Financial Times 18,025 by GOZO

by

GOZO kicks off the week…

A fun puzzle, with some nifty surfaces.

Thanks GOZO!

picture of the completed grid

ACROSS
1. The sky full of rooks? Visionaries’ ideals (7,2,3,3)
CASTLES IN THE AIR

Double (cryptic) definition

9. Private letter container with post and spar (7)
MAILBOX

MAIL (post) and BOX (spar)

10. Literary festival town collecting listeners’ gossip (7)
HEARSAY

HAY (literary festival town) collecting EARS (listeners)

11. Some fanciful tradtionalist – hardly! (5)
ULTRA

[fancif]UL TRA[ditionalist] (some) &lit

12. Veronica having drug. Gracious! (9)
SPEEDWELL

SPEED (drug) + WELL (gracious!)

13. Delivery from popular lively up-to-date person (9)
INSWINGER

IN (popular) + SWINGER (lively up-to-date person)

15. The right one stopped to get up late (3,2)
LIE IN

LIEN (right), I (one) stopped

16. You once received records of evidence of Fido’s excitement (5)
YELPS

YE (you, once) received LPS (records)

18. Sea-life centres with canoe wrecked by field, we’re told (9)
OCEANARIA

(CANOE)* (*wrecked) by "area" = ARIA (field, "we're told")

20. New Englander, say, always around at the back (9)
EASTERNER

EER (always) around ASTERN (at the back)

23. Elementary book academy faithfully reproduced (5)
BASIC

B (book) + A (academy) + SIC (faithfully repoduced)

24. Informal conference about the Inca (5-2)
TEACH-IN

(THE INCA)* (*about)

25. Where a golf-ball ends up with difficulty (2,1,4)
IN A HOLE

Double definition

26. Online extra involving ten mathematical characters (5,10)
EMAIL ATTACHMENT

(TEN MATHEMATICAL)* (*involving characters)

DOWN
1. Council facility U? (9,6)
COMMUNITY CENTRE

Reverse cryptic, U being the centre of COMMUNITY

2. Islamic worshippers at camping locations, accepting greeting (7)
SHIITES

SITES (camping locations) accepting HI (greeting)

3. Two overlapping signs at lending outlets (9)
LIBRARIES

LIBRA and ARIES (two signs, overlapping)

4. Crickets scores in disarray when partnering sevens (5)
SIXES

at SIXES and sevens (disarray)

5. Unlimited extent of the gender problem (3,6)
NTH DEGREE

(THE GENDER)* (*problem)

6. Treasure from wandering tribe is spoken of (5)
HOARD

"horde" = HOARD (wandering tribe, "spoken of")

7. Australia tried enthusiastically removing England’s openers – harsh! (7)
AUSTERE

AUS (Australia) + T[ried] E[nthusiastically] R[emoving] E[ngland] (openers)

8. Arranged Rain Dance only at St Andrews (5,3,7)
ROYAL AND ANCIENT

(RAIN DANCE ONLY AT)* (*arranged)

14. Food plant crushed by overturned barrel (9)
GROUNDNUT

GROUND (crushed) by (TUN)< (barrel, <overturned)

15. Began swimming in lake in Californian city (4,5)
LONG BEACH

(BEGAN)* (*swimming) in LOCH (lake)

17. Callas recollected a famous opera venue (2,5)
LA SCALA

(CALLAS)* (*recollected) + A

19. Knight rejected the only breadcrumb cake (7)
RISSOLE

(SIR)< (knight, <rejected) + SOLE (the only)

21. Merman giving some discreet help (5)
ETHEL

[discre]ET HEL[p] (some)

22. Educated woman consumes a cucumber dish (5)
RAITA

RITA (educated woman) consumes A

9 comments on “Financial Times 18,025 by GOZO”

  1. Nothing too complex here although I did struggle a bit with NTH DEGREE. I was interested that I have now encountered the “overlapping” device (3 Down) twice in a week, having never seen it previously. Thanks Gozo and Teacow

  2. If anyone else is having deja vu over the LIBRARIES clue, Vulcan had an almost identical clue on March 24, ‘They lend two overlapping signs’.

  3. Thanks for the blog , very good set of clues , neat and lots of variety . For INSWINGER I was glad to see the original meaning of swinger , remove the hyphens and we have the modern version which I do not like .

  4. Liked CASTLES IN THE AIR, ULTRA (CAD. A little short of being &lit?), INSWINGER (For the ‘lively …person’), NTH DEGREE and GROUNDNUT.

    IN A HOLE
    I think the def is ‘with difficulty’ (looks closer than difficulty).

    SIXES
    Is it okay to define SIXES as ‘crickets scores’ (as opposed to cricket scores)?

    Thanks Gozo and Teacow
    PS: Hovis@2 Yes. I remember that clue.

  5. I agree with Roz@3 that it was a set of neat clues with lots of variety. I also liked Roz’s “remove the hyphens” comment. I agree with KVa on SIXES and IN A HOLE

    The puzzle contained a few words that were new for me, but it was way within my tolerance level. My favourites were ROYAL AND ANCIENT, ETHEL, YELPS.

    Thanks Gozo and Teacow

  6. A very enjoyable puzzle, lots to like, ‘though the clues for 25(ac) IN A HOLE, and 4(d) SIXES seem slightly awry to me.
    More than compensated, by COMMUNITY CENTRE at 1(d); and NTH DEGREE 5(d). A clever reverse cryptic and a trappy choice for an anagram.
    Nice to see ETHEL Merman getting a namecheck, she was in my favourite film as a kid…”It’s A Mad,Mad,Mad,Mad World”. Which sums up the world today, but not this crossword, which was very smart indeed.

    Thanks to Gozo & Teacow

  9. NTH DEGREE was one of the last clues I solved – it could well have been the very last. Early in the piece, I went thought all the vowels that could go in the space between N & H – obviously with little success. I think I needed all the crossers and some thinking time to finally crack it

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