Financial Times 16,906 by Chalmie

15 comments on “Financial Times 16,906 by Chalmie”

1. And there’s FRAGILE – not one to overlook – and GHOST [in the Machine] too!

2. 1a was a fitting way to start this entertaining and moderately challenging tribute from Chalmie. And a belated Happy Birthday to Sting the cruciverbalist! Wonder if he lurks here and is among the more exacting solvers?
   That was my FOI and I didn’t immediately twig that there was a theme until seeing BLUE TURTLES and RAIN FOREST.
   The misprint for 8d/10a was not what caused the hold-up in solving this pair – among my last entries – but when the penny dropped, I thought it the best clue of the bunch.
   Also really liked my penultimate answer, HOBART.
   Thanks to Chalmie for a memorable grid dnd Pete for a super blog.

3. Good one. Of course I was totally oblivious to the theme until I saw Pete’s blog.

   I had the same experience as Pete with the wrong grid, and assumed the number of letters at the end of the clues were wrong. I eventually worked out that 9 must be SERPENT and the penny dropped. I am so glad the FT feels the need to add this little challenge to our lives.

   I agree with Diane on HOBART and liked BRAND NEW DAY and GREW APART. On the other hand I did not like BREATH YOU TAKE at all – 75% of a song title is no better than half a word as an answer. I had a different, and unsatisfactory way of parsing AIR DRAIN to Pete, and send thanks for showing me the light.

   Thanks to Chalmie for an enjoyable crossword, a great celebration and what I can only imagine was a huge amount of effort. And thanks to Pete for the excellent blog

4. This was fun but I was very irritated by the error, pointing this out on the FT website only resulted in a partial correction.I use the print edition and had to fall back on an online version. However, I got there in the end and enjoyed the puzzle although I failed to spot the theme, not being a Sting aficionado ,although happy to salute him for his work and life . He also has a wonderful garden which he has opened for charity.Perhaps I should guessed given the mention of Police in the rogue clue for 8d.10 ac.
   That said, many thanks to Chalmie for an entertaining and in some ways brilliant puzzle and Pete for a most comprehensive blog.

5. Thanks for the blog and all the effort to sort it out, the Gremlins are still affecting your 8,10 / 10,8 .
   I only had the paper copy so eventually had to make up my own grid. ALDANITI was my favourite.
   I know very little about cricket but I think it must be STUART Broad.

6. Thanks Chalmie and Pete
   4dn: As suspected by Roz@5, the England cricketer is indeed Stuart Broad (not Stewart).

7. Very poor that the FT didn’t print a corrected version the following Saturday or even an apology!

8. To be fair to the FT (Brian L. &7) an apology was printed the following Monday.

9. Thank you for the correction on Stuart Broad.

10. Thanks Pete and all.

    I’ll apologise to Pete for not remembering that FRAGILE was also thematic, because I associated it with the Yes album, and that GHOST was also an allusion (I remember thinking it fortunate that I could chuck that in when G_O_T appeared). But then, contrary to your assumption, I’m not much of a Sting fan. For me, he’s sort of alongside Coldplay, Rush and Joni Mitchell as people who are vastly respected by at least some people but make me wonder why they bothered. However, the 70th birthday of someone rumoured to be an FT solver was too significant to miss, so I had a go.

    It was quite difficult to construct a worthwhile grid, as I discovered. The titles of Sting’s best known works tend to be a) more than 15 letters, b) made-up words for which there is no definition, or c) so unremarkable that not even he would recognise that they were anything to do with him and anyway they don’t make good crossword entries. And his solo work is much less well-known than the Police hits, so it would be totally unfair to clue them as “Sting song”. So I found it a challenge, to say the least, to find enough things to make it clearly a birthday package for those who could spot it (congrats to Diane for doing so unaided) but allow the uninitiated to have a pleasant time solving it while oblivious to what else was there.

    Yes, I agree that it’s unsatisfactory to have 75% of a song title as an entry, but on the other hand I also agree that it’s one of the best clues in the puzzle , so you win some, you lose some. I also think AIR-DRAIN was a dreadful word, but it was the only way I could find of getting the RAIN FOREST bit in, syws, yls.

    The clue I most enjoyed setting was 13a, because “and another thing” is such a weird thing to put as a definition.

11. Oh, the congratulations are all due to you, Chalmie, and I fully appreciate the artfulness required to pull off this grid. Was a big Police fan way back when Regatta de Blanc and Outlandos D’Amour gobbled up my pocket money but I see the challenge presented by these rather daft titles!

12. Thanks Chalmie for an excellent crossword and thoughtful blog entry. My favourite clue was BREATH YOU TAKE but it was the only one I connected to Sting. I was a casual fan of the Police — I liked listening to them on the radio but never enough to buy their music. [I’m a big fan of Coldplay, however, and I own all their music and have seen them thrice in concert.] Anyway, I enjoyed the crossword but had trouble parsing AIR DRAIN and FOREST so thanks Pete for explaining.

13. While I like Sting I was not familiar enough with his work to spot all the references in the puzzle. I have now added FRAGILE and GHOST to the list and updated the grid accordingly. And I must say that I am super impressed with how many references Chalmie managed to squeeze in

14. hear hear

15. Thanks Chalmie and Pete
    Only got to this one last Saturday, using the grid that I had printed out on publication date with its erroneous grid, and was able to complete it in three shortish sessions across the afternoon. Managed to work out the misplacement of the black squares in rows 3 and 13 quite early on after getting SERPENT at 9a.
    Only twigged to who’s birthday it was about two thirds of the way through, when checking on BRAND NEW DAY and seeing it was a Sting album and checked out his bio to confirm. Didn’t know enough about him to pick up most of the other references throughout the grid though.
    Lots of interesting clueing to make it an enjoyable solve as per usual from this setter and finished with Every BREATH YOU TAKE as the last one in just under the hour.

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