Not so easy, 14:37. But no false DAWNs today.
In my day job, I talk a fair bit about AI, so I put Ross, the AI from Crossword Genius to work on today’s puzzle. First of all, it’s party piece is pretty brilliant: taking a photo of a paper crossword and then starting to solve. It’s FOI was DRENCH (in my experience hiddens are a good place to start). It did 80% of it in 5 minutes, all parsed apart from BLAMED which it biffed. I helped it out with the last few (it found AXE the hardest). It’s like Wikipedia in that anyone can update it out with new parsings, so now it knows the DAWN clue from yesterday, as I explained it. My guess is that it uses crossword blogs such as ours for its initial training.
Tin hats at the ready for Breadman’s attempt to define WOKE in just two words. I think “socially sound” is pretty good, it is neither pejorative or approbatory.
Thanks to our early solvers for spotting the above.
Definitions underlined in bold , synonyms in (parentheses) (Abc)* indicating anagram of Abc, other wordplay in [square brackets] and deletions in {curly} brackets.
| Across | |
| 7 | Indian prince knocking back a glass of beer and a hock (8) |
| MAHARAJA – A JAR (glass of bear) + A HAM (hock) all reversed | |
| 8 | Australian adopts the ancient town crier’s call (4) |
| OYEZ – OZ (Australian) contains YE (the ancient)
YE is an olde way of writing THE, because English printers didn’t have a Thorn character (þ), so used a y instead. And it’s still pronounced “the”. |
|
| 9 | Found fault with student in the morning apparently asleep (6) |
| BLAMED – L(learner, a student) + AM (morning) in BED (=apparently asleep) | |
| 10 | Good smell, like a genuine taverna (5) |
| GREEK – G {ood} + REEK (smell)
The word “Taverna” should really only be used for a restaurant serving Greek food, I think that’s what the “genuine taverna” is getting at. |
|
| 11 | English river’s discharge (3) |
| AXE – Can mean to remove someone from a position or job, effectively discharging them from their duties. And one of the many three letter rivers in the UK we all now know so well (Cam, Exe, Ure, Ayr, Dee, Esk, Exe, Fal, Wye, Tay) | |
| 12 | In truth, poorly liver close to surgery (6) |
| VERILY – (LIVER)*[poorly] + {surger}Y
Just means “truly” (from Latin Verum), but can’t be used these days without sounding impossible pompous, methinks. I’m going to update my default Email signature to Yours Verily. |
|
| 14 | Wandered with this writer in street (6) |
| ROAMED – ROAD (street) contains ME (this writer) | |
| 16 | Rod associated with a Scottish island (6) |
| STAFFA – STAFF (Rod) + A
One for Tina, always a fan of Scottish islands. |
|
| 18 | Soak some children, cheekily (6) |
| DRENCH – hidden in children cheekily | |
| 19 | Centre of ruin contains unknown submachine-gun (3) |
| UZI – {r}UI{n} contains Z (unknown)
Unknown can be any of the algebraic x,y or z. Although a mathematician can use any letter for a variable, setters don’t. The name “Uzi” comes directly from its designer, Uziel Gal (Israeli, 1940s), although Gal himself reportedly did not want the weapon named after him. Dr Guillotin had the same problem. |
|
| 20 | Minor branch’s special apparatus (5) |
| SPRIG – SP (special) + RIG (apparatus)
I couldn’t really find any examples of sp for special. |
|
| 21 | Doctor’s brought to that French religious building (6) |
| MOSQUE – MOs (=Medical Officer, Doctors) + QUE (“that” in French) | |
| 23 | Wife approved energy that’s socially sound? (4) |
| WOKE – W{ife} + OK (approved) + E{nergy}
A tough concept to define in a couple of words. I hope Breadman has his flak jacket on. |
|
| 24 | Landed gentleman bears right, then left, finding arboreal animal (8) |
| SQUIRREL – SQUIRE (Landed gentleman) contains [bears] R{ight} + L{eft} | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Most brave, suffering ailments (8) |
| MANLIEST – (AILMENTS)* [suffering]
What if the bravest person is a woman? I think “most masculine” would be safest, or maybe I’m being all 23a across. |
|
| 2 | Windless and cold over Harlem occasionally (4) |
| CALM – C{old} + {h}a{r}l{e}m | |
