Financial Times 17,913 by GUY

13 comments on “Financial Times 17,913 by GUY”

1. 4D is [mana]GER + MAN[ager].
   Why is GREG = 35 year-old car?

2. CONGREGATE
   GREG is G REG (a G REG car is one that was registered in 1989-90—thanks, Google!).

3. Thanks for the G-reg, KVa! (1990 was the year I left the UK so I didn’t remember that though my father has perfect recall of these things!)
   I did find this tough-going but was determined to finish – which I did after a few alphabet trawls! I learned (and guessed) RATLINE.
   My favourite was O CANADA and I had ticks for SALMON LEAP, RUE, PIMPLE and INTO.
   Thanks for a stern workout, Guy, and Turbolegs for a great blog.

4. [We did have a G-reg car but that was a 1968 classic]

5. Thanks, Turbolegs, for explaining 29A. The answer was obvious from the cross letters but I didn’t get the “cherries” bit. I assumes that it must have been a reference to some sporting team – my weak subject.

   Similarly, 16A (superloo), was unknown but gettable from the cross letters and the anagram. Is this a male thing? Or an English thing?

   Finally, 19D (ratline) was also unknown to me and so remained unsolved. I have never climbed a rope ladder. Why does “line” mean “field”?

6. RATLINE
   field=LINE as in ‘line/field of work’, I think.

7. Thanks. KVa, I get it now re line and field.

8. A fan of Guy, surprisingly?
   My first tussle with this setter, ( I think ), and half-way through, I was certainly 29(ac) and 8(down).
   On completing, I realised what an expert piece of compiling this puzzle is……”tough but fair”, sums it up.
   No tedious cross-dependent solutions; no obscurities, in wordplay, answers, or general knowledge.
   Not even a scent of French/ Latin/ German ( except for Messrs. Klopp & Tuchel…and what a cunning clue that is!).

   Classic cryptic compiling….my kind of guy.

   And to round it off, great blog from Turbolegs, cheers.

9. Well done to those who spotted the correct parse for GERMAN. I had a much weaker ‘managers partly’ contributing the MAN and the GER with ‘united’ putting those two together. I am not surprised that Guy’s intent was something both more rigorous and more elegant. As others have said, a very smooth puzzle, ingeniously constructed with some lovely surfaces and avoiding some rather too-obvious constructions. A pleasure from nose to tail. I didn’t solve OBITUARIST or parse BARONS but that’s my bad. Faves included ADRIFT, SUPERLOO and EVIDENT for the surfaces, O CANADA which is simply delightful, a ‘proper’ Spoonerism in RIGHT OF CENTRE, two more lovely surfaces in TERMINUS and ON THE ROPES, a lovely anagram spot for CATHERINE PARR and the closing, delightful simple yet effective PAID.

   Thanks Guy and Turbolegs.

10. Guy is fast becoming one of my favourite setters, even when I can’t quite finish without help. PostMark has highlighted some of the delights. As one old enough to have owned a G-Reg car, I choose CONGREGATE as my favourite.

11. PostMark@9
    I had “wayward” parsings on both GERMAN , and BARONS, so I completed only with a couple of flukes.
    So, my bad, too.
    Totally agree with your summary.

12. I’ll go along with Petert – I too am getting to be quite a 6ac – and PostMark (thanks for doing the hard work!).

    My only quiblet was tonight = LATER?

    Thanks to Guy and Turbolegs, especially for the parsing of BARONS.

13. We couldn’t understand ‘greg’ in CONGREGATE or parse GERMAN; otherwise this was fairly straightforward if challenging. We liked 29ac for the ‘Cherries scored’ misdirection.
    Thanks, Guy and Turbolegs.

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