Financial Times 14,665 by GOLIATH

A very entertaining challenge from GOLIATH which required several sittings to fully crack the grid. Frankly, this was a very educational outing where I learnt several new words/phrases (e.g. 16,17ac ; 15d; part of 1d) after having deduced the solution from successfully breaking down the clue. Googling helped with 15d.

Thoroughly enjoyed this !! Thanks Goliath for getting my Friday off to a great start.

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Financial Times 14,659 by FALCON

I cant say I enjoyed this one much – Falcon probably didnt feel like taxing any of us and made it quite easy. Like several grids I have covered before, this one would be just nice for newbies on the FT get started.

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Financial Times 14,653 by BRADMAN

A good tussle with Bradman’s serving this morning – Thanks Bradman for a good workout. I didnt find it easy going entirely and had to complete the puzzle in small bursts. I found the NW and the SE corners to be more taxing, relatively.

For a couple of clues, I got to the solution first but didnt crack the parsing (17ac, 16d).

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Financial Times 14,647 by MAGWITCH

Magwitch gives us a nice entertaining puzzle, peppered with amicable clues mostly and the customary couple of mindbenders that prevents the grid from being a walk in the park. Thanks Magwitch, for a fitting end to what has been generally been a good week for FT solvers. I am sure a couple of parsings could be improved so look forward to inputs from folks out there.

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Financial Times 14,641 by BRADMAN

Bradman for me yet again. From next week onwards,  I am going to keep a running tally of who I get on Fridays just for kicks – as of now, Bradman is way above the rest!

Decent puzzle this – pleasant cluing and easy to work through most of them. This would be appropriate fare for someone starting out on the FT.

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Financial Times 14,635 by MUDD

A pleasant serving from Mudd, thanks to whom for setting a grid which escaped qualification as neither a cakewalk nor a mind-bender. I got through the left half of the grid pretty quickly before losing momentum, thanks largely due to the SE corner (which in my opinion, would have been easy for most others).

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Financial Times 14,629 by Rosa Klebb

Excellent grid from Rosa! I got started with great gusto finishing nearly the entire left half of the grid in quick time, before grinding to a halt. A rough day ahead meant I couldn’t spend anytime on the puzzle until just a short while before this post.

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Financial Times 14,623 by BRADMAN

Bradman, yet again for me. And he doesnt disappoint, having served up an interesting and intuitive grid. Quite a few clues where I was scratching my head before coming up with the answer. Loved it, thanks Bradman!!

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Financial Times 14,605 by BRADMAN

Tough day at work today so wasnt really in the right frame of mind to attack this puzzle. Nearly gave up before gutting it out. Thanks to Bradman for an excellent workout – I really loved doing this despite my less-than-ok frame of mind.

I had to get help from the internet for 7d but otherwise it was smooth sailing. Did need some assistance with parsing some clues though, which Geoff kindly helped with.

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Financial Times 14,588 by BRADMAN

Thanks to Bradman for a grid that was a pleasurable walkthrough, much like yesterday’s from Magwitch. I needed a bit of help to check my answer for 15d. My last two answers in were 10A and 14A which I had trouble with parsing.

Also – thanks to Gaufrid for covering for me last week . Have a good weekend all !!

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Financial Times 14,576 by GAFF

I had to attempt this puzzle in 2 parts – once at the start of the day and again, after I had finished at work. Unfortunately, I still havent been able to successfully get around a couple of clues, the answers for which I am sure are quite easy to crack. Nevertheless, what I indeed managed to solve was very enjoyable and was taxing just to the right extent. 18ac and 17d are  to be finished.

Apologies for not finishing this before putting it up (would love to have been able to spend more time on this before blogging the complete puzzle but wont be near a computer for another three hours).

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