Financial Times 17,956 by GOZO

by

Gozo is today’s compiler.

Let’s start with the praise – a quadruple pangram is an achievement. Every letter (including the difficult J,Q, X and Z) used four times in the grid! Inevitably, this will lead to some obscure words being used – I had never come across MAXIXE, JOL or JEZAIL before, so had to check the dictionary to ensure I had those right.

Most of the clues were fine, although some of the surfaces were nonsense. However, I do have quibbles. Let’s start with one that may be me misunderstanding what the setter is trying to do. I can’t parse ELAPSING – I tried, but couldn’t get there. (KVa in comment 1 has provided a parsing which works). Other clues that don’t quite hit the mark are those for QUEUES UP (no homophone indicator?), DEBRIS (“something of a” is a vague way of saying “take most of the letters of”) and FRIJOL (why is “somewhat ” there?).

As always, I am happy to be shown the error of my ways if these clues can be justified in a way I haven’t seen. Doing crosswords at 5:30am before a day’s work does lead to me not having time to fully consider every possible angle.

Thanks, Gozo.

ACROSS
1 REBUFF
Slight about railway enthusiast (6)
RE (“about”) + BUFF (“railway enthusiast”)

A buff could be an enthusiast on any subject, though.
4 KOWTOWED
OK turning west, pulled along and grovelled (8)
<=OK [turning] + W (west) + TOWED (“pulled along”)
9 TOCSIN
Warning of poison, given aurally (6)
Homophonepun/aural wordplay [given aurally] of TOXIN (“posin”)
10 REQUITED
Rather embarrassed about having paid back (8)
RED (“embarrassed”) about QUITE (“rather”)
12 ONCE-OVER
Quick appraisal as soon as it is finished (4-4)
ONCE (“as soon as”) + OVER (“finished”)
13 SHRIKE
Songbird’s piercing scream when its tail is twisted (6)
SHRI-EK (“piercing scream”) with its tail twisted becomes SHRI-KE
15 AJAX
Proprietary cleaner is partly open — not right! Wrong! (4)
AJA(r>X) (“partly open”, not R (right) + X (wrong))
16 MACAQUE
Primate and staff drinking most of the water (7)
MACE (“staff”) drinking [most of] AQU(a) (“water”)
20 YELLOWY
Cry over case of whisky having a nicotine stain? (7)
YELL (“cry”) + O (over, in cricket) + [case of] W(hisk)Y
21 JOHN
Gent’s gent! (4)
Double definition, the first a WC and the second a definition by example.
25 OBEYED
Complied with former pupil and watched (6)
OB (old boy, so “former pupil”) + EYED (“watched”)
26 INVASIVE
Encroaching navvies I suspect (8)
*(navvies i) [anag:suspect]
28 QUEUES UP
Forms a line and hints heading north (6,2)
Homophone of CUES (“hints”) + UP (“north”)

Something missing from this clue, I think, as there is nothing to indicate that CUES (“hints”) and QUEUES are homophones.
29 PIAZZA
Square Italian meal adult tucked into (6)
A (adult) tucked into PIZZA (“Italian meal”)
30 ELAPSING
Passing wind, single dad goes back indoors (8)
KVa in the first comment provides the correct parsing, which I could not see at first.
31 DEBRIS
Rubble from overturned bed — something of a risk (6)
[overturned] <=BED + [something of a] RIS(k)
DOWN
1 RATIONAL
On trial, a criminal who’s not lost it (8)
*(on trial a) [anag:criminal]
2 BACKCHAT
Impudence from defender about cap (8)
BACK (“defender”) + C (circa, so “about”) + HAT (“cap”)
3 FRIJOL
Kidney bean providing half-day merriment, somewhat (6)
[half] of FRI(day) + JOL (“merriment”)

Jol is a South African slang word for a celebration or party.
5 OYEZ
Call from middle of foyer by unknown (4)
[middle of] (f)OYE(r) by Z (unknown, in maths)

