Financial Times 17,490 by JULIUS

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A lovely start to the day from Julius.

Good to see this setter in the Wednesday slot. A very enjoyable and breezy crossword. Many thanks to Julius.

picture of the completed grid

ACROSS
1. Macbeth cast, holding Oscar: “it was a huge sacrifice” (8)
HECATOMB

(MACBETH)* (*cast) holding O (Oscar)

6. Carp sent back, found to contain Australian drug (6)
PROZAC

CARP< (<sent back) found to contain OZ (Australian)

9. Old King returns Austen novel, pronouncing it “lightweight” (6)
GRAMME

GR (old king, George Rex) + EMMA< (Austen novel, <returns)

10. Remove hair from pâté deli sent out (8)
DEPILATE

(PATE DELI)* (*sent out)

11. Boyfriend beginning to boil water in Paris (4)
BEAU

B[oil] (beginning to) + EAU (water in Paris, i.e. in French)

12. Grim-sounding works of folklore? (5,5)
FAIRY TALES

Cryptic definition

‘Grim’ referring to the Brothers GRIMM, i.e. “grim” (“sounding”)

14. Kick boxing American referee without shoes (8)
BAREFOOT

BOOT (kick) boxing A (American) + REF (referee)

16. Hate getting undressed — it’s a curse (4)
OATH

[l]OATH[e] (hate, getting undressed)

18. Reptile starts to climb right over carport (4)
CROC

C[limb] R[ight] O[ver] C[arport] (starts to)

19. Small-scale industrial production he cannot put to work (8)
NANOTECH

(HE CANNOT)* (*put to work)

21. Arranging brief drink which should stimulate the network (10)
FIBREGLASS

(BRIEF)* (*arranging) + GLASS (drink)

‘The network’ being the internet which is often transmitted by fibre optics made of silica/glass

22. Water to quench thirst son left out (4)
LAKE

[s]LAKE (to quench thirst, S (son) left out)

24. Headmaster is keen to embrace star sign (8)
ASTERISK

[Headm]ASTER IS K[een] (to embrace)

26. Rio van driver regularly drops off a member of the band’s crew (6)
ROADIE

R[i]O [v]A[n] D[r]|I[v]E[r] (regularly drops off)

27. Shrewd, like boy king (Egypt’s first) (6)
ASTUTE

AS (like) + TUT (boy king) + E[gypt]’s (first)

28. Fielding work puts moonset roughly around 1st of June (3,5)
TOM JONES

(MOONSET)* (*roughly) around J[une] (1st of)

DOWN
2. Weird energy on one of the Great Lakes (5)
EERIE

E (energy) on ERIE (one of the Great Lakes)

3. Security vehicle hit our ma on N Yorks racecourse (8,3)
ARMOURED CAR

(OUR MA)* (*hit) on REDCAR (N Yorks racecourse)

4. Flood at an end, wolf heads north (8)
OVERFLOW

OVER (at an end) + WOLF< (<heads north)

5. Provider of shuttle service? (9,6)
BADMINTON RACKET

Cryptic definition

The ‘ball’ in the sport, Badminton, is called a shuttle (or shuttlecock), and ‘shuttle service’ usually refers to a transport service

6. He liked to eat his spinach with olive oil, we’re told (6)
POPEYE

Cryptic definition

The character POPEYE gained great strength by eating spinach, and his wife was named Olive Oyl, i.e. “olive oil” (“we’re told”)

7. Member of Parliament known for wisdom? (3)
OWL

Cryptic definition

The collective name for owls is a parliament, and owls are thought of as wise

8. Genuine gold, later titanium clubs (9)
AUTHENTIC

AU (gold) + THEN (later) + TI (titanium) + C (clubs)

13. Getting drunk a lot, old man guzzles Iberia’s premier sherry (11)
AMONTILLADO

(A LOT OLD MAN)* (*getting drunk), guzzles I[beria]’s (premier)

15. With which luvvies greet Keira’s sis at play? (3,6)
AIR KISSES

(KEIRA’S SIS)* (*at play)

17. Wolfgang’s trombone picks up a measure of radiation (8)
ANGSTROM

[Wolf]ANG’S TROM[bone] (picks up)

20. Set fire to brown coal Liberal chucked away (6)
IGNITE

[l]IGNITE (brown coal, L (liberal) chucked away)

23. King and knight originally inherited iron blade (5)
KNIFE

K (king) + N (knight) + I[nherited] (originally) + FE (iron)

25. Seymour occasionally shot bird (3)
EMU

[S]E[y]M[o]U[r] (occasionally shot)

49 comments on “Financial Times 17,490 by JULIUS”

  1. I’d have spelt it RACQUET, but the dictionary assures me I’m old-fashioned. Everything fell into place and was enjoyable, with HECATOMB the only one that was new to me.

