Financial Times 18,098 by SOLOMON

20 comments on “Financial Times 18,098 by SOLOMON”

1. Thanks Solomon and Turbolegs

   20ac sounds like ON WEE (not ON WE).

   3dn: THREE’s a crowd; THE containing (decking) RE (on).

2. I made it:

   10A Molly or Leopold Bloom are two characters in Ulysses- ie male or female. Orlando is the definition to give Bloom as in the Hollywood star.

   In Woolf’s novella Orlando the protagonist of that name changes gender as it happens but is a satisfying misdirect.

   20A “On wee” = urologists’ subject we hear (ho ho). Boredom = Ennui
   3D on = “re” surrounded by “The” (decking) so Three
   7d I, See = con, front of sight & sound = S so ICONS

3. My reading of 10a was also that the character in Ulysses could be Leopold or Molly Bloom, hence male or female, so I decided to ignore the possible Woolf reference, but I will be happy to be corrected.

4. 6dn: Chambers 2016 p 914 gives m as “mobile, esp referring to services delivered by mobile phones, as in m-banking, m-ticket

   7dn is fine: see³ is the name of the letter C. (Chambers p 1412).

5. Good crossword.
   I don’t count 28A as &lit because the definition “drink” isn’t part of the wordplay.

6. 7dn revisited: Chambers has “to learn” as meanings of see¹ (p 1412) and con³ (p 324), so the parsing given by James@2 works, but I still think the letter C is more likely to be the setter’s intention.

7. Enjoyed this offering from Solomon. ASTRONAUT was readily spotted but had a nice surface, as did DOMINATRIX. I also liked the ‘doughnut in AMERICANO and LANDSCAPE but my favourite was the cute double definition, ‘zips zip’. ‘Several parsings eluded me, such as 1d. I saw that it was HIDE but simply couldn’t think which sit-com I needed. I was sure I’d kick myself when I saw the answer here and so it turned out!
   Still, it was fun to complete.
   My thanks to Solomon and Turbolegs.

8. 28ac: Is the definition just “Drink”, or is it the whole clue? It is hard to see what the question mark on the end is doing if the intended definition is just the first word. As to the wordplay, I would prefer to read it as AM + (NICER A)* (*combined with) + O (doughnut), keeping the O out of the anagram to avoid any suspicion of indirectness. Chambers p 463 has doughnut as “any object shaped like a ring”, so there is no problem with “doughnut” indicating the letter O.

9. ICONS
   I am with the blogger and Pelham Barton.
   I C ON S.

   ENNUI
   Liked the device. Fresh, I guess.
   ON WEE, of course. Agree with others.
   about=ON urologist’s area of study=WEE

   SHAMPOO
   Meant to be a CAD?

   Liked AMERICANO, ASTRONAUT and LANDSCAPE.

   Thanks Solomon and Turbolegs.

10. SHAMPOO
    As liquid is the anagram indicator, the whole clue participates in the WP.
    Also, the whole clue works as the def.

    AMERICANO
    Agree with Digger@5

11. Nice clues overall with a lot of ticks. But, like our blogger, I found several clues easier to solve than parse. A bit too much GK required.

    I ticked a lot today HEART was a nice surface and cleverly hidden, I liked CABRIOLET for its surface, STEEL for diversion & surface, ASTRONAUT was a wonderful anagram and surface (quite liked DEMONISED too), thought SPECTACLE a nice clue, and DOMINATRIX also had a nice surface

    A few random notes. I thought ENJOIN was a perfectly good answer to 24 across. Frustrating that it was not. 4ac why does Sierra=S? Unfortunately, Hi-de-hi did not make it outside UK. No idea who was Lowry in 18, but the crossers made the parsing obvious I could not parse EXTREMELY or LOI LIAISON

    Thanks Solomon and Turbolegs

12. Martyn@11
    Sierra=S in the NATO phonetic alphabet.

13. Martyn@11.
    From what I know the rest of the world was fortunate to miss Hi-de-hi
    Enjoyable and challenging puzzle.
    Thanks Solomon and Turbolegs.

14. Thanks Solomon for a great set of clues with my favourites being HEART, LIAISON, DEMONISED, STEEL, ASTRONAUT, and BOYFRIEND. I couldn’t fully parse HIDE & BLOOM and I thought ‘that is’ in AMERICANO was superfluous. I spotted ANAL ME running down the center of the grid — coincidence? Thanks Turbolegs for the blog.

15. Thanks KVa@12. I will try to keep that in mind. I did look up S as an abbreviation, but my phone’s SOED let me down again.

    Noted SM@13.

16. Martyn@15: The definition of sierra as a code word for the letter S can be found in Collins 2023 p 1846, Chambers 2016 p 1449, and ODE 2010 p 1657, but I could not find it in SOED 2007. I could not find “sierra” under S as an abbreviation or symbol in any of these. Presumably that is because, in this case, it is the word which is effectively the symbol for the letter, not the other way round.

17. Digger@5 andKVa@10, I think PB@8 has a better take on 28a AMERICANO. The whole clue is the definition, not just the first word. And the ? is asking the question, does a doughnut really make the coffee better (especially in the morning)? That was my favourite among a host of excellent clues.

    I also liked the surface and double definition of 24a REFUSE, and the cheeky “zips zip” at 25d FLIES.

    Thanks, Solomon and Turbolegs for the Friendly Friday Fun.

18. Cellomaniac @17. I think you are missing the point. Digger @5 and KVa @10 are not saying that the whole clue doesn’t work as the definition. They are saying it is not an &lit since “drink” is not part of the wordplay. The term semi &lit is sometimes used although I can see why some find this a bit clumsy.

19. 28a: I read ‘drink’ as the definition and ‘that is’ as telling us that the drink is AM+[NICER A]*+O. Like PB@8 I didn’t see O as part of the anagram. My interpretation might be more persuasive if the clue had omitted the commas and the question mark (though I’d go along with Cellomaniac@17 on the question mark).

20. I’ve completed this between tennis points. I found it a satisfying solve with lots of rewarding parsing. I took the low brow route to BLOOM but was happy with my parsing elsewhere.

    Thanks Solomon and Turbolegs.

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