Financial Times 17,760 by BASILISK

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Basilisk is on top form this morning.

A wonderful challenge, with plenty of twists and turns. There were a couple where the solution seemed clear, but the parsing took me longer than I’d care to admit!

In trademark Basilisk style, there is a message down the two outer vertical lines celebrating a special letter of the alphabet: H IS FOR AN ASPIRATE. Did you spot the H shapes in the grid as well?

picture of the completed grid

ACROSS
1. Hold horse’s head with lad having fallen badly (4,6)
HALF NELSON

H[orse] (head) + SON (lad) having FALLEN* (*badly)

7. Mock article’s concluding section (4)
CODA

COD (mock) + A (article)

9. What one might think of assistant retracting article (4)
IDEA

AIDE (assistant) retracting A (article)

10. Offend strangers somehow by beginning to swear (10)
TRANSGRESS

STRANGERS* (*somehow) by S[wear] (beginning to)

11. Current form of power crushing resistance (6)
STREAM

STEAM (form of power) crushing R (resistance)

12. Domesticated animals cross over threshold (8)
DOORSTEP

(PETS (domesticated animals) + ROOD (cross))< (<over)

13. Intimidate Tory in Slough (8)
FRIGHTEN

RIGHT (Tory) in FEN (slough)

15. Opposed to books spreading panic regularly (4)
ANTI

NT (books, New Testament) spreading [p]A[n]I[c] (regularly)

17. Ladies and gents cycling round city (4)
OSLO

LOOS (ladies and gents) cycling round

19. Nervous about receiving one reminder (8)
SOUVENIR

NERVOUS* (*about) receiving I (one)

22. She will approve, provided it stops parent coming back (8)
RATIFIER

((IF (provided) + IT) stops REAR (parent))< (<coming back)

23. Spirit of artist inspired by doctor every year (6)
GRAPPA

RA (artist, Royal Academician) inspired by GP (doctor, General Practitioner) + PA (every year, per annum)

25. Final course related to US reportedly stops when not trading (5,5)
AFTER HOURS

AFTERS (final course); “OURS” (related to us, “reportedly”) stops

26. Stag party stripped husband-to-be first (4)
HART

[p]ART[y] (stripped); H (husband) to be first

27. All points that will be reported by the media (4)
NEWS

Cryptic definition:

N (north) + E (east) + W (west) + S (south) i.e. all points

28. Teams go off where one is up (10)
SIDESADDLE

SIDES (teams) + ADDLE (go off)

DOWN
2. Person who checks car before start of race (7)
AUDITOR

AUDI (car) + TO (before) + R[ace] (start of)

For TO think “5 minutes to 10”

3. Speaker’s talent is something that demands attention (5)
FLARE

“FLAIR” (talent, “speaker’s”)

4. English public split over author’s value (8)
ESTIMATE

E (English) + STATE (public) split over I’M (author’s)

5. Hold firm attitude about accepting somebody covering for something (5,4,6)
STAND ONES GROUND

(STAND (attitude) + ROUND (about)) accepting ONE (somebody) + S[omethin]G (covering for)

6. Who doesn’t appear in theatre performance? (2-4)
NO-SHOW

Cryptic definition:

Play on the word ‘SHOW’

7. Court case condemned Glitter (9)
CORUSCATE

(COURT CASE)* (*condemned)

8. Protest is first to see widening evidence of impact (7)
DISSENT

(IS+ S[ee] (first to)) widening DENT (evidence of impact)

14. Stupidity and sentimentality diminished expertise (9)
GOOFINESS

GOO (sentimentality) + FINESS[e] (expertise, diminished)

16. Guests smoking on vacation ruined tables (8)
SUGGESTS

(GUESTS + S[mokin]G (on vacation))* (*ruined)

18. Take part in teacher’s naff lesson (7)
SNAFFLE

[teacher]S NAFF LE[sson] (in)

20. Risk associated with empire abandoning America (7)
IMPERIL

IMPERI[a]L (associated with empire, abandoning A (America))

21. Ruins food (6)
DISHES

Double definition

24. Sucker is initially taken in by first-class doctor’s qualification (5)
APHID

I[s] (initially) taken in by A (first-class) + PHD (doctor’s qualification)

19 comments on “Financial Times 17,760 by BASILISK”

  1. In 6d, I took the NO to refer to the Japanese drama.

    I know I probably say this too much but I wish setters would order clues such as 17a to make the solution unambiguous. For example, “City has ladies and gents cycling around” would clarify that it is OSLO and not LOOS that is needed.

  2. Thanks Basilisk and Oriel!

    COTD: STAND ONE’S GROUND
    Other faves: AFTER HOURS and NO-SHOW.
    Liked the puzzle overall.

    NO-SHOW
    Does NO here refer to the Japanese drama NO/NOh?

  3. Well, the ‘H’ theme was wasted on me. Not the first time.

    I didn’t understand cod/mock nor dish/ruin. Now I see that Collins lists them as British usage. Couldn’t parse AFTER HOURS; the capitalised US in the clue for 25a was a bit sneaky. Couldn’t account for the “to” in AUDITOR, and scratched my head at stand/attitude.

    I agree with Hovis re the ambiguity of 17a.

    But overall quite enjoyable and Goldilocks difficulty. Thanks Basilisk & Oriel.

  5. Thanks for the blog, very enjoyable , lots of clever neat clues.
    AFTER HOURS , slight misprint in the blog. related to US=HOUR reportedly with a nod to the theme.
    SNAFFLE I had the definition as just Take.

  6. Enjoyed this outing from Basilisk very much – the nina helped unlock the left half.
    Favourites included OSLO, CORUSCATE and SNAFFLE which lurked undetected for some time and, in line with Roz, I had the definition down as ‘take’.
    It had to be DISHES for 21d but my first thought was ‘hashes’, then ‘mashes’ till 22a came along.
    Thanks to Basilisk for the worthy challenge and to Oriel for filling in some of my parsing gaps like ‘to’ in AUDITOR. Another day, another tricky ‘to’ !

  7. Liked this…Thank you for the parsing of 2d (couldn’t figure where the “to” came from) and 7a (was unfamiliar with this definition of “cod”, only knew the fish and the shortened “codswallop”)
    Liked the “Doorstep” construction.
    Thank you to Basilisk and Oriel

  9. My favourite of the three puzzles I did today and I am delighted that this is at least the second and possibly the third time I have found myself on this setter’s wavelength in recent times. Made for a very smooth solve whilst enjoying the delightful constructions and splendid misdirects. ‘Husband-to-be first’ is glorious. Barely a wasted word throughout the puzzle.

    Faves inc HALF NELSON, DOORSTEP, FRIGHTEN, SOUVENIR, SIDESADDLE, SUGGESTS and IMPERIL.

    Hovis @1 you make a fair point. Reversals, homophones and cycling clues are three devices that can be tricky to use in between fodder and def as they can easily result in ambiguity, particularly if the setter is trying to avoid using link words. I’m not a huge fan of ‘to’ as a link word but it does get used and ‘Ladies and gents cycling to city’ would have been another unambiguous alternative.

    Thanks Basilisk and Oriel

  10. Agree with the positive comments above. I did manage to parse everything, and favorites were OSLO and NEWS. I must admit I did not see the ambiguity of the former until I read the blog. There seemed a lot of words that are never heard outside UK in the puzzle today, and I found the SW corner the slowest.

    I need to be more thoughtful about the shape of the grid. No matter how loudly this one screamed “theme word” I did not even think to look.

    Thanks Basilisk and Oriel

  11. Thanks Basilisk for a top shelf crossword complete with a clever Nina. My top picks were HALF NELSON, TRANSGRESS, DOORSTEP, ANTI (liked the use of ‘spreading’), AUDITOR, DISSENT, GOOFINESS, and APHID. I had no problem with OSLO. Thanks Oriel for the blog.

  12. A nice puzzle and not too difficult despite our not being able to parse a few answers, such as ESTIMATE. Favourites were HALF NELSON, CORUSCATE and AFTER HOURS.
    We spotted the nina but didn’t associate it with the H shapes in the grid except perhaps subconsciously – it is one of the FT’s standard grids.
    Thanks, Basilisk and Oriel.

  15. Many thanks, as always, to Oriel for an excellent blog. And thanks to everyone who has taken the time to comment.

  16. Slough = fen?
    Anyone who lives in southeast Lincolnshire and northeast Cambridgeshire would find it highly insulting to be considered synonymous with Slough!
    I don’t think the two are synonymous.

  17. Thanks Basilisk and Oriel

    13ac: Chambers 2016 gives us
    fen¹ low marshy land often, or partially, covered with water, a morass, or bog.
    slough¹ a hollow filled with mud; a marsh.
    That is near enough for me. Collins 2023 and ODE 2010 give definitions with slightly less exact matches.
    Darren@16: You are entitled to dislike false capitalisation, but it is widely accepted, and certainly within FT policy.

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