Financial Times 16,834 by Julius

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Non-prize puzzle from the Weekend FT of July 10, 2021

Julius draws us into his four-season world where pens are female swans, punches are horses and where elegant clues abound.  My first-in was 1ac (SPRING) and last was 6 (SWEET TOOTH) which also happens to be my favourite clue.  Other top choices are 19 (AUTUMN), 23 (PISA) and 25 (WINTER).  And I actually vaguely knew about those pens and punches.

Thank you, Julius!

ACROSS
1 SPRING
New tree shoot outside? It’s that time of year! (6)
N (new) in (outside) SPRIG (tree shoot)
4 GUNSHIPS
Pushing around small vessels (8)
Anagram (around) of PUSHING + S (small)
9 ONIONS
Leg irons jailor finally removed – they make me cry (6)
ON (leg, as in cricket) + I[r]ONS (irons with [jailo]R removed)
10 CHIEFDOM
Caught husband that is following mod round boss’s office (8)
C (caught) + H (husband) + IE (that is) + F (following) + DOM (mod round)
12 TUFT
Express disapproval about fine cluster of threads (4)
F (fine) in (about) TUT (express disapproval)
13 HORSE TRADE
An exchange of punches in political negotiations? (5,5)
Double definition with the first referring to a breed of horses called the Suffolk Punch.
15 MALFORMATION
Crookedness of an immortal criminal (12)
Anagram (criminal) of OF AN IMMORTAL
18 BREASTSTROKE
Spooner’s agitated, skint – this could follow a plunge (12)
Spoonerism of “stressed broke”
21 UNEXCITING
A French former partner reportedly viewing flat (10)
UN (A French) + EX (former partner) + CITING (homophone of “sighting” for viewing)
22 DEAL
Clubs withdrawing from transfer agreement (4)
DE[c]AL (clubs withdrawing from transfer)
24 UNVEILED
Vile nude sculpture exposed (8)
Anagram (sculpture) of VILE NUDE
25 WINTER
Visiting Krakow in terribly cold time of year (6)
Hidden word (visiting)
26 NOSINESS
Number functions start to satisfy an inquisitive nature (8)
NO (number) + SINES (functions) + S[atisfy]
27 WARMER
Fighting Julius, Resistance is getting closer (6)
WAR (fighting) + ME (Julius) + R (resistance)
DOWN
1 SHOWTIME
When the curtain goes up, directs how Tim enunciates lines (8)
Hidden word (lines)
2 RAINFALL
There’s quite a lot of it in Llanfair, unfortunately (8)
Anagram (unfortunately) of LLANFAIR.  Perhaps we could deem the whole clue to be definition?
3 NINE
Number of female swans flying from northern uplands (4)
[pen]NINE[s] (northern uplands with female swans removed). ‘Pen’ can mean a female swan.
5 UNHESITATING
Steadfast auntie’s night off (12)
Anagram (off) of AUNTIES NIGHT
6 SWEET TOOTH
Having this, one suffers fools gladly! (5,5)
Cryptic definition with ‘fools’ referring to desserts. I believe gooseberry fools are popular but my favourite is a blackcurrant fool.
7 INDIAN
One from the sub-continent turning up to help in pub (6)
AID (to help) backwards (turning up) in (in) INN (pub)
8 SUMMER
Guitarist leaving Turkey when it’s hot (6)
S[tr]UMMER (guitarist leaving Turkey)
11 FOAM MATTRESS
Time to get into mama’s softer new bed? (4,8)
T (time) in (to get into) anagram (new) of MAMAS SOFTER
14 CORRECTION
Beating my record on titanium piercing (10)
COR (my) + REC (record) + TI (titanium) + ON (on)
16 MOMENTUM
Labour left American mother Jenny oddly cut on belly (8)
MOM (American mother) + [j]E[n]N[y] + TUM (belly)

The definition refers to Momentum that is a grass-roots campaigning group operating within the British Labour Party.
17 DECLARER
Charlie beginning to like more expensive clothes, he asserts (8)
C (Charlie) + L[ike] together in (clothes) DEARER (more expensive)
19 AUTUMN
Fall over in Britain? (6)
Cryptic definition referencing the American use of “Fall” to mean autumn.
20 LEAVES
Conservative quits (splits/ departs) (6)
[c]LEAVES (Conservative quits splits)
23 PISA
Dad touring island location with listed building (4)
IS (island) in (touring) PA (dad).  Note the stunningly brilliant use of “listed”!