For non-Brits, town cryers used to be a method of announcing public proclamations and they would get people’s attention by shouting OYEZ two or three times. It was also used to introduce the opening of a trial in court (see comment from Mr Penney below for a more extant use of OYEZ)
6 TRUTHFUL
Honest girl in time gets very nearly packed (8)
RUTH (“girl”) in (T (time) gets [very nearly] FUL(l) (“packed”)
7 WITH IT
Humorist’s success following current trends (4,2)
WIT (“humorist”) + HIT (“success”)
8 DODGEM
US car on motorway is a bumper car (6)
DODGE (“US car”) on M (motorway)
11 DEFAULT
Non-payment on new flat due (7)
*(flat due) [anag:new]
14 WAXWING
Bird gaining weight during beauty treatment (7)
W (weight) during WAXING (“beauty treatment”)
17 JEZEBELS
Scheming women with Afghan musket cut in half beheaded mutineers (8)
JEZ(ail) (“Afghan musket’, cut in half) + [beheaded] (r)EBELS
18 HOWITZER
Field-gun with zero damage (8)
*(with zero) [anag:damage]
19 KNEECAPS
Body parts, regularly skinned, play up (8)
[regularly] (s)K(i)N(n)E(d) + <=SPACE (“play”, up)
22 MOSQUE
Some Eskimo squeals where imams call to prayer (6)
Hidden in [some] “eskiMO SQUEals”
23 GENEVA
Some enclave neglected up on lake (6)
Hidden backwards in [some…up] “enclAVE NEGlected”
24 MAXIXE
Brazilian dance from cricket team in Test reversal (6)
XI (eleven, so “cricket team”) in <=EXAM (“test” reversal)
27 QUIN
One of five and four of fifteen in France (4)
[four of] QUIN(ze) (“fifteen in France”)

30 comments on “Financial Times 17,956 by GOZO”

  3. Maybe I’ve miscounted, but I’m pretty sure every letter appears at least four times in the grid.

    I think KVa is right about 30a. The only problem I have with that clue is the comma between ‘wind’ and ‘single’.

    I thought ‘merriment, somewhat’ in 3d is supposed to mean to take the first few letters of JOLLITY, or maybe JOLLINESS, which I definitely don’t like.

    I knew the word JEZAIL, but only because it was in a Magpie puzzle last year.

    Thanks, Loonapick and Gozo.

  4. Didn’t have any issue with ELAPSING.
    Delayed entering REBUFF as I couldn’t understand why ‘railway’ was in the clue.
    Surely toilets are gents’ not gent’s.
    Checked if QUEUE could be an unusual alternative spelling for CUE but it doesn’t seem to be.
    Didn’t like the ‘something of a’ in 31a either.
    I have seen MAXIXE before (in a cryptic, where else) but JEZAIL is a never-seen-before obscurity.

  5. Before anyone else chimes in, let me clarify that the puzzle is a quadruple pangram. Additionally it is compiled on a standard FT grid, so this provided restraints as I had no intention from the outset of adding extra black squares just to get myself out of a hole whilst I was compiling the puzzle. Let me remind you that this is my second quadruple pangram to be published in the FT in recent months.

  6. Apologies, Gozo, and congratulations on the quadruple pangram. I appreciate the difficulties that entails. I stand by my quibbles though, except for that for ELAPSING as I have now had its parsing pointed out to me.

  7. 30a ELAPSING: “wind” (rhymed with grind) is the anagrind.
    21a JOHN: oed.com has “gents” – no apostrophe. Maybe it’s John of Gent (aka Gaunt), born in Belgium (1340).
    3d FRIJOL: Took the JOL as JOL[ly] n. “colloquial. 1905– = jollification n.” That’s short enough to be “somewhat”.

  8. I needed a word finder to get JEZEBELS, since I didn’t know the Afghan rifle, but otherwise I got there in the end. It was an odd mix of rather easy and very hard, which I guess is par for the course in a multi-pangram puzzle like this.

    I’ve never seen that spelling of FRIJOL (vs. frijole); but on the other hand I’ve never seen the word pretending to be anything other than Spanish, and nearly always plural (frijoles being common on the menus of Mexican or South American restaurants around here). The other version is in the dictionary, so someone must have used it. My take on that clue is that it’s FRI[day] plus JOL[lity] (“merriment somewhat”), but “somewhat” is a little vague for that, so I could be wrong.

  9. 30a ELAPSING: the comma is there to misleadingly split the clue into two ‘lift and separates’ – “Passing wind” and “single dad”. Very nice.

  10. Oh, and for Loonapick: we have the OYEZ, OYEZ, OYEZ thing to this day at the Supreme Court of the US at least, and I believe at several other appellate courts as well. So it’s not just British, and not a thing of the past.

