FT 17,600 by Aardvark

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Aardvark is today's setter in the FT

Whenever I see that the puzzle has been set for Aardvark, I expect to see a pangram, but for the second time in a row, an Aardvark puzzle has not been pangrammatic. Last month, K and Y were missing, this time it is W that I can't see. I assume that this is deliberate as it would have been easy enough to replace LOAF with WOOF. The grid was also unusual with long strips of black squares. Aardvark tends to use unusual words when he is trying to get Js, Zs and Qs into the puzzle, but I don't think there's anything too obscure today, although I hadn't heard of a HEELER before.

Thanks Aardvark

ACROSS
8 HEELER
That woman owns well-fed, regularly scrubbed dog (6)

HER ("that woman") owns (w)E(l)L (f)E(d) [regularly scrubbed]

In Australia, a heeler is a sheepdog (the name comes from its practice of barking at the heels of livestock)
9 NEOPHILE
Fan of the novel River full of Lost Hope (8)

(River) NILE full of *(hope) [anag:lost]
10 APEX
Take off and cross peak (4)

APE ("take off") + X (cross)
11 TRAFFIC JAM
Reflecting skill, fellows in charge fix vehicles unable to move? (7,3)

[reflecting] <=ART ("skill") + FF (fellows) + IC (in charge) + JAM ("fix" i.e. a sticky situation)
12 LION
Tell tales endlessly about hero (4)

LI(e) ("tell tales", endlessly) + ON ("about")
13 GARGANTUAN
Huge needlefish trouble retreating tuna at sea (10)

GAR ("needlefish") + <=NAG ("trouble", retreating) + *(tuna) [anag:at sea]
17 YEAR
Yankee one hears for some time (4)

Y (Yankee, in the NATO phonetic alphabet) + EAR ("one hears")
18 RUMBA
Spirit taken by graduate needing measured steps (5)

RUM ("spirit") taken by BA (Bachelor of Arts, so "graduate")
19 RUSK
Children’s food from Peru is OK (fifty percent off) (4)

[50% off] (pe)RU (i)S (o)K
21 COSA NOSTRA
Criminal organisation, as drawn in animated cartoons (4,6)

<=AS [drawn] in *(cartoons) [anag:animated]
23 RARE
Steak could be so thin (4)

Double definition
24 ACQUAINTED
Well-versed Conservative, in blue, with plan to oust Nationalist once (10)

C (Conservative) in AQUA ("blue") + INTE(n)D with one N (Nationalist once) ousted
28 ZONE
Territory in Australia, around top right corner? (4)

<=OZ ("Australia", around) + NE (North East, so "top right corner")
29 FLEA-BITE
Trifle served, slightly in rush (4-4)

A BIT ("slightly") in FLEE ("rush")
30 VENETO
Archdeacon finally drove to part of Italy (6)

Ven. (Venerable, so "archdeacon") + [finally] (drov)E + TO
DOWN
1 HELPLINE
Telephone service in England to support anguish surrounding parking (8)

IN + E (England) to support HELL ("anguish") surrounding P (parking)
2 ALEXANDRIA
Beer and Sky, turned up, attracting unknown number in city on the Med (10)

ALE ("beer") + AND + <=AIR ("sky", turned up) attracting X ('unknown number", in mathematics)
3 GRETA GARBO
Hollywood actress’s dress pinched by wretched toerag (5,5)

GARB ("dress") pinched by *(toerag) [anag:wretched]
4 INCA
In essence, find local’s language antiquated (4)

[in essence] (f)IN(d) (lo)CA(ls)
5 LOAF
Head to lounge (4)

Double definition
6 CHIC
Smart military commander straddles horse (4)

CIC (commander-in-chief, so "military commander") straddles H (horse)
7 ALPACA
Wool producer’s accountant tracks peak area (6)

CA (chartered "accountant") tracks ALP ("peak") + A (area)
14 REMIT
Give up on the male sex (5)

RE ("on") + M (male) + IT ("sex")
15 ADAM AND EVE
Couple having idyllic garden believe in East London terrain (4,3,3)

In Cockney rhyming slang (hence the East London in the clue), ADAM AND EVE means "believe", as in "would you Adam and Eve it?"
16 TARTRAZINE
Food journal informally describes artist’s colouring in dish? (10)

TART ("food") + ZINE ("journal informally") describes RA (member of the Royal Academy, so "artist")
20 STRENGTH
Might street start to reject Ghent itinerant? (8)

St. (street) + [start to] R(eject) + *(ghent) [anag:itinerant]
22 ON CALL
Local’s confused about new status of doctor (2,4)

*(local) [anag:'s confused] about N (new)
25 URAL
You are texting a line that broadly flows (4)

UR ("you are" while texting) + A + L (line)
26 IRIS
Flowering plant belonging to Paddy perhaps trimmed (4)

IRIS(h) ("belonging to Paddy perhaps", tirmmed)
27 TIER
One restricts part of wedding cake? (4)

Double definition, the first being one who ties.

