Financial Times 17,564 by AARDVARK

by

Sorry for the late blog.

The day started with a shock as, at midnight, I went to FT site and saw IO’s name there. Phew! that was yesterday’s. The Aardvark puzzle arrived not long after midnight and I made a start but tiredness took over.

This morning has been full of minor delays and interruptions – hence I hadn’t quite finished when initially publishing.

In hindsight, there was nothing too difficult but I guess my lack of knowledge of drugs held me up in SW corner.

Thanks to all commenters who, obviously waiting all day with bated breath, helped me with the last few.

Thanks to Aardvark – incidentally an anagram of the Prime Minister (Taoiseach) of my country of residence – Leo VARADKAR.

 

ACROSS
1. One holds booze, Chairman Jack keeping mine back (8)
JEROBOAM

MAO (chairman)+BORE (mine)+Jack all reversed

5. Lock connected with small pressure (6)
STRESS

Small+TRESS (lock)

9. Rock band, in one word, erratic (3,5)
NEW ORDER

oNE WORD ERratic hidden: in

10. Plant sadly receding around boundary (6)
SALVIA

VI (6: boundary in cricket) inside ALAS (sadly; rev: receding)

11. Maybe part of John F. Kennedy’s uniform on display (8)
AIRSTRIP

AIR (display)+STRIP (uniform)

12. Hard to cut special slice that chippy needs? (6)
CHISEL

Hard+SLICE (anag: special)

I think “slice” is doing double duty

14. He painted much of group travelling with horse, mid-Ethiopia (10)
CARAVAGGIO

CARAVA[n] (group travelling; much of)+GG (horse)+ethIOpia (mid)

18. Drew attention to 5 pence (10)
UNDERLINED
UNDERLINE (stress; 5 across)+D (pence)
22. Each recruiting academic institution comparatively weak (6)
PUNIER

UNIversity (academic institution) inside PER (each)

23. Possibly Christian character in Athens always collecting money (8)
MUTINEER

MU (Greek characetr)+TIN (money)E’ER (always)

Ref: Fletcher Christian – Bounty mutineer

24. Noted Roman returning amphora, say, into shade (6)
TRAJAN
JAR (amphora; rev: returning) inside TAN (shade)
25. Hotel room primarily trashed during annual excess (8)
PLETHORA

HOTEL+R[oom] (primarily) anag: trashed inside PA (per annum: annual)

26. Leaves jacket (6)
REEFER
(double def)
I actually thought this very early but thought that it was so weak it couldn’t be right. Ah, well!
27. School dance, Mike assuming initial sentimentality (8)
SCHMALTZ

SCHool+[w]ALTZ (dance) with Mike replacing the W

DOWN
1. Is the reader aware of casually reported capital in US? (6)
JUNEAU

Sounds like D’YOU KNOW

Capital of Alaska

2. Struggle being overdrawn? Pay-off needed (6)
REWARD

WAR (struggle) inside (in the) RED (overdrawn)
Thanks KVa @2 & Simon S @3

3. Criticise social worker defending wrong ‘un (6)
BERATE

BEE (social worker) around RAT (wrong ‘un)

4. First-class jerk oversees a police department compound (6,4)
ACETIC ACID

ACE (first class(+TIC (jerk)+A+CID (police dept.)

6. Uncle Sam’s wastebin remains cooler under half-clipped tree (8)
TRASHCAN

TR[ee] (half-clipped)+ASH (remains)+CAN (jail: cooler)

7. Fancy travel document used in English terminus on cruise (8)
ENVISAGE

ENGlish+VISA (travel document)+[cruis]E (terminal)

8. Minor work brought about by character tracking VW disorder? (8)
SMALLPOX

SMALL (minor)+OP (work; rev: brought about)+X (character after V, W)

13. Announced mental state with shaved head (4,6)
MADE PUBLIC

MAD (mental)+[r]EPUBLIC (state minus first letter)
Thanks David @1

15. Comedian exactly right to invite comment at the end (8)

QUIPSTER

QUITE (exactly)+Right around PS (comment at the end)

