Financial Times 14,818 by GAFF

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My pleasure to blog a Gaffle as the first FT grid of the New Year 2015 – and like all others before it from the globetrotter, an absolute delight to tackle.

I got to the meaning of M after solving 1d. Once that was in, several other clues on M fell quickly in place. My bane however was the SE corner where 26ac and 24dn continued to elude me. Thanks Geoff for helping out there.

Once again, Happy New Year 2015 everybody !!!

FF: 9 DD: 8

Across
1 HEFTIER
Injured here – fit more strapping (7)
Anagram of HERE FIT
5 FULMARS
Nearly running over M’s birds (7)
FUL (Nearly running over – FULl) MAR (M) S; One of my last ones in, and solved mostly due to the fact that I hadnt seen March in any of the other clues I had solved. I did think if ‘over’ in the clue was to indicate that FUL came first but the parsing as above seems to be a better fit.
9 NOOKS
Refusal to allow some short corners (5)
NO (refusal) OK (allow, used in the verb form) S (Some, short)
10 SHOW FIGHT
Don’t give up view covering the way to Flamborough Head (4,5)
SIGHT (view) covering [HOW (the way) F (Flamborough head) ]
11 VERGE UPON
Come close to poisoning on pure veg (5,4)
Anagram of ON PURE VEG
12 BERYL
Robbery leader fences gem (5)
Hidden in ‘robBERY Leader..’
13 RELIC
Trace priest through religion (5)
ELI (priest) through RC (religion, Roman Catholic)
15 TROJAN WAR
M in argument during oil dispute of old (6,3)
[JAN (M) in ROW (argument)] in TAR (oil)
18 MINT JULEP
Drink for perfect MEP (4,5)
MINT (perfect, as in mint condition) JUL (M) EP
19 SOLID
Sound thick (5)
Double def
21 DEIGN
Think fit to quote Hamlet? (5)
Sounds like Dane referring to Hamlet, Prince of Denmark from the Bard’s works.
23 PANORAMIC
Widespread alarm about loss of memory (9)
PANIC (alarm) about O-RAM (loss of memory, read as Zero RAM - Random Access Memory, a type of memory in electronic circuits)
25 CAPRICORN
Sign of leader describing M or N (9)
[CIC (leader, Commander-in-Chief) around APR (M) ] OR N
26  FRANC
Ready for a gnome? (5)
 Cryptic definition (Ready here meaning money, and gnome referring to bankers)
27 MAYHEMS
M kettles riots (7)
MAY (M) HEMS (kettles, as in restrict to a small space, usually said of a crowd)
28 STRATUS
Level to which oddly smutty culture returned (7)
SUT (oddly SmUtTy) ARTS (culture), all reversed
Down
1 HANOVER
Woman’s receiving AM in house (7)
HER (Woman) receving A-NOV (parsing for AM with M being month, in this case NOVember. This is the first clue that led me to decipher M’s meaning). The House of Hanover was a royal german dynasty.
2 FLOOR PLAN
Design of all porn is dreadful (5,4)
Anagram of OF ALL PORN
3 ISSUE
Send children problem publication (5)
One of  those rare quadruple defs.
4 ROSE PETAL
M overwhelmed by change to real confetti perhaps (4,5)
Anagram of TO REAL around SEP (M, September)
5 FLOWN
Flat heads have gone (5)
FL (FLat, headS implying first two characters rather than just one) OWN (have)
6 LIFEBOATS
Safety equipment to sail in a storm around M (9)
Anagram of TO SAIL around FEB – What a brilliant surface !!
7 AUGUR
M City forecast (5)
AUG (M) UR (City)
8 SETTLER
Pioneer’s dog grabbing the end of tail (7)
SETTER (dog) grabbing L (end of taiL)
14 CAJUN RICE
M trapped in vehicle by frost on course from Louisiana (5,4)
[JUN (M) trapped in CAR (vehicle)] by ICE (frost)
16 OPPONENTS
Chooses to entertain person in extreme pain with matches (9)
OPTS (chooses) containing [ ONE (person) in PN (extreme PaiN) ]
17 WELL MEANT
Village’s —- —– fresh water was genuine (4-5)
The clue can be read as ‘Village’s well meant fresh water ..’.
18 MODICUM
Bit of cooked cod I kept quiet about (7)
Anagram of COD I in MUM (quiet)
20 DECOCTS
Makes tasteless M&Ms (7)
DEC (M) OCT (M) S – Clever cluing !!
22 IMPLY
Start off just mean (5)
sIMPLY (just, without the start)
23 PIOUS
Spiritual’s quiet notes (5)
P (quiet) IOUS (notes, as in IOUs, colloquial abbreviation for ‘I owe you’, debt notes)
24  REFER
Joint second or third missing guide (5)
 REeFER (Joint, missing an ‘E’, which could be its second or third letter)
*anagram

9 comments on “Financial Times 14,818 by GAFF”

  1. A gem! I especially liked the way M was incorporated in AM, MEP, M&Ms etc. And to use each M once.

    I also stared at 26ac for a long time even though I had the answer pencilled in…

    Thanks Gaff and Turbolegs

  2. Gem! I especially liked the way M was incorporated in AM, MEP, M&Ms etc. And to use each M once.

    I also stared at 26ac for a long time even though I had the answer pencilled in…

    Thanks Gaff and Turbolegs

  3. As one may know, I am not always on this setter’s wavelength but, wow, this was just a magnificent crossword!

    Brilliant use of M (likepeterj said), esp. in 7d and 20d.
    Twelve M’s, twelve months.

    Thanks Turbolegs for your immaculate blog.
    But where are all the comments today?
    This masterpiece deserves a lot better!

    Well done Gaff!

    Happy New Year to all.

  5. A great theme for the first puzzle of the year. Very entertaining.
    Thanks Gaff and Turbolegs.

    Confetti = ROSE PETAL?
    The Happy Couple wouldn’t be too happy with one measly petal!

    For ‘Level’ I expected either STRATUM or the use of STATUS.
    The only meaning I can find for STRATUS is a cloud. Am I missing something here?

  6. Thanks all for the comments.

    Sil@3, Very kind words for the blog, Thanks !

    Mike@5, I am with you on the clue for STRATUM as I had exactly the same thoughts and would love to be enlightened. I didnt stop to think too much about ROSE PETAL as I was busy feeling clever that I had solved the clue. Gaff does that to me – every clue I solve on his grid feels like breaking the tape at the Olympics Marathon final. (Ok, thats a bit of an exaggeration, but you get the drift !).

    Cheers

  7. Absolute joy, but I was stumped by FRANC. Would never have gotten it without your explanation. Thanks to Gaff and Turbolegs for a wonderful romp through the year!

  8. Thanks to Turbolegs for the excellent blog and to all for the feedback. Glad you enjoyed it – it was definitely fun to compose. The idea started out with the word DECOCTS and the potential clue for that which I thought rather fun! I can never understand why sweets like this are made different colours when they all taste exactly the same! My wife amazes me by insisting on eating only the green wine gums – but there you go!

    I think ROSE PETAL is OK as ‘(a bit of) confetti perhaps’, though I’d agree that ‘rose petal, perhaps’ to define CONFETTI would indeed appear mean.

    I also have STRATUM as a (geological, for example) layer, and STRATUS as a cloud, but one consisting of a single horizontal layer, so again I thought that was OK.

    Happy New Year to all!

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