Puzzle from the Weekend FT of August 8, 2026
I found this puzzle a bit different from the typical Julius. I think that Ia (STEVIE WONDER) is a masterpiece of word-hiding and I am also impressed with 8 (UMBRAGE). Other favourites are 3 (INELEGANT), 7 (SUPERSTITION) and 24 (NARWHAL). My first-in was 9 (IN UTERO) and I quickly finished the right half but then found the left half to be a challenge.
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | STEVIE WONDER |
Artist’s somewhat chauviniste view on Derrida (6,6)
|
| Hidden words (somewhat) | ||
| 8 | UMBRAGE |
Bank Holiday crossword: unlimited fury and resentment (7)
|
| [j]UMB[o] (Bank Holiday crossword unlimited) + RAGE (fury) | ||
| 9 | IN UTERO |
Routine fluttering within the womb? (2,5)
|
| Anagram (fluttering) of ROUTINE | ||
| 11 | EARLOBE |
Each gown fitted with large area for hanging jewellery (7)
|
| EA (each) + L (large) in (fitted with) ROBE (gown) | ||
| 12 | TORCHED |
Burnt toast or cheddar sandwiches (7)
|
| Hidden word (sandwiches) | ||
| 13 | STAIR |
Celeb boarding international flight (5)
|
| I (international) in (boarding) STAR (celeb) | ||
| 14 | ASH BLONDE |
Hair tint? No… he’s bald, unfortunately (3-6)
|
| Anagram (unfortunately) of NO HES BALD | ||
| 16 | INSPECTOR |
Examiner returned rubbish porcini to Northern Italy (9)
|
| ROT (rubbish) + CEPS (porcini) + N (northern) + I (Italy) all backwards (returned) | ||
| 19 | DEPOT |
Daughter knocked back drink in storehouse (5)
|
| D (daughter) + TOPE (drink) backwards (knocked back) | ||
| 21 | IMMERSE |
Son runs off, poaches English duck (7)
|
| [s]IMMERS (poaches, son runs off) + E (English) | ||
| 23 | OPOSSUM |
American pouched very large amount after work (7)
|
| OP (work) + OS (very large, i.e. outsized) + SUM (amount) | ||
| 24 | NARWHAL |
Wife ran around chased by Prince Harry, the horny beast (7)
|
| W (wife) + RAN (ran) backwards (around) + HAL (Prince Harry) | ||
| 25 | IRON MAN |
Comic character of golf club member’s first article (4,3)
|
| IRON (golf club) + M[ember] + AN (article) | ||
| 26 | KINDERGARTEN |
Rent Grade I building in outskirts of Kingston where there’s little development (12)
|
| Anagram (building) of RENT GRADE I in (in) K[ingsto]N | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | SIBERIA |
Peninsula south of sierra where it can get pretty cold (7)
|
| S (sierra) + IBERIA (peninsula) | ||
| 2 | ENAMOUR |
Inspire love for Romanesque works without title (7)
|
| Anagram (works) of ROMAN[esq]UE | ||
| 3 | INELEGANT |
Gauche, popular character such as Nellie leaves pub for good (9)
|
| IN (popular) + ELEPHANT (character such as Nellie) with the ‘PH’ (pub, i.e. Public House) changed to ‘G’ (good). If you are unfamiliar with Nellie, please see this. | ||
| 4 | WHIST |
Game with husband starts to interrupt Sunday tea (5)
|
| W[ith] H[usband] + I[nterrupr] + S (sunday) + T (tea) | ||
| 5 | NEUTRAL |
Rather colourless, tight at the back, tailored Lauren trousers (7)
|
| [tigh]T in (trousers) anagram tailored) of LAUREN | ||
| 6 | EREWHON |
Molière, who never pens a novel (7)
|
| Hidden word (pens). The novel in question was a work of the British satirist Samuel Butler. | ||
| 7 | SUPERSTITION |
First appearance of Sidney Poitier, nuts about bogus religion (12)
|
| S[idney] + anagram (about) of POITIER NUTS | ||
| 10 | OLD TESTAMENT |
The eleven-plus for one meant revising a set of books (3,9)
|
| OLD TEST (the eleven-plus for one) + anagram (revising) of MEANT | ||
| 15 | HARMONICA |
Instrument, according to Spooner, to damage old DDR leader (9)
|
| Spoonerism of “mar Honecker” (damage old DDR leader). Erich Honecker was leader of East Germany 1971–1989. | ||
| 17 | SAMURAI |
South American spirit upset first-class fighter (7)
|
| S (south) + A (American) + RUM (spirit) backwards (upset) + AI (first-class) | ||
| 18 | EARTHED |
Our home base dad finally insulated (7)
|
| EARTH (our home) + E (base, of natural logarithms that is) + [da]D. I hope I am wrong but I wonder about the definition here. It seems to me that being insulated is the exact of opposite of being grounded. | ||
| 19 | DROP OUT |
Failed student doctor on strike stuck with operation (7)
|
| OP (operation) in (stuck with) DR (doctor) OUT (on strike) | ||
| 20 | POSTMEN |
Woodward & Bernstein? They’ll deliver! (7)
|
| POST MEN ([Bob] Woodward) and [Carl] Bernstein) of The Washington Post | ||
| 22 | EULER |
Brainy Swiss the French detained in their street heading north (5)
|
| LE (the French) in (detained in) RUE (their street) backwards (heading north). Leonhard Euler was a Swiss polymath known mostly as a mathematician. |
Pete’s opening summed it up nicely for me. As always with Julius, it was a pleasure.