25 comments on “FT 17,600 by Aardvark”

  1. Racked my brain trying to parse ADAM AND EVE, but failed. Might have known it would be some silly rhyming slang. 🙁

    Loonapick, we have heelers as cattle dogs.

    Hadn’t heard of COSA NOSTRA, and only vaguely knew TARTRAZINE.

    Thanks Aardvark & Loonapick.

  3. I think Aardvark’s having some fun with the old rhyming slang having perhaps followed discussions this past week or so. I’m sure Pelham Barton will approve!
    I didn’t know TARTRAZINE either but everything else fell nicely into place. Yesterday we had NEOPHOBIA and today NEOPHILE – curious.
    This was a lot of fun all round.
    Thanks to Aardvark and Loonapick.

  4. Thanks Aardvark, especially for 5dn and 15dn, and Loonapick

    Putting WOOF in place of LOAF at 5dn would have lost the double rhyming slang in that column. We have examples of abbreviated rhyming slang (LOAF of bread = head) and the less common type where the whole phrase is given (ADAM AND EVE: I think apples and pairs and Brahms and Liszt are also usually given in full, although Mozart is sometimes given on his own).

    I think some of the other columns may be deliberate pairings as well: HELPLINE and ON CALL seem to fit together.

    On the near pangram, Aardvark could have put WEAR instead of YEAR, and ZANY in place of ZONE without disturbing the columns, so I am inclined to agree with Loonapick that Aardvark is teasing us. I tried to find a way of getting a W into my last one in (FLEA-BITE).

  5. We had a television program long ago called Blue Heelers. Yes, they’re often called that, although I’m not sure why, as they’re not exactly blue. I guess if magazine can be reduced to zine then we can reduce blue heeler to heeler?

  6. 14dn: SOED 2007 gives it for “Sexual intercourse” as originating in E17, which in this context means 1600-1629, not Walthamstow.

    16dn: SOED marks zine as US colloq. and dates it from M20 (1930-1969). Collins 2023 simply marks it informal, suggesting that it is no longer to be regarded as specifically US.

    25dn: The indication for the single letters U and R is the clue word “texting”, as indicated by Loonapick in the blog.

    27dn: Collins has tier² n a person or thing that ties.

  7. Just reread my comment 4. I should of course have put “apples and pears” not “apples and pairs”. “Brahms and Liszt” and “Mozart” should also have been in italics.

    While I am back in:
    8ac was one of those lovely examples where it was easy to accept that the answer was some kind of dog, and we could learn something while being completely confident about the answer.

    24ac: N for Nationalist is given in Chambers 2016, although I could not find it elsewhere. That should be enough to make it acceptable in this puzzle: no one has commented on it yet.

    27dn, further to previous comments: SOED 2007 dates tier in the sense “A person who ties something” as M17 (1630-1669). The reference in comment 8 should be sufficient evidence that the word is still current in the meaning used.

  9. It isn’t but it used to be, according to Chambers, hence the “antiquated” in the clue. However, most other sources cite Quechua as the Incan language.

  11. I also could not parse ADAM AND EVE and only realised it was silly rhyming slang (quoting GDU@1) when I read the blog. I then had the same reaction as Diane@3, wondering whether Aardvark was being deliberately annoying and thinking how much PB must have loved it

    I also could not see the first definition of TIER, so that went unparsed for me too. I did know HEELER, and I take my hat off to Loonapick for knowing so many words as more than a few were new to me (TARTRAZINE, RARE meaning thin, COSA NOSTRA, and RUSK). Happily Aardvark put the lesser-known words into more-approachable clues. Thank-you for that. My favourite was RUMBA: simple, effective and a nice surface

    Thanks Aardvark – now you have had your joke, please lay off the rhyming slang. And thank-you Loonapick

  12. Didn’t balk at much today.. I feel IT is commonly used as everyday innuendo as in “Are they at it again..?” etc.
    Knot tiers are a common tool in use for, amazingly, tying knots.. in surgery if nowhere else..
    With Diane @3 re curiosity about words repeating..
    Thanks Aardvark n loonapick

  13. Just to add “zine” seems to be added to another word to imply some form of publication as in “webzine”, “fanzine”… didn’t say I liked it..

