Financial Times 17,878 by Julius

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Puzzle from the Weekend FT of October 27, 2024

Another great puzzle from Julius that happened to be a quick solve for me. My outstanding favourite clue is 9 (JAGGER) and I would also honour 5 (THE DIVINE COMEDY), 11 (OMIT) and 26 (EARWIG).  Thank you Julius.

picture of the completed grid

ACROSS
1 TRANSEPT
Church feature Time published, composed across page (8)
T (time) + RAN (published) + P (page) in (across) SET (composed)
6 DROOPY
Dog filmed biting my poor daughter from the rear (6)
Reverse (from the rear) hidden word (biting). I originally parsed it slightly differently but clearly this is the right one.  The definition refers to an animated canine detective with very droopy ears.
9 JAGGER
Octogenarian forgetting the end of Brown Sugar? (6)
JAGGER[y] (forgetting the end of brown sugar). Jaggery is a coarse brown sugar made from the sap of date palms. The one and only time I saw Mick perform Brown Sugar he did not forgot the ending — but that was decades ago.
10 ENSHRINE
Cherish quiet river running through E9 (8)
SH (quiet) + R (river) in (through) anagram (running) of E NINE
11 OMIT
Wallace’s partner, ignoring King George: “leave it out!” (4)
[gr]OMIT (Wallace’s partner ignoring King George, i.e. Georgius Rex)
12 SHIPWRIGHT
Hull designer (10)
Cryptic definition — at least I take this to be a cryptic definition perhaps with ‘Hull’ suggesting the port on England’s east coast (and properly known as Kingston upon Hull).
14 SVENGALI
Much-loved manager good, the greatest controlling coach! (8)
SVEN (much-loved manager, i.e. Sven-Göran Eriksson) + G (good) + ALI (the greatest)
16 OPUS
Work over; knock back drink! (4)
O (over) + SUP (drink) backwards (knock back)
18 ARIA
Social outcast discovered song (4)
[p]ARIA[h] (social outcast discovered)
19 ELEVATED
Chuffed about E Lebedev finally being put in The Lords (8)
E (E) + (levede]V in (about) ELATED (chuffed)
21 ALPENSTOCK
Nepal working family’s mountaineering equipment (10)
Anagram (working) of NEPAL + STOCK (family)
22 EBON
Line taken from Yasmin Wood poetically? (4)
[l]EBON (line taken from [Yasmin] Le Bon who was a model)
24 EGG WHITE
Meringue ingredient — say gallons — beaten with energy (3,5)
EG (say) + G[allons] + anagram (beaten) of WITH + E (energy)
26 EARWIG
MetaBrowsing? Occasionally listen in (6)
[m]E[t]A[b]R[o]W[s]I[n]G
27 STODGE
Starters of stewed tripe, onions, dumplings & goose eggs thus described? (6)
S[tewed] T[ripe] O[nions] D[umplings] G[oose] E[ggs]
28 YES AND NO
Annoyed, upset about son? Perhaps… (3,3,2)
S (son) in anagram (upset) of ANNOYED
DOWN
2 REALM
Field Galácticos (first half only) (5)
REAL M[adrid] (Galácticos first half only)
3 NIGHTINGALE
Evening at home, good beer, singer (11)
NIGHT (evening) IN (at home) + G (good) + ALE (beer)
4 EUROSTAR
Heading north, bureaucrat so rueful boarding train (8)
Reverse (heading north) hidden (boarding) word
5 THE DIVINE COMEDY
Medici? They’ve done endless wicked Florentine work (3,6,6)
Anagram (wicked) of MEDICI THEYVE DON[e]
6 DISOWN
Have nothing to do with racket involving pig (6)
SOW (pig) in (involving) DIN (racket)
7 OAR
Ace gold-plated blade (3)
A (ace) in OR (gold-plated)
8 PENTHOUSE
Issue for men playing The US Open? (9)
Anagram (playing) of THE US OPEN with a cryptic definition
13 ICOSAHEDRON
Casting Don as heroic, solid figure (11)
Anagram (casting) of DON AS HEROIC
15 VERY LIGHT
Featherweight that might show a sign of distress? (4,5)
Double definition
17 RECKLESS
Brown spots breaking out following second rash (8)
[f]RECKLES (brown spots breaking out ‘F’ for following) + S (second)
20 ASSIZE
Idiot reportedly observes court session (6)
ASS (idiot) + IZE (homophone of “eyes”)
23 ORION
Group of stars succeeded to avoid prayer (5)
ORI[s]ON (‘S’ for succeeded to avoid prayer). An orison is a reverent petition to a deity.
25 WAD
Pad whiskey commercial (3)
W (whisky — in the phonetic alphabet) + AD (commercial)

16 comments on “Financial Times 17,878 by Julius”

  1. Thanks Julius and Pete

    16ac: Definition is “Work” then O (over) + SUP (drink) reversed (knock back).
    24ac: EG + G + WHIT + E where WHIT is anagram (beaten) of “with”.

