Financial Times 17,973 by GOLIATH

23 comments on “Financial Times 17,973 by GOLIATH”

1. This grid was the perfect way to spend a rainy morning over coffee (though not a 3d – loved the ‘stir-crazy’ here).
   Goliath never fails to raise a smile; in this case, wide grins for BALDERDASH and DIPSOMANIA. There were a great many other ticks besides including ILIAD (definition), DROWN (lovely surface) and BADENOCH, another irresistible surface.
   I liked the connection between 8 and 20.
   My only puzzlement was the parsing for STARTLE, which Oriel has neatly explained here by ‘st art’ (not ‘start’) = ‘graffiti’ – of course!! Now it’s another of my favourites.
   Thanks to Goliath and Oriel both.
   Can’t see a theme but feels like there may be something.

2. Couldn’t work out why “start” was graffiti (misspelt in the clue), but should have remembered that this is a Goliath trick.

   Is there an inclusion indicator in 20a? And I’m not a fan of “over” as an anagrind (8a). That poor overworked word already has an abundance of uses in cryptics.

   Never heard of SOUTH GLAMORGAN, RISTRETTO, BADENOCH. But plenty to enjoy here.

3. I enjoyed this one although I came up short on 3 clues. Can someone explain what a reverse anagram is? Same for an Anagrind? I’m unfamiliar with both terms.

   PS someone helpfully suggested I get hold of the Chambers Crossword Manual as written by Bradman if I remember right – I’ve got that arriving soon which should help.

   It may not be apparent to experienced solvers but there is a real kind of Freemasonry (hidden meanings, secret signs etc) to Cryptic crosswords which makes it all the harder to get to grips with them. The FAQs on here are some help with a few but there are many more aspects that can be baffling, even when they are visible.

4. Like Diane and Geoff I failed to see St+ Art in 19d, but all else done an dusted quite quickly. I too, cannot see a theme, but then again, I generally fail to spot Ninas either…

5. Liked DESERT ISLAND, STARTLE and DROWN.
   Thanks Goliath and Oriel.

   ANTI
   GDU@2
   in-fantilisation (nothing says we should Playtex the word. Some like such clues. Some don’t).

6. Thanks, KVa, I missed that. Still deciding whether I like it.

   Autistic Trier @ 3, “anagrind” is a portmanteau of “anagram indicator”.

7. The clue for ANTI does not work for me because just “fantilisation” is not a stand-alone word. The parsing for STARTLE I got right away–neat trick. I think I am passingly familiar with UK politics, but I have never heard of Ms. BADENOCH. It is EGGPLANT in the U.S., too. This seems an odd assortment of solutions in search of a theme, but I do not see one either.

8. Thanks for the blog, great puzzle, so much imagination in the wordplay , STARTLE is very neat and clever .
   I have seen BAD ENOCH used before in Cyclops but it is still pretty new . I hope there is not a theme, yet another dreary theme in the Guardian today.

9. A.T.@3 I guess you mean TAKE SHAPE , the answer itself tells us to “shape” take , an anagram which gives us Kate , part of the clue. A normal anagram is in the clue telling us to do something to get the answer. TAKE SHAPE is the reverse process.
   Good to ask questions, everyone on here is still learning and people are very happy to help .

10. Searching for what to say about this lovely puzzle, I find that I can’t do better than echo Diane @1, practically word for word, so thanks to her, as well as Goliath and Oriel.
    I would just add EGO TRIP, FRIEND INDEED (great definition) and SOUTH GLAMORGAN (lovely surface) (although I guess they’re among Diane’s ‘great many other ticks’) and, as ever, my admiration for the trademark follow-on entries at 1/4, 25/26 and 5/15.

11. Re 20a: KVa@5, you can’t Playtex a word into words that don’t exist, like fantilisation 🙁 (unless it’s fan ’til I sat ion). {Edit: as Cineraria@7. I should’ve refreshed.}

12. Thanks FrankieG@11.

13. {A mini-theme: Roxy Music’s STreet Life from their ISLAND Records album STRANDED (1973) would feature on my DESERT ISLAND Discs (1942–).
    [Though Dame Jessica Ennis-Hill chose a different song with the same name: Randy Crawford’s STreet Life (1979) (I Love that, too.)]}

14. Thanks Goliath (except, of course, for 20ac) and Oriel (for the whole blog)

    20ac: It seems to me that, if you are going to allow the unsignalled splitting of clue words, it is a much smaller step to allow one part to be a non-word than it is to allow the ghastly device to be used at all.

