I have found some of the recent FT offerings pretty challenging, so it was with some relief that I found the solutions going in readily on this puzzle, although a few required me to go back to cogitate on the parsing. Nice work from Flimsy.
UPDATE: And I just now noticed the inclusion of “FINANCIAL TIMES” reading across on the fifth row up. Very nice.
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | SUSPENSE |
South American writers beginning to exhibit anxiety (8)
|
| S (South) + US (American) + PENS (writers) + E (beginning to e[xhibit]) | ||
| 5 | CONRAD |
Caught working with radical novelist (6)
|
| C (caught) + ON (working) + RAD (slang for radical), i.e., Joseph Conrad | ||
| 9 | PIE CHART |
This displays data about deer going after food (3,5)
|
| PIE (food) + C (about) + HART (deer), with after indicating order of the wordplay | ||
| 10 | PICNIC |
Meal in the open air breeze (6)
|
| Double definition, in the secondary sense of “It’s a breeze,” or “It’s a picnic.” | ||
| 12 | RULER |
Regret accepting front of last Republican leader (5)
|
| RUE (regret) around (accepting) L (front of l[ast]) + R (Republican) | ||
| 13 | PRIVATEER |
A trip never recovered missing navy vessel (9)
|
| Anagram of (recovered) A TRIP [N]EVER, missing “N” (navy) | ||
| 14 | FRISKY |
Bouncy, loud and hairy (6)
|
| F (loud in music) + RISKY (hairy, i.e., precarious) | ||
| 16 | RACCOON |
Oddly cool after vehicle reversed on animal (7)
|
| CAR (vehicle) reversed + CO (odd letters of c[o]o[l], or “oddly”) + ON | ||
| 19 | NOTHING |
A trifle tight in thong (7)
|
| Anagram of (tight, as in drunk) IN THONG | ||
| 21 | SAYING |
Saw remaining blunt, ultimately discarded (6)
|
| S[t]AYING (remaining) with last letter of (ultimately) [blun]t “discarded” | ||
| 23 | FINANCIAL |
Tailor can fail in business (9)
|
| Anagram of (tailor) CAN FAIL IN | ||
| 25 | TIMES |
Male wearing formal attire for ages (5)
|
| M (male) inside (wearing) TIES (formal attire) | ||
| 26 | RABBIT |
Tense after religious leader’s talk (6)
|
| T (tense) after RABBI (religious leader) | ||
| 27 | ENTRANCE |
Opening grip (8)
|
| Double definition, with accent alternately on first or second syllable | ||
| 28 | SWEETS |
Worries about eating English puddings (6)
|
| STEWS (worries) reversed (about) around (eating) E (English) | ||
| 29 | JETTISON |
Abandon aircraft with relative after it returns (8)
|
| JET (aircraft) + IT reversed (returns) + SON (relative), with after indicating order of the wordplay | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | SUPERB |
Gorgeous drink he grabs on a regular basis (6)
|
| SUP (drink) + alternate letters of (on a regular basis) [h]E [g]R[a]B[s] | ||
| 2 | SMELL A RAT |
Alarms let criminal suspect something (5,1,3)
|
| Anagram of (criminal) ALARMS LET | ||
| 3 | ETHER |
Air base in that location ultimately dismissed (5)
|
| E (base, i.e., of natural logarithms) + THER[e] (in that location, omitting last letter [ultimately dismissed]) | ||
| 4 | STROPPY |
Turkey, drenched outside, getting cantankerous (7)
|
| SOPPY (drenched) around (outside) TR (Turkey, i.e., country code) | ||
| 6 | OLIGARCHY |
Charily go off political system (9)
|
| Anagram of (off) CHARILY GO | ||
| 7 | RANGE |
Group of mountains – get someone’s goat right to the top (5)
|
| ANGER (get someone’s goat) with “R” (right) moved “to the top” | ||
| 8 | DOCTRINE |
Medic almost attempts to restrict northern school of thought (8)
|
| DOC (medic) + TRIE[s] (attempts, “almost”) around (to restrict) N (northern) | ||
| 11 | PIER |
Coastal feature that is appearing in press release (4)
|
| IE (that is) inside (appearing in) PR (press release) | ||
| 15 | SCIENTIST |
Insect – it’s prepared for entomologist? (9)
|
| Anagram of (prepared) INSECT ITS, of which an entomologist is an example | ||
| 17 | ORNAMENTS |
Baubles or stars around tops of Norwegian trees (9)
|
