Financial Times 18,034 by GOLIATH

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An enjoyable challenge from Goliath.

This is a nice balance of not too easy, not too hard. A good mix of clue types. Thanks Goliath for the challenge!

picture of the completed grid

ACROSS
1. Manage to gather everybody by one source inspiration (8)
CALLIOPE

COPE (manage) to gather ALL (everybody) by I (one)

5. Commercial division off course (6)
ADRIFT

AD (commercial) + RIFT (division)

9. Hypothetically, home political party protects the man (2,6)
IN THEORY

IN (home) + TORY (political party) protects HE (the man)

10. Nobody against floral arrangement (3,3)
ALL FOR

FLORAL* (*arrangement)

12. Partial restoration to rear deck (5)
TAROT

[res]TORAT[ion]< (partial, <to rear)

13. Luring a criminal to hide gold first (9)
INAUGURAL

(LURING A)* (*criminal) to hide AU (gold)

14. Quietly, deception is working (6)
PLYING

P (quietly, musical term) + LYING (deception)

16. Elevate East and West German capital once held back by the French (7)
ENNOBLE

E (east) + BONN< (West German capital once, <held back) by LE (the, French)

19. Poor soul having to host unknown politician in divine residence (7)
OLYMPUS

SOUL* (*poor) having to host Y (unknown) + MP (politician, Member of Parliament)

21. Glaswegian’s No 5 American beauty spot (6)
NAEVUS

NAE (no, Glaswegian) + V (5) + US (American)

23. Cutters about to start trawling for fish (9)
STURGEONS

SURGEONS (cutters) about T[rawling] (to start)

25. Twofold outstanding cover for pencil case (5)
DUPLE

DUE (outstanding) cover for P[enci]L (case)

26. Street kid saved by church intervention (6)
URCHIN

[ch]URCH IN[tervention] (saved by)

27. Resistance has its origin in novels (8)
FRICTION

R[esistance] (its origin) in FICTION (novels)

28. European emperor gradually drained of stamina (6)
ENERGY

E[uropea]N + E[mpero]R G[raduall]|Y (drained)

29. Compose a poem about an Arab country (8)
EMIRATES

(SET A RIME)< (compose a poem, <about)

DOWN
1. Zinc alloyed with extremely tough material (6)
CHINTZ

(ZINC + T[oug]H (extremely))* (*alloyed with)

2. Truly American volume supported by friend (9)
LITERALLY

LITER (American volume) supported by ALLY (friend)

3. Primarily, I’m not easily reactive? True! (5)
INERT

I[‘m] N[ot] E[asily] R[eactive] T[rue] (primarily) – &lit

4/20. GP art’s hot? Final word! (7,4)
PARTING SHOT

I’m not sure I understand this so further elucidation is welcome:

P ART’S HOT takes IN G (from the front of the clue phrase)

6. Coach with due care and attention (9)
DILIGENCE

Double definition

7. Conclude there’s no escape from hell (5)
INFER

INFER[no] (hell, there’s NO escape from)

8. The high road starts less well in fiction (8)
THRILLER

T[he] H[igh] R[oad] (starts) + ILLER (less well)

11/21. Surprising us with Roman term for the sea (4,7)
MARE NOSTRUM

(US with ROMAN TERM)* (*surprising)

15. Calling into question shaky start to mix up two gins (9)
IMPUGNING

(M[ix] (start to) + UP + GIN + GIN)* (shaky)

17. Ripe bananas in tactless plan (9)
BLUEPRINT

RIPE* (*bananas) in BLUNT (tactless)

18. Octobre, peut-être? True to form, it’s wet! (8)
MOISTURE

MOIS (Octobre, peut-être) + TRUE* (*to form)

‘Mois’ is the French word for ‘month’

22. Sport, part of which includes pub on the way back (6)
TENNIS

(SET (part of which, i.e. part of said sport) includes INN (pub))< (<on the way back)

24. Cut short dirty relative (5)
UNCLE

UNCLE[an] (dirty, cut short)

A cryptic regular

25. Medic welcomes green house style (5)
DECOR

DR (medic) welcomes ECO (green)

20 comments on “Financial Times 18,034 by GOLIATH”

  3. Isn’t 1a missing an “of”?: “source of inspiration”. — Loved 21a NAEVUS; 11d, 21d MARE NOSTRUM.

  4. Still do not see where IN comes from in 4 20d?
    Otherwise agree with Oriel’s assessment . It was an excellent blog and an enjoyable puzzle.
    Thanks to both.

