Financial Times 17,183 by LEONIDAS

19 comments on “Financial Times 17,183 by LEONIDAS”

1. Thanks for the blog , great set of clues here, too many to list.
   Perhaps BONNET is referring to the Scotch Bonnet chilli ?
   BREADTH I agree about covering indicating inclusion. Maybe okay for a down clue with BREAD over TH.
   ANIMAL was allegedly based on Keith Moon.
   CENTIPEDE was very original.

2. Very difficult indeed to pick a favourite today as there were so many great charades and surfaces.
   Tricky to parse in places but each and every clue reaped rewards.
   I loved the wordplay for 9 across and 23 down.
   Regarding SCOTCH BONNET, I know it first and foremost and a Chilli pepper … to be used with caution.
   A fitting end to what has been a most entertaining week in crosswordland. Many thanks to Leonidas and to Turbolegs.

3. Ah sorry, Roz. This time, you beat me!

4. Thanks for the analysis. Some clever clues here–high marks for 16D and 23D. I took 26A as a reference to the Scotch bonnet pepper or seashell (official state shell of my native state). I don’t think I have ever seen “up” as an anagrind, as in 8D??? I got the reference for 25A, but could not parse the rest. Not too crazy about “ones” as a synonym for “jokes”–I get it, but definitely one of those parse-backwards-from-the-solution clues for me.

5. Another excellent Leonidas puzzle. Agree with others on scotch bonnet. Shame that GUILLEMOT was clued very similarly in Italicus’s outing just 4 days ago but these things happen.

6. I managed to finish this without understanding “bonnet” and its relation to the chilli of which I have never heard.

   Re 15D: is “high” really an anagram indicator?

   I agree with Cineraria about “ones” equating to “jokes”. I just don’t get it.

   Re 7D: a nomad is someone that goes from place to place continuously. A migrant is someone that moves from one place to another – as my parents did in 1965, moving me and my siblings from England to Australia.

   Re 5D: my blanket covers me, so I am happy to accept that “covers” means on top of; although I agree that it could mean “surrounds”.

   Modesty forbids me from commenting on 14A!

   My favourite was 28A. (Why does my spell-checker want to remove the “u” from favourite. Blame Bill Gates!)

7. As Hovis says, another excellent Leonidas puzzle.

   I failed on the parsing of 25ac. Like Diane, I loved the wordplay for 9ac and 23dn – and for 14ac (great surface, too!) and I’m with Cineraria re 16 and 23dn.

   I’ve seen ‘up’ as an anagram indicator a number of times – and it often prompts discussion. It works for me as ‘in an excited state, in revolt’ (Chambers) or ‘amiss’ (also Chambers) as in ‘What’s up?’. I really liked 8d – a a lovely picture!

   Peter @6 – ‘Have you heard the one about …?’ – I’ve seen that a number of times, too.
   ‘High’ can mean ‘drunk’.

   Many thanks to Leonidas and to Turbolegs.

8. Thanks Eileen, I just couldn’t see the relationship between “drunk” and “high”. I can equate to the first, but have never indulged in the latter.

   An afterthought: isn’t 27A usually written as “tuppence”? Isn’t she an actress? Or married to one of the “royals”?

9. Thanks Leonidas and Turbolegs

   I think 27ac would have been better enumerated as (3, 5), which is how “TWO PENCE” appears on the two different designs of coin currently in my possession. Chambers 2014 seems to confirm my view that the single word twopence applies to pre-decimal currency, and there was to coin worth twopence in general circulation immediately before the switch in 1971.
   5dn: I am sure I have seen “covering” many times before to indicated “followed by” in a down clue.

10. Sorry, that should have read “there was no coin worth twopence in general circulation …”

11. Nice puzzle, thanks Leonidas, Turbolegs
    The section on anagrams in the Chambers Crossword Dictionary has this: ‘There are also some indicators that can only be justified by well-established convention. For example, the many synonyms of ‘drunk’ …’
    I suppose it’s one of the first things learned, to link drunk and anagram, but you do have to learn it. Even going from say, drunkenly to drunk is a step in the wrong direction in terms of having indicators that explain themselves. Synonyms like high, on, etc. are steps further. But I expect drunkenness would be a hard habit for setters to kick.

12. Cieraria @ 4 and Peter @ 6 — Response to a joke “that’s good ONE”.

13. “Bonnet” referring to various types of headgear has been used by Scots for centuries, I think ….. “Bonnet o’ Bonnie Dundee” as the song has it, referring back to Jacobite times. I wonder when that chili pepper was named “bonnet”?

14. 5ac: I think Eileen @7 has the point here. You can start a conversational thread with “Have you heard the one about …?”, whereas John’s suggestion @12 is really just using the word “one” in its normal sense as a pronoun, gaining meaning from its context.

    26ac: Chambers 2014 gives three meanings for Scotch bonnet: headgear first, then a type of mushroom, and finally the cooking ingredient. There are over twenty phrases given which start with “Scotch”, and for which it is presumably still acceptable to use that adjective, although many Scottish people these days prefer the word “Scotch” to be avoided as a standard alternative to “Scottish”. Therefore, I took the first part of the clue as meaning that the answer comes from the list where “Scotch” can still be used.

15. When I saw that it was Leonidas on a Friday I almost took a pass but I’m glad I solved this excellent crossword. It was on the easy end of his spectrum but no less clever. I couldn’t parse ANIMAL but all else made sense. Top choices included PIMPLE, FLAMENCO, LEGALESE, ELEVEN, ALASKA, and SELENIUM. Thanks Turbolegs for the blog as well as your numerical ratings.

16. [Diane described the crossword by Rodriguez in yesterday’s Indy as a “blinder.” It certainly was and I highly recommend it. In my opinion it was the best puzzle of the week.]

17. Not too much of a tussle, although it took a while for the penny to drop with some clues – 29ac for example. And SELENIUM was our LOI after we unscrambled the anagram and thought ‘Of course!’
    As for TWOPENCE does anyone refer to the coin by that name? In our experience it’s always ‘two pee’ or even ‘a two pee’ (idea for a clue as a dodgy homophone of ‘toupee’)
    And we don’t get the discussion of a Scotch BONNET as a chilli. We saw the clue as basically a double definition – a bonnet could be Scotch, as in a flat cap (head covering) and is also, in British usage, the covering of the engine compartment of a car. In fact we expected to see comments about that from mystified American solvers.
    Lots to enjoy, from HAGGIS to NITRE with plenty in between. Thanks, Leonidas and Turbolegs.

18. 26a It’s an extremely well known chilli … and I’d just ordered some for tomorrow as it happened so that was a write-in.
    Nowt to do with headgear imho

    Also don’t like “ones” for “jokes” in 5a

19. It was the chilli pepper that I had in mind for 26a. Wiki has just told me that the pepper is ‘named for it’s resemblance to a tam o’shanter hat’, which I did not know but now seems obvious . I should have had a ‘cap’ and ‘capsicum’ link in there … oh well. Thanks to Turbolegs and all who have contributed.

Comments are closed.