Financial Times 18,035 by GUY

by

Guy doing what Guy does

An enjoyable solve with no quibbles, a little bit of general knowledge and lots of excellent clues and misdirections. I thought there might be a South American theme developing after solving PARAMARIBO (my first one in), TROPICAL and FAVELA but apart from the S US in SUCH AS, the theme went no further.

Thanks, Guy,

ACROSS
1 TROPICAL
Hot on current affairs, quizzer’s back in second place (8)

TOPICAL ("on current affairs") with (quizze)R ['s back] in second place
6 SAMSON
Missiles carried by strong man (6)

SAMS (surface to air "missiles") + ON ("carried by")
9 FAVELA
Poor neighbourhood most liked close to swell area (6)

FAVE ("most liked") + [close to] (swel)L (are)A
10 THATCHED
Tesla came out after early development with a biodegradable roof (8)

T (Tesla) + HATCHED ("came out after early development")
11 THIN
Slight obsession with golf forgotten (4)

THIN(g) ("obsession") with G (golf, in the NATO phonetic alphabet) forgotten
12 PARAMARIBO
Soldier, mother and kid love capital that’s 1 (10)

PARA ("soldier") + MA ("mother") + RIB ("kid", as in tease) + O (love, in tennis)

Paramaribo is the capital of Suriname, a TROPICAL (see 1ac) country.
14 WASHBOWL
Wife has smeared a bit of lipstick on bend plumber’s fitting (8)

W (wife) + *(has) [anag:smeared] + [a bit of] L(ipstick) on BOW ("bend")
16 ALAS
One pound off everything because it’s terrible (4)

One L (pound) off AL(l) + AS ("because")
18 IDES
Cycling team plotting day in Rome (4)

[cycling] SIDE ("team") gives IDE-S

The "plotting" in the clue refers to the plot to murder Julius Caesar on the Ides of March.
19 HANDMADE
Artisanal chef unwrapped sandwiches with bananas (8)

(c)HE(f) [unwrapped] sandwiches AND ("with) + MAD ("bananas")
21 POLYTUNNEL
Large, opulently fitted long tent with beds (10)

*(l opulently) [anag:fitted]

A polytunnel is a field or part theroef covered with plastic used to grow certain plants, such as strawberries or tomatoes, hence a long tent with beds.
22 NOSE
Sensor recognises sounds (4)

Homophone/pun/aural wordplay [sounds] of KNOWS ("recognises")
24 FENG SHUI
Strange case of French genius using energy for interior design (4,4)

*(fh genius) [anag:strange] where FH is [case of] F(renc)H
26 TAILOR
Man wielding shears has trouble getting into summit (6)

AIL ("trouble") getting into TOR ("summit")
27 CAMPUS
Estate suitable for learners? (6)

Cryptic definition
28 GOD’S GIFT
Bought around 500 fruit trees from the east — is one perfect? (4,4)

GOT ("bought") around D (500, in Roman numerals) + <=FIGS ("fruit trees", from the east, ie, from right to left)
DOWN
2 REACH
Make a little more achievable (5)

Hidden in [a little] "moRE ACHievable"
3 PIE IN THE SKY
Something hearty from Ryanair? That’s unlikely (3,2,3,3)

PIE ("something hearty") IN THE SKY (implied by "from Ryanair")
4 CHAMPION
Advocate styling punk’s head with Mohican (8)

*(p mohican) [anag:styling] where P is P(unk) ['s head]
5 LATERAL THINKING
Family in Icelandic house after so long seeking unusual views (7,8)

KIN ("family") in ALTHING ("icelandic house" (i.e government)) after LATER ("so long")
6 SMARMY
Obsequious Yankee Mike butters up (6)

<=(Y M (Yankee and Mike, in the NATO phonetic alphabet) + RAMS (animals that butt, so "butters", up)
7 MAC
Anorak pouch showing larger size initially (3)

SAC ("pouch") with S (small) changed to M (medium) ("showing larger size initially") becomes M-AC
8 OVERBOARD
No longer in love with pig, daughter’s into the drink (9)

OVER ("no longer in love with") + BOAR ("pig") + D (daughter)
13 ROAD-MENDING
Dodgem ran in jolts, improving bumps for the driver (4-7)

*(dodgem ran in) [anag:jolts]
15 ANDROMEDA
Group of stars notice U-turns south of an airfield (9)

<=AD ("notice", U-turns) after AN + DROME ("airfield")
17 INFLATED
At Penthouse, perhaps magazine boss under pressure (8)

IN ("at") + FLAT ("penthouse, perhaps") + Ed. (editor, so "magazine boss")
20 SUCH AS
Like tea in South America (4,2)

CHA ("tea") in S (south) + US (United States of "America")
23 SPOOF
Fellow that was silly held up to ridicule (5)

<=(F (fellow) + OOPS ("that was silly"), held up)
25 GAP
Doctor bandages a break (3)

GP (general practitioner, so "doctor") bandages A

20 comments on “Financial Times 18,035 by GUY”

  1. Isn’t the anagram for POLYTUNNEL faulty?

    I didn’t know PARAMARIBO, though clearly clued.

    Reasonably difficult but quite enjoyable.

  2. All solved and parsed. No favourites today

    I agree with GDU on POLYTUNNEL – I am sure the clue is supposed to be an anagram. Probably missed something obvious.

    In MAC, I wonder how M is “larger size”. I also wonder if anyone actually refers to roadworks as ROAD MENDING. Anyway, I seem to find myself in PARAMARIBO every second week, and I was delighted to see it appear.

