Financial Times 15126 by IO

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In memoriam – of my solving skills?

A puzzle by Io that pays tribute to some of the prominent people who passed away in 2015, although I think my solving skills may also be on their last legs, given how bad an effort I have made at this puzzle, which was very difficult, even after I had worked out what the theme was.

I’m afraid this puzzle has me beat.  I have spent two hours on it, and have fallen short, with four answers I can’t get and another I am unable to parse.

4ac – I don’t know where to begin with this one.

6 ac – HEROES seems plausible?

8 ac – I want to put in ARCE (AR(C)E), but that’s from wordplay only.  I have never heard of, nor can find any reference to ARCE meaning “artists”.

19 ac – again, not a clue.

 

20dn – I have put in NIMOY because it works with the theme, but can’t parse LEONARD NIMOY.

 

Any help appreciated – I ain’t proud (after all, after an effort like this, I have no right to be!)

Across
4  
With money I reportedly owe Scrooge, half’s gone to begin with (6)
6  
This is about ordinary men taking the lead (6)
8  
Artists live without Clydesdale Bank (4)
9 HEAVENWARD
Cat nearly pulled back up (10)

HEAVE + <+DRAWN

One definition of HEAVE is “retch” and, something I only learned today, to cat is to vomit, therefore “cat nearly” = HEAVE.  As HEAVE also means “vomit” the nearly could be considered superfluous.
10 HASHMARKS
“Two pairs of happy shoppers @M&S #plural” (9)

HA(ppy) + SH(oppers) + MARKS (& Spencer)
12, 16, 18, 11 BIGFOOT AND THE HENDERSONS
Film of her one-night stand bodes ill (7,3,3,10)

*(of her one night stand bodes)
14 FIANCEE
Promised money to leave North East? (7)

FI(n)ANCE + E
16  
See 12
18  
See 12
19  
In a race to restrict mineral to the back? No (9)
22 SEES DOUBLE
Has 40/40 vision? (4,6)

Cryptic definition

If you see perfectly, you have 20/20 vision, so cryptically, seeing double could involve 40/40 vision.
23 LOMU
Sport I developed out of unconventional photojournalism (5,4)

*(hojounalm)  i.e. “photojournalism” less the letters in “sport I”

Jonah Lomu dies on the 18th November, 2015.

 
24 MACNEE
Arsenal legend carrying kilo Mike spots (7,6)

PAT RIC(K M ACNE)E

Patrick MacNee died on the 25th June, 2015.
25 EDDERY
Sadly departed, send-off for jockey (3,6)

*(departed) + (jocke)Y

Pat Eddery died on the 10th November, 2015.
Down
1 EUPHRATES
Asian flower people in group are about to close up hospital (9)

<=SET ARE about UP H

Asian flower = Asian river
2 BROWN BETTY
A sweet Yankee, close to claiming right to have wager logged (5,5)

BY(“close to”) around (“claiming”) RT (“right”) around OWN (“have”) BET(“wager”)

B(R)(OWN BET)(T)Y

A brown betty is an American baked pudding.
3 TETRAGON
Caught by decimal trick on counter? Go figure! (8)

(<=ART) + GO in TEN

I’m assuming “on counter” is a reversal indicator here.
4 BERRA
Rolls I live on in spiritual discipline (4,5)

YOG (I BE RR)A

Yogi Berra died on the 22nd September, 2015.
5 NEE
Want to give away daughter named as 14? (3)

NEE(d)
6 HEEL
Closely follow villain (4)

Double definition
7 SACKS
Love Fashion House’s endless woven silk dresses (6,5)

O + VERSAC(e) in *(silk)

Oliver Sacks died on the 30th August, 2015.
11  
See 12
13 BONEHEADS
Clots a husband’s spotted in balls (9)

B(ONE H)EADS
15 IN THE BAG
Secured, like cat incapable of ratting? (2,3,3)

Letting the cat out of the bag ~ “ratting” so if the cat is IN THE BAG, ratting isn’t possible.
17 NOBBS
Criminally, this writer bans DVD about book (5,5)

B in *(io bans DVD)

David Nobbs died on the 8th August, 2015.
20 NIMOY
Taking care over orchestration of early 007’s demise? (7,5)

Can’t think of any other celebrity death that belongs in here, but can’t parse it at all.
21 COLE
Oxygen for one rejected by poor El Greco (6,4)

<=O E.G. + *(el greco)

George Cole died on the 5th August, 2015
23 LEE
Order helicopters to carry this woman (11,3)

*(helicopters) around HER

Christopher lee died on the 7th June, 2015.
*anagram

18 comments on “Financial Times 15126 by IO”

  1. I’ve still got a couple more to get but

    8a is the Scottish (Clydesdale) word for bank – BRAE – BE (live) around RA (Royal Academician, artist)
    19a FLYING (in a race) around ORE (mineral) def = to the back, no

    If I work out what is going on with 4a and 6a, I’ll be back

    As I said to Mr CS over lunch ‘not one I’d have wanted to blog in a million years’

  2. You’re not alone. I took more time to complete this than I take to complete the average Mephisto/Azed. I’d say such difficulty wouldn’t normally be justified in a daily puzzle but most likely there won’t be an FT tomorrow, so this gives us something to take our minds off our hangovers (or make them worse!). I think all the clues are fair and above board, despite their difficulty.

    My parsings were:

    4 ac Should have been (6,6). It’s RICH + I + EBEN(ezer) + AUD (sounds like OWE)

    6 ac I think that it’s HERE’S around O (abbrev ordinary)

    8 ac I’ve got this as BRAE. RA with BE outside and the def is a Scottish word for a bank

    19 ac ORE in FLYING (in a race)

    20 dn reverse of MIND (care) in anag EARLY OO (seve)N (demise being an end)

    Happy New Year to all!

