Financial Times 17,982 by Julius

21 comments on “Financial Times 17,982 by Julius”

1. On reconsideration of 14, as SEAT is a Spanish car brand, I think it would explain the question mark and avoid the double duty if we parse it as “BACK (to support) + SEAT DRIVER (Spanish car buyer?)”.

2. Thanks Julius and Pete

   12ac: The numeral 9 works as an unequivocal indication of the letters N-I-N-E because 9ac is not a four letter word. If it had been, this would have been an indirect anagram, and I hope Julius would have written “nine” as a word.

   14ac: I took “Spanish car buyer?” together as a definition by example for SEAT DRIVER. It needs the question mark because not all SEAT drivers will have bought the car they drive.

3. I managed to lose the ability to edit my comment 2. I would have liked to add “I agree with Bob@1” at the beginning of my comment on 14ac.

4. Small correction to the parsing of 7dn: it needs to end “EMI (record label) reversed (turned)”.

5. Don’t feel bad, Pete. I’ve only a vague recollection of Ange Postecoglou, and I live here. Neither had I heard of Leon Uris. Is “via” a road? I knew it was in Italy, but elsewhere?

6. It did not seem typical of Julius. It was still enjoyable and, like Pete, I finished this quite quickly.

   My favorites were INSINCERE (nice surface and anagram) and SLAPDASH

   NONAGE was new, like others Ange is completely new to me, and I thought TIGON just silly. I also could not work out DRIVER IN 14, so thanks to BobC and PB for a plausible explanation.

   Thanks Julius and Pete

7. I, too, found this a rather quicker solve than usual for Julius but no less enjoyable for that.

   Like Pete, I liked SLAPDASH and NEEDS MUST, along with SHREW (great surface), RENMINBI, ditto, BALLET DANCER and INSINCERE (where I took the definition as ‘false’ and the indicator ‘foul’. I parsed BACKSEAT DRIVER as Bob C and Pelham Barton did and gave that a tick, too.

   Thanks to Julius for the fun and Pete for the blog.

8. I’m another with the same parse for BACKSEAT DRIVER. I cannot pretend I am sufficiently familiar with Julius to have been able to spot whether this was typical or his work or not; I just know I tend to enjoy his puzzles, whatever the pseudonyms. I was pleased to encounter this on Saturday when retiring hurt from the Guardian Prize.

   Faves overlap with others mentioned by others: SLAPDASH and SHREW along with MATTRESS, ANTHER, RENMINBI, BALLET DANCER, IMAGINE and SODA WATER. I was beaten by the first word of TEXAS RANGERS: a nho team and, of course, I was trying to think of a British one and I was nowhere near spotting the anagram at the beginning.

   Thanks Julius and Pete

9. Like Postmark @ 8 I was glad to find this after looking at the Guardian Prize and I finished it on Saturday morning. I always like Julius puzzles.

   Liked: ANTHER, RENMINBI, IDIOM, AMPLIFIER

   Thanks Julius and Pete

10. Having drawn many flower diagrams with carefully labelled ANTHERs, some possibly on the teaching board, that one is embedded. It’s also the part that needs removing from lilies to stop them staining (but makes them look odd).

    Another who really enjoyed this. I recognised NONAGE from Shakespeare – Richard III, not As You Like It from the Seven Ages of Man as I half expected. (I saw Richard III as a Mark Rylance all male production, with Johnny Flynn in the cast.)

    Thank you to Pete Maclean and Julius.

11. A really enjoyable puzzle. Pete MacLean, not Tony Benn, but Hilary, who if touring Italy, could yield HILARITY, alas not yet a currency.

12. 25ac: Collins 2023 and ODE 2010 do not appear to have via meaning “road” at all. Chambers 2016 p 1740 has via² “(L) n a way, road.” There is a two page guide called Using the dictionary at the start of the book (pages xv-xvi). This includes a section headed 10. Classification labels, which contains the following: “A bracketed language classification label (eg Fr, Ger) preceding the part of speech label at the head of the entry signifies that the word is still regarded as a foreign word, rather than a naturalized English word.” Unless Julius has some other source that justifies “road” on its own to indicate VIA – which he may well have – I think he should have put something like “Roman road”.

    12ac: While I am back in, I took the definition and anagram indicator the same way as Eileen@7.

13. 25ac, further to 12: I should also have checked SOED 2007, which has via meaning “A way, a road” etc on page 3524. Again we must look to the beginning of the dictionary, which has the following (page xxx): “If the headword is a word (or phrase) which, although used in English, is still regarded as essentially foreign, it is printed in bold italics.” I still think Julius should have put “Roman road”.

14. [typos: 6d ‘…AMPLER (fuller)’ — 7d ‘…EMI< (record label turned)' {Pelham Barton@4} — 11d '…anagram (wasting) of EXTRA + ANGERS']
    Parsed 12a INSINCERE as Eileen@7. Knew 19d Leon NOURISH from two movies made from his thick paperbacks: Exodus (1960) and Hitchcock’s Topaz (1969).
    Just last month Julius clued ORANGE in FT 17,952: “Royal family’s gold coach seen in north London (6)” {I’m still waiting for an EastEnders theme.}
    Petert@11, 🙂.

15. Thank you all for the comments. I have corrected 7 and 14.

16. Thanks for the blog, dear Pete, and thanks to those who have left a comment.
    @FrankieG…in, er, London coach news I realised that the Ange gag had just appeared in my previous outing when the ed told me this puzzle was scheduled for this last weekend. The two crosswords were written months apart, and the previous one was held back for the inauguration last month. The ed (a Spurs fan himself, poor chap) decided to stick with the plan.
    Best wishes to all, Rob/Julius

17. Pelham Barton passim, oed.com [freely accessible via a library card], has an extensive entry for via, “First published 1917; not yet revised”.
    Most of the Latin citations are italicized, while most of the Italian ones aren’t, but have capital letters. The religious ones are a bit of both.
    It includes via media, as cleverly clued here by Rodriguez: “Firm with guarantee to pocket millions via media (10)” COMPROMISE.
    [‘fifteensquared.net/2023/06/01indeOendent’ – what happened there?]

18. Julius@16: Thank you for popping in. I had been wondering if you were going for a hat trick of references to Ange Postecoglou, but it looks as though the answer is “no”. Last time, I took the reference on trust: this time I knew I had seen it somewhere before, but had forgotten that it was actually your previous puzzle.

    Frankie@17: Can you please clarify how much of the oed.com entry on via relates to its use as a noun on its own, rather than as part of a foreign phrase imported into English en bloc?

    And, while I am back in again, I do not remember having heard the word tigon for many years, or possibly even decades, but it was familiar to me, as is the corresponding word liger for the offspring of a male lion and a tigress. Both these words are in Collins 2023 (pp 2066 and 1135) and ODE 2010 (pp 1860 and 1021) as well as Chambers 2016 (pp 1632 and 884) and of course SOED 2007 (pp 3265 and 1598).

19. Thanks for the blog, very enjoyable with interesting clues throughout.
    BACKSEAT DRIVER , perhaps it could have been – car owner .
    Mr Benn is the third most important cultural icon of the previous century .

20. There is a road leaving Cromford in Derbyshire which is still known as the Via Gellia, probably from its original name, so I have no issue with the clue.

21. Re Malcolm@20, I have heard that the Via Gellia was actually named in the 18th century by a Mr Gell, who built the road to get lead from his mine (and clearly had classical pretentions!)

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