Puzzle from the Weekend FT of January 31, 2026
I finished this quickly and enjoyed it a lot. My favourites are 1d (FAMOUS LAST WORDS), 11 (UNITE) and 14 (TIGER MOTH). My thanks to BC for his help. And thanks once more to Julius.
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | FUTURES EXCHANGE |
One in transition might acquire this derivatives house (7,8)
|
| FUTURE SEX CHANGE (one in transition might acquire this) | ||
| 9 | MONITOR |
Screen vehicle going round the outskirts of Nairobi (7)
|
| N[airob]I in (going round) MOTOR (vehicle) | ||
| 10 | LUNETTE |
Crescent-shaped string instrument imported clear of tax (7)
|
| NET (clear of tax) in (imported) LUTE (string instrument) | ||
| 11 | UNITE |
Join a union (5)
|
| Double definition, the second referring to a trade union | ||
| 12 | DUPLICATE |
Double assignation involving uniform constable (about 51) (9)
|
| LI (51, in Roman numerals) in (about) U (uniform) + PC (constable) in (involving) DATE (assignation) | ||
| 13 | LARGHETTO |
Somewhat slow husband seen in broad Stetson periodically (9)
|
| H (husband) in (seen in) LARGE (broad) + [s]T[e]T[s]O[n] | ||
| 15 | WILDE |
Oscar winner Billy denied last Oscar (5)
|
| [Billy] WILDE[r] | ||
| 16 | SCRAM |
Chagall’s back — hop it! (5)
|
| S (s) + MARC (Chagall backwards) | ||
| 18 | GREATNESS |
Impressive standing of sergeants’ mess? (9)
|
| Anagram (mess) of SERGEANTS | ||
| 20 | WAVEFORMS |
Reportedly forgo classes in electrical oscillation charts (9)
|
| Homophone (reportedly) of “waive” + FORMS (classes) | ||
| 23 | RADAR |
Beam technology unaffected by reflection (5)
|
| Palindrome (unaffected by reflection) | ||
| 24 | RUN INTO |
Casually meet on Turin ground (3,4)
|
| Anagram (ground) of ON TURIN | ||
| 25 | DIABOLO |
Top game covered by Media Bologna (7)
|
| Hidden word (covered by) | ||
| 26 | SPANISH OMELETTE |
House leased in Aspen, it’s amazing — it’ll take some beating (7,8)
|
| HOME (house) + LET (leased) in anagram (amazing) of ASPEN ITS | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | FAMOUS LAST WORDS |
Say “Lay on, Macduff …!” after James for one brandished sword (6,4,5)
|
| FAMOUS LAST (James for one) + anagram (brandished) of SWORD with a reference to the German bandleader James Last | ||
| 2 | TANGIER |
Port? Foreign attaché knocked back bottles! (7)
|
| Reverse (knocked back) hidden word (bottles) | ||
| 3 | ROTHERHAM |
Siblings skinned gammon in S Yorks town (9)
|
| [b]ROTHER[s] (siblings skinned) + HAM (gammon) | ||
| 4 | SHRED |
Quiet book missing a fragment (5)
|
| SH (quiet) + RE[a]D | ||
| 5 | XYLOPHONE |
Instrument unknown characters cut and polish (9)
|
| XY (unknown characters) + LOP (cut) + HONE (polish) | ||
| 6 | HANOI |
Hospital on Iona raised capital (5)
|
| H (hospital) + IONA backwards (raised) (corrected) | ||
| 7 | NETBALL |
Game to be arranged, Gwyn admits (7)
|
| TBA (to be arranged) in (admits) NELL (Gwyn) | ||
| 8 | EBENEZER SCROOGE |
Sober geezer, once drunk, a reformed character? (8,7)
|
| Anagram (drunk) of SOBER GEEZER ONCE | ||
| 14 | TIGER MOTH |
Actor Spall taking year off after getting stung by German insect (5,4)
|
| GER (German) in (stung by) TIMOTH[y] (actor Spall taking year off) | ||
| 15 | WATERFALL |
Poor Fats Waller needing removal of second cataract (9)
|
| Anagram (poor) of FAT[s] WALLER | ||
| 17 | RAVENNA |
Italian city all-night party girl set up (7)
|
| RAVE (all-night party) + ANN (girl) backwards (set up) (corrected) | ||
| 19 | ENDMOST |
Monsieur is in Flanders port cycling farthest (7)
|
| M (monsieur) in (is in) OSTEND (Flanders port) with the two halves swapped (cycling) | ||
| 21 | FUNGI |
Fine wildebeest served up on bed of porcini mushrooms (5)
|
| F (fine) + GNU (wildebeest) backwards (served up) + I (bed of porcini). I take it that ‘bed of’ means what ‘porcini’ rests on, that is its final letter in a down clue. | ||
| 22 | SODOM |
Stormy regularly hosts party — a scene of utter depravity! (5)
|
| DO (party) in (hosts) S[t]O[f/M[y] |
Thanks Julius and Pete. I thought 1ac was a great spot. I think 6dn is a reversal of IONA, not an anagram. In 17dn, the girl is just ANN.
