Financial Times 17,233 by PETO

23 comments on “Financial Times 17,233 by PETO”

1. Many thanks Teacow for the blog and Peto for the puzzle!
   16a is “knot” for difficulty, i.e. a part-homophone + IF + Y
   5d may well be VIOL(a), as many setters don’t like removing more than one letter unless explicitly announced. VIOL (et) kind-of works too, though, you are right.

2. I normally steer clear of Peto’s offerings, but was feeling brave today. I only got about three quarters out, and after coming here I doubt whether I’d ever have solved the remainder. In trying to justify ANI for 7d, Google led me to Jeremiah Ani, a Nigerian winger in the football sense, but the bird, although almost as obscure, would make more sense. I thought the clue for 18d was weird. No inclusion indicator for the queen, and is “seen” a synonym for “decided”? And I have no idea how NOTIFY works. 12a & 24a were doozies, too.

   I enjoyed Vulcan’s in the Guardian more today. Much of this one was over my head.

3. Phew! Especially the top left quadrant. I parsed 5d as you did but don’t like the removal of two letters without further indication.

   In NOTIFY, I took NOT to be a homophone of ‘knot’ = ‘difficulty’ with ‘reciting’ as the indicator.

4. Slow typing. Glad you agree with me Encota @1.

5. So the first syllable of NOTIFY is supposed to be a homophone. But I pronounce it “note”, not “knot”. Am I unique?

6. I had RAVE for 25a, having discovered Rav Wilding, evidently a British comedian. How is “wage” “carry on”?

7. Geoff @5. That’s a tricky one and something I have moaned about in the past. I agree that the first syllable in NOTIFY is not pronounced as “knot” but if you take it as the word NOT + IFY with a changed pronunciation after taking the homophone, then it works. As I say, I don’t like it but I have seen its like before.

8. Thanks Peto and Teacow

   25ac: “Wage” means “carry on” in the sense of waging a war.
   3dn: “Claude” as a painter usually refers to Claude Gellée: see this link:

9. 3dn: I tried to use the “link” feature and failed, so I shall give the link for Claude in plain text:

   https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/artists/claude

10. I am surprised that no-one has commented on 10A. Although the answer was obvious from all the cross-letters, I did not know the “dance” reference. Put me in the the Leo Sayer class in “Long Tall Glasses” – the first half of the song!

11. I also agree with my fellow countryman (Geoff) about how “seen” is not a synonym for “decided”. I have seen the light. I have decided to run for prime minister. I have seen the light and decided to run for prime minister.

    “I have seen the morning burning golden on the mountains in the skies.” Thanks Kris.

    Comments and elucidations are welcome.

12. Thanks for the blog, I really liked this, I agree with Encota and Hovis for Voila ( Twelfth Night) and knot/not. It is unusual to have a homophone in word play but it does work, often we have a synonym in word play that is pronounced differently for the final answer, the word play only needs to assemble the letters correctly.
    Chambers has SEE = judge so the setter has cover.
    There seemed to be a lot of capital letters within the clues, many of them “false” .

13. Yes, the NW corner was very tough. I couldn’t parse NOTIFY properly and had never heard of MEASURE as a sort of ‘dance’ but “It’s in…”. I was also lucky to see BASS VIOL, though only with the help of crossers and ANI was new.

    Best and certainly most challenging puzzle of the day.

    Thanks to Peto and Teacow

14. 3d could also refer to Eugene cLAUDe, who sometimes painted reines-cLAUDes {greengages} ! Or several other minor French painters with the same surname, or cLAUDe Lorrain, another name for cLAUDe Gellee {see PB at 8}.
    But I guess Peto meant Monet.

15. I struggled with this, not so much with the solving as with the going back over the parsing, but the parsing was fun to figure out. As a frequent griper on homophones, I put on my imaginary Oxford don robes and got “sort” for “sought” OK (whatever), but I do not believe that “knot” is a homophone for “not,” in any accent, in the context of NOTIFY. The answer had to be NOTIFY, but the clue does not work for me. If the clue had been “tell of memo reciting poem . . . ,” or something like that, I might buy it. That said, thanks to Peto and Teacow.

16. Thanks Peto for an abundance of good clues. I enjoy being misled so I was quite satisfied with this crossword.My top picks were GANGSTER, SHERPA, ET CETERA, RAN, and as a Roxy Music fan, FERRY. I needed a word finder for SEQUENCE and I couldn’t parse SERVILE, NOTIFY, or SOUGHT AFTER. Thanks Teacow for the blog.

17. Thank you for your blog, Teacow.
    I found this utterly impenetrable and full of hideously unfair clues.
    I won’t attempt a Peto again.

18. Sharon@26 It might perhaps be helpful to setters if, rather than say just that their puzzles are “full of hideously unfair clues” you were to give one or two examples of the clues you have in mind and explain why you think they are unfair.

19. Fair comment, Rudolf @18, but I do have sympathy with Sharon.

    Service = mate? Really?
    French artist = Claude – yeah, obvs. Being an artist is something which lots of people called Claude do!
    Dance = measure? New one on me.
    ‘Girl’s bottom pinched’ = VIOL – Are people really expected to work that out? It could be any synonym for girl or any girl’s name, then we don’t know the size of the ‘bottom’ to be ‘pinched’!
    Mix = Compound is iffy given that in Chemistry a mixture and a compound are very distinctly not the same thing.
    I didn’t get again = OVER – it’s an Americanism.
    I agree with others’ observations that the homophone in 16ac clearly doesn’t work.

    I usually get to within 2 or 3 clues of completing an FT cryptic. I gave up on this after utterly failing to complete the top half. Very frustrating.

20. Hugh,B@19,

    I agree with Rudolph@18’s comment. Sharon’s statement @17 that she found the puzzle impenetrable is fair comment, but to complain of “hideously unfair clues” without elaboration is of no help to the setter or the other readers of the blog.

    You, on the other hand, have explained why you didn’t like certain clues, and that is very useful and of interest to the rest of us.

    As it happens, I disagree with your criticisms, but that is just my view:

    Anyone familiar with animal husbandry would understand the “service = mate” clue.
    When I think of French artists, Claude Monet is one of the first 3 or 4 names to come to mind, and with a crosser or two, the solution came to me easily.
    Anyone familiar with classical music would know the dance meaning of measure, so it was not new to me.
    I had trouble parsing 5d BASS VIOL, but I got the answer with no difficulty from singer = BASS and BASS VIOL being an instrument (played). The parsing suggested by Encota@1 and Roz@12, with reference to a familiar character in Shakespeare, makes perfect sense to me.
    Mix may not be the same as compound in Chemistry, but it is in normal non-technical language, so the clue works fine as a double definition.
    Being a Canadian, I can’t comment on whether again=OVER is acceptable in British English, but it was clear to me.
    Hovis@7 and Roz@12 have explained why the “homophone” (I prefer the term wordplay) knot/NOT works in the clue for 16a NOTIFY.

    As I said, just my view. The differences in people’s perceptions of clues is part of the fun of reading this blog, so thanks for getting me thinking about your points.

    And thanks, Peto and Teacow for the fun.

21. Thank goodness Geoff didn’t say he hadn’t heard of Bryan Ferry.

22. I too failed to complete this and would echo Hugh B’s comments about 10,11,& 12.

23. I only got to this today so I doubt anyone will ever read my comment.

    I completed the puzzle, although I did need the Thesaurus on a couple of occasions.

    Some great clues and all rather enjoyable.

    I had trouble parsing similar clues to those which others have commented on.

    But the answers were usually obvious from the definitions.

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