Financial Times 18,187 by IO

24 comments on “Financial Times 18,187 by IO”

1. My faves: THE PARROT SKETCH, MIA, T D RESTS, K GARDEN, RIPSNORTINGLY and V STATISTICS.

   K GARDEN
   ITCH EN GARDE in place of I (core) in KIN (maybe that’s what Oriel meant).
   V STATISTICS
   I took STATIST as any politician. The WP seems to work all right without
   having to assume it’s a right-winger.

   Thanks Io and Oriel.

2. Not just a “did not finish”, a “barely even started”. From the blog. I don’t think I’d finish in a month of Sundays. Respect to Oriel. I will avoid Io in future. A huge of difficulty in the ft.

3. James P @2. Good choice. I decided a few puzzles back that Io was too much of a trial to even attempt. I like chewy puzzles when they’re witty (cf. his alter ego Enigmatist in The Guardian, although even he’s sometimes a dnf) but I get no pleasure from clever-clever clueing that I can’t see through, although I still look at the blog to see what I have(n’t) missed…….

4. Chef d’oeuvre!

5. I have to confess to writing in AVERSE 24(in pencil) then thinking “thats to easy” especially leaving 15 ending in a V. He is cunning!

6. I too had “averse” at first before spotting the unlikely “v” ending and confirming it was unlikely to be a Russian novelist! Well done Oriel on all the parsing – 7D had me totally baffled. All the clues did what they said but often in ways that hid the structure (what goes inside what, and where?) and used odd synonyms – certainly not the first to come to mind in most cases.

   Tricky but ultimately fair – thank you IO and Oriel. James P and Vannucci – I sympathise and I think I got lucky with enough crossers to feel I was always making a bit of progress, or I might have been in the same position.

7. Well, I got over the finish line eventually and, like Copster, I pondered ‘averse’ initially but it wasn’t my finest hour in the parsing department! Among those I could fathom, THE PARROT SKETCH, KITCHEN GARDEN and SKYDIVER were favourites.
   All very clever but Io is always likely to be at the tough end of the spectrum for me.
   Thanks, Io, for the challenge and to Oriel who acquitted himself adeptly.

8. Like James P@2 I wouldn’t have finished this however long I stared at it and, even when reading the blog, I had to work to understand the parsing of several. That’s OK, though, horses for courses and all that.
   I’ll still look at IO puzzles, but maybe be ready to give up more quickly and come here for enlightenment.
   Thanks IO and thanks, Oriel, for the much-needed assistance.

9. I always dread getting Io (or Enigmatist) when I cover blogs because although I finished this I needed the blog to parse a few, including VITAL STATISTICS.

   Thank you Oriel and Io for the work out.

10. The reason I can never crack an Io puzzle is that they so often rely heavily on synonyms – eg: ate/took; wry/bitter; amount/sum; learning/lore – which is perfectly legitimate, I suppose, but when, as in this puzzle, almost half of the clues rely on that strategy, for me it’s no fun. It’s a style of “cryptic” that leaves me cold, and out in the cold. I’d rather tussle with Paul/Mudd.

11. A bit of a workout as usual from Io. Not helped by putting YEA for 16A. It works: YEATES the poet with no TES (“notes”). It’s the kind of thing JH would do!
    As the crossers went in it became more and more obvious that VITAL STATISTICS was correct though.
    A measure of a crossword’s quality in our house is how many time Mrs. Jumper mutters “that’s a bit rough…”. Quite a few on this one. But we got there!

12. My problem with Io/Enigmatist is that, knowing that his puzzles are too difficult for me, I approach them with a negative mindset, which makes them too difficult for me. Classic self-fulfilling prophecy.

    Nevertheless I enjoy reading the blog, and admiring Io’s ingenuity. Thanks I&O (apposite initials) for the lesson in humility.

    Now Brendan in the Guardian will be the perfect antidote.

13. I agree with Cellomaniac@12, which may explain why I could only answer three clues today: RAH, ONE-STEP and VERSUS. VERSUS I thought was a rather poor clue. No one I know pronounces VERSUS as VERSES, but perhaps that’s a slight sense of humour failure on my part.
    I think the reason I find Io impossibly difficult is because it is rarely possible to distinguish which part of the clue is definition and which is wordplay. An exception today was VITAL STATISTICS. I could guess that it was likely to be the answer because the definition part of the clue was obvious, but I didn’t enter it as I couldn’t for the life of me parse it. Despite Oriel’s helpful blog, it has taken me a further twenty minutes to work it out. I would never have spotted STATIST as I’ve never heard the word.
    I will persevere with Io, but I suspect that, like the Observer’s Gemelo, he and I will never be on quite the same wavelength.

14. I managed about two-thirds of this (approximately the left half and a smattering elsewhere) before the “[expletive] this” mindset took over, and I started revealing first letters here and there, and then entire words. I once heard it said that the best cryptic clues temporarily stump the solver. Io disregards the adjective in that last clause, I think. (If the majority of commenters here, most of whom are above-average solvers, find your offering too hard, then it’s not them, it’s you.) That having been said, some of the ones I did solve were fun, and some of the ones I didn’t solve would’ve been so too, if he’d been sitting there to give a gentle extra hint or two.

    Also, I’m tired of the parrot sketch. Sorry, but I am.

15. Stared at it for a couple of hours and achieved two answers. Came here. Many thanks to those who posted here in line with my thoughts.

16. Ouch. But brilliant upon reading the parsing here. Many thanks to all of you. IO….one day, I’ll be capable.

17. I thought 16A may be TIs – as in poet’s notes do, re, mi, fa, sol, la, ti, as opposed to a cryptic definition?

18. Thanks for the explanation of VITAL STATISTICS, I’d assumed ‘very important’ gave VITAL so no chance of parsing it correctly.

    I’ve learnt that a good proportion IO/Enigmatist clues have quite simple constructions even if the synonyms or indicators are obscure which gives me motivation to plod on.

19. Yep, pretty fiendish. Had to come back to it (it’s breakfast the next day here) and reveal a half-dozen squares to finish. A good one for Roz (hope ur ok Roz).

20. Not a good use of time, this puzzle, unfortunately. Hep? Statist? Firmamental? Give us a break. Like others, got a few then gave up.

    How does LET = check in 13D?

21. I finally got around to finishing this. Very hard to get a toehold at first.
    TIS is a double definition: I can confirm (poet’s)/notes.

22. I did most of it but didn’t start until well into the evening and don’t tend to do rollovers. I actually googled to check Io was Enigmatist and then recalibrated my approach. Very hard.

    Thanks Oriel, great work.

23. Adders@20. LET is presumably being used in the sense of obstruct as in “let or hindrance”. In tennis a “let” is called if the ball is checked in its progress by hitting the top of the net.

24. Ah, thank you Babbler.

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