Financial Times 16,565 by AARDVARK

11 comments on “Financial Times 16,565 by AARDVARK”

1. Nearly a pangram … but couldn’t find a W

2. I also thought it was going to be a pangram, when I checked and found that F, J, P, W and X were missing. I then got 8, 11, 26 and 16, which left W – which was still missing when I finished.

   It’s a nice puzzle nonetheless – thank you, Aardvark. But I’m wondering why you didn’t, for example, have “WANT” for 27? It could have been clued “Need a whatnot, but only occasionally”. That would make it a pangram.

   Thanks also to PeeDee.

3. Thanks Bruce and Nick, a pangram but for the want of a W

4. Strange that Aardvark didn’t make this a pangram. Thanks for parsing STUCCO – that had me baffled.

5. A DNF for me through pure idlenesss. I had the spurious ‘Orieto’ for the Italian region (half of ‘ORIent for the footie team, and it’s ‘Orvieto’, I know, I know) so spelt ‘sphear’ archaically, for no reason but confirmed by Chambers so double nonsense, grump.
   To Nick @2:
   Good clue for WANT, although a purist might omit the ‘but only’ for conciseness, perhaps. I think that almost-complete pangrams are as interesting as full ones, what with all that scurrying after non-existent letters as one is finishing the puzzle.
   Still, good midweek fun. Thanks to both.

6. This was my pick of the day. Very classy tight clues

   Thanks Aardvark and PeeDee

7. Found this puzzle from Aardvark a tough nut to crack. After kicking off in the SE quadrant, I ground to a halt.
   Made several returns throughout the afternoon, my LOI being the wonderful OYSTER. This, along with BERLIOZ, QUICKLY and ADAGIO had some very entertaining word play.
   I was misled completely by the 11ac ‘WI marmalade’ at first but, thankfully, the word play yielded enough letters to finally solve the clue.
   Completed all but one – TURNPIKE – but I definitely wasn’t feeling the setter’s vibes today and succeeded more from definitions and guesswork than parsing. So PeeDee’s blog made for a fascinating and surprising read. Didn’t know ‘cut’ for canal, for instance, nor did I grasp the ‘out of bounds’ for 13ac. One to watch in future.
   All the same, I enjoyed the ride. Thanks Aardvark!

8. Hard work, with my first run through yielding very little. I eventually got there, though with no idea about the parsing of OPERETTA or STUCCO. I enjoyed TURNPIKE and my last in JAMAICA, being misled until the end by the ‘WI marmalade’.

   I know what Grant means about the pangram – W; satisfying in it’s own way to have spotted the missing letter. At least I wasn’t tempted by 27d.

   Thanks to Aadvark for a top notch puzzle and to PeeDee for explaining everything so clearly.

9. We didn’t quite get it all; for 6dn all we could think of was ‘hired out’ which just about fitted the definition but of course we couldn’t parse it, nor could we parse STUCCO.  And we were surprised the setter didn’t seize the opportunity to make it a pangram – but maybe that was just to keep us guessing.

   Plenty to like, though – MACHISMO, ADAGIO, GATEAUX and JAMAICA (nice misdirection there) among others.

   Thanks, Aardvark and PeeDee.

10. Grant @5 Your point about “almost complete pangrams” causing “scurrying” is well taken. Aardvark could have easily made this a pangram by having 27 be WART — something like “Western discipline is a blemish” comes to mind — I’m sure there are many more possibilities.

11. Thanks Aardvark and PeeDee

    Long clues always brings a sense of apprehension, seeing them in this puzzle was no exception and the first pass through confirmed it even further.  Gradually, however, was able to chip away at it clue by clue and after a number of sittings was able to get it completed.

    Did get sidetracked a little at the end looking for the late to get F and the non-existent W from the pangram.

    A lot of quite tricky unravelling of the word play was required throughout and still couldn’t parse TECHNO, OPERETTA or STUCCO at the end.

    Finished in the SW corner with TURNPIKE (again a tricky parse), that STUCCO and CARDIGAN (that was a real headslap when the penny dropped) as the last few in.

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.