Financial Times 14,898 by ARMONIE

by

A gentle Tuesday morning

This was a fairly straightforward solve, with none of the clues making me spit out my coffee in indignation, while at the same time I didn’t feel the need to stand and applaud at how clever the clues were.

Across
1 STROKE
Manner of swimming river in Potteries town (6)

ST(R)OKE
4 TRAGIC
Soldier in overturned wagon? That’s dreadful! (6)

GI in <=CART
8 REPUTED
Said to be planted in the grass (7)

RE(PUT)ED
9  SPINET
Staple put through compendia of instruments (7)

S(PIN)ETS
11 AT THE WHEEL
An abstainer cut with stiletto when driving (2,3,5)

A TT(teetotaller)-HEW-HEEL  Are stiletto and heel interchangeable? (maybe requires “for example” or some such, but that woudl impact on the surface of the clue)
12 SOME
This setter is certain (4)

SO ME!
13  CRYPT
Keen to get a point for vault (5)

CRY-PT
14 TAPESTRY
Tory leader mimics judge in Arras (8)

T(ory)-APES-TRY
16 M-AILS-HOT
Mark is upset by latest advertising (8)
18 ROBIN
Winger not fully putting on clothes (5)

ROBIN(G)
20 KEYS
Lockers in Manx house (4)

Double definition – The House of Keys is the elected chamber of the Manx Government.  I spent a few moments looking for a word for house where I could remove the last letter, as the cruciverbalist in me immediately sees Manx as meaning tailless.
21 LEATHERING
Doctor hit general for hiding (10)

*(hit general)
23 REMORSE
Compassion is touching inventor (7)

RE-MORSE (as in Samuel Morse, an inventor, more famously known as the originator of Morse Code)
24 INCOMER
Immigrant proceeds right (7)

INCOME-R
25 NUTMEG
Spice in stone container rejected (6)

<=GEM-TUN
26 VESTAS
Matches underwear with a spouse’s initially (6)

VEST-A-S(pouse)
Down
1 SLEET
Shelter in the road in bad weather (5)

S(LEE)T
2 ROUGHLY
Approaching with violence (7)

Double definition
3 KEEP WATCH
Guard to glance over timepiece (4,5)

<=PEEK – WATCH
5 REPEL
Offend sick person being laid up (5)

<=LEPER
6 GENESIS
Seeing new son’s birth (7)

*(seeing) S
7 CATAMARAN
Boat in a river in Canada (9)

C(A TAMAR)AN – The River Tamar forms much of the boundary between Cornwall and Devon, although I believe there’s also a Tamar river in Australia.
10 DEATHTRAP
Crumbling path rated one that’s highly unsafe (9)

*(path rated)
13 CHAMELEON
Changeable creature to clean home anew (9)

*(clean home)
15 PERCHANCE
Maybe settle on a new church (9)

PERCH-A-N-C.E.
17 LASH OUT
The French call to spend extravagantly (4,3)

LA-SHOUT
19 BURN-OUT
Failure of vessel in battle (4-3)

B(URN)OUT – Two consecutive clues with OUT – American editors would hate that, but we’re not in America.
21 LISLE
Left key for material (5)

L-ISLE
22 NEEDS
Manipulates stated prerequisites (5)

homophone of KNEADS (“manipulates”)
*anagram

7 comments on “Financial Times 14,898 by ARMONIE”

  1. Thanks Chifonie and loonapick

    Agree, a pretty tame event, even for Chifonie. Only got slightly held up with a few at the end – REPUTED (took a while to see ‘said to be’ as the definition), KEYS (the parliamentary House was new to me), MAILSHOT ( just hadn’t heard of that term) and SOME (where it is another synonym to certain – took a while to see the context of this).

  2. Oh, and yes there is a Tamar river in Tasmania. Like a lot of rivers in Australia, it was named after one in England.

  4. Thanks, loonapick.

    As you say, a gentle solve but very nicely put together.

    When I did the puzzle this morning I left 12a blank. I eventually came to the conclusion that there was a typo in the clue and that it should read:

    Thus setter is certain (4)

    This would give ‘thus’ = SO and ‘setter’ = ME, with ‘certain’ as the definition.

    I’m not sure how ‘this’ = SO works.

  6. I don’t know if it’s a misprint, and should read “Thus setter”, or whether the setter was saying that the setter is “so me!”. I’d like to think it was the former, as the latter is very weak.

  7. Thanks for the blog. I’d give this 6/10. I agree with the criticism of 12ac. I also believe that the setter had confused ‘Lash out’ with ‘Splash out’ in 17dn. ‘Lash out’ means to attack, ‘splash out’ means to spend extravagantly.

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