  5. SM it’s a reverse clue – to get PARTING SHOT, you have G PART SHOT so you have part (in) gshot.

    Really pleased to see Goliath this morning. Thank you for the puzzle and Oriel for the blog.

  6. Tough but fair.
    I agree with FrankieG, (as usual), @2 +@3.
    Inserting “of” in 1(ac), improves the syntax, and doesn’t take anything away from the clue.
    For me, [4d,20d] was the highlight: sort of “find the reverse wordplay/container clue” : “part (found) in gshot”.
    5(ac) gave me the most trouble, ADRIFT seemed more like “aimless” than “off course”, but it’s a fair synonym, once the penny dropped. I suppose “all at sea” might be a bit too obvious!
    Excellent puzzle from an unfamiliar (to me) setter.
    I cannot find fault in any clue.
    As per Jay@1, a Goldilocks, or darned near.
    Great stuff + ta, Goliath & Oriel

  7. I agree with the generally positive comments. I ticked FRICTION (thought it clever), ALL FOR, INAUGURAL, URCHIN

    Did not manage to parse DILIGENCE (NHO the carriage) or OLYMPUS, so thanks to Oriel.

    It is a pity the setter painted himself into a corner and we ended up with the obscure NAEVUS

    Thanks Goliath and NAEVUS

  8. Goliath always brightens my day! ALL FOR, MARE NOSTRUM, THRILLER and, especially MOISTURE were favourites.
    Thanks to Oriel and Goliath.

  9. Oh dear, talk about a strange error by me@7. Let me do it properly this time and thank Oriel for the blog, not the unknown Neavus. Apologies as well as thanks.

  10. Thanks for the blog , very enjoyable puzzle , neat and clever clues throughout . Perhaps the missing of for CALLIOPE is just an error in the printing process somewhere .
    For those who like PARTING SHOT there is an old favourite from Araucaria –
    Cox at me ( 6,3,6 ) .

  11. I think I solved Cox at me (after considerable thought). Very clever. Thank-you for passing it on, Roz@10

  12. Solid puzzle. MARE NOSTRUM new to me and not in Chambers which made life trickier when I was trying to make sense of the anagram. Parsed PARTING SHOT as others here – very clever. TAROT, INAUGURAL, PLYING, CHINTZ, MOISTURE and the excellent TENNIS are my faves.

    I do have an issue with INFER, though: surely ‘there’s no escape from hell’ does not give a grammatically correct instruction to remove NO from INFER(no). ‘… no escaping hell’ would have worked but the clue as is just alludes to the deletion.

    Thanks Goliath and Oriel

  13. Roz@10
    Wow, that’s a stunning clue, it took me a long time to see it, despite your steer towards the device in play.
    No spoiler, others will enjoy it. Made my day!

  14. Thanks Goliath and Oriel

    11/21dn: For what it is worth, mare nostrum is in Collins 2023 (p 1200).

  16. Thanks Goliath for a superb crossword. I thought nearly every clue was excellent so it was difficult to list favourites. I did choose ADRIFT, TAROT, INAUGURAL, ENERGY, MARE NOSTRUM (COTD), MOISTURE (liked ‘peut-etre’ as a DBE indicator), and TENNIS for special mention. Thanks Oriel for the blog.

  17. Looking at the ‘Cox at me (6,3,6)’ and the devious ‘EL? (3,6,10)’ once mentioned here, I begin to wonder how often clues of old lacked the definition’ part. Such clueing is rarely seen these days.

  18. Thanks Goliath. This felt quite breezy to me but it was my second of the day and I hadn’t parsed everything completely. I’d never heard of the other diligence definition. I liked tennis, inaugural and naevus, but it was all good. Thanks to Oriel and all the sagacious commenters.

  19. Really had a great time with this one. This is one of the first puzzles at this level that I ever completed so I have a special affinity for it now! Thank you all

  20. Hovis@17, yes, I thought one of the cardinal sins, is, “thou hast not given a definition”.
    As an accountant, I would say, “Cox at me: a right pain in the arse”.

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