Thanks Julius and Pete
I really enjoyed this as always with a Julius puzzle and also thought that the hidden STEVIE WONDER was amazing.
Favourites were: NARWHAL, EARLOBE, OPOSSUM, EREWHOM, HARMONICA, POSTMEN
Thanks Julius and Pete
Sparkling wit from Julius this Saturday starting with 1a; not just a great hidden answer – especially seen in conjunction with 7d – but a fine surface too as Derrida’s work called into question cultural bias.
I ticked EREWHON for the use of Molière (whose oeuvre I found infinitely more entertaining at uni than Derrida’s).
IN UTERO was another neat surface read while the ‘little development’ of
KINDERGARTEN was wonderfully misleading.
ASH BLONDE and INELEGANT were also fun.
Happily, the word play for the nho EULER was fair.
I appreciate the wide variety of setters in the FT stable but this sort of puzzle is just what I enjoy most of a weekend.
Thanks Julius and Pete for the blog.
I know this is always debatable, but the wordplay for 13a seems reversed to me. The I is boarding STAR, not the other way round, indeed the blog says as much.
Thanks Julius for the weekend entertainment. I had a slew of favourites including UMBRAGE (great surface), IN UTERO, ASH-BLONDE, INSPECTOR, NARWHAL, WHIST, NEUTRAL, and SUPERSTITION, the latter being one of STEVIE WONDER’S biggest hits. In IMMERSE, there are two ‘sons’ in SIMMERS so purists might say the clue should have read ‘first son runs off’ but I wouldn’t necessarily say that myself. I couldn’t parse HARMONICA but all else made sense. Thanks Pete for the blog.
Loved it – though ‘jUMBo’ beat me!
Superstition and Stevie Wonder!
Yes, great hidden and surface at 1ac (Diane @3, dyu know about the Sokal hoax?), and lots else to amuse, ta Julius and Pete.
My top picks:
STEVIE WONDER, UMBRAGE, ASH BLONDE, IMMERSE,
ENAMOUR, HARMONICA and POSTMEN.
EARTHED
Agree with the blogger’s comment on the def.
Did the setter mean that earthing insulates/protects you
from electric shocks when a live wire touches an earthed metal
part?
It’s a stretch, I know.
A couple of nanopoints:
EARLOBE
EA typo
SUPERSTITION
The first S is outside the anagram fodder.
Thanks Julius and Pete.
[Ha Grant @7, I love it!
I can’t say I did: I didn’t always welcome the philosophical intrusions into my literature/language studies (excepting Voltaire, Diderot and Rousseau) for just this reason. Ripe for the plucking, I’d say.]
Thanks for the blog , you write a clue like STEVIE WONDER and follow it with SUPERSTITION (plus HARMONICA) then you can take the rest of the day off . So many nice touches throughout the clues as noted by Diane @3 .
IN UTERO you do feel fluttering long before the kicking , it is like hosting a butterfly .
STAIR , boarding can mean providing accomodation so think it is okay .
EULER forever associated with the base e from EARTHED . e^ipi + 1 = 0 contains the 7 most important symbols in one line .
[ For KVa@8 , you have the right idea for EARTHED = insulated . For an earthed appliance like an iron , the user is insulated from electric shock if a live wire inside detaches and touches the case . ]
I did not know (or had forgotten) the names of the POSTMEN, but I suppose it’s only fair once in a while to have clues that are obscure to an Englishman as there are often clues which Americans /Australians struggle with because of the clue’s Englishness.
Gnomad@4: I think you are meant to read “board”here as the transitive verb as in what a landlord/lady does. E.g. “She boards four young men and always gives them a hearty breakfast”. I think it works that way round.
I baulked at “earthed” = “insulated” having spent many years teaching the ins and outs of our mains electrical system (we have, definitively, the best plugs in the world…) but if “insulated” is read as “protected” rather than in a technical sense I think the setter gets away with it. Sneaky.
Best hidden answer ever though, in 1ac. Many thanks Julius and Pete.
Tx for the blog. Needed help parsing ENAMOUR and UMBRAGE. Plus missed ‘e’ as a mathematical base.
Thanks Julius and Pete. I guess that Julius may have thought of the clue for 1ac first and then built a grid to accommodate the answer: a very good way of starting to compile a crossword that will be enjoyable for solvers.
