Financial Times 17,999 by SOLOMON

A nice treat from SOLOMON to end the work week.

FF: 8 DD: 6

I wasn't too excited about one of the last across clues where part of the clue was quite similar to the answer itself with the change of just a single letter.

ACROSS
1	GIN	Drink gallons at home (3)
		G ( gallon ) IN ( at home )
3	MALAPROPISM	Misapplication of the French article in play is embodied by matriarch (11)
		[ LA ( the, french ) PROP ( article in play ) IS ] in MAM ( matriarch )
9	OFFENSIVE	Poor chicken’s decapitated by Solomon’s attack (9)
		OFF ( poor ) hENS ( chicken's, without first letter ) IVE ( solomon's )
10	TRAIN	Spinning tapestries, say, in school (5)
		[ reverse of ART ( tapestries, say ) ] IN
11	MARCHED	Did protest harm influential socialist democrat? (7)
		MAR ( harm ) CHE ( influential socialist ) D ( democrat )
12	SPIDERS	Makers of silk dress fitted around Greek’s figure (7)
		[ DRESS ]* around PI ( greek figure )
13	HAIRY	How might one describe a bear? ‘Dangerous’? (5)
		double def
14	LOATHSOME	9 agitated moles circling rats? (9)
		[ MOLES ]* around OATH ( rats?, an example of )
16	REICHSTAG	German seat and chairs get modified (9)
		[ CHAIRS GET ]*
18	LUCKY	Jammy woman snaffles the last piece of flapjack (5)
		LUCY ( woman ) containing K ( flapjacK, last letter )
19	WEBSITE	Fake news and sex filling insignificant pages online (7)
		[ BS ( fake news ) IT ( sex ) ] in WEE ( insignificant )
21	CONTENT	At ease, in Tuscany, with camping equipment (7)
		CON ( with, in tuscany i.e. in italian ) TENT ( camping equipment )
23	ROMEO	City close to archipelago that neighbours Quebec (5)
		ROME ( city ) O ( archipelagO, last letter ); referring to nato phonetic alphabet, R after Q ( quebec )
24	BADMINTON	Wicked cast performing in stately home (9)
		BAD ( wicked ) MINT ( cast ) ON ( performing )
25	DRILLING RIG	Platform for oil companies vigorously grilling the leaders of rich industrialised democracies (8,3)
		[ GRILLING RID ( starting letters of "..Rich Industrialised Democracies" ) ]*
26	ARC	Part of regular circumference (3)
		&lit; hidden in "..regulAR Circumference"
DOWN
1	GROOM	One promising to hold the bride’s train (5)
		double def
2	NEFERTITI	Finite supply hampering old queen — with time she achieved great things (9)
		[ FINITE ]* around { ER ( old queen ) T ( time ) }
3	MONTHLY	Madonna’s first on, and the endless legendary content’s belted out, eg Vogue (7)
		M ( Madonna, first letter ) ON THe ( endless i.e. without last letter ) LY ( LegendarY, without inner letters )
4	LAIRD	One embraced by fat landowner in Scotland (5)
		I ( one ) in LARD ( fat )
5	PRESS GANG	Force folk to become sailors? Or journalists? (5,4)
		cryptic def; a group of journalists could be called a PRESS GANG
6	OSTRICH	East German aristocracy who won’t face up to reality (7)
		OST ( east, in german ) RICH ( aristocracy )
7	IMAGE	Photograph in short periodical that is absorbing (5)
		MAG ( periodical , short, magazine ) in IE ( that is )
8	MONASTERY	Where are the brothers who won’t speak to one another? (9)
		cryptic def
13	HARD-WIRED	Inbred wrangler’s latest daughter’s wearing rawhide pants (4-5)
		[ R ( wrangleR, last letter ) D ( daughter ) ] in [ RAWHIDE ]*
14	LITTER BIN	Piglets, perhaps, tip over part of pen and refuse to go in it (6,3)
		LITTER ( piglets, perhaps ) BIN ( reverse of NIB, part of pen )
15	ORCHESTRA	Pit workers with lamps cycling the outer parts of Rhondda (9)
		[T]ORCHES ( lamps, with the T moving to the end ) RA ( RhonddA, end letters )
17	HAIR OIL	French king goes through bad weather to get pomade (4,3)
		ROI ( french for king ) in HAIL ( bad weather )
18	LANDING	Netting ling? (7)
		cryptic def; LING split as L AND ING
20	BAMBI	Baby, there’s no getting away from it — I’m cute (5)
		BAMBIno ( baby, without NO )
21	CIDER	Policemen finally locate bar and get a drink (5)
		CID ( policemen ) ER ( final letters of "..locatE baR.." )
22	TONIC	During choir’s warm-up, do not upset one beginning to cough (5)
		TON ( NOT, reversed ) I ( one ) C ( Cough, first letter ) ; i am on the right path but dont know what the exact meaning means