  4. Sorry I should have said solution to 19a is FORELYING

    I also should have said thank you to IO for making me work really hard and to Loonapick for the blog.

  5. Thanks, Loonapick: a valiant effort – you did better than I did! And thanks for others’ contributions, too.

    This is the third of Mr Henderson’s offerings that I attempted today and I had a feeling it would be the toughest. This one finally beat me – a really clever puzzle and I submit gracefully.

    I smiled at the self-referential 12,16,18,11. 😉

    Many thanks, Io – if it had been a weekend puzzle I would have persevered [busy day today] but I’m not sure I would have completely finished it. Glad to hear you’ve weathered the storms and hope you see your garden again soon.

  6. Well well, it doesn’t happen very often but this time I gave up.
    Yet it was a joy to ‘reconstruct’ the puzzle.

    The fact that I am not a Brit and also not someone who is into cricket, rugby or horse racing, made that I did not know 6 out of 10.
    Did I say 10?
    Well spotted, cruciverbophile, with regard to 4ac – it didn’t help me, didn’t know this person.

    Just like Eileen (and others, I’m sure) I smiled at the self-referential 12,16,18,11.
    However, I wasn’t sure about the enumeration.
    Initially, I split 7 into 3+4, then I thought ‘should it be 16,12,18,11?’.
    The splitting up of BIGFOOT is alright, yet somewhat unusual as 16ac is not one word.

    Anyway, by far the hardest crossword on Henderson Day.
    For me, IO is the hardest alter ego of our beloved setter anyway.

    Many thanks to IO – it was clever.
    And to loonapick for ‘doing the best they can’.
    A special mention for cruciverbophile for opening up this puzzle even more!
    Thanks all.

    ps, where’s HH? 🙂

  7. You did better than me LP – I usually reckon to be on this setter’s wavelength for wordplay – and after already knocking over a relatively mild Enigmatist I had rather hoped I would be.

    I didn’t twig the theme – all I could see was a sport, maybe football, connection – not enough.

    I suppose the twist that fooled me was that (as I now see) some themesters were fully clued but others relied on commonality of surname with what was originally clued.

    If we’d put our heads together we would only have been missing 19a.

    I came close on that one – guessing ORE and the possibility of FORE – but OneLook didn’t have the necessary word – I see now that Chambers Word Wizard does. I clearly need to be more flexible in my approach to cheating.

    Many thanks to S&B and all above for the much-needed closure.

  8. Typical io self-indulgent crossword. Too clever by half, and absolutely devoid of fun. 22 across was ok, but the rest was poor, to say the least. The reference to a best-forgotten obscure film is typical of this server’s greater interest in himself than in his audience.

  10. What a torture. Io really knows how to be sadistic. One of the few times when I failed to complete an FT puzzle. In contrast, Enigmatist was such a breeze. John, I’ll buy you a Guinness when we next meet.

  11. david, if writing a puzzle commemorating authors, sporting figures and actors who were sigificant personal boyhood and professional sources of inspiration (my heroes) – and who all passed away in the same year – then yes, I’m self-indulgent, and I’m sorry for upsetting you.

    Perhaps, however, you’d like to explain to me why my Enigmatist puzzle was also “self-indulgent”? I am agog.

    Hope we both have a happier 2016.

  12. I too was disappointed in this puzzle because it seems to me that cryptic puzzles (unlike “Polymath”) should not rely on too much specific knowledge. I have never heard of the film, nor most of the “celebrities” so did not get the theme.

  13. Well David – know you’ll know (although by your use of the word “typical” you already do) not to bother next time.

    That’s one of the good things about having crosswords bylined.

    I wonder what Rowland would have thought of it.

  15. I would count myself as one of JH’s “fans”. I agree with others that this was by far the toughest of the NYE trio – I just about solved the Enigmatist, got most of the way with Eimrod, but hardly started with this one. But I have to agree that it was ingeniously clued (as usual). I think my problem was that I found very few easier access points and so got disheartened. Perhaps the combination of intricate word play, the special instruction and all the proper names were what ratcheted up the difficulty level.

    Thanks John, loonapick and other commenters. Happy New Year to all.

  16. John H @ 11 – I’m agog to know the response to my comments, too – particularly the misplaced it’s in the beef wellington clue and the misplaced within in 24.

  17. Thanks Io and Loonapick.

    Io beat me (again). I missed Heavenward, MacNEE and TETRAGON and couldn’t properly parse BENAUD, BROWN BETTY or LEONARD NIMOY.

    But I stuck with this for much longer than I otherwise might because I found this far from self-indulgent – just very, very difficult.

    Non-UK solvers – I discovered on research – might have had difficulty with 12, 16, 18, 11 – outside the UK the film was titled HARRY AND THE HENDERSONS.

    Respect to Io. One day I’ll fully solve one of his puzzles.

  18. Thanks Io and loonapick

    Had let this one rest after doing the Enigmatist puzzle at the time – one cannot masochitstically beat oneself up by attempting this setter too close together. Anyway started this a couple of weeks ago and it took all of this time on and off up until tonight to get it completed. I had only three clues that I could not parse – HASHMARKS (had the Marks part but not the HA SH bit), NIMOY (and don’t know whether I ever would have if I had waited another 2 months !!) and Lesley GORE (but wait, I was never going to parse that – because it needed to be George COLE! )

    This was as tough as they get in my book and although slightly disappointed in making the error at 21, still was happy that I got the rest of it out.

    Last one in was BENAUD mainly because until the penny dropped from the parsing, I didn’t realise that it was a themed answer as the numeration shown only had 6 rather than 7,6. I had noted that there were only nine clues that did fit the rubric though.

    Another one off the back pile at the cost of not looking at either today’s FT or Guardian puzzles 🙁

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