Financial Times 16,257 by JULIUS

23 comments on “Financial Times 16,257 by JULIUS”

1. Lovely stuff. Minor error in blog: should be STRYCHNINE (with a Y) at 16d.

   When I had BARBARA then TOM, I thought of The Good Life. Later on, when I had MAJOR and TOM, I thought of David Bowie. Neither seems to be a theme though, as far as I can see.

   Didn’t know CARCASSONNE or AJWAIN (that spelling not in my Chambers) but both were guessable.

   Thanks to Julius and PeeDee.

2. Enjoyable as ever ,but not quite up to his usual standard of inventiveness  I felt. Could not parse 6d so thanks for that PeeDee.

    

   I think there is probably a range of references across the lights eg. Segeant Major but aslo Major Barbara and Maior Tom, for example.

3. I messed up with PRESS MOB and GARROTING shouldve checked spelling. Sorry Julius.

4. Hovis/Stephen

   You are on the right track. 10ac can precede or follow 9ac, 12ac, 13ac, 23ac, 27ac, 28ac, 4dn, 17dn & 26dn (and at a stretch 29ac).

5. Thank you Hovis, fixed now.

6. Thanks PeeDee for the blog…I reckon that this is my 50th FT puzzle and you seem to have copped the vast majority of them.

   Thanks also to commenters and to Gaufrid for tying up the themed entries. My late mother-in-law used to sing to my elder son when he was a little ‘un various old songs, including, bumping him on her knee:

   all the girls declare

   he’s a gay old stager

   hey! hey! clear the way

   here comes the galloping major.

   Which you don’t hear all that often nowadays.

   best wishes to all,

   Rob/Julius

    

7. Julis – interesting, when I was a teenager I had a record by the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band featuring the song Here Comes the Equestrian Statue which I now recognise to be a skit on your mother-in-law’s ditty.

   Could we also have Major Major Major Major from Catch 22, with 10 ac preceded by, followed with and next to 10ac

8. Thanks Julius and PeeDee

   There’s one more thematic instance, as I see it: 15 17D 10 is somewhat different from plain 17D 10.

   And, at more of a stretch than 299, 18 10 could be a musical key.

9. Julius @6 Sorry about not entering GALLOPING  but was beaten by PI PE-leg stump!

10. Failed miserably on 4d, but spotted the major theme. Neither of my word wizards gave me 7d but I’d got the ‘wain’ part of it ok. I knew of Carcassonne, my wife and her friends were there a few months ago.

    Congratulations Rob on your milestone.

11. In 10a  JO (“little woman”) could also be a reference to Josephine “Jo” March, one of the principal characters in Louisa May Alcott’s “Little Women”.

12. I was beaten by PIPE too, but enjoyed the rest.

13. Congratulations on your 50th,Julius. I too was beaten by PIPE, and also ROAD, AJWAIN, and CARCASSONNE. I had never heard of the last two; I was also unfamiliar with the Krays but figured out 25a and 15d from the remainder of the clues. Thanks PeeDee for the education!

14. Thanks to PeeDee and Julius

    I enjoyed this – I really did, but:

    25a How does “envy”, pronounced “NV”, introduce a series of letters, (not a word), which are pronounced “NVIE”?

    6d How does “failing to respect” remove letters from “admire”? “lacking in respect”, I could see but not “failing to”

    15d Is there any source which supports this definition?

    and no, Nova Scotia is not an Island.

    Just one more thing – is a bullet an explosive device?

15. Dansar @ 14

    Re this and other comments of yours here and elsewhere:

    Lighten up, get a sense of fun. These are puzzles, games, not a rigorous intellectual exercise. Enjoy them for what they re, not what your constraints think they should be.

16. Thanks Julius and PeeDee

    Was able to get through most of this without aids until I got to the NE corner where I needed to find AJWAIN and go on a fruitless search for the plant at 12a until the penny dropped with Mrs George W.  Knew the French town from reading the books of Kate Mosse who wrote about the persecution of the Cathars that were based there.

