Financial Times 17,596 by Julius

15 comments on “Financial Times 17,596 by Julius”

1. Did the four short ones first. Often find them surprisingly difficult for such short words but not this time.

   Then worked steadily through the rest. Seemed to be to be on the right wavelength. Have done a couple of Julius puzzles and really enjoyed them.

   Lots of favourites: METRICATE, IMITATE, ACROBATIC, OUTCLASSING, BILLABONG

   And I even got the reverse anagram (IRONED OUT) for once.

   Thanks Julius and Pete

2. I could not have said it better than Pete: I too am always happy to see Julius, and there were so many gems this week. Great surfaces, and many smiles

   My favourites were similar to Pete: LIGHT HEADED, ACROBATIC, OBELISK, TUGBOAT, IRONED OUT.

   TUGBOAT was my LOI. It took me a long time to realize it is not a double definition, but a cryptic one. Nice one Julius.

   Thanks Julius and thanks Pete

3. Thanks Julius and Pete

   14dn: I got the ONG part of this as O (over) + NG (no good), but I think your way works as well. Either way, I think “site” should be part of the definition.

4. Another fun weekend romp from Julius, who keeps up a rich seam of neat clues.
   Faves included:
   IRONED OUT
   BILLABONG (a lovely word)
   BRINY (for the ‘adult set sail’)
   KIR ( for the surface)

   Thanks to Julius and Pete.

5. Small point on 26ac: I think this should be parsed as IT in (I + MATE), given the order of the words in the clue.

6. Thanks Julius for an excellent crossword with LOOSE, ACROBATIC, IRONED OUT, VALEDICTION, CHICAGO, and BRINY being my top picks. I missed RINSED OFF but should have seen it. Thanks Pete for the blog.

7. Thanks for the blog, I can only agree with your first sentence . I found the grid very helpful, once I put in what I had there were so many letters checked. ACROBATIC is the pick for me although one degree is quite warm by my standards.

8. Thought it a little strange that 15a had ‘trip’ to become ‘outing’ and 7d had ‘outing’ to become ‘trip’. Don’t know if this was deliberate.

9. The usual excellent puzzle from Julius. I was a bit mystified by IRONED OUT. IRONED is an anagram of De Niro but how is it a reverse clue and where does the OUT come from? Probably me being a little dim.
   Thanks to Julius and Pete

10. SM @ 9 IRONED OUT means an anagram of IRONED giving DE NIRO.

11. Thanks Roz@10 . Got it.

12. Thank you Pelham for pointing out those two fixes.

13. I remember enjoying this..
    Thanks Julius n Pete MacLean

14. Quiet Monday and just getting around to Julius. I enjoyed this.
    Parochially, I had a little frisson at the reference to Waltzing Matilda in BILLABONG, and also the Aussie word PRAWN, for shrimp. They wrote commercials promoting tourism to Australia with the slogan, Throw another shrimp on the barbie, thinking that prawn wouldn’t be recognised overseas. PATIO and porch both used here, although the variants are more likely to be regional. If anything PATIO is a bit more posh.

    CHIPS made me laugh. Green fast food, a spinach roll?
    If anyone’s still out there, I don’t get outside as an indicator for the hidden OBELISK. Are we meant to separate it, out side, but if that were the case, wouldn’t it be out sides?

15. Paddymelon@14: I am still here, and Pete Maclean as blogger will automatically get an email telling him that a new comment has been posted.

    The use of “outside” in OBELISK is quite a common device, but it appears to be stretching the language, regarding the whole of ISOBELISKISSED as being outside OBELISK.

    The word PRAWN is given in the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary as dating from Late Middle English, which means 1350-1469. It had never occurred to me to think of it as an Australian word. The SOED does have phrases such as “come the raw prawn on” which are marked as Australian slang.

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