Financial Times 17,434 by MOO

by

MOO starts the week…

Apologies for the lateness of this blog. I'm on hols in Chicago and the time difference got the better of me.

I largely enjoyed this puzzle, though 13a slightly baffles me.

Thanks MOO!

picture of the completed grid

ACROSS
1. Trialled international edition (6)
TESTED

TEST (international) + ED (edition)

4. Son clowns about for judge (6)
ASSESS

S (son), ASSES (clowns) about

8. Acknowledgement it’s right to hold article back (7)
RECEIPT

RT (right) to hold (PIECE)< (article, <back)

9. Prominent female ready to accept overseas cash (7)
DOYENNE

DONE (ready) to accept YEN (overseas cash)

11. Still writing stuff for the Herald? (10)
STATIONARY

"stationery" (writing stuff, "for the herald")

12. Impatient to find silver and turn back (4)
AGOG

AG (silver) and (GO)< (turn, <back)

13. Phrase that is translated (5)
ID EST

Cryptic definition?

"id est" being Latin for "that is"

14. Falling for a belly button adornment? (8)
TUMBLING

Double (cryptic) definition

Tum bling

16. Hannibal imprisoning ancient city scholar (8)
LECTURER

LECTER (Hannibal) imprisoning UR (ancient city)

18. More trouble, billions unaccounted for (5)
OTHER

[b]OTHER (trouble, B (billions) unaccounted for)

20. The language of echoing Zulu drums (4)
URDU

([zul]U DRU[ms] (of))< (<echoing)

21. Criminal, in our view, is without defence (10)
TREASONOUS

TO US (in our view) is without REASON (defence)

23. F for fool (7)
FATHEAD

Double (cryptic) definition

F = F[at] (head)

24. Criticise beer served in Olympic venue (3,4)
RIP INTO

PINT (beer) served in RIO (Olympic venue)

25. With head sacked, bank’s activity is coming to a close (6)
ENDING

[l]ENDING (bank's activity, with head sacked)

26. Solicitor having breakfast in pub? (6)
BEGGAR

EGG (breakfast) in BAR (pub)

DOWN
1. Crime that puzzles us each day? (5)
THEFT

Double (cryptic) definition

The FT

2. In retrospect, recognise a danger (7)
SPECTRE

[retro]SPECT RE[cognise] (in)

3. One using foreign oil expert (9)
EXPLOITER

(OIL EXPERT)* (*foreign)

5. Instigator of Starmer’s right-wing plot (5)
STORY

S[tarmer] (instigator of) + TORY (right wing)

6. Take a look at East Ender’s tipple (7)
EYEBALL

"[h]ighball" (tipple, "East Ender's")

7. Rupert Murdoch guzzling daughter’s drink (9)
SUNDOWNER

SUN OWNER (Rupert Murdoch) guzzling D (daughter)

10. Wine from eastern US? That’s unusual (9)
SAUTERNES

(EASTERN US)* (*unusual)

13. I suspect British trainee is drunk (9)
INEBRIATE

I + (B (British) TRAINEE)* (*suspect)

15. Bootlegged whiskey the stuff of fantasy? (9)
MOONSHINE

Double definition

17. Crazy old rocker welcoming cry of pain (7)
TOUCHED

TED (old rocker) welcoming OUCH (cry of pain)

19. A suspended sentence? (7)
HANGING

Cryptic definition

hanging = suspended, and "sentenced to be hanged"

21. One American writer, or two? (5)
TWAIN

Double definition

Mark Twain

22. Complete madman losing head (5)
UTTER

[n]UTTER (madman, losing head)

10 comments on “Financial Times 17,434 by MOO”

  1. Thanks, Moo and Teacow!
    Liked TUMBLING, FATHEAD, EYEBALL, SUNDOWNER and HANGING.

    ID EST
    Looks like a straightforward clue (a little cryptic). Maybe we are
    missing something.

  2. Had to come here to parse TREASONOUS & THEFT. I suspected that 13a would be Latin but Google Translate led me to “ille est” and I ended up with IL EST, which apparently is French?

    All else fell into place, and it was quite enjoyable. Thanks Moo & Teacow.

  3. I thought ID EST was fine as a cryptic clue. Needed quite a few aha moments to get through this (unusually for a Moo) and fell at the last hurdle and use a word fit to get DOYENNE. (Annoyingly, I had thought the foreign currency might be “yen” and still missed the answer.)

  4. Thanks, Moo and Teacow. An enjoyable solve.

    Your parsing of ID EST seems spot-on to me – it was sufficiently cryptic for me to need a couple of crossing letters before the penny dropped. Deceptive in its simplicity.

  6. I wondered about ID EST too, but I guess it is just as explained above. I’ve always thought that AGOG meant “very surprised, astonished”; the dictionaries do however define it as impatient or very eager, so I’ve been wrong all this time.

    The sequence of drink/drinking related clues from 6d to 15d were my picks today.

    Thanks to Moo and Teacow

  7. Thanks Moo. I found this more of a challenge than any of the weekend crosswords but it was a challenge I thoroughly enjoyed. I had many favourites including the simple ID EST, TUMBLING, LECTURER, OTHER, FATHEAD, BEGGAR, THEFT, SUNDOWNER, HANGING, and UTTER. I could not parse RECEIPT or TESTED. Thanks Teacow for the blog.

  8. I found this a bit of a breeze, all done and parsed in good time.
    I particularly liked DOYENNE (such a great word) TUMBLING (lol) TREASONOUS and BEGGAR.
    Thanks MOO and Teacow for a top puzzle and blog.

  9. Thanks for the blog, I thought this was very enjoyable. A lot of TUM BLING around at the moment form the students enjoying the weather.

  10. All fairly smooth sailing until the end, where DOYENNE held me up for several minutes. Lots of fun, SUNDOWNER, the tricksy RECEIPT, and TUMBLING probably my picks. I was going to nitpick about ‘for’ being used as a def>WP indicator in the latter, but in its sense of ‘because’ it works for me.

    Thanks Moo & Teacow

Comments are closed.