    Further to AT@3’s final paragraph, I think we should avoid unnecessary jargon. The term Playtex seems to be used by a very small number of people as if it were standard crossword terminology, but I find it very unhelpful. In response to Frankie@11, it seems to me to be utterly absurd to allow the term to be used for splitting a clue word into three or more parts.

15. Exactly what Diane said.
    Cineraria @7. – blimey, the leader of the opposition NHO? How the Tories have fallen.

16. Overall I agree with the comments above. I enjoyed most of this with some clever cluing, but but a couple of clues did not seem to work well

    I most liked BALDERDASH (great word and nice clue), DALLIANCE (clever observation), DESERT ISLAND (a lovely anagram), and PLAINTIFF (nice surface).

    SE corner took the most time. I am not sure I knew PICADOR and I was embarrassed to not know BADENOCH, but relieved to see I am in excellent company there. I understood the clue, but needed all the crossers to come up with the second word in TAKE SHAPE

    I did not parse STARTLE and I am not sure whether I like it now I see the solution. If ST ART is a known way of writing graffiti then it is a great clue. If not, then it is missing something. I assumed the clue for ANTI contained a typo and the division indicator was accidentally lost. Like others, I hope it was not deliberate. I thought EMIRATI seemed a bit loose too.

    Thanks Goliath and Oriel

17. A generally satisfying solve, but we weren’t happy with 20ac. Pace PB@14 we’ve no objection to ‘lift & separate’ clues but when the device results in one or more non-words it’s a step too far. And a bit of research suggests that the clue could have had ‘insubstantiality’ which would have avoided the problem. Also we’d never heard of RISTRETTO, which isn’t in our edition of Chambers, but we worked it out from the clue and checked it online.
    Plenty to like, though, including BALDERDASH, PICADOR and PLAINTIFF.
    Thanks, Goliath and Oriel.

18. allan_c@17: I am happy to respect other people’s preferences. Perhaps this time round I did not make that point as clearly as I could have done. Well done on finding “insubstantiality”: I only looked for possible words ending “-antic”, and did not find any that would fit.

    3dn: ristretto is in Collins 2023 p 1719 and ODE 2010 p 1534. I could not find it in Chambers 2011 or 2016.

19. Generally, I liked this one which was a steady solve with some great clues. But I do find with Goliath that some his definitions are a bit of a stretch. For instance, if I’ve had a concise clue “timely help” I would never have thought a “friend indeed”.

    For me, 20a is a dud clue.

    Thanks for the blog.

20. A small comment on RISTRETTO. I have never drunk one but it is usually on the menu in coffee bars. I would have thought this made the word acceptable in a crossword puzzle even it is was not in a dictionary? Dictionaries sometimes lag behind the common usage of words.

21. Thanks Goliath for a good crossword with my favourites being DESERT ISLAND, DIPSOMANIA, TAKE SHAPE, PLAINTIFF, and ILIAD. I revealed the nho BADENOCH and PUERILE and couldn’t parse STARTLE, maybe because I see most graffiti as vandalism, not art. I agree with Cineraria @ 7 about ANTI. In AGAINST I don’t think I’ve seen ‘over’ by itself as an anagram indicator. Thanks Oriel for the blog.

22. Well I enjoyed this… it all made sense at least… helped by being an old coffee lover, so RISTRETTO was a write-in and I’d side with SM@20 re availability… similarly, “rivers of blood” Enoch fairly leapt to mind, on mention of “anti-immigration”. AT@3, one gets accustomed to the apparently never ending learning curve in crypticology, but I find that’s a part of the joy. For instance, I’ve come to accept pretty much any word as an anagram indicator, if I see the fodder with the right number of letters leading to a plausible answer, I’m just grateful. In the words of the Nobel Laureate “I used to care, but things have changed…”
    Many thanks Goliath n Oriel for a fair blog

23. At least the ST ART was served with a qm, which by convention prepares us for some latitude. Most graffiti is (sorry about the loose singular noun) ignorant muck, but some of it is indeed artistic. So that one was all right with me.

    OTOH could I ask old sawbones to leave the 20 acrosses of this world for The Grauniad?

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