Financial Times 18,028 by IO

by

The puzzle is subtitled "A Maunday Thursday puzzle".

The key to this difficult puzzle is solving 3dn, which gives us the indication that THIRTY PIECES OF SILVER are strewn around the puzzle. I could only find Ag 29 times, but have assumed that the GA at the start of 20dn is the thirtieth. There were some fiendishly difficult clues in here, and I'm not at all convinced by my parsing of AGA SAGA or WINSOME, but I think I could sit here all day and not come up with anything better.

This was definitely not a puzzle for beginners though with some unusual words such as AGIOTAGES, well-hidden definitions such as "fly" for STAGE WAGON and unusual devices such as those in the clues for CARJACK and the aformentioned 3dn.

Thanks, Io.

picture of the completed grid

ACROSS
1 CARJACK
Opel___? It would be perverse practical joke (7)

*(practical joke ) [anag:perverse] is an anagram of "opel CARJACK it"
5 WINSOME
Attractive Gemini sign taken out of frame (7)

(t)WINS OME(n) ("gemini sign") [taken out of frame]

I'm assuming that "taken out of frame" is meaning "having its surroundings removed", as in a painting?
10 SAID
Articulated lorries finally help (4)

(lorrie)S [finally] + AID ("help")
11 STAGE WAGON
Fly past after width accepted by dotty agents (5,5)

AGO ("past") after W (width) accepted by *(agents)
12 SANSEI
Japanese-American type forfeiting right to leave force (6)

SANSE(r)I(f) ("type", forfeiting R (right) and with F (force) leaving)

I originally thought the setter had made a mistake here because I have always considered SANS SERIF to be two words, but it is also spelt SANSERIF.
13 AGAR-AGAR
Out of the City, house vehicle next to a cultural setting? (4-4)

GARAG(e c)AR ("house vehicle" with EC (postcode for the "City" of London, out) next to A
14 VAGABONDS
Itinerants Victor notices around African country (9)

V (Victor, in the NATO phonetic alphabet) + ADS ("notices") around GABON ("African country")
16 WAGER
Wealthy lady refusing to take bet (5)

(do)WAGER ("wealthy lady") refusing DO ("to take", as in "to do drugs")
17 MAGIC
Left college, heading for independent School of Witchcraft and Wizardry (5)

[(to the) left] <=(C (college) + I (independent) + GAM ("school" of whales))
19 WAGGISHLY
With a penchant for mischief perhaps, equine left in passage (9)

GG-ISH could be "like a horse" so "equine" + L (left) in WAY ("passige")
23 SETTLING
Payment left in my bag (8)

L (left) in SETTING ("my" (i.e the setter's) bag", i.e. specialty)
24 RAGTAG
People commonly mock the Chaser’s game (6)

RAG ("mock") + TAG ("the chaser's game")
26 WAGGA WAGGA
Perhaps gossip’s tongue is given admonishing finger on Radio City (5,5)

Homophone/pun/aural wordplay of WAGGER ("perhaps gossips's tongue") + WAGGER ("admonishing finger")

Wagga Wagga is a city in New South Wales, Australia.
27 LEAD
Live heavy metal (4)

Double definition. For the first, consider the term "lead one's life" being synonymous with "live one's life".
28 CORSAGE
My frequent accompaniment for parsley flowers (7)

COR ("my!") + SAGE ("frequent accompaniment for parsley")
29 BEAGLER
Play a Variation of Elgar — the Hunter? (7)

BE ("play") + *(elgar) [anag:a variation of]
DOWN
2 AGA SAGA
Commanders repeatedly killed off in novel (3,4)

AGAS + AGA(s) ("commanders repeatedly") with the second being "killed off", presumably")
3 JUDAS
Strewn about, if retrospectively, his payment (5; 6,6,2,6) (5)

*(if retrospectively his) [anag:strewn about] gives us THIRTY PIECES OF SILVER (the alleged "payment" given to JUDAS in the New Testament), but it is also an indication to the setter that AG (the chemical symbol for silver) has been strewn arowund the puzzle thirty times.
4 CASSINO
Partnership maybe employs dummy in card game (7)

Co. (company, so "partnership maybe") employs ASS ("dummy") + IN
6 ICE BAG
Reckless barbecuing leaving burn calls for this? (3,3)

*(baecig) [anag:reckless] where BAECIG is BA(rb)EC(u)I(n)G with (the letters of) BURN leaving
7 SCALAWAGS
14 football groupies being serenaded in Milan? (9)

WAGS (wives and girlfriends of footballers, so "football groupies") at (La) SCALA (opera house in Milan, so "being serenaded in Milan")
8 MOORAGE
Getting smack fast, result of queue- jumping in milking parlour? (7)

MOO RAGE could be "the result of "queue-jumping in the milking parlour".

