Financial Times 18,097 by JASON

by

Jason is the setter of this morning's FT puzzle.

The bottom half of this puzzle proved to be sticky for me, with the top half going in quite quickly. That said, my last two entries were SAILOR and CHARMER. It took a while for me to work out what was going on in the SAILOR clue. DO (or DID) appeared three times with three different meanings in the puzzle (probably intentionally). AGAPE was one of those words I've come across before in Crosswordland, but which I never remember.

Thanks, Jason.

ACROSS
1 SOCIAL
Do well by one in California (6)

SO ("well") by I (one) in Cal. (California)
4 BON A FIDE
Frightfully bad one if real (4,4)

*(bad one if) [anag:frightfully]
10 CLOSE CALL
Wind up cold with each near miss (5,4)

CLOSE ("wind up") + C (cold) with ALL ("each")
11 TREAD
Time to study stamp (5)

T (time) + READ ("to study")
12 ROOK
Do stream without bishop (4)

(b)ROOK ("stream") without B (bishop)
13 OLDE WORLDE
Quaint European behind odd Orwell novel (4,6)

E (European) behind *(odd orwell) [anag:novel]
15 CHARMER
Siren, say, is constant — one’s likely to hurt (7)

C (constant) + HARMER ("one's likely to hurt")
16 LEVITY
Fun duty is full of it (6)

LEVY ("duty") is full of IT
19 REVERE
Admire son slipping away from retreat (6)

S (son) slpping away from REVER(s)E ("retreat")
21 BRAVADO
Support Victor facing trouble for boasting? (7)

BRA ("support") + V (Victor) facing ADO ("trouble")
23 FASTIDIOUS
Especially picky if a studio’s trashed (10)

*(if a studios) [anag:trashed]
25 LEGS
For example, among first and last of ludicrous members (4)

e.g. (for example) among [first and last of] L(udicrou)S
27 AGAPE
Love silver primate (5)

Ag (chemical symbol for "silver") + APE ("primate")

Agape is a word meaning "selfless Christian love".
28 ON THIN ICE
With respect to fine diamond being at risk (2,4,3)

ON ("with respect to") + THIN ("fine") + ICE ("diamond")
29 DEPUTIES
Assistants in uniform filling department that is small (8)

U (uniform, in the NATO phonetic alphabet) filling Dept. (department) + i.e. (id est, so "that is") + S (small)
30 CANDID
Open loo was good enough (6)

CAN ("loo") + DID ("was good enough")
DOWN
1 SACK RACE
Waste career for sports day fun? (4,4)

SACK ("waste") + RACE ("career")
2 CHOCOLATE
Sweet clown that’s famous recently ringing husband (9)

COCO ("clown that's famous") + LATE ("recently") ringing H (husband)

Coco the Clown, aka Nicolai Poliakoff, was a famous 20th century clown.
3 AXES
Cross being in rising deep cuts (4)

X (cross) being in [rising] <=SEA ("deep")
5 OIL WELL
Liberally lubricate fuel pump (3,4)

OIL WELL ("liberally lubricate")
6 ART NOUVEAU
Spruced up our ute and a van in natural style? (3,7)

*(our ute a van) [anag:spruced up]
7 IDEAL
I do business — perfect (5)

I + DEAL ("do business")
8 EDDIES
Red diesel to some extent swirls (6)

Hidden in [to some extent] "rED DIESel"
9 SAILOR
Close to this oar I drifted round loch? (6)

[close to] (thi)S + *(oar i) [anag:drifted] round L (loch)

In my opinion, not quite an &lit. clue. The I in the clue refers to a person who may drift around a loch using an oar, but that may be stretching the definition of a sailor a bit too much.
14 IMPEDIMENT
One maiden on the top of Greek building’s bar (10)

I (one) + M (maiden, in cricket) on PEDIMENT ("top of Greek building")
17 TRADE WIND
Driver of commerce didn’t wear being exploited (5,4)

*(didnt wear) [anag:being exploited]
18 HOGSHEAD
Cask greedily hangs onto froth (8)

HOGS ("greedily") hangs onto HEAD ("froth")
20 EPISODE
Passage is in poem (7)

IS in EPODE ("poem")
21 BOUNTY
Premium ship (6)

Double definition, the second referring to HMS Bounty.
22 AFRAID
Sally under a female is nervous (6)

RAID ("sally") under A + F (female)
24 SCAMP
What kicks off showy theatrical being a mischievous monkey? (5)

[what kicks off] S(howy) + CAMP ("theatrical")
26 RIGA
Fraudulently manipulate a capital (4)

RIG ("fraudulently manipulate") + A

Riga is the capital of Latvia.

11 comments on “Financial Times 18,097 by JASON”

  1. TRADE WIND had a clever surface, I thought, as I took a long time to spot the anagram fodder there. AGAPE was readily parsed but that too took me a while to remember that sort of love.
    Thanks to Jason for a fun – if tricky in parts – puzzle and to Loonapick for an excellent blog. I hadn’t considered the use of an oar as part of the definition for SAILOR (there are other boats on lochs) but I see your way of thinking, Loonapick.

  2. Very nice, smooth puzzle though I was beaten by BOUNTY by looking for a type of ship rather than the name of an individual vessel. Entirely my bad. A SAILOR might be in a dinghy on a loch, I guess, and an oar could come into the scenario – it worked for me, just about. I was surprised to find that ICE can mean a single diamond – I had always thought it referred to the plural. I think ice in the sense of frozen water is an uncountable noun which might have influenced my take.

    Thanks Jason and loonapick

  4. In 18d, “hogs” I took as “greedily hangs onto”, not just “greedily”.

    An enjoyable puzzle. “Epode” was new to me.

  6. Re 9D : perhaps because the setter, Jason, sailed the Argo? Don’t think he made it to Scotland though!

  8. Thanks Jason for an enjoyable crossword. For some reason I couldn’t come up with HOGSHEAD but all else fell into place. My top picks were BONA FIDE, OLDE WORLDE, BRAVADO, SACK RACE, and IDEAL. Thanks Loonapick for the blog.

  9. A bit slow going today but we managed to work almost everything out. In the end, though we were left with three clues which we knew contained anagrams but we couldn’t work them out without help – BONA FIDE, ART NOUVEAU and our last in, OLDE WORLDE.
    Once we got SAILOR we’d no issue with possible double duty as there was a question mark. We liked IMPEDIMENT and HOGSHEAD.
    Thanks, Jason and loonapick.

  11. Thanks Jason and loonapick

    22dn: Collins 2023 p 1756 gives us sally¹ 1 a sudden violent excursion, esp by besieged forces to attack the besiegers; sortie.

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