is usually abbreviated to REV rather than REVD. Still, no complaints.

    I enjoyed the surface for CRACKHEAD and having another encounter with the ‘pornographic writer’ at 16a – strictly crossword land only of course.

    Thanks to Moo and loonapick

  8. Thanks to Moo and loonapiick. I had no trouble with BRIDGE because I read the clue as abridge defaced. I did not know MATE could be tea but even here in the US remembered King Charles and Royal Oak.

  9. As regards REVD, both dictionary.com and thefreedictionary.com have it as an abbreviation for REVEREND.

  10. Thanks Moo, that was enjoyable. I had grudge, changed it to BRIDGE, then changed it back again! Didn’t see the clever parsing for SWEETHEART and needed a word finder for HEARTEN but otherwise this was fairly straightforward for me. I loved the surface for INOCULATE and I also ticked SIBERIA as a favourite. I liked ADVERB as well and that was made easier by a similar clue this week as WordPlodder said. Thanks loonapick for the blog.

  11. Very enjoyable but bristling a little at the unnecessary sexism of achiever being a “successful chap” and hen signified by “woman” rather than female.

  12. Great fun, thanks Moo.
    I did the top half yesterday afternoon and only got round to the bottom with my breakfast coffee today.
    I had a different parsing for MATE, as the tea could be China which is also “mate”.
    Thanks for the explanations Loonapick.

  13. No real problems although we needed 2dn to nail 15ac as ROAM and not ‘Rome’. Nor was it immediately obvious which letter 11dn began with as it was unchecked although the balance of probabilities was for COLLIER.
    As for ‘Rev’ or ‘Revd’, don’t quote us on this but we think Anglicans tend to use the former and nonconformists the latter although they are interchangeable.
    Thanks, Moo and loonapick.

  14. Thanks Moo and loonapick
    Funny how differently we all solve these puzzles. The NW fell quickly with 12a, 2d and 15a going in immediately. Things did slow up a bit after that with the SE corner giving most trouble, especially the definition by example for ADVERB, having to dredge up the MATE drink from the depths, CRACKHEAD (clever) and BEARSKIN, which was the last one in.
    Thought that the clue for BRIDGE was one of the best, it took a while to get away from the concept of ‘contract bridge’ and see the use of ABRIDGE. Initially started parsing OOPS with ‘rings’ = O O and getting nowhere. BECAME was trickier than it ought to have been.

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