Financial Times 16,981 by JULIUS

20 comments on “Financial Times 16,981 by JULIUS”

1. A fairly accessible alphabetical grid from Julius which as pleasurable, as ever.
   Kicked off with the Vs in the SE corner and the Ks in the opposite one. Once JEFFERSON/INSIDE JOB were entered, everything else fell into place with just a couple of queries over parsing that were solved here.
   YOKO ONO was my overall favourite among a great crop.
   Thanks to Julius for the festive fun and Turbolegs.

2. The random alphabeticals by Julius are among my favourite crosswords and this offering confirms why I enjoy them so much. What always begins as apparently impossible steadily reveals itself. I couldn’t parse OCHRY but all else made sense to me. JEFFERSON, INSIDE JOB (amusing surface), and TORTURE were among the highlights. Thanks to both.

3. Thanks for the blog, agree with Diane and Tony about the quality and this is my favourite type of puzzle, So many quality clues here and it was quite easy to start filling the grid, SQUARE NUMBER had to go in to give those first letters and then the K answers were very helpful. OCHRY was new to me but did seem plausible and I do know the town which helped .

4. I won’t say these Julius puzzles are getting “easier” but at least I don’t find them quite as difficult as when they first appeared. Still, took a while but eventually solved, with only the ‘fellow artist Jeff (mostly’ bit unparsed. Getting those answers which have their first letter in common are the key and I managed to see VEXES and VISCOSE reasonably early.

   The two clues referring to the US presidents past and present were my favourites.

   Thanks to Julius and to Turbolegs

5. Thanks Julius and Turbolegs. What does “FF: 9, DD: 9” mean?

6. Verbose,
   They are ‘fun factor’ and ‘degree of difficulty’. I agree with 9/10 for fun!

7. It’s always a pleasure to see Julius’ name on a puzzle – even more so when it’s an alphabetical – and this one certainly didn’t disappoint.

   Lots of lovely clues – I think my favourite was OCHRY, which I was amused to get from the wordplay, having been to the town, but not believing it could be a word, then found it in both Collins and Chambers.

   Other ticks were for AWKWARD, with its amusing (and evocative!) surface, YOKO ONO and BERLIOZ.

   My parsing problem was with INSIDE JOB = a DC crime and I must be being dim, because I still don’t see it. I’d be grateful for an explanation – tea tray at the ready!

   Many thanks to Julius for the fun and Turbolegs for the blog

8. Eileen,
   Looking back at my notebook, I see I had a question mark over DC but just assumed it meant WASHINGTON DC, home of the Whitehouse (Biden’s residence).

9. Thanks, Diane @8 – that makes some kind of sense.

10. I found this a bit daunting at first, especially as I don’t have a printer! (I’ve set up a generic grid on a spreadsheet, and after filling in the black squares I tab between that and the clues.) GROUNDSHEETS came to me very quickly, but I had no idea where it would fit, but after getting the very friendly JEFFERSON it was clear what the second word of the (6,3) clue would have to be, and after that it was a steady solve.

    I held myself up for ages with UT as the ‘European note’: I took a lot of convincing that I couldn’t have UN and UT and TABLE in the same word!

    I shared Eileen’s doubts about INSIDE JOB and arrived at Diane’s assumed resolution while feeling that this was not as good a clue as it might have been – unless someone’s got a better idea?

    Thanks to Julius for an entertaining solve and Turbolegs for the blog.

11. Thanks for the blog, dear Turbolegs, and thanks to those who have commented. I fear the clue for INSIDE JOB probably won’t make my highlights reel, it’s really weak…the intention was to use DC (Washington) where Biden lives (mostly) to indicate that he would be an “insider” but it’s pretty rubbish frankly. Sorry about that.
    Best wishes, Rob/Julius

12. Enjoyable crossword – many thanks Julius.

    I actually did not have a favourite, and enjoyed most of the grid. Thanks to Pete for explaining JEFFERSON. I understood MOONSET and even had “cryptic” written next to the answer. And, of course, now I do not remember what it mean.

    VISCOSE, OCHRY (and Pitlochry) and XEROSIS were all new, but Google helped me find the answer.

    There are a couple of odd things in the clues. This usually means I did not understand, but here are a couple of examples. “Heading to where the wind blows” is the opposite of LEEWARD, isn’t it? “Trimmed” at the end of the ZONAL clue seems extraneous.

    Thanks to Pete for the blog as always, and thanks to Julius for a great puzzle

13. Martyn@12 maybe a little help , if the wind is FROM the West then the West of the boat is windward and the East of the boat is Leeward , but the wind is actually blowing TOWARDS the East , it is just that the Leeward side is sheltered by the windward side.
    ZONAL from zZ tOp NeAtLy , regular letters, z t p e t y have been TRIMMED (removed) to LEAVE the word ZONAL. I think Julius is alluding to their hirsute appearance usually.

14. Roz,
    That didn’t occur to me re ZZ TOP – I like it even more now!

15. Thanks Diane @6. I thought DD might mean “double definition” even though I couldn’t find nine in the puzzle, and racked my brain trying to figure out what sort of clue FF could be.

16. Roz @13. Thanks for the help with ZONAL and I agree with your explanation. I still think that the answer would have been the same without “neatly trimmed” on the end

    On the other hand, I do not agree with what you wrote in regards to LEEWARD. My dictionary says it is the side sheltered from the wind. That makes it the direction TO which the wind is blowing. For example, wind is coming from the east and hits something like a ship, it means the west is where the wind is sheltered. Doesn’t it?

17. Loved this. Always love these sort of puzzle combinations.

18. Martyn@16 the NEATLY is needed as part of the letters being removed, e t and y .
    I think we actually agree on leeward, using your example , wind FROM the East , leeward side the West, wind actually blowing TO the West ( leeward side. ) . Julius used TO in his clue.

19. Thanks Julius and Turbolegs.
    Coming late to this one because I wanted to try to finish it before looking at anything – took a long time but done! VEXES/VISCOSE started me on placing clues and somehow it all came together from there.
    Julius@11, don’t worry about INSIDE JOB. It made sense to me. DC (used to live near there), as a political center, would be especially prone to “inside job” crimes …

20. Thanks Julius and Turbolegs
    Late to this one only starting it quickly this morning and finishing it sitting under a shady tree late this afternoon. A slightly different solve with this one, being able to start the grid fill much sooner than normal after only seven answers when the second V answer, VISCOSE, surfaced. Wasn’t all that much later the ZONAL / BERLIOZ pair followed. Still needed to get about half the answers before I could just solve clues directly into the grid.
    Lots of interesting devices to work through and really no holdups along the way. It is interesting, with the latest speculation on the Capitol invasion potentially being an INSIDE JOB, that maybe the setter was just being unusually prescient with his clue for it.
    Got the most satisfaction in seeing the workings of BERLIOZ quite early on and parsing YOKO ONO (with some help) much later.
    Finished with KNACKER, XEROSIS (new term for me) and REUNION the last one in to complete a very entertaining alphabetical.

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