    Thanks Julius & Oriel.

  5. Thanks, Julius and Oriel!

    GRAMME
    I wonder what the ‘pronouncing it’ does in the clue.
    FIBREGLASS
    I think the ‘which’ should be part of the def.

  6. Short and sweet,
    ASTUTE, AIR KISSES and AMONTILLADO being my favourites.
    Thanks to Julius for this morning’s amusement and to Loonapick.

  8. Deezzaa @7. I did wonder if Julius was mixing up Angstrom and Röntgen. At a push, it is a measure of the wavelength of EM radiation – a distance, as you say.

  10. KVa@5 – GRAMME
    was how we spelt all those French units way back before we joined Europe and started buying things in litres and kilos – ‘pronouncing it’ exactly the same.
    I wonder when the ME disappeared…
    Agree on FIBREGLASS

  11. …I expect some Tory minister will announce the reintroduction of the -ME, now that we’re dwelling on the sunny uplands of Brexit, with blue passports again.

  12. I remembered HECATOMB from previous outings so the main one to hold me up was BADMINTON RACKET, for which I originally put PLAYER. I wondered about ANGSTROM as ‘a measure of radiation’ but it does work with Hovis @8’s explanation. I liked the surface for AIR KISSES. You’re right about the Nagasaki date, KVa @9; I don’t know if there’s anything else in this puzzle but I’ll have to go back to another puzzle I did today which had one potential reference.

    All done and dusted without too much trouble but the usual enjoyable puzzle from Julius.

    Thanks to him and to Oriel

  15. Smashing fun, thanks, Julius and Oriel. BAREFOOT my fave.

    KVa @14 – that was how I interpreted the clue.

    FrankieG @13 – I love Updike’s writing but Rabbit is such an unlikeable character, I couldn’t get on with the books. Tom Jones, on the other hand, I adored.

  16. 15. With which luvvies greet Keira’s sis at play? (3,6)
    15d – “Keira” Knightley one of the “luvvies greet(ing)” her “sis(te)r” with AIR KISSES reminded me of 7 days ago when there was a naughty NIGHTLY clue.
    Hovis posted “NIGHTLY reminds me of Richard (twice nightly) Whiteley. He always said it was a reference to the number of nightly visits to the loo though.”
    That led me to post this, but it was the next day and nobody but Hovis noticed. Here it is again, in case you missed it. Richard Whiteley Countdown Gotcha
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zD0VSJlKXEY

  19. The “naughty NIGHTLY clue” invloved the same Austen novel EMMA and her BEAU George (GR) KNIGHTLEY.

  22. Google Books Ngram Viewer is a very useful tool for comparing word usage over time. (Bookmark it – I have)
    This graph compares kilograms & kilogrammes from 1960 to 2019 in British English – (US English is vastly different)
    You can clearly see that “kilogrammes” fell off a cliff in 1973 – a 50-year anniversary – with a slight uptick since Brexit.
    https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=kilograms%2Ckilogrammes&year_start=1960&year_end=2019&corpus=en-GB-2019&smoothing=3

  23. KVa@21 – Are you suggesting she’s upside-down and underneath him? “Oh, Behave!” (Austin Powers)

  25. Enjoyed this. Clear puzzle if that is not too much of an oxymoron and an exemplary blog. Thanks to both.
    I am with GDU on the spelling of RACQUET and very impressed by him taking on multiple puzzles like a chess grandmaster playing several boards at the same time.
    As for anniversaries it is my birthday today but I somehow doubt the setter knew!

  26. Thanks for the blog, very enjoyable. I agree with Widdersbel, BAREFOOT the best out of many.
    Hovis@8 has the right idea for ANGSTROM , it is a distance 10^(-10) metres , not an official SI unit but still widely used in Atomic Physics, particularly for emission of EM radiation from energy levels. It is suitable for the wavelength of Ultra Violet and X-Rays, even light at a push.
    I have seen things like – the 10-20 Angstrom radiation band.