32 comments on “Financial Times 16,834 by Julius”

  1. Thanks Pete and Julius

    I had quite a few ticks this week: MALFORMATION, RAINFALL, WINTER, CHIEFDOM were among the favourites. But a few clues also jarred with me. BREAST STROKE seems so remote, SINES = functions (really?), and I am afraid I still cannot come to terms with SWEET TOOTH. I parsed it and understand it, but something about it still does not seem right.

    There were also a couple of clues I could not parse, and thank Pete for explaining SPRING, CORRECTION and NINE. And, as always, there were new words and phrases to discover. I parsed MOMENTUM but could not understand how it means “Labour left”, I had to look up “punches” and I confess that I needed Google to tell me a FOOL is a dessert.

    So thanks Julius. As Pete wrote, elegant clues abounded, and it was quite an adventure for me. And thanks to Pete for unlocking the mysteries.

  2. Though ONIONS was my FOI, my progress was unusually slow with this Julius grid until I cottoned onto the entertaining seasonal theme. This helped open up the solve considerably and I didn’t falter until the last two in the SE corner: PISA and DECLARER which perplexed me for far too long!
    NINE (construction) and SWEET TOOTH (surface) were my favourites (any fool is fine by me!) I knew ‘pen’ but not ‘punch’ but HORSE TRADE was still guessable. I came here to understand the definition of MOMENTUM and groaned when I saw DEAL from ‘decal’ – should have got that.
    The ‘strummer’ made me think of the late Joe (The Clash). Richly rewarding grid!
    Thanks to Julius and Pete

  3. Thanks for the entertainment Julius. After I had found two of the seasons I went looking for the other two so my solving was nothing but systematic this time. Somehow I dragged punch for a draughthorse from the mind and that brought a smile. It all unfolded nicely. But I had to be educated about the dessert fool.
    Martyn@1 – a SINE is a mathematical function.
    Thanks for the explanations Pete. Great work as always.

  4. Thanks Mystogre @2. I understood that Sine is a mathematical function, but are SINES mathematical functions? I wonder how one could use SINES in a sentence……

    Oh, and while I am writing again, I forgot to mention earlier how much I liked LEAVES.

  5. Martyn, now I see where you are coming from. I see no reason why you might not want to find the sine of several ratios as part of an exercise series. So, I suspect it can be used as a straight plural in such an instruction. Otherwise…

  6. This was a real treat and thank you as always for a super blog. I must strongly disagree with you for once, gooseberry fool is far superior, blackcurrants are better in a simple pie.
    We had a four seasons crossword quite recently but this had a lot of nature references as well and too many fine clues to list.
    Sine is a function widely used in Fourier analysis , an infinite series of SINES and cosines can be used to represent any complex wave form.
    Very minor quibble, is it (be ) IN POLITICAL NEGOTIATIONS for HORSE TRADE , I think just political negotiations would be horse trading, or is it just me?

  7. Sorry I forgot the Welsh clue. LLANFAIR is a shortened version of a 58 letter name which I won’t type, it has a very famous railway station sign, it does rain rather a lot.
    Rufus once used the whole name in a crossword.

  8. There is a town that starts with LLANFAIR with a mere 14 letters but that would be far-fetched.
    I really liked the accompanying words to the seasons-I think this needed a version by Nige!

    Super puzzle-thanks Julius and Pete.

  9. I thought this was an absolute belter, the symmetry of the seasons, the top-notch clueing. An absolute pleasure.

    Ta to Julius and Pete

  10. I liked the seasonal theme and the pens and punches, but clue of the day was the excellent cryptic def for SWEET TOOTH, my last in. Worth doing for that clue alone.

    Thanks to Julius and Pete.

  13. Thanks Julius and Pete. I wondered why WINTER was not on the edge of the grid until I saw the two word phrases mentioned by copmus@8 (Spring Onions, Indian Summer, Autumn Leaves, Winter Warmer).

    26ac: The Sine Rule for triangles states that the sines of the angles are in proportion to the lengths of the opposite sides.
    2dn: As well as being the start of Llanfairfechan and the Anglesey village which added 38 letters to its original name to make a tourist trap, there is actually a village simply called Llanfair.

