Financial Times 17,414 by Leonidas

23 comments on “Financial Times 17,414 by Leonidas”

1. 20d. Felt is GROPED. Exposed this leaves ROPE.

   Enjoyed this one.

2. Enjoyable as always from Leonidas but needing my thinking cap on. This required two sessions with ENERGISED and EXPLOIT taking longest; only then could I work out PASTA (from tapas) = shells.
   I liked, TRUMPET, CARGOSHIP (where chip = nick) and SPARTAN (for spar = pole). Thanks, Steven, for explaining “felt = ‘groped.
   Thanks to Leonidas and to Pete for explaining a few others.

3. Thanks, Leonidas and Pete Maclean!

   Liked CARGO SHIP, ASTROLABE, ROPES IN and CAIRO.

4. Belatedly, I agree with Pete that ‘pack of Players’ (15a) is an improvement.

5. Thanks Leonidas for an excellent crossword. My top picks were RETRIEVER, OSTIA, PASTA, STETSON, ASTROLABE, and CAIRO. I actually understood ROPES IN but I’m too late to be the 1st to explain it. I found this on the easier end of the Leonidas spectrum especially when compared to his alter-ego Wire in this week’s Indy. Thanks Pete for the blog.

6. Solved, parsed ROPES IN, but not some others, but remembering a week ago… .

   Thank you Pete Maclean and Leonidas.

7. thanks Pete

   I parsed ROPED IN the same way as Steven @1. SPARTAN was my FOI, and given the setter’s name, I wondered if it would be an ancient history themed puzzle. But, it was not to be

   It is obvious that many people enjoyed this, and I am happy for them. I did like PIVOT but had no other ticks. Overall, I found this a struggle that I seldom enjoyed and there were several clues just I did not like, such as PASTA = shells, STETSON = plain tile (why plain, by the way?) and game collector = RETRIEVER.

   Otherwise, thanks Leonidas and Pete

8. And of course, I meant to write “ROPES IN”. Sorry for the typo

9. Marty@7
   I think STETSON is a ‘plain tile’ because it is a cowboy (a plain/plainsman) hat.

10. KVa – thanks. I had a feeling that might be the reason. That is a rather outdated view as cowboy hats are but one of a wide range of hats made by Stetson. Then again, we are in crossword land

    I forgot to mention I think the setter is correct in clueing packs and not pack of Players for SCRUMMAGE. At least when it occurs in Rugby, a SCRUM is 2 packs of players coming together. I was not a big fan of the capital P, but I am sure you are tired of my bellyaching by now

11. Maybe to misdirect us to ‘a pack of Players cigarettes’.

12. Indeed

13. Thanks for the blog, a really good set of clues, many of my favourites listed above. I will add NARCISSUS for the use of MISSUS and the neat replacement of M .
    I am not fond of the fake capital as in Players but all setters use it , even Azed.
    Not qiute sure that ARIES works? -A-R-I – then we have ES from the drugs but does “taking” mean put it on the end ?
    Harry periodically is taking drugs would be better , leaving all IS and E inside.

14. I loved the self-reference at 1ac at the beginning and, like Martyn @7, thought (or, in my case, hoped) we might be in for more of the same (well, we did have 12ac, 23ac, 4dn and 8dn ), but the rest was so good I wasn’t really disappointed. I do love Leonidas’ puzzles!

    My ticks were for (apart from SPARTAN), 10ac RETRIEVER, 12ac OSTIA, 23ac CARGO SHIP, 28ac STETSON, 4dn NARCISSUS, 16dn RIDERLESS and 23dn CAIRO.

    Many thanks, as ever, to Leonidas and Pete.

15. I’m very much in agreement with Roz and Eileen – super puzzle.

    I thought “packs” plural works because a scrummage involves the forward packs of both teams.

    I parsed ROPES IN the same as Steven @1.

    Thanks, Leonidas and Pete.

16. I belatedly see Martyn @10 made the same point about scrummage.

17. Hello all. For SCRUMMAGE, I was channelling a childhood memory of various older relatives determinedly hunting for misplaced packets of fags, so I went for Players rather than players. Ahhh, the Seventies!

    Thanks for the comments and thanks to Pete for the blog.

18. V. good.

    And forgot to say, thanks for defending at Thermopylae.

19. paul b @18 – huge thanks for the reminder of your brilliant puzzle
    https://www.fifteensquared.net/2022/02/10/independent-11023-tees/ !

20. I am glad to be such an inspiration for other setters 🙂

21. Got there in the end after reminding ourselves via Google about O’HARE, but we couldn’t fully parse ROPES IN. And we guessed NARCISSUS from its starting with N and only saw gthe parsing much later. Most enjoyable, though. Favourite was ASTROLABE.
    Thanks, Leonidas and Pete.

22. 15a “Players” with a capital “P” was clearly advertising the brand of cigarettes my uncle smoked. I must report the FT to the Advertising Standards Authority. 🙂
    But how do you pronounce Leonidas?
    In school I learnt it as “lay-o-kneed ass” – sounding all the vowels clearly
    but Google tells me the British pronunciation is “lee o nuh duhs” – horrible schwas
    and the American is “lee uh nai duhs” – even worse, with the emphasis in the wrong place.
    Thanks L&PM

23. FrankieG – good point re. the pronunciation. I had thought it was your American version, until I was corrected by Eileen (thank you, Eileen) at the S&B meeting in York in 2021 who, as a classicist, has authority on such matters. I believe your first option is the correct one.

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