It seems Julius is always enjoyable. This time I ticked FUTURES EXCHANGE, WILDE, and FUNGI, while I loved GREATNESS & TANGIER
I found several clues easier to solve than parse and had several NHOs, specifically DIABOLO, ROTHERHAM, UNITE to mean a union and James Last (meaning I had no hope of parsing 1d. Indeed I am not even sure what the definition means). Also, I have eaten a SPANISH OMELETTE in several countries, but never heard that name used.
Thanks Julius and Pete
Thanks Julius for an excellent crossword with FUTURES EXCHANGE (COTD), TANGIER, ROTTERHAM, and FUNGI being favourites. I couldn’t fully parse UNITE (nho Unite as a union), FAMOUS LAST WORDS (nho James Last), and TIGER MOTH (nho Timothy Spall) so thanks Pete for explaining.
Lovely Puzzle
Favourites were: ENDMOST, SPANISH OMLETTE, XYLOPHONE, DUPLICATE, ROTHERHAM
Thanks Julius and Pete Maclean
Agree with Pelham’s comments re HANOI and RAVENNA.
Favourites included SCRAM, WATERFALL and TIGER MOTH, (chosen for their use of Chagall, Fats Waller and Spall – a brilliant chameleon of a character actor and multiple award winner. His films include Secrets and Lies and Mr Turner but my favourite will always be the early Mike Leigh film, Nuts in May).
Thanks to Julius and Pete.
Thanks for the blog , agree with all the views above , will just add DIABOLO for the use of top .
UNITE is the name of a UK trade union , one of our largest , fairly recent name after several mergers and mainly the TGWU . To confuse things we also have Unison .
Thanks Julius for another very enjoyable puzzle. Tangier was my last in having somehow missed the reverse hidden word until I came here. As a relative novice I find Julius’ crosswords consistently witty and accessible.
1dn: My copy of Shakespeare’s Complete Works gives Macbeth’s (famous) last words as:
Lay on, Macduff,
And damn’d be him that first cries ‘Hold, enough!’
It is interesting to see the ellipsis in the clue used to indicate an incomplete quotation, and of course “Say” in the clue indicates the definition by example. As to the wordplay, “James for one” gives another definition by example of a famous (person called) Last. I am struggling to think of another. Can anyone help?
PB @ 8 James Dean springs immediately to mind. Also Joyce.
SS @ 9: I am not looking for another famous James; I can think of plenty of those. I am looking for another famous Last.
Pb@8 Google comes up with some fairly unconvincing other musicians. Could you make a case for Hurrah or Post? Great puzzle as always by Julius.
Late to this party. Just wanted to say that as I’m an LGBTQ Chicagoan, FUTURES EXCHANGE should have been right up my alley, but it took me embarrassingly long to spot. (The world’s largest (or is it still?) futures exchange is about five blocks from where I’m sitting right now.)
I appreciate Julius because as well as being interesting I can (nearly) always finish his crosswords, unlike some other compilers.