  19. Thanks Pete, the other half of the clue is brilliant as is this crossword, even more so now people have pointed out the two word phrases which I missed completely.
    I really look forward to this on a Monday, especially Julius.

  20. Thanks Julius for a super crossword. As others have said there were many great clues; my favourites were MALFORMATION, INDIAN, and FOAM MATTRESS. I couldn’t parse CORRECTION — thanks Pete for the explanation.

  21. Thanks Pelham Barton @13 for the sines example. I stand corrected.

    Thanks also for pointing out the words accompanying the seasons. This puzzle just gets better and better

  22. Martyn@21: Thank you for your kind words. Actually, on reflection, I am not sure that Roz@6 and I@13 have fully justified the parsing at 26ac. Certainly we have each given an example that allows a valid plural of sine, but I think both these examples are evaluating a single function at more than one input.

  23. Do I understand that the question has been raised as to whether or not ‘formulas’ can appropriately define SINES? I think it is a debatable matter and perhaps an interesting one technically although I would not want to fault the clue.

    We can talk about sines, plural, for example in the context of the Law or Sines but when we do so we really mean sine values. I believe ‘sine’ as a formula has a single definition (well, actually Collins cites two but they reduce to the same) so it seems incorrect to pluralize ‘sine’ when meant as a formula. It may be a stretch but perhaps we could take the view that ‘function” clues SINE and ‘s’ clues S.

  24. Thank you Pelham Barton and Pete , you have made me think. I am going to risk being a bit technical as the crossword discussion is nearly over. My typing skills are not really up to it sorry, I need a white board and pen.

    The sine we do at school is very limited, the true sine FUNCTION is really an infinite series of powers of x.

    sine x = f(x) = x – (x cubed / 3 factorial ) + ( x fifth power / 5 factorial ) ………..
    The domain of x is all the real numbers , the domain of f(x) is -1 to +1.

    We can modify this to give Asin(kx) , A and k are parameters to change the output domain and periodicity.
    We can then add these to give a Fourier series for different values of A and k. We are adding all the different sine functions ( not their outputs ) I would say to my students – add up the sines.

    I realise I have gone way too far here but it is a very technical question at heart.

  25. Thanks Julius and Pete
    As stated numerous times above, a brilliant puzzle which only unravelled all of its quality in the discussion here. Spotted the first season with SUMMER as my third one in, quickly followed by WINTER as the next in the next quadrant and skipped through the SW and NW to get the other two. Didn’t see the clever coupling of them to make the other phrases though – chapeau !!!
    Also didn’t think too much on SINES and would have gone with the lift and separate argument, SINE + S because of the use of ‘formulas’. Roz@24, I graduated in maths at uni, but your description made my eyes glaze … haha.
    Although the anagram of ‘Llanfair’ was a good idea, still reckon that it is a bit of a stretch to clue it as ‘there’s quite a lot of it there’ – maybe a local knowledge thing.
    Finished in the NE corner with SWEET TOOTH (clever) and HORSE TRADE (new of a cowpunch, but only after the fact) – had to use a word finder to get both of them.

  26. Pete @23, the distinction between “formulas” and “formulae” might work, although I hope the FT is not going down the line which allows “Tina” to clue “Cana”. Unfortunately, the word in the clue is “functions”.
    Roz @24, I am coming round to your point of view, although I do not think you need either the Taylor or Fourier series to justify it. It comes down to the question of whether f(x)=sin(x) and g(x)=sin(2x) can be called two different sine functions.

  27. Pelham Barton @26 the Taylor series is needed to properly define the function without recourse to triangles or circles . The Fourier series means we can add sines before the input of x rather than just adding results of the separate functions.
    Your examples are much simpler and are two different sine functions, adding them gives a very limited Fourier series. In fact the cosine function is itself really a sine function just with a phase shift.

  29. Not too worry Pete , it is easily done. I promise I will not go into the reasons why formula and function are not quite the same thing.

  31. Simon, Thanks for commenting. Your example sounds very okay to me, indeed like an everyday kind of statement. However if one is being pedagogically strict it may not stand up. I think more and more we are making a mountain out of a molehill.

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