13ac: Most of the definitions of board as a transitive verb in the meaning needed here emphasise the provision of food ahead of living space. For example, Chambers 2016 p 168 gives us “to supply with food (and bed) at fixed terms”. However, the next definition given is “to place in lodgings”, and p 898 gives us a definition of lodgings that does not require the provision of food.
7dn: I also took the initial S outside the anagram, but I think it really does work equally well either way.
Thanks for the blog, dear Pete, and thanks to those who have left a comment.
@Gnomad and @PB…I have encountered issues like this before with words like boarding and stocking. I *think* it’s possible for them to be used in both contexts but not every editor agrees.
Also @PB, you’re right in your thoughts about the gridfilling process for this puzzle. I have a tendency to push the upper limit for anagrams in my puzzles with the longer answers so a hidden/embed/lurker is a godsend in this regard. I thought about a broader Stevie Wonder theme but decided that Happy Birthday, Isn’t She Lovely, Masterblaster and Ma Cherie Amour weren’t particularly fertile ground.
best wishes to all, Rob/Julius
I always love a Julius puzzle. This one was full of fun.
Despite having all the crossers, I took forever to see SUPERSTITION because I couldn’t decide if bogus in the clue meant something like sham (and my brain kept going to Sanamahism) or if bogus was an anagram indicator.
Finally the penny dropped and I saw that it was part of the definition.
Is the eleven-plus gone? As an Irishman, I find the British education system deeply confusing.
I liked UMBRAGE (but it took me ages to get it!!). NHO Erewhon (my ignorance showing) but an easy enough lurker. Perfect crossword for a weekend. Thanks, Julius.
Funsize@17 the 11+ still clings on in parts of England . Kent and Bucks still fully selective .
Julius@16 , you could have squeezed Sir Duke in at 1 Down with some messing about in that corner .
Hi Roz, @19…yes, perhaps, but again “Sir Duke” as a grid entry is a bit meaningless. I did a back page quick puzzle for The Telegraph recently in which the homophone quickie pun in the first few acrossers read MASH AREA MORE and I put LATELY and some other bits and pieces elsewhere in the grid. Might revisit the topic at some point.
Best wishes from the Black Forest where fortunately it is not Hotter Than July but still ridiculously hot.
[Polite cough] Is chauviniste actually a word?
@James…in French I think so, hence the italics. I thought it fitted the surface better than arriviste
Ah, missed the italics
Julius @22
It is and it does!
Thanks Diane@24. While I am adamant that the presence of a word in a dictionary outweighs any number of claims from people who think they have never heard of the word, I think it is different when a commenter supports the existence of a word that is missing from the dictionary, especially a dictionary as old as my 1996 Larousse. I am therefore no longer bothered that my copy of Larousse has chauvin, e as the only adjective from that root. Larousse does give a link to the synonym nationaliste, which would fit the wordplay but not read as well to a largely English speaking audience. It does, however, remind us that Chauvin was a fervid patriot, not a sexist – or, at least, that it was his patriotism that gave rise to the word.
Diane (or any other French speaker), can you comment on the existence or otherwise of the form chauvinique? That form appears in this delightful piece of verse:
Our friends across the Channel
Sont un peu chauvinique;
They always translate Anglo-French
Comme Franco-Britannique.
(Not sure about the punctuation, or the capitals in the last line,)
Thanks, Pelham, for that amusing verse. I can’t pretend to have seen ‘chauvinique’ but I’m sure to remember it now.
The online Larousse was my source.
My Harraps of somewhat older vintage does add that ‘chauvinist’ minus the final ‘e’ is only used in English to mean ‘sexist’ rather than an adherent of Chauvin.
Very enjoyable crossword, with multiple smiles!
The SW corner did feel a little trickier than usual Julius, but maybe I was just befuddled
Diane@3 – Euler was arguably the most prolific and influential mathematician in history, so probably worth adding to your repertoire!
In re #24, a narwhal’s tusk is not a horn. Horns are made of keratin, as are fingernails, and are possessed by antelopes and buffaloes, for example. The narwhal’s tusk is an elongated tooth made of ivory like a pachyderm’s tusk. The clue would have been precise if it had read “toothy beast”.
Interesting indeed! Thank you for commenting and pointing this out.
24ac: SOED 2007 p 1278 has a list of meanings for the word horn, including “7 The tusk of a narwhal. Formerly also, the tusk of an elephant.” This meaning is dated early 17th century and is not marked as obsolete. It may well be true that, for certain specialised purposes, the word “horn” needs to be restricted in the way indicated in comment 28, but dictionaries record the way words are used in ordinary speech and writing. In my view, setters are entitled to regard any meaning given in one of the standard dictionaries as valid.
I got 1a right off the bat and hoped this would be a 50th anniversary tribute to Songs in the Key of Life. One of the greatest complete albums of all time.