Financial Times 18,118 by BOBCAT

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BOBCAT kicks off the week…

Well, I don’t know if I’m being particularly slow today, but this took me way longer than a Monday puzzle would normally! There was some quite fiddly parsing, and 10a somewhat eludes me, though I have made a sort of attempt at it. If there’s a sneaky feline hidden in there somewhere, it eludes me also. The central column is very close to being MOUSER I guess.

 

Thanks BOBCAT!

picture of the completed grid

ACROSS
1. Received opportunity for discharge (5)
RHEUM

“room” = RHEUM (opportunity, “received”)

4. Spread rubbish round heath (8)
MUSHROOM

MUSH (rubbish) + (MOOR)< (heath, <round)

10. Extensive specialist activity cuts in hospital (2-5)
IN-DEPTH

(DE (specialist???) + PT (activity)) cuts (IN + H (hospital))

(DEPT (specialist activity)) cuts (IN + H (hospital))

11. Dynamic family abruptly summoned in revolution (7)
KINETIC

KIN (family) + (CITE[d] (summoned, abruptly))< (<in revolution)

12. More baseless mob rule unfortunately in store (6,4)
LUMBER ROOM

(MOR[e] + MOB RULE)* (*unfortunately)

13. Schedule meeting of retired soldiers and former volunteers (4)
ROTA

meeting of (OR)< (soldiers, <retired) and TA (former volunteers)

15. Far from stable, horses surrounding area in range (5,9)
ROCKY MOUNTAINS

ROCKY (far from stable) + (MOUNTS (horses) surrounding (A (area) + IN))

17. So parochial, but suffers dread of being restricted (14)
CLAUSTROPHOBIA

(SO PAROCHIAL BUT)* (*suffers)

20. Point out couples regularly frequenting wapentakes (4)
PEAK

[wa]PE[nt]AK[es] (couples regularly frequenting)

21. Study article upsetting nurses producing testimonial (10)
CREDENTIAL

DEN (study), (ARTICLE)* (*upsetting) nurses

23. Peace ensues from street disorder such as this (7)
ILLNESS

STILLNESS (peace) ensues from ST (street) + ILLNESS (disorder)

24. Language, benignly adopted in prime locations, is hard (7)
ENGLISH

[b]EN[i]G[n]L[y] (adopted in prime locations, 2, 3, 5, 7) + IS + H (hard)

25. I hold Greta in erotic embraces (8)
RETAINER

[g]RETA IN ER[otic] (embraces)

26. Period following setter’s decline? (5)
NIGHT

Cryptic definition

DOWN
1. Skate around badly here, ignoring outsiders’ ridicule (8)
RAILLERY

RAY (skate) around (ILL (badly) + [h]ER[e] (ignoring outsiders))

2. Finish recce at last, having tailed rodents rife in district (7)
ENDEMIC

END (finish) + [recc]E (at last) having MIC[e] (rodents, tailed)

3. Purple yams could produce amber liquid (5,5)
MAPLE SYRUP

(PURPLE YAMS)* (*could produce)

5. I represent a lot of sons killed, half obliterated, now under ground (7,7)
UNKNOWN SOLDIER

(SON[s] KIL[led] (half obliterated) + NOW UNDER)* (*ground)

6. Some yarn Prince circulated (4)
HANK

ANKH (Prince, circulated)

KHAN (Prince, circulated)

7. Obsolete or blooming hackneyed? (7)
OUTWORN

OUT (blooming) + WORN (hackneyed)

8. Brown bird no longer eats children (5)
MOCHA

MOA (bird no longer) eats CH (children)

9. Sweet orchestral tunes lacking essential character in arrangement (9,5)
CHARLOTTE RUSSE

(ORCHESTRAL + TU[n]ES (lacking essential character))* (*in arrangement)

14. Foreign character restrained by staff started to surrender key weapon (7,3)
MACHINE GUN

(CHI (foreign character) restrained by MAN (staff)) + [b]EGUN (started, to surrender key)

16. Circular post’s been nicked? (8)
MAILSHOT

MAILS (post’s) + HOT (been nicked)

18. Bill exposed bleak lack of focus in navy (7)
LEAFLET

[b]LEA[k] (exposed) + FL[e]ET (navy, lack of focus)

19. Top quality jewellery boxes providing security (7)
BAILING

AI (top quality), BLING (jewellery) boxes

20. Monk finds April and Dora in the altogether (5)
PRIOR

[a]PRI[l] and [d]OR[a] (in the altogether)

22. Store key ingredients at the front (4)
DELI

DEL (key) + I[ngredients] (at the front)

11 comments on “Financial Times 18,118 by BOBCAT”

  1. thanks Teacow. For 10a I had “dept” as “specialist activity” as in “that’s not my department” (said Werner von Braun…).

    thanks Teacow and Bobcat

  2. I agree with JOFT about dept. I think the circulating prince in HANK is Khan. I found this very difficult, too.

  3. Thanks Teacow and Bobcat. I wonder if Bobcat was teasing us with the central column: anyone with most or all of MOU.ER might have been tempted to put an S in the missing space. This also took me an unusually long time and I agree with earlier comments about DEPT in 10ac and KHAN being the prince in 6dn. There is a word ankh, but the only meaning I could find in the usual dictionaries was a type of cross.

  4. I parsed as @1 & @2. I did wonder if ‘department’ in this sense could still be abbreviated to ‘dept’ but couldn’t find any contraindication.

  5. I could not parse 10A either, and thought that there must be a typo. DEPT doesn’t really correspond to “specialist activity,” in my book. PT for “activity” is OK, but then I don’t know where DE comes from.
    I think PeterT@2 is right about HANK. I was reading it as HANK as colloquial (“circulated”) for Prince Harry. Not very plausible, I admit.

  6. 10ac: Collins 2023 p 537 gives “department n 5 informal a specialized sphere of knowledge, skill, or activity: household budgeting is my wife’s department“. I could see nothing on p 539 to indicate that the abbreviation dept is restricted to any particular meaning(s) of the whole word.

  7. Yes, a slow finish, mainly due to the last few — mailshot (unfamiliar), the hank/khan thing, and then the unknown soldier, my unfavourite clue-type, ie take most of this plus half of that plus .. plus … then grind it all; such a grind! But enjoyable overall ntl, thanks both.

  8. Thanks Bobcat for the challenge. It was a bit disheartening when I could not parse the first three across clues but most of the rest made at least some sense except for the nho HANK. My top picks were ROCKY MOUNTAINS, RETAINER, UNKNOWN SOLDIER, MOCHA (loved the surface), MACHINE GUN, LEAFLET, and PRIOR. Thanks Teacow for the blog.

  10. A bit slow going but we got it all. We didn’t bother parsing 10ac as the answer was obvious from crossing letters. As for 6dn we also thought of HANK for Harry, but as in Duke Ellington’s Sonnet to Hank Cinq (Henry V when Prince of Wales). And we wondered about the lack of a feline nina – was it meant to be ‘mouser’ and then the setter couldn’t find a suitable entry for 17ac?
    Thanks, Bobcat and Teacow

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