  29. Two very nice lurkers today. Can’t believe I hadn’t actually seen that ASTERISK was a lurker until it was explained to me here. Got the clue, couldn’t see the parsing, shrugged and moved on. And it was literally written out there for me! Brilliant!

    Comprehensively out-thought. Like being bowled by a googly.

    Tx Julius and Oriel.

  30. Like GDU, I confidently wrote in “Raquet” at 5D only to realize, finally that 24A could not possibly end in a “U”. What a sad turn of events that the Financial Times has given in to American spelling.

  31. Thanks to Oriel for the blog and to those who have commented.
    @Peter, comment 30.
    The word “raquet” is listed in neither Chambers nor Collins. Perhaps you’re thinking of racquet.
    Best wishes to all, Rob/Julius

  32. I have just checked Chambers 93, for RACQUET it says see RACKET although it says RACQUET-BALL is a US game. No sign of RAQUET.

  35. Thanks Julius and Oriel

    5dn: For what it is worth, Chambers 2014 gives us:
    badminton n a game played with rackets and a shuttlecock …
    shuttle¹ n … a shuttlecock.

  36. I meant to thank Roz@26 for the definitive explanation of Angstrom.

    While I am back in, I should point out that the definition for badminton quoted@35 does not even mention any alternative spellings of racket.

  37. Smashing fun, as Widdersbel said @15.

    I won’t repeat everyone’s favourites – just say that I admired the well hidden ASTERISK and ANGSTROM (without knowing exactly what it meant) – and about a dozen other clues.

    For what it’s worth – KVa and others, re 9ac: I took ‘pronouncing’ as in ‘pronouncement’, rather than ‘pronunciation’. It suits the surface better.

    In 1ac, I took ‘It was a’ as part of the definition.

    Many thanks to Julius and Oriel.

  38. Re 21a. don’t like this one.

    fibre-optic ain’t the same as fibreglass.
    Let’s just say, I’m glad my cable internet is not constructed using fibreglass.

  39. Mark@38 yes FIBREGLASS is an odd one, a composite material with many uses and it is also called glass fibre. For the internet we have optical fibres , often made of glass , never really called glass fibre or fibreglass. Let’s just say I know what the setter meant.

  40. Roz, yes I know what the setter meant.
    But I’m also a retired avionics engineer and i know my fibre-optics from my glass fibre 😉

  41. Thanks Julius. I hit a roadblock and revealed HECATOMB and GRAMME (hadn’t heard of the former and didn’t know GR for old king) but all else slipped in nicely. My top picks were BADMINTON RACKET, AUTHENTIC, and ANGSTROM ( great surface). Thanks Oriel for the blog.

  42. I smiled whenI saw Julius’ name, and was not disappointed. Lots of fun to be had here – one of those setters who likes to lead you down the garden path but not into a bramble patch. I laughed out loud at the ‘star sign’ in ASTERISK, and the surface image of a crocodile trying to climb over a carport is hilarious. I am in gthe cam that’s not convinced about FIBREGLASS, however. I like the fibre bit, and the glass bit’s OK, but the composite is something I associate with canoes and long-ago car body repairs rather than tech networks. But that’s a minor quiblet in an otherwisew fine puzzle. Thank you Julius, and also Oriel.

  43. Thanks all

    I was on the same wavelength as Julius. I enjoyed the puzzle and completed it in record time.

    Good on GDU@1 for knowing everything but HECATOMB. sLAKE (I mistakenly thought it was slate) and Redcar were new to me too. I had the same issue with RACKET/raquet/racquet. Happily I already had a crosser and avoided player. Despite the comments above, I am still not sure I understand what is going on with Keira. And I had the same thought on FIBREGLASS.

    I love the witty surfaces Julius produces, and today was no exception. ASTUTE in particular made me laugh. I am also a sucker for his long anagrams, and I particularly admired AMANTILLADO and NANOTECH.

    Thanks Julius and Oriel

  44. Can anyone explain to me why Fielding work is Tom Jones, I got the anagram, but no idea why it is correct.

  45. Andy @ 44 “The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling”, aka Tom Jones, is a 1749 comic novel by Henry Fielding.

  46. Thanks Simon, that’s new to me! I was really stretching trying to work out what the welsh singer had to do with cricket…

  48. Q. Is it normal for people not to be familiar with Fielding’s novel?
    A. It’s not unusual

    Great book, I highly recommend it – very very funny and extremely saucy (none of the adaptations do it justice though I have always adored the Tony Richardson film, which is brilliant in its own right).

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