The smack in the clue could be a fishing smack.
9 BAG AND BAGGAGE
Without reservation, airline crew admitting awfully bad joke close to departure (3,3,7)

BA GANG ("airline (British Airways) crew") admitting *(bad) [anag:awfully] + GAG ("joke") + [close to] (departur)E
15 AGIOTAGES
Games giant upset about a little group of cabals on stock market (9)

<=SEGA ("games giant", upset) about IOTA ("a little") + G (group of, as in G5)
18 AGES AGO
A government and I will collect it once (4,3)

A + G (government) + EGO ("I") will collect SA (sex appeal, so "it")
20 GARBAGE
Refuse to stand up for one rating tabloid (7)

[to stand up] <=(e.g. (for example or "for one") + AB (able-bodies seaman, so "rating") + RAG ("tabloid"))
21 LEAFAGE
Spring greens general’s found having to eat a bore (7)

(General) Robert E LEE found having to eat A + FAG ("bore")
22 WIGWAG
In domed shelter mobile’s lost good signal (6)

WIGWA(m) ("domed shelter" with M (mobile) lost) + G (good)

Wigwag is a slang American term for a railway signal
25 GULAG
Drink set up outside a detention centre (5)

<=GLUG ("drink", set up) outside A

27 comments on “Financial Times 18,028 by IO”

  3. Thanks for a brilliant blog , not easy to blog and not easy to solve . I noticed the AG in many answers but I did not count . WINSOME seems fine to me and I am sure KVa@1 is right for AGA SAGA .
    CAR JACK and ICE BAG are very neat , but I could list many .
    CASSINO a strange game , so many variations , it is the only fishing game I have played .

  4. I didn’t solve much of this when I first attempted it, but after a bit of a break I managed to finish it. Assuming answers would contain AG seemed to help, even if it was sometimes wrong.

    You seem to have missed the second AG in AGES AGO.

  5. Thanks Io and Loona.I solved 11 clues and gave up. Being a total heathen I had no idea what the Easter-ish hint meant, and all the extra numbers for 3d just went Que? Well done to all who tuned in and cracked it.An order of magnitude up from his hard Graun prize a while ago.

  6. For 1a I missed the anagram, because I had CAR from Opel, and JACK from _ (nothing). Happy to think that both were intended. Last two were AGIOTAGES, which needed a tally of AGs and trying a wordsearch with AG***AGES, and finally SETTLING, which was very cute.
    The clue for 3d refers to Judas ‘cast[ing] down the pieces of silver in the temple’ after he repented.

  7. There are 30 AGs. You missed marking the second one in AGES AGO. I figured out “silver”-something about halfway through, but did not work out its thematic significance until I saw JUDAS right at the last. This puzzle was almost impenetrable until it became apparent that a lot of AGs needed to be worked in, and then guessing solutions became a lot simpler. I parsed all except GARBAGE (where I got as far as “rag”) and AGIOTAGES (where I got as far as “Sega”). I parsed CARJACK as James@6, but also missed the compound/composite anagram part. Tough.

  9. I didn’t count all the pieces of silver but I will say that once they became obvious, it did help with solving some of the less known words

    Thanks to Io and loonapick

  10. With Sue on this, very thankful for the slew of AGs. I liked the JUDAS clue idea for the theme, but didn’t like AGIOTAGES much as without its S it is already a plural noun. The fact that it is ‘money-changing’ suits the idea well however.

    Thankyou loonapick, and Io for a characteristically tough work-out.

  12. Tiny suggestion to tweak the blog: I suspect the definition of MAGIC is ‘of Witchcraft and Wizardry’ and the solution is thus an adjective. I don’t think this setter would deliver us a clue that would otherwise read ‘wordplay of definition’.

  13. I got WINSOME by taking (T)WIN(S) and then assumed SOME related to WIN being some of TWINS. It seemed to make sense at the time but frankly my brain cells are so scrambled. I think I need to lie down in a darkened room. What a fantastic piece of work!