    Lots of interesting and varied clue types and a bit of general knowledge needed to complete a very enjoyable puzzle.

     

17. Simon S @15

    I made one comment (I enjoyed this – I really did), asked four questions, none of which you address, and made one factual statement.

    I’ll leave it there.

18. Dansar – to answer your questions: writing cryptic crosswords is not a sport with a fixed set of rules that everyone has to follow.  There are some publications such as Azed and The Listener which do have some very strict editorial requirements.

    Then again there are others that don’t: the editors allow humorous, allusive and metaphorical devices and don’t overly worry if there isn’t a word-for-word match in the dictionary for every definition.  The prioritize fun over anal grammatical and lexical correctness.

    Julius in the FT is one of these.

19. PeeDee – you appear to misunderstand me. To suggest that preferring meanings ascribed to words in a broadsheet cryptic to be supported by a work of reference is “anal”, is very odd. I have no problem with any setter breaking the “rules”, and I never have had. I well remember solving the famous/infamous “HIJKLMNO” as a teenager and there is hardly a rule that it doesn’t break.

    I draw the line at setters inventing their own definitions though and therefore there are a couple of Guardian compilers that I don’t bother with anymore. I would hate for that contagion to spread too far, so a constant vigil is must be kept.

    When I ask a question, I do just that. If I make an assertion, I do not follow it by a question mark.

    You must be aware from previous discussions that if my question is answered, or my assertion shown to be false, I thank or concede accordingly.

    I offer possible answers to my first two questions

    25a I thought this might be a typo, and if Julius were still about he might clear it up:

    Besiege one Kray following rumour of jealousy

    6d Julius/Knut is a setter I respect and enjoy. I think (but as ever I am open to persuasion), that “lacking in” offers a better surface and also makes sense of the cryptic grammar.

    This is not to suggest that I know Julius’s business better than him – I imagine it is because I can consider his clues at my leisure, whereas he must limit his time given the pittance setters are apparently paid.

    Setters need a rise.

     

20. Hi Dansar,

    You hit the nail on the head when you describe setters “making up their own definitions” as a contagion that must not be allowed to spread.  Bring it on I say!

    I think of it like someone who comes out of a Rolling Stones concert disgusted that Mick should really have sung “I cannot get any satisfaction”.  Or someone who listens to jazz and is disgusted that the musicians didn’t play the notes as the composer wrote them.  What is the world coming to?

    If you were really asking a question about how the definition for REGIMENTAL works then the answer is that you have to let go of some of your dearly held beliefs about what is and isn’t allowable in a puzzle. The clue just cites an example of the sort of things regiments do.  This clearly does not count as a definition by your rules, but this puzzle isn’t written by your rules.  It isn’t ever going to be understandable so long as you only view the puzzle through only through your own idea of what is allowable.

    It is quite possible to enjoy more than one style of setting.  Enjoy the “tight” setters for what they do, enjoy the liberal setters for what they do.  Classical music didn’t disappear when jazz and pop arrived. We now have more to enjoy, not less.

21. There are some many straw men floating in the wind that I can’t decide which one to address first.

22. Dansar @14&19 — to answer your final question: “The term ‘exploding bullet’ is commonly used to describe ammunition with an explosive or a high-explosive-incendiary filling, often fired from a rifle” according to www.weaponslaw.org/weapons/exploding-bullets.

23. A cartridge is an explosive device.  A bullet is the solid bit that flies out of the cartridge when it explodes, but bullet is also used to describe the whole cartridge.

    I share Dansar’s puzzlement about the manoeuvres part of the definition of regimental, and think it was a reasonable query.  Couldn’t it in that way be ‘relating to military [anything]’?

    I drove to Nova Scotia once in a old crate, and it rained most of the way.  I got wet, but not that wet.

    Enjoyed the puzzle, too, thanks to Julius & Peedee

     

     

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