| OR + NAMES (stars) around N + T (first letters of [tops of] N[orwegian] t[rees]) | ||
| 18 | UNIFORMS |
Clothing documents for students? (8)
|
| Cryptic definition, i.e., possibly FORMS (documents) for those in UNI (students) | ||
| 20 | GAIN |
Benefit from adult swallowing alcohol? On the contrary (4)
|
| GIN (alcohol) around (swallowing) A (adult), with “on the contrary” indicating the switcheroo in the wordplay | ||
| 21 | SILENCE |
Priest’s upset with new church, still (7)
|
| ELI’S (priest’s) reversed (upset) + N (new) + CE (church), i.e., “still” as a verb | ||
| 22 | ASTERN |
A small bird’s behind (6)
|
| A + S (small) + TERN (bird) | ||
| 24 | NOBLE |
Peer inside piano, blearily (5)
|
| Hidden in (inside) [pia]NO BLE[arily] | ||
| 25 | TAROT |
Sailor over limit on credit card (5)
|
| TAR (sailor) + O (over) + T (last letter of [limit on] [credi]t) |
Very enjoyable with no sticky moments and no groans. The only one I didn’t parse was SWEETS — I was working on “sweats” for “worries”.
My instinct was SWEETS (I like puddings). I did pause to consider SWEATS but finding no A, I returned to the former.
TIMES was my last one in so I didn’t spot the cleverly inserted pink pages even though it’s staring me on the face!
Like our blogger, I enjoyed this 10a of a grid. STROPPY, FRISKY and ENTRANCE (for the subtler definition of ‘grip’).
Thanks to Flimsy and Cineraria for a surpisingly early blog.
Cineraria: we have a convention of not giving away Ninas, themes etc in the first part of the preamble (the part that appears on the from page of the site), as this may be a spoiler for people who haven’t solved the puzzle yet. If you add a blank line before such text it will only be seen when the full entry is viewed.
Still getting a handle on the editing software . . . .
I am/was an accountant by qualification and profession but I cannot see how 23A equates “financial” with “profession”. My profession was “finance”. Methinks someone has mixed up nouns with adjectives. I’m happy to be corrected.
Other than that, I agree that it was pretty easy.
Peter@5: Are we looking at the same puzzle? I would take, e.g., “business news” to be synonymous with “financial news.”
Oops, I did mix up “business” and “profession”. Blame it on that second bottle of wine! (I live in Australia so wasn’t drinking before breakfast and that was a joke about the wine.
Thanks Cineraria. I’m not sure that I equate the two terms but I concede that they may be close enough in crossword-land. As an ex-accountant and ex-businessman, I do differentiate between “business” and “finance”. Finance is a section of business which also includes sales, marketing, logistics, manufacturing, human resources etc.
Thanks for the blog, a lot of neat clues here. Like Diane@2 I like SWEETS best.
Thanks Flimsy for many entertaining clues including PICNIC, SAYING, RABBIT, SCIENTIST, SILENCE, and GAIN, the latter for the “switcheroo in the wordplay” as Cineraria mentioned. I got held up by 19a and 23a because I initially guessed the wrong anagrist (“a trifle”) in the former and the wrong anagrind (“fail”) in the latter. I missed FRISKY but all else eventually fell into place. Thanks Cineraria for the blog.
All done and dusted fairly quickly today, though it took a while to see a few parsings. We liked PIE CHART, PRIVATEER and DOCTRINE.
Thanks, Flimsy and Cineraria.
I put Palin for 12 across.. Regret being pain accepting front of last being L all defining a republican leader! Other than that great fun! Thank you.
Anil@11 intriguing answer. Did you mean Michael Palin? I think he would make a good republican head of state.
Perhaps he would.!. I was thinking Sarah Palin! Former vp candidate and former gov of Alaska.
Yes of course , my thinking was too UK-centric. I thought if we became a republic then Michael Palin would be a good head of state.
Your 12Ac makes perfect sense , she was “a” Republican leader in Alaska.