    I did not get 9ac. Of course I have heard of Mick Jagger but did not know jaggery and did not think of Mick.

  2. I agree with PB@1 on those parsings. I got JAGGER, but I did not understand the reference to jaggery or the associated wordplay, so thanks for that explanation.

  4. JAGGER works almost as well as a cryptic definition with that surface but the palm sugar reference makes this clue even better.
    EBON was more my era!
    I agree with Pelham re DROOPY.
    My picks were REALM and THE DIVINE COMEDY in a crossword which while quickly solved was still as entertaining as expected from Julius.
    Thanks to him and Pete.

  5. I did not find this a quick solve. It may have been the martinis, or it may have been that the crossers were mostly vowels in the words where I needed help.

    I had the same parsing as PB and Diane for DROOPY

    I enjoyed it, as I enjoy most Julius puzzles. I had ticks for YES AND NO, PENTHOUSE and OAR. EUROSTAR had 2 ticks.

    I too stared at 9ac for ages, eventually
    twigged on JAGGER then needed some furious googling to find jaggery. There were a few other NHOs (Sven who?, for example) but it was not excessive.

    Thanks Julius and Pete

  6. I enjoyed this, but it was a Tube solve with my daughter and left a lot of journey needing entertainment, much though I enjoyed it.

    The only thing I didn’t parse was REALM, having minimal interest in football.

    Thank you to Julius and Pete.

  7. Really enjoyed this puzzle. Did not parse EBON or ORION – had not heard of ebon or orison

    Favourites included: SVENGALI, ARIA, NIGHTINGALE and JAGGER (as an inveterate reader of cookery books I had heard of jaggery)

    Thanks to Julius and Pete Maclean

  8. Thanks for the blog, usual quality from this setter.
    SHIPWRIGHT perhaps works two ways . hull designer , with a fake capital cleverly hidden at the front . Maybe Hull designer means a shipwright from Hull , a suitable place to live.

  9. What a cracker of a puzzle. I did not have time for this last Saturday but have just done it before opening the blog. Thought I was going to be defeated by LOI, THE DIVINE COMEDY with virtually every crosser being a vowel so I was delighted, after some staring, to appreciate the construction. I was worried ‘wicked’ was being even more clever than it was: did I need to know the work of a Florentine candle-maker?

    I am often defeated by nho but today I got lucky with jaggery (from cooking curries), orison (from Anthem for Doomed Youth) and ebon (from Goodness knows where) all ringing bells. JAGGER is delightful, as is SVENGALI, ALPENSTOCK, YES AND NO, REALM, EUROSTAR, PENTHOUSE (what a spot) and RECKLESS.

    I am being beaten by one thing, though. Clearly others have parsed this to their satisfaction but I cannot get my head around DROOPY. I see the solution as having been bitten by the fodder. It’s inside it.

    Thanks Julius and Pete Maclean

  10. Like others, I enjoyed this, as always with Julius puzzles.

    My favourites were the same as Pete’s, with the addition of 2dn REALM, 8dn PENTHOUSE and 23dn ORION. My introduction to ‘orison’ was in A Level English – Hamlet to Ophelia, immediately after his ‘To be or not to be’ soliloquy:
    “Soft you now!
    The fair Ophelia! Nymph, in thy orisons
    Be all my sins remember’d”
    (and later, like PostMark, in Wilfred Owen).

    Many thanks to Julius and to Pete.

    [Fans of Rosa Klebb here will be pleased to see her as Arachne in the Guardian today https://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/prize/29530#6-down ]

  11. [Thanks for tip-off, Eileen. Incidentally, as a tennis fan, you may be pleased to know that our fellow East Midlander, Katie Boulter, is through to the final of a WTA 250 event in Hong Kong tomorrow]

  12. Many thanks for that, Diane – great news.

    I found out only this summer that Katie’s mother was in the same form as my daughter at secondary school and her grandmother was form mistress to them both.

  13. Thanks Julius. I found this on the difficult end of the Julius spectrum and I failed with JAGGER, DROOPY, and EBON. My top picks were EUROSTAR, THE DIVINE COMEDY, DISOWN, PENTHOUSE, RECKLESS, and ORION. Thanks Pete for the blog. [BTW, the Stones dropped Brown Sugar from their set list (at least in the US) because modern sensibilities have declared it to be ‘offensive’]

  15. Enjoyable? Yes, but we would have enjoed it more if we’d ever heard of Jaggery so we hadn’t a clue(!) about 9ac. We did get REALM, though, as an educated guess.
    Thanks, Julius and Pete.

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