Financial Times 17,775 by Leonidas

13 comments on “Financial Times 17,775 by Leonidas”

1. A curate’s egg for me. I had plenty of ticks, mainly for clever devices, such as SUGARCANE, TICK OFF, DETONATED, CONDONE, LOOPY and FED. My absolute favourite was converted Saul in TARPAULIN.

   But, I had several quibbles too. There were too many NHOs for my liking. For example, I get it we need to learn the names of just about every flower on earth, but do we now have to speak Hebrew too? I feel “used” in 8 is redundant, I wonder how we are expected to know which “bit” of grout to use in 10, if you are doing this crossword in Asia (it is a global paper also published in Asia) the ASIAN HORNET is not an invader & if you are in the US it is called by a different name, and would someone please tell me why “wearing” is “IN” in 16?

   Thanks Leonidas and Pete

2. Martyn@1
   MELANGE (10)
   bit of grout=G —->always the first letter/bit
   TARPAULIN (16)
   wearing=IN as in ‘You look great in (wearing) red (dress/clothes)’ or ‘That lady in the blue saree.’

   Liked ROADBLOCK, RHEOSTATS and FED.
   Thanks Leonidas and Pete

3. Thanks for the guidance, KVa@2. I am sure you are correct that “bit of” is a head indicator. But, I do wonder why, given the ordinary use of “bit of” means small piece of, rather than beginning.

4. Martyn@3
   MELANGE (10)
   ‘bit of’ (seen ‘trace of’, ‘glimpse of’ and a couple of other such indicators in this context): When a setter used this trick for the first time, more people must have wondered as you did. Over time all get used to such ‘conventions’ (some will keep complaining but have to learn these tricks nonetheless).
   RHEOSTATS
   ‘A lot of bird’ is good grammar in Crosswordostan! 🙂

5. Enjoyed this – lots of neat clues .The SE took me ages to finish – but once I realised that “leaves” referred to the green stuff and got COS I managed to finish

   Favourites CABALLERO, CHEROOT, YELPS, DETONATED, RUBICON, FED

   Thanks Leonidas and Pete Maclean

6. Thanks Leonidas, that was fun. My top picks were YELPS, ROADBLOCK, APPOINTMENT, CELEB, HASID, and FED. My only quibble was ‘one’ as part of the anagram fodder in 4d, as it could be either ‘i’ or ‘a’ — that approaches the ‘forbidden’ indirect anagram territory. Thanks Pete for the blog.
   Martyn @1: While learning the entire Greek and NATO alphabets is a requirement for solving crosswords, you don’t need to learn too much Hebrew. ALEPH, however, has been a staple of crosswords for years.

7. Thanks for the blog , so many good clues I will simply add the lists of Fiona and Tony together but give special mention for FED for being so neat and the use of table.
   HASID I took the wordplay as just one phrase, HAS ID so passes security check.
   APPOINTMENT held me up a bit with the medical use of topical which I only know from crosswords .
   ALEPHo a very important countable infinite in Cantor set theory.
   I agree with Tony@6 with the quibble for AILUROPHILE which earned a severe Paddington stare.

8. I didn’t have a problem with the I’s in AILUROPHILE which I built up from the anagram then double checked. Because I vaguely knew the word I knew it needed I’s, just not quite which order it all fitted together.

   I double took at APPOINTMENT too, for the definition of ointment as topical, then realised how the word was being used.

   Nice crossword, thank you Leonidas and Pete Maclean for the blog.

9. Thanks Leonidas and Pete

   4dn: The Is are not part of the anagram fodder: they are inserted into the anagram. This is indicated by the position of the word “new” in the clue.

10. Thanks Pete and to all who have commented.

    HOPSCOTCH is intended to be a cryptic rather than double definition clue (a game maybe played at break in school).AILUROPHILE is as an insertion of ‘I’ twice into the anagram fodder HULL OPERA: the I’s are not part of the fodder per se.

    Have a good weekend everyone.

11. I found this a bit more challenging than usual for Leonidas – but / and most enjoyable, as expected.

    I did make things rather more difficult than necessary by initially entering TELL OFF at 24ac (presumably, thinking of telling / counting votes or teller = cashier – but I didn’t think it was very good!) – then found, of course, that it didn’t fit with RUBICON.

    I couldn’t make sense of HOPSCOTCH (which it had to be) and couldn’t find Pete’s second definition in my dictionaries (did find ‘travel from place to place’ (North American) online but still couldn’t see why that gave ‘break’) so thanks to Leonidas for dropping in to clarify.

    My favourites were TARPAULIN, for the converted Saul, PARISHIONER, AILUROPHILE and FED (all for their construction) and MELANGE, with a wry smile, as I had the procedure described on the day I finished the puzzle.

    Many thanks to Leonidas for the puzzle and to Pete for the blog.

12. Saw 14a HOPSCOTCH as a “Game” you might need “chalk for” if you wanted to play it in the playground, during morning or afternoon “break” in primary school.
    [Edit – …as Leonidas@10 has said – I should have refreshed before posting, but it took me a few hours to parse 25d FED :)]

13. Thanks Pelham Barton @9 and Leonidas @10 for clarifying AILUROPHILE. I withdraw my quibble.

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