    Thanks Guy and loonapick

  3. GDU@1 – having reviewed the clue, you’re right. There’s an extra L and an N missing maybe clue should have been “new, opulently…”

  5. Martyn@2: A medium (shirt say) is larger than a small. I initially had “cag” being a cagoule, coming from “bag” with the B(-cup) increased to a C-cup. Ditto I had a partly-unparsed “homemade” for “artisinal” for a while, which held up the Penthouse.

    Nice clean surfaces and a lovely variety of clues. Thanks Guy and loonapick.

  6. Thanks Jack@5. I suspected that is what it meant. That means small could be larger size, being bigger than a XS, and even XS could be larger size, being bigger than XXS or kids clothing……Only in crosswordland!

  7. What a pity about POLYTUNNEL – but it didn’t really spoil an otherwise excellent puzzle.

    Some splendid clues: I particularly enjoyed IDES, HANDMADE, FENG SHUI, CHAMPION, INFLATED and SPOOF.

    Many thanks to Guy and to Oriel.

  8. I did not spot that POLYTUNNEL didn’t quite work as an anagram – and, tbh, though it is highly unusual for me to disagree with Guy, I felt that ‘tent’ was a bit of a stretch, even if I admired the misdirection. That aside, a delightful puzzle with TROPICAL, THATCHED, WASHBOWL, HANDMADE, TAILOR, PIE IN THE SKY, CHAMPION and INFLATED being my faves.

    Thanks Guy and Oriel

  9. Thanks Guy and Loonapick

    7dn replying to Martyn@2,6: The M for medium is not just “larger size” in abstract: it is larger than S for small, indicating that the M in MAC is replacing the S in the word SAC, which was defined in the clue as “pouch”. I thought Loonapick had explained it perfectly well in the blog. Yes S for small could be larger than XS if you ever wanted to replace XS by just S, except that it would be easier in such a case just to remove the X.

  10. Up at the top-end of my solving ability, but all the better to have cracked it. I did waste some time on the POLYTUNNEL fluff at 21(ac), which is, tbh, a bit annoying, and could have easily been corrected.
    PM@8, I also thought that “tent” was a bit loose; and ditto “DROME” for “airfield”, ‘though it does appear as such on some listings. The Greek δρομος, (dromoss), means only “road or course”, so needs a prefix, as in “hippodrome”; and here, aero-dromos.
    Minor quibbles, all: I like Guy puzzles, for the challenge.
    This was another good one. Favourite: God’s Gift, for the “figs” reversal. ( Don’t ask).
    Super stuff, Guy & Oriel

  11. I was doing these FTs using my finger as a stylus after tapping on the little pen-and-paper icon. The icon has now disappeared! Has the FT cryptic gone behind a pay wall?

  12. Is a MAC really the same coat as an anorak? Serious question, since Americans (south of Alaska at least) use neither word. I’d always thought that an anorak was approximately a parka,* and a mac was a raincoat of the sort that film-noir detectives wear. (We do use the longer form mackintosh sometimes, which means that style of coat.)

    POLYTUNNEL was my last one in, since I was unfamiliar with the word–and so, it seems, is Merriam-Webster. The POLY part was obvious, the definition was pretty clear (I’ve been doing this long enough that I’m trained to think gardening rather than sleeping when I see “beds”), and I had enough remaining fodder to try TUNNEL. But I take anagrams on faith, to a certain extent–life’s too short to check them all–so I didn’t notice the error. This was even though I was in fact using the anagram to get the answer!

    *[But not quite. practically everyone here in the upper Midwest owns a parka for those days (there are a few every winter in Chicago, and of course increasingly more as you move north) when the weather dips below about 15F/-10C, and you can find high-fashion parkas. So learning that “anorak” in British also meant “nerd, and not in the nice sense of the word either,” was a bit of a surprise.]

  13. I posted a long comment that seems to have been swallowed whole, so apologies if it eventually turns up and this duplicates it. Here’s the short version.

    Serious question: are a MAC and an anorak the same coat? In US English, we use neither word, really, but I always thought an anorak was approximately a parka,* and a mac was the style of raincoat worn by film-noir detectives. (We do use the word mackintosh, which is that coat.)

    *except that in this climate, practically everyone owns a parka for those days when it dips below about 15F / -10C, of which there are a few every winter, so it carries no connotations of nerdiness, and you can in fact buy expensive, stylish parkas.

  14. Thanks for the blog , very good overall , shame about the anagram but these things happen sometimes .
    I think of MAC as a longer coat , no hood . Anorak with a hood and shorter . Chambers93 does give cover for the setter . MAC (kintosh) = any waterproof coat or raincoat .

  15. Thanks Guy. I found this to be a slow solve and I guessed, then parsed more than one clue. I got there in the end and I enjoyed IDES (liked plotting day in Rome), NOSE, GODS GIFT, SPOOF, and GAP. Thanks loonapick for the blog. Your rewrite of the clue for POLYTUNNEL seems so simple that I’m wondering how ‘large’ escaped both the setter & editor.

  17. [E.N.Boll& @15: Anyone who regularly solves cryptics cannot be insane … on second thought I withdraw my comment 😁]

  18. Like Loonapick, Paramaribo went in first, although I haven’t been there. I was pleased to get a few quite quickly but it was slow over all. I liked thatched and Andromeda. I too, would question Mac for anorak, but it didn’t hold me up. Thanks Guy.

  19. Agree re Mac and Anorak, specifically with mrpenny @12. They are different garments but in crossword-land I accept they can be the same
    Shame about the wrong anagram at 21Ac.

  20. Oh that is a shame about POLYTUNNEL, which is of course N with OPULENTLY. That word along with PARAMARIBO I’d never seen before, so nice to meet those two, but a good walk spoilt, as they say.

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