14 comments on “Financial Times 17,999 by SOLOMON”

Geoff Down Under

#1 - Fri 14th Mar 25, 06:07

LANDING & BAMBI were the two I failed to parse. I wasn’t aware of the need to switch to Italian for the latter.

Yes, I too was a bit surprised by 25a.

An enjoyable diversion today, thank you Solomon.

MaxS

#2 - Fri 14th Mar 25, 06:22

Fairly straightforward I thought today. Agree that 25a was a bit weak.

Question for Turbolegs: what do you mean by FF: 8 and DD: 6?

Jay

#3 - Fri 14th Mar 25, 07:24

I plodded through this one, never feeling like I was truely one with Solomon. I thought it was OK, but nothing more.

Shanne

#4 - Fri 14th Mar 25, 07:40

22D – do as in doh, re, mi for the tonic scale?

Thank you to Turbolegs and Solomon for an entertaining puzzle

Geoff Down Under

#5 - Fri 14th Mar 25, 07:48

Doh (or do) is the tonic to a muso. For reference …
Re supertonic
Mi mediant
Fa subdominant
Soh dominant
La submediant
Te leading note
Most have multiple spelling possibilities.

PostMark

#6 - Fri 14th Mar 25, 09:38

Loads of fun as per. I agree one has to be on the wavelength with Solomon but, when one is, it is a very enjoyable ride. Some creative definitions and some cunningly hidden parses. Faves inc MALAPROPISM which feels quite CAD and almost &lit though I am not sure the lady actually misused French words; OFFENSIVE for the amusing surface; MARCHED and WEBSITE for the tight constructions; BADMINTON for misleading me with two false anagrinds and the unusual definition; GROOM for the neat trick of one very long and one very short def; LITTER BIN and ORCHESTRA for the lovely surfaces and TONIC for that very clever ‘do’. Doh! indeed.

Thanks Solomon and Turbolegs

Fiona

#7 - Fri 14th Mar 25, 10:30

MaxS @ 2

I asked this a while ago. FF stands for Fun Factor and DD refers to difficulty (can’t remember the exact phrase)

KVa

#8 - Fri 14th Mar 25, 10:37

Degree of Difficulty

FrankieG

#9 - Fri 14th Mar 25, 14:09

Parsed 22d TONIC as Shanne@4. — {Prefer 1a & 22ds over 21d any day.}

BeelzeBob.

#10 - Fri 14th Mar 25, 14:18

I prefer crosswords with FF > DD, but not by much. I’m not sure that there are many of them.

Tony Santucci

#11 - Fri 14th Mar 25, 17:01

Thanks Solomon. Generally I’m in agreement with the ratings by Turbolegs but I thought this crossword was more difficult than a ‘6’, at least for me. I revealed LANDING and BAMBI & couldn’t parse TONIC. I did enjoy clues like GIN, SPIDERS, OSTRICH, and LITTER BIN. Thanks Turbolegs for the blog.

MaxS

#12 - Fri 14th Mar 25, 20:02

Thanks Fiona!

FrankieG

#13 - Sat 15th Mar 25, 09:04

12a SPIDERS: The “Greek’s figure” making a guest appearance on Pi Day.