    Loonapick you have my deepest sympathies and with “not one for beginners” you have truly mastered the art of understatement

    Cheers L&I

  14. In 19A the “perhaps” is not part of the definition?
    GG-ISH is “perhaps equine”, which is almost as per blog.

    Phew, what a slog!

  15. Never been more comprehensively beaten by a crossword than this one.

    Glad i gave up when I did.

    Should’ve come with a health warning.

    Sometimes I manage to solve Io. This was ghastly.

    I appreciate that many expert solvers who read these comments will think it’s fair enough to have one as difficult as this in the FT, but I don’t.

    Congratulations to the few readers of this paper who pay a subscription and who managed to solve it.

  16. Thanks loonapick and IO.

    What a terrific puzzle!

    ‘Saint Francis of Assisi’ did not fit the 6,6,2,6…though I had several answers.

    Then the silver dropped, so to say.

    Liked ‘Japanese’, ‘clutural setting’, ‘equine left’, ‘gossip’s tongue and admonishing finger’ –

  17. That I got any was an accomplishment for me. Interestingly I understood the thirty prices of silver reference but still failed to solve 60% of this puzzle. Many thanks to all

  18. Independently of this fantastic puzzle, Maundy Thursday, Judas, thirty pieces of silver and the washing of feet were all discussed in The Flower Pot at Bedford this evening. I chucked in the mandatum thing for good measure, but no-one knew what the hell I was on about. The weirdest open mike ever possibly, but good fun all the same.

  19. This was too tough for me. I have just one observation to make on WAGGA WAGGA (one of several clues I could not parse or solve without reading this blog): the aural wordplay does not seem to work as intended, because the name of that city is spoken like wogga wogga and not as spelled.

  20. I got a fair bit of the grid filled but missed the punchline which is brilliant
    So is the blog
    Thanks all

  21. I started with 4 out of 29 solved; after an hour I was still at 4/29, so I gave up. Even reading the blog there were still several I couldn’t understand. So my experience was like Moly’s (at 15), except that I don’t think the puzzle was ghastly. It was a fine puzzle, just not intended for the likes of me. It would be churlish of me to begrudge the Roz’s of this world their occasional serious challenge. I don’t feel cheated at all, and anyway there’s a Brendan to tackle tomorrow, so all is well with the world.

    My admiration for loonapick and his blog is unbounded.

  22. Yes, agree with Alan B@19 re WAGGA WAGGA. It’s a shame that the clue indicating a homophone (wagga = wagger) should fail given that the correct pronunciation is as Alan states. (I learned this from Andrew Mueller, The Monocle’s entertaining podcaster, who hails from there).
    Still, it did not detract from a masterful puzzle because the city must be surely regularly mispronounced.

  23. Winsome = (t)wins ome(n). i.e.: Gemini – twins and sign – omen; taken out of frame remove the t from twins and the n from omen; winsome. Brilliant setting, fiendishly difficult and very much appreciated.

  24. This was my first IO attempt after recommendations on the G site. I admitted defeat early and came here for elucidation. Congrats to loonapick and commenters here who solved it. Agree, it’s an admirable feat of setting.

    WAGGA WAGGA with the AG theme was a gift. But it’s a shame that IO didn’t check the pronunciation, as noted by Alan B219, and Diane@22. I liked the misdirection with Radio City, but definitely not a homophone as indicated by “on Radio”. Actually, I can’t think of any English word that sounds like wogga.

    Wagga Wagga is from the Wiradjuri language and is an example of reduplication, common in many Aboriginal languages, where a word or part of the word is repeated to emphasise quantity, intensity, or duration.

    I wonder what IO could have done with 2 AGs and 2 reversed AGs?!

  25. {Just wanted to add that Wagga Wagga raises an interesting question as to why it was written that way in English orthography. Many of the those in first contact with Aboriginal people following colonisation were missionaries from various European countries. )

  26. Gave up after a lengthy session with only four solutions. I will probably give this setter a miss in the future!
    I always thought ‘groupies’ were sexually promiscuous fans, rather than wives and girlfriends ( although I suppose they could migrate from one to the other!).

  27. I don’t have a problem with pronouncing Wagga Wagga the way it is pronounces there. Pronounce both a’s the same way!

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