Financial Times 18,107 by GOZO

19 comments on “Financial Times 18,107 by GOZO”

1. The top half was pretty much a write-in. The bottom took more thought and time, and I had several quibbles.

   I enjoyed many clues, with DEFINITE ARTICLE a great anagram and NEWSFLASH a nice anagram and surface. CANAAN, NOT A LOT, CLEAR, and RUING also got ticks.

   Thanks Gozo and thanks Cineraria for your usual top-notch blog

2. A brisk solve today. However, I did learn that SIKHS are disciples in Hindi . As Martyn says, many clues were write-ins. We need puzzles like this from time to time.
   Good fun so thanks to Gozo and Cineraria.

3. SM@2: I completely agree that we need puzzles such as these. In my humble opinion, puzzles need to be enjoyable, which means different things to different people. This implies the need for a variety in both difficulty and setters. Circumstance mean we will always have a variety of setters. I hope the editor continues to present puzzles with varying degree of difficulty

4. Thanks Gozo for a pleasant crossword. Lots of good clues including IDEALS, NEWSFLASH (great anagram), CHEETAH, HOT POTATO, SWEDEN, and HITMAN. I couldn’t fully parse RESORT, SPECULATE, and TWENTY-TWO. I didn’t know that ‘exteriors’ in the clue for SCORCHES could mean two letters from each end. I also felt that some of the link words were loose i.e. ‘for’ in NANKEEN, ‘from’ in LIGHT YEAR, and ‘providing’ in CANAAN. Thanks Cineraria for the blog.

5. Liked NOT A LOT
   Agree with Cineraria’s views.

   LIGHT-YEAR
   I think land=LIGHT
   ‘on’ is to indicate that LIGHT is on/above YEAR.

   RESORT
   Liked it. Unable to classify it. The blogger must be right.

   SWEDEN
   Didn’t understand the cryptic part of it. Why is SWEDEN a South West Paradise?

   Thanks Gozo and Cineraria.

6. I’m glad everyone agrees on RESORT, because I tried to find something cryptic about it and couldn’t. I still can’t. Yes, there are jacket potatoes, but does it follow that a jacket is a potato? I knew MG is a car, but not MGB, so I couldn’t account for the B.

   I learnt a little about rugby pitches. That’ll be useful. 😉

7. KVa, (the garden of) Eden is paradise, yes?

8. Puzzled by the 22-line (played s bit of Union as a youth) thinking Surely not 22 players in a line-out. No, I think it’s probably the closest in metres to the old 25-yard lline. Nice cruisy puzzle, cheers Gozo and Cineraria.

9. GDU @6, the MGA was the sleekly curvy model, the MGB came later and was stubbier.

10. GDU@7
    SWEDEN
    The Wordplay is clear. I thought the def was just ‘here’ (to indicate a place). If there’s a cryptic part in the def, I don’t get it.

    RESORT
    Def 1: Go
    If we take Def 2 as ‘here on vacation?’
    it doesn’t seem to match exactly.
    That said, I feel the setter meant it to be a DD as Cineraria sees it.

11. Thoroughly enjoyable with the silly wordplay I love like ‘not sausage David’! My favourite was TIEPOLO but I also tipped TWENTY TWO for the bingo reference, NANKEEN for the ‘granny with a damaged knee’ and, naturally, DIANA!
    Thanks for the smiles, Gozo, and Cineraria for a fine blog.

12. Like Martyn @ 1 I found the top easier than the bottom half. Lots of lovely clues.

    I think my favourites were: NANKEEN, ROUNDHEAD and LOPE-EARED

    I’ve seen CANAAN clued just the same very recently.

    Thanks Gozo and Cineraria

13. I agree with other posters, a very accessible puzzle, and thank heavens for that. I have tackled a few by Gozo, and they are always entertaining, but not to underestimate how skilful the clues are….super surfaces and very smart ideas for solutions. [ I’ll mention, DEFINITE ARTICLE, 6(d); and DISADVANTAGEOUS, 3(d), excellent clues, smashing 15-letter anagrams. How often are these over-contrived by some setters? The use of ” THE” to define the solution is brilliant. ]
    1(d),RESORT is synonymous with “GO” as a verb ( in the sense of to visit ), though I confess it may be archaic; so, double- definition it is, as per Cineraria. Not Gozo’s finest hour.
    24(ac) TWENTY-TWO: ah! was Gozo tempted to make this 22(ac)? As per gif@8, when I played, it was yards not metres. It’s the new-fangled 22-metre line, as in the 50:22 rule ( offensive kick and line-out).
    Bottom-line, lovely stuff, flag’s up, Gozo and Cineraria

14. Very enjoyable

15. Thanks Gozo and Cineraria

    24ac: A bit of web searching suggests 1977 as the date when the 25 yard line in rugger was changed to 22 metres. I left school in 1976 but continued to receive the school magazine. The issue covering the Autumn Term of 1978 has match reports, from one of which I quote: “A tense second-half developed with both teams penetrating deep into their opponents’ 22”. That is the best I can do in pinning down the date when the change was made.

    25ac: ODE 2010 p 933 has “a jacket potato” as a meaning for the noun jacket, albeit marked “informal”.

16. PB @ 15 it appears it was ‘from 1975’.

17. Most enjoyable. Only one complaint – it was over too quickly.
    Thanks, Gozo and Cineraria.

18. As above, although I finished the bottom half way quicker than the top.. got to love a puzzle with TIEPOLO in it, my favourite Venetian painter. Those ceilings!!
    Thanks Gozo n Cineraria

19. Some puzzles I can only solve 2 or 3 clues. Not a lot of fun. This one I came close to solving the puzzle, just got stuck on SE quadrant and missed 2 that in hindsight I should have got, but to echo what others have posted it’s nice to have a slightly gentler puzzle occasionally to give us slightly denser solvers a fighting chance!

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