Financial Times 17,750 JULIUS

23 comments on “Financial Times 17,750 JULIUS”

1. Nice mini-theme of colors.

2. BLUESTOCKING
   Does the ‘rising’ mean ‘vertical’ here?
   There is also a horizontal 19 in the grid.

3. I cannot help but enjoy a Julius puzzle but I felt this was not representative of his usual high standard. Unusually I did not feel any clues were stand-outs, and there were a few nhos plus a few clues that just did not work for me

   I emphasise that I enjoyed it, but I wished for more

   Thanks Julius and Turbolegs.

4. Finished without being able to parse 8a (I see it now), 19a (didn’t know this), 1d (hadn’t heard of him) and 17d (where, as a result I first had “toddler” instead of “tiddler”). Missed the theme, which is par for the course for me…
   Liked the construction for “lissome” and “kippers”
   Thank you to Julius and Turbolegs

5. Thanks for the blog, really enjoyable as always, neat clues full of good ideas . BRASSIERE is very well hidden , BLESSED so neat and clever , many more.
   BLUE STOCKING I think rising is added deception hinting at age , if it said 19D it would give the game away straight away, rising is a neat way of indicating it is IGNOBLE without being too obvious.
   HIPSTERs used to be sexy jeans not boring men with beards.

6. TPS@4 BLESSED has many layers for people in the UK , Brian Blessed is fairly famous , it is pronounce Bless edd , not blest , sorry I do not know how to do this very well.
   It also hints at the Monty Python film – Life of Brian – with a famous Sermon on the Mount scene – Blessed are the cheesemakers.

7. I had the same reasoning as KVa for ‘rising’.

8. I have to agree with Martyn@3 that this was not Julius at his best lacking his usual sparkling wit. I only saw the colour theme after completing the puzzle. However, I did enjoy 1d Blessed, 17d Tiddler (my LOI) and the tongue-twister clue for 26ac. Thanks setter and blogger.

9. How interesting that we are splitting into two camps today. I really enjoyed this and thought the surfaces and the deception, on the whole, to be first class. I interpreted the ‘rising’ as perhaps linked to vertical; that and the double use of over = O were my only quiblets. But massively outweighed by the delights. HIPSTER, LISSOME, WEDGE, DANSEUR, LOBELIA, BLESSED (COTD), YELLOWHAMMER, TIDDLER, IGNOBLE, SHELLEY … Cracking surfaces and plenty of smiles.

   Thanks Julius and Turbolegs

10. Interesting indeed.

    I was delighted to see that it was Julius rounding off the week and I find myself decidedly in the same camp as PostMark, with practically identical ticks – I’d like to highlight IGNOBLE, for the lovely surface and its recycling in 1ac – but I’m surprised that no one has mentioned 24ac RELIEVO, which I was reluctant to enter, although it parsed meticulously, of course. Am I missing something?

    I enjoyed the puzzle, of course! Many thanks to Julius and turbolegs.

11. No-one will be at all surprised to learn that my thoughts on this enjoyable Julius crossword match those of Eileen

    Thanks to Julius and Turbolegs

12. Thanks for the blog, dear turbolegs, and thanks to those who have commented.
    Just to confirm that the use of “rising 19” in the clue for BLUESTOCKING is intended to remove the ambiguity re 19A or D.
    @Eileen…oh cripes! That is poor to use “relief work” as a def for RELIEVO….I have no defence for that, no idea why I didn’t spot it during the review. Sorry folks.
    Best wishes to all, Rob/Julius

13. More colours – apart from the obvious, and probably all unintentinal: there’s a MADONNA album True BLUE(1986);
    a Pet Shop Boys single A RED-LETTER DAY(1997); RED WEDGE(1985-90) failed to defeat the Tories in 1987.
    SEVEN UP is Lemon (YELLOW) and Lime (GREEN). [RELIEVO could have been clued as a children’s game.]
    Thanks R/J&T

14. Roz@6 Ah, I see, anyway, I’ve heard of him now… I got the Monty Python reference, I remember that scene, it pans out finally settling on “Bignose” and others…loved that film

15. A pleasing puzzle solved over a pub lunch; in fact we got most of it before our first course arrived, with only three clues left to solve. We liked GREENGROCERY (without any apostrophe’s!) as well as YELLOWHAMMER and ARMADILLO. We were a bit confused, though, by the possible ambiguity of the reference to 19.
    Thanks, Julius and Turbolegs.

16. We enjoyed the puzzle, though we.did not find it as challenging as many other Julius puzzles. I cannot figure out why ARMADILLO is ‘toothless’ as they do indeed have teeth.
    Thanks to Turbolegs and Julius

17. Thanks JKT@16. I just assumed an Armadillo does not have teeth. But I just looked it up and you are correct: an Armadillo does have teeth according to various internet resources. Now I am wondering about the clue too

18. Confusingly armadillos were placed in the Edentata which means toothless , clearly as JKT@16 notes, this is incorrect.

19. Hi again…sorry about the armadillo thing – not my area of expertise (I don’t really have one tbh), looked it up, saw it described as an edentate, thought that was that. Apparently not!

20. Julius I did not even notice either of the things mentioned , as long as the wordplay works I barely look at definitions. On here people tend to get het up about “incorrect” wordplay.

21. Rob – I just saw ‘edentate’ and immediately thought ARMADILLO, as it’s usually defined in crosswords – and in both Collins and Chambers (I have a long blogging history of having come to grief with him and his mates) – but the clue would have worked perfectly well without it: you were just being too helpful!

22. Eileen…dear Puck has got a lot to answer for

23. Indeed he has, bless him.

    If anyone is interested enough to scroll through, there’s something of an explanation here https://www.fifteensquared.net/2020/11/28/guardian-28297-puck/#comments

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