Financial Times 16,638 by JULIUS

by

[If you’re attending York S&B please see comments 32&33] - here

A headscratcher from Julius this morning.

Maybe I'm tired, but I found this a bit of a slog this morning, although many of the answers were quite easy to get, as long as you have a certain level of general knowledge.

The NW corner stood stubbornly empty for a few minutes until I worked out SKILL SET and then the others slotted in nicely.

As I said, general knowledge is a prerequisite for this crossword, with Cefalu, Sir Peter Lely, Alhambra, Tati, Davy lamp, Thelma and Louise, vas, Mr Fawlty etc appearing in solutions and clues.

I have a couple of quibbles. In 14 across, ALHAMBRA doesn't sound like MOREISH, MOORISH (the "definition" if it could be called that sound like MOREISH), and in 5dn THE King of France could be any number of names, so A King of France may have been better.

Thanks Julius.

ACROSS
1 SKILL SET Pan son’s hidden abilities (5,3)
 

S (son) hidden in SKILLET ("pan")
6 LIVELY Sir Peter, given drip, is full of vigour (6)
 

(Sir Peter) LELY, given IV (intravenous "drip")

Sir Peter Lely was a 17th century Dutch painter who spent most of his life in England.
9 CEFALU Copper detaining English female adult, 50, in Sicilian city (6)
 

Cu (chemical symbol for "copper") detaining E (English) + F (female) + A (adult) + L (50. in Roman numerals)
10 ENVISAGE Imagine Wenger naked, embodying very international sex appeal (8)
 

(w)ENGE(r) [naked] embodying V (very) I (international) SA (sex appeal)
11 FLUE Chimney bend blocking Santa’s helper on the way back (4)
 

U (-bend) blocking <=ELF ("Santa's helper", on the way back)
12 ATMOSPHERE Air rancid horsemeat papa brought in (10)
 

*(horsemeat) [anag:rancid] with P (papa, in the phonetic alphabet) brought in
14 ALHAMBRA Special ham/Branston sandwich filling – that sounds moreish! (8)
 

Hidden in [sandwich filling] "speciAL HAM BRAnston"

Although I can see what Julius is doing here, I don't like it. The positioning of the homophone indicator "that sounds" implies that ALHAMBRA is the homophone, which it is not.
16 TATI French director spurning greeting of Polynesian settlement (4)
 

TA(hi)TI ("Polynesian settlement") spurning HI ("greeting")

Jacques Tati was a French film director, most famous for his character, M Hulot.
18 EBRO It flows between the banks of a city near Jerusalem (4)
 

[between the banks of] (h)EBRO(n), Hebron being a Palestinian "city near Jerusalem".

The River Ebro flows through Zaragoza in north-east Spain.
19 DAVY LAMP Lady vampire losing temper about light coming into the pit (4,4)
 

*(lady vamp) [anag:about] where VAMP is VAMP(ire) losing IRE ("temper")
21 CINEMAGOER One paying to see Ms Thompson half- heartedly featuring in Nic Roeg drama? (10)
 

EM(m)A (Thompson, half heartedly) featuring in *(nic roeg) [anag:drama]
22 ECHT Genuine horror at the start when entering shock therapy (4)
 

H(orror) [at the start] when entering ECT (electroconvulsive therapy)
24 CA:LAMARI Poor Maria Callas, forgetting the Spanish for “squid” (8)
 

*(maria cal) where CAL is CAL(las) forgetting LAS ("the" in "Spanish")
26 WIPERS Cleaners of Flanders town in bygone Times? (6)
 

WIPERS ("cleaners") was the name commonly given by British troops to Ypres ("Flanders town") during the First World War
27 ATE OUT Hearing only two wickets to fall, went for lunch (3,3)
 

Homophone [hearing] of EIGHT OUT ("in cricket, you need ten wickets to finish a first innings, so "eight out". would imply there are still two to fall)
28 ELDORADO Older (turning 25) in a fabulous place (8)
 

*(older) [anag:turning] + ADO (the answer to "25" down)
DOWN
2 KNELL Turn Allen key, squeezing ring (5)
 

Hidden backwards (indicated by squeezing and turn) in "aLLEN Key"
3 LEAVES ALONE Spurns tea for one? (6,5)
 

LEAVES ("tea") + ALONE ("for one")
4 SQUEAK BY Barely scrape along, without 15 by the sound of it (6,2)
 

The answer to 15dn is LUBRICANT and without lubricant, something may make a squeaking noise.
5 THELMA AND LOUISE Film the King of France visiting tragic Dane (Hamlet) (6,3,6)
 

LOUIS ("King of France") *(dane hamlet) [anag:tragic]

I don't like LOUIS being clued as "the King of France". A King of France may have been better, as it could have been Charles, Philippe, Henri etc)
6 LAVISH Opulent island hotel bathroom’s the top feature (6)
 

IS (island) + H (hotel) with LAV ("bathroom") on top [the top feature]
7 VAS Tube leaving Victoria empty first thing on Sunday (3)
 

V(ictori)A [empty] + [first thing on] S(unday)
8 LOGARITHM Record a beat on the radio, a powerful number! (9)
 

LOG ("record") + A + homophone [on the radio] of RHYTHM ("beat")
13 HOTELKEEPER “Let her pekoe brew, Mr Fawlty!” (11)
 