  12. I knew JEZEBELS and assumed/vaguely remembered from Kipling, possibly, that there was an Afghan musket that began with jez (when I read the blog I’d seen Jezail written somewhere – I think Kipling writing about visiting Stalky as an adult on the Northern Frontier).

    In common with FrankieG, I parsed ELAPSING as PA + (SINGLE)* with “wind” as the anagrind and FRIJOL as using most of “jolly”.

    I was impressed to see all 4 of the pangram letters appearing. I’m in awe of that setting. (I’ve tried setting with additional hidden messages and it’s difficult).

    Thank you to Gozo and loonapick.

  13. I enjoyed the solve, despite the occasional extra/missing word. However, as a solver pangrams mean nothing to me. If achieving single or multiple pangrams makes the puzzle less elegant then I say ditch the idea.

  14. Impressively clever fun! Thanks, Gozo. I rarely spot things like pangrams, but it was impossible not to quickly see a multiple, which helped in solving later clues, rather like doing the Eye’s Xmas offering. I always start in the SE, which may have helped. I like to learn something new from a crossword so didn’t mind Jezail at all. I too went with Jol(ly) at 3D (“it’s not a jolly, it’s a training day” – if I had a quid for every time I’ve heard that! :-D) Great start to the day. Have a good one, folks.

  16. Gozo @5, I thoroughly enjoyed this – some words that were new to me but were well clued (Maxixe, tocsin), and IIRC it was the 4 Xs led me to the admirable quad pangram. Nice work! Finding the 4th J helped with Frijol (LOI). Thanks Gozo and Loonapick

  19. Phew

    Congratulations, Gozo

    Much of this flew in reasonably quickly and the multiple pangram soon became apparent. But I took ages before finally entering Elapsing, without much confidence that it was correct. I’m glad others had difficulty with this clue, and thanks to for the explanation.

  20. Took a while to break into this one. The SW corner got me started. I confidently entered WISE UP for Humorist’s Success, that held me up again. I got Jezebels from “scheming women” but could not parse it. 24d I entered “MAXINE” as Brazilian woman. Thanks Gozo and loonapick.

  22. Congratulations to Gozo on the achievement. I liked FOI RATIONAL, KOWTOWED, and PIAZZA

    I am with Jay@13. In the end there were too many words I did not know and inelegant clues.

    Thanks Gozo and loonapick

  23. My realizing that this was a multiple pangram made this easier to solve, since I started looking for unusual words with the necessary letters. As suggested by others I read FRIJOL as FRI[DAY] + JOL[LITY]. I could not parse QUEUES UP, either. Impressive, Gozo!

  24. A very impressive grid-fill, but sadly let down by some exceptionally loose (to be generous) cluing, as noted by others. Either from setter or editor, hopefully next time the clues will receive the same sort of attention the grid has.

  25. Thanks Gozo for a most impressive accomplishment. I knew there was a pangram but four is OTT. I was another who did not finish this crossword but I found enough to like in SHRIKE, PIAZZA, DEBRIS, WITH IT, DEFAULT, HOWITZER, and WAXWING. Thanks loonapick for the blog.

  26. We soon saw a pangram emerging, but took a while to realise it would be a quadruple pangram. And we managed to complete it unaided apart from confirming a couple of guesses in the dictionary. Plenty to like, too, including MACAQUE and KNEECAPS.
    Thanks, Gozo and loonapick

  27. Amazed at the negative comments on this crossword. It’s a quadruple pangram for heaven’s sake. Got to be worth a few clueing liberties. Utter respect to Gozo.

  28. Piratewatch@27: You are entitled to h0old and to express your opinion, but please allow those who hold the opposite opinion to express their views. I make no comments on this puzzle or any of the individual clues in it, but the following applies to all puzzles in this series and similar puzzles in other newspapers. In my view, no amount of clever grid filling justifies any liberties in the clue writing, and I would hope that no reputable setter would feel the need to take any liberties using clever grid filling as an excuse.

  29. I entirely agree with PB. For me the interest in cryptic crosswords lies in solving fair well-constructed clues which don’t resort to silly gimmicks that grossly distort the language. If a grid contains a pangram, or any other device, that is an irrelevance, as far as I am concerned. If it contains a lot of obscure words I don’t think it should appear in a daily newspaper.

  30. Brilliant crossword, enjoyed all clues, no problem with parsing except we thought maybe hints was doing double duty in the QUEUES

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