  14. I think it best to start with the coincidence of NEOPHILE today and NEOPHOBIA yesterday. When you consider how many other possible coincidences have not happened, and how many days there have been since the last one similar to this, it really is nothing unexpected that coincidences like this occur sometimes. It may be worth pointing out here that you only need 23 randomly chosen people in a room to have a better than even chance that there will be at least one pair among them who share a birthday.

    Let us move on to the rhyming slang. Subject to a proviso which I shall come to in a moment, if offered a bet at even money whether Aardvark was responding to last week’s discussion or whether it was just coincidence, and taking into account what we know about the time between crosswords being submitted and being printed, my money would be on coincidence. Apart from anything else, I would like to hope that, if any setter ever chose to make rhyming slang a theme of a puzzle, he would give us more than two examples of it.

    Of course, if anyone actually offered me a bet on this point, I would assume that he could well have some inside information. Taking that into account, I would assume that the bet was a losing one from my side, and would not put up any more money than I would be willing to pay simply for the satisfaction of knowing the truth, which is, quite frankly, not a lot.

    I very much hope that the FT crossword editor does not place any sort of embargo on the use of rhyming slang. I would like setters to feel able to use the full resources of the English language.

  15. FWIW I don’t think “it” = “sex” = “sa” since sex isn’t sex appeal!

    I would just say “it” = “sex” AND “it” = “sa” = “sex appeal” as two entirely separate rules.

    (Cf “five” = “v” & “v” = “victor” but “five” would never be “very”.)

    I don’t think anyone would try to justify a clue where “sex” was expected to be interpreted as the letters “sa”, for instance.

    “It” is sex because people regularly use it as a euphemism. “Doing it”.

    “It” is sex appeal because having “it” means you’re attractive. “He’s got it”.

    I’m very surprised to find thay they’re all grouped together in Chambers, because they’re not in any way interchangeable. (In my edition – “it” definition 6).

    I don’t really have a point. Just expressing my thoughts in case any beginners are reading this thread, given what common devices they both are. I think it’s a relatively subtle point relating to how we solve crosswords and how they’re set.

  16. Sorry, mixed my metaphors, as it were. Take your pick (but stick with it, as I didn’t) between “victor” and “very”.

  17. I didn’t expect my off-the-cuff remark to earn such a forensic consideration! While appreciating the truth of Pelham’s thoughts, it still didn’t prevent mild surprise at seeing neophobia/neophile on consecutive days; the word ‘theme’ did not pass my lips! And, I’m aware of the lead time between setting and publication – it simply tickled me to think our setter might be having some fun.
    In any case, a grid filled with rhyming slang answers is something I’d like to see.

  19. Diane@19: Yes comment 16 turned out to be a lot heavier than I intended when I started on it – and I thought I was cutting ruthlessly while typing. Really I wanted to put some weight behind the plea in my final paragraph.

  20. Diane@3 – Maybe NEOPHOBIA and NEOPHILE suggesting NEO is a Marmite setter? No, that’s IO. I like all three – NEO, IO, and Marmite, too.
    IOPHOBIA may be the fear of rust, poison, or being poisoned.Two FTs today. I wonder which one will be blogged.

  21. What a fiasco. I solved 17607 on the app which I now see has 17601 too. The print edition has 17601. No wonder the blogger has gone to ground.

  23. SM@24: Tomorrow’s print edition should have the solution to 17,596 from last Saturday. I can see no reason why the print editions should not continue the normal sequence of puzzle numbers, with 17,607 appearing in print next Friday.

  25. To finish off the discussion – I agree that the puzzle was likely to have been set way before last week and while I genuinely had the same thought as Diane, it was a mere moment of fancy. Unlike Diane@16, I would hate a puzzle full of rhyming slang – I find it genuinely impenetrable and rarely amusing. But, whatever my opinion, I cannot see anyone wanting to prohibit it. It is so integral to a crossword

    Onto 17,601. Or maybe 17,607 next? Is it me or are there more errors creeping into the puzzles too?

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