*(let her pekoe) [anag:brew]
15 LUBRICANT It’s used to smear notorious Earl entangled with British citizen (9)
 

LUCAN entangled with BRIT where LUCAN is "notorious earl" and BRIT is "British citizen".
17 OVERAWED Having been in debt Lynn enters, intimidated (8)
 

VERA (Lynn) enters OWED ("having been in debt")

20 BASALT Atlas absolutely flipped carrying rock (6)
 

Hidden backwards in [flipped carrying] "aTLAS ABsolutely"
23 HARED Ran European packing firm (5)
 

E (European) packing HARD ("firm")
25 ADO Old Bill in the van? That means trouble! (3)
 

O (old) with AD ("bill") in the van (i.e in front)

16 comments on “Financial Times 16,638 by JULIUS”

  1. Didn’t find this too difficult. Didn’t know Sir Peter Lily or Cefalu but both of these were easy guesses. Stupidly, I couldn’t dredge the river Ebro out of the old grey matter – particularly annoying since I recently posted elsewhere about a previous Julius clue for “The Bronx” involving Hebron. Thanks to S&B.

  2. I come to praise Julius. This took as long as Serpent or Vlad but it was all for the good . Loved ALHAMBRA. And pekoe brew.

    He turned up the tuffometer for the better

    Thanks loonapick and Julius

  4. Very entertaining. I didn’t have a problem with 14 across, I felt the exclamation mark hinted at a bit more going on. The clues involving general knowledge were very clear and I wouldn’t have thought would be a problem for anyone. thanks S & B.

  5. Thanks for the blog, loonapick.

    I do love Julius puzzles!

    So many clever, witty clues. I can’t possibly list all the fourteen I ticked: I’ll just pick out the shortest, the small but perfectly formed ADO and the longest, THELMA AND LOUISE. (I suspect that, if you asked anyone to name a French king, LOUIS would come out top: there were eighteen of them!) I’ll  allow myself one more – the excellent CINEMAGOER.

    I agree with jmac re 14ac.

    I enjoyed all the GK clues – a really good work-out all round.

    Thanks for the reminder of The Wipers Times, Andrew.

    Huge thanks, as ever, to Julius.

  7. Plenty of good clues, my favourite of which was WIPERS; thanks for the extra information Andrew @3. I learnt the name of a new artist at 6a and was given a lesson in both geography and crossword parsing for my last in EBRO.

    Thanks to Julius and loonapick.

  8. Late to the party as I was out all day but I set this aside with particular relish seeing that it was Julius. (It’s been a good week with Gozo too).
    I’ll also echo Eileen’s sentiments, particularly regarding Louis, there were enough of ’em, after all! Didn’t know CEFALU or Nic Roeg’s work (must put this to rights) but spotted what was required for both.
    Really too many that I liked and wonderful surfaces too so I’ll just give a shout-out to SQUEAK BY/LUBRICANT. 10a’s surface was most amusing but I can’t unsee that mental image!
    Thanks so much to Julius and to Loonapick for a very detailed write-up.

  9. Thanks Julius for an impeccably clued crossword. I liked SKILL SET, CALAMARI, LAVISH, and LOGARITHM; favourites were VAS and ADO — sometimes the short answers are the ones that take the most thinking. ECHT also amused me — I only knew that word because it’s the name of an excellent Flemish cherry ale. Thanks Loonapick for the write-up.

  10. We’d not heard of CEFALU before, but the answer was clear from the wordplay and easily confirmed by googling.

    But we didn’t like 15dn which involves an indirect anagram, the one thing which is supposed to be taboo in Crosswordland.

    The rest was all straightforward enough even if some of our GK was a bit slow to come to the surface.  We wondered at first about the capitalisation of Times but the reason was obvious as soon as we got WIPERS.  Favourites were DAVY LAMP, CALAMARI and LOGARITHM.

    Thanks, Julius and loonapick

  11. Thanks to loonapick for the blog and thanks to everyone who has commented. @Allan C..I didn’t intend the clue for LUBRICANT to be an indirect anagram, The letters of LUCAN and BRIT are in the correct order. My use of “entangled” could be read as “entwined”.

    Warmest regards to all, Rob/Julius

  12. Very late today. Didn’t get round to it until after our evening meal. Used google maps to check CEFALU and to find a city near Jerusalem with EBRO in the middle. Otherwise, no external aids were required. Very enjoyable as always, thanks Rob.

  13. Many thanks for the blog Loonapick as I really needed your explanations today. I did get all the letters in the right boxes but I had a feeling I was missing an awful lot along the way – another crossword that reminds me of my own ignorance. I spent a lot of time googling things but it was a nice afternoon to sit in the sun. Also thanks to Julius for helping me continue my education in an accessible manner. Oh, and to me “the” king of France is ROI.

  16. Thanks Julius and loonapick

    Did this in a bits and pieces fashion which stretched the solve over quite some time.  Knew most of the GK clues, but not CEFALU nor the war troops name for Ypres.  Wasn’t able to fully parse LUBRICANT even though twigging to Lord LUCAN – just didn’t see the entangled BRIT, after being fixated on BR for British.

    Lots of interesting clue devices used throughout with particular favourites being TA[HI]TI,  [H]EBRO[N] and the “8 out” play.

    Finished in the SW corner with that LUBRICANT and EBRO the last couple in.

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