16. Sloth perhaps last to remove underlying garden rubbish (8)
EDENTATE
EDEN (garden)+TAT (rubbish)+[remov]E (last)
17. Dicky safe outside to knock back ale and smoke drug (8)
FREEBASE
SAFE (anag: dicky) around BEER (ale; rev: knock back)
19. Winner taking away gold over one mile – a pushover? (6)
VICTIM

VICT[or] (winner; minus OR (gold))+I (one)+Mile

20. Park greaser creates backlash (6)
RECOIL

REC[reation] (park)+OIL (greaser)

21. Some monsters at zoo artificial (6)
ERSATZ

monstERS AT Zoo (hidden: some)

25 comments on “Financial Times 17,564 by AARDVARK”

  6. I found this really difficult and could not parse several in the SW corner.

    Here is what I had

    15 QUIPSTER I believe cannot fully parse
    16 EDENTATE EDEN (garden) TAT (rubbish) E (last to remove)
    17 FREEBASE I believe – anagram of safe containing beer (ale)
    18 I believe is UNDERLINED – 5p is UNDER something
    24 TRAJAN, Jar backwards in TAN
    26 REEFER Double definition

    Lot of unknown words today, and as you can see by my bare SW corner, I struggled a bit

    Thanks Aardvark and kenmac

  9. Had most trouble with this crossword today (apart from Paul) especially in the SW corner. Managed eventually with help from Crossword Solver, Google, Synonyms etc. synonym for comedian got me going.

  10. 18 ac is UNDERLINED
    24ac is TRAJAN
    26ac REEFER
    15d QUIPSTER
    17d FREEBASE

    I am being dragged out to walk the dogs before dark. Parse later although not with great confidence

  17. Thanks Aardvark. I generally found this difficult and I relied too much on the guess-then-check method for this crossword to be satisfying. I eventually revealed PLETHORA and SMALLPOX and couldn’t parse UNDERLINED and SALVIA. There were a few joyful moments with NEW ORDER, MUTINEER, JUNEAU, and FREEBASE among them. Thanks kenmac for the blog.

  19. Thanks Aardvark and Kenmac

    12ac (CHISEL): I suspect that Aardvark may belong to the school of thought which would allow “that chippy needs” to stand for “something that chippy needs”. That would mean that “slice” is not needed in the definition.

    18ac (UNDERLINED): Not at all happy with this one. The answer is defined as the past tense of a verb, and the wordplay consists of the present tense of the same verb, with an almost identical meaning, to which the letter D is then added. I have to allow “pence” for D as Collins 2023 gives d as an abbreviation for “Brit currency penny or pennies” without indicating that it relates to a unit of currency that was withdrawn more than fifty years ago. (ODE 2010 specifies pre-decimal currency and Chambers 2016 says “before 1971”).

  21. Hey it’s Martyn — again!

    Thanks Ken and Aardvark, nice work. Nice anagram spot for the Taoiseach, which btw of itself can be Oireachtas if you stick an R in somewhere. For CHISEL I’d say that ‘slice’ isn’t needed in the def. ‘That chippy needs’ to me equates to ‘that (thing) chippy needs’, in the same way you might say ‘chippy needs that’. The formulation is used frequently for definitions around town to ensure surfaces flow smoothly.

  22. Super grid from Aardvark, liberally sprinkled with his customary double letters and cleanly clued throughout.
    Wrongly suspecting a pangram actually helped me with a few tricky answers like QUIPSTER.
    My favourite was CARAVAGGIO (for the ‘horse’) but I also liked UNDERLINED, SMALLPOX and JUNEAU (which made me think of Howard Jacobson’s droll riff on the name “Juno” in The Finkler Question).
    Cheers Aardvark and Kenmac for stepping in to do the honours … though it was past my bedtime!

  23. Give up with about 60% done. All the right hand side, but a lot of gaps on the left. Too many unknown words. Not sure this is fun. Also, I had Emphasised in rather than Underlined (stress= emphasise) so this put a spanner in the south-west corner.

    Very very hard in my book

    Hmmmm

  25. We were also relying on the pangram to help us with the last two, trying to shoehorn k, y and X into two words! But succeeded anyway, nice trick, aardvark!
    Thanks for a super crossword, and thanks to kenmac

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