| 3 | Serving up potato on time, showing sign of distress (6) |
| MAYDAY – YAM (potato) reversed on DAY (time)
A yam is not a potato; they are distinct types of tubers belonging to different plant families, and they differ significantly in terms of geographic origin, nutritional content, and culinary applications. Clue works better as “Serving up tuber on time” |
|
| 4 | Harry’s emblem on front of robe (6) |
| BADGER – BADGE (emblem) on R{obe}
Nothing to do with the name. Harry and BADGER are both synonyms for hassle, bother etc. |
|
| 5 | See bright star Mike ultimately dominate part of tennis match (4,4) |
| LOVE GAME – LO! (see) + VEGA (bright star) + M{ike} + {dominat}E
I actually got this by thinking of Vega. For short, bright stars you might see in crosswords, there are a lot fewer than those blasted scottish islands: Altair, Spica, Deneb, Castor and Pollux come to mind. |
|
| 6 | Suddenly throw jack, queen and king (4) |
| JERK – J{ack} + ER (queen) + K{ing}
Very nice. |
|
| 13 | Knowledgeable, popular pro overcoming the sea (8) |
| INFORMED – IN (popular) + FOR (pro) + MED (sea) | |
| 15 | Fails to count ducks — around ninety (8) |
| EXCLUDES – ELUDES (ducks) contains XC (90 in Roman Numerals)
Fails to count projects — around 150 (8) also works (with projects= EXUDES containing CL) |
|
| 17 | Gold rush period (6) |
| AUGUST – AU (Gold) + GUST (rush) | |
| 18 | Inspector silent eating singular Chinese appetiser (3,3) |
| DIM SUM – DI (Inspector) + MUM (silent) contains S{ingular}
I think most of us will biff this one. |
|
| 20 | Feature of weather broadcast about north (4) |
| SNOW – SOW (broadcast) contains N(orth)
Broadcast is often a homophone indicator. And when not, it is very often “air”. Not today. |
|
| 22 | Agile small ferret (4) |
| SPRY – S{small} + PRY (ferret)
“The curious journalist tried to ferret/pry the truth out of the reluctant witness.” |
|
Held up by thinking broadcast about north was RAIN. Clever misdirection
RAIN works, apart from AIR becoming RAI would be an indirect anagram. Not usually allowed in The Times.
It also works as a homophone of ‘about North’ being ‘re N’
in Belfast?
I don’t understand why Rain isn’t a valid answer. Wouldn’t it be
Feature if weather =rain
Air=broadcast (about as the anagram indicator
Followed by N
I would love to know why this isn’t correct please.
Mainly because RAIN doesn’t fit the checkers…Though also because Times style means no indirect anagrams.
Agreed! And aggrieved!
I also had RAIN to start with
Pretty straightforward, but slow; my meds are making me sleepy. DNK the AXE. Merlin, you’ve got a typo at 6d. 7:35.
Got it, thanks.
And one at 7a (unless you’re saying “beer” in a Norfolk accent, of course!).
I really enjoyed this even though I DNF
I got the scottish island (woo shout out) but didn’t know the river 😞 I’ll know it next time (watch this comment age like milk)
I indeed did raise my eyebrow at manliest = bravest and applaud the attempt to define ‘woke’.
I enjoyed all of the misdirects a lot! Harry, ferret, broadcast, ducks etc.
I nho OYEZ so I had no hope.
I did not like MANLIEST either, nor YAM for potato. I also found OZ a bit strange (as one myself!), at best OZ can refer to the country. I guess it’s used in place of “aussie” in the UK.
Otherwise I found this tough but pretty tightly clued.
David, ‘Oz / an Australian’ is in SOED, but aside from that it also works as an adjective, so we might say ‘arvo is Oz /Australian slang for afternoon’.
YAM is in the dictionaries as a variety of sweet potato, but is also an old Scottish word for an ordinary potato.
I agree David. Oyez is too obscure to be clued this way. Too many obscure words yesterday and today to make it fun. What on earth is a Love Game?
I approached this with some trepidation after yesterday’s debacle, and when I couldn’t see LOsI EXCLUDES, BLAMED and LOVE GAME despite all the crossers I thought history was about to repeat. Pausing to actually read the relevant clues closely, and noticing that -A-E might be GAME, got me home in 10.43. Thanks Merlin and thanks Breadman for a fