Financial Times 17,769 by Zamorca

21 comments on “Financial Times 17,769 by Zamorca”

1. I also found the left hand side easier and was fooled into thinking I was going to solve this without too much difficulty.

   The right side took ages. But was helped by knowing there would be a pangram so looking for a Q – got there

   Liked: CABINET, ALARM BELL, QUICHE

2. I found this of middling difficulty, with some easy and plenty of more difficult clues. Favourites ENEMA, IN DUE COURSE, VENT and the great anagram for ALL ROUNDER.

   There seemed an abundance of complex charades, which I found a bit tiring. I also thought “to reveal” was a strange anagrind. I wonder what other think.

   Finally, Pete, some of your explanation for TANZANIA has disappeared.

   THanks Zamorca and thanks Pete

3. Loved TRUER (Lovely surface).
   Also, liked IN A NUTSHELL and JAMBOREE!

   DESPAIR
   Agree with Pete’s quibble.

   TANZANIA (already pointed out by Martyn@2)
   (AI N)< is left out of the blog (I am sure, inadvertently).

   JAMBOREE
   Should the def be 'guiding festival'?

   Thanks Zamorca and Pete!

4. Thanks for the blog, very good puzzle, neat and clever clues, generally concise .
   JAMBOREE I agree with KVa @3 , I am sure that guides are now allowed to take part.

5. Forgot to mention TRUER , very neat hidden capital at the front.

6. Thanks for the blog Pete. I messed up at the end by putting in an unparsed SIP for 23a (‘nip’ for ‘pop’ was very sneaky – for me anyway) and then putting a similarly unparsed TASMANIA for 20d as a result. Ah well, can’t win ‘em all.

7. A satisfying route to Zamorca’s signature pangram; a few letters still left with just three clues unsolved. Nothing felt forced and everything was cleanly clued.
   Favourites included the universally popular TRUER, JAMBOREE and NIP (for the ‘pop’ definition).
   Thanks to Zamorca and Pete.

8. Jamborees are originally from Scouts, but Guides can definitely take part. This year the International Jamboree is in Essex and is described as a celebration of Scouting and Guiding – jointly put on by Scouts and Guides, but it tends to be thought of more as Scouts, even within Guiding (Girlguiding District Commissioner here).

   I did this one on the day, and can’t remember it particularly (it’s one I did without saving it for my daughter for doing on the tube, as she prefers the chewier setters).

   Thank you to Pete Maclean and Zamorca.

9. Even suspecting a Pangram I couldn’t get four of the answers, all on the right. I was fooled by the street in Nice. Otherwise enjoyable.

10. Sorry for the missing part of the explanation of TANZANIA. Just a mistake in the blogging.

11. How does one know that it’s going to be a pangram (presumably of starting letters)?

12. BL @ 11 Because Zamorca always does them (it’s not just the starting letters).

13. Thanks SS@12 – I’ll try to remember that.

14. Thanks Zamorca, that was as delightful as usual. I missed SCAREDY-CAT but all else made sense. My top picks were ALARM BELL, CABINET, PER, ENEMA (great clue for a crossword staple), NARRATIVE, VENT, and QUICHE. Thanks Pete for the blog.
    [Martyn @2: I have never seen “to reveal” as an anagram indicator and I don’t see how it would actually work.]

15. I enjoyed this one and solved fairly quickly by my standards.

    Scaredy-cat was my last one in – that held me up for a long time.

16. Can’t say that we noticed much difference in difficulty between the two sides – it was all a fairly smooth solve without even the need to check any entries in the dictionary. TANZANIA was our LOI; we needed it to complete the pangram.
    Thanks, Zamorca and Pete.

17. I’m sorry, but a quiche is just not a pie! As a family we once spent a surprisingly long time arguing about this in the pub, and concluded that the defining characteristic of a pie is a carbohydrate lid. A quiche is a type of flan. Otherwise, most this crossword was most enjoyable.

18. I think you raise an interesting matter. I would be inclined to call a quiche a kind of tart or indeed a flan but not a pie. However I note that pizzas are widely called pies (including in dictionaries) and they do not have carb lids.

19. Hovis@6, I did exactly the same at 23a and 20d – SIP and TASMANIA. It’s reassuring to know that I was in such good and respectable company.

    Thanks Zamorca and Pete for the excellent puzzle and blog.

20. All fine, except for one dreadful thing: it’s amazing that it got through the editor, the blogger, and apparently all commenters: 25ac: First aider doesn’t indicate the first letter of aider. Don Manley, in his ‘Chambers Crossword Manual’ (page 105 of my edition), gives the example ‘First man to have cut grass’ (4), which is supposed to be M + OWN. As he says, ‘first man’ simply cannot mean ‘the first letter of ‘man”, unlike ‘man initially’. Zamorca could perfectly well have said ‘Aider’s initially bitten …’

21. Sorry, didn’t notice the John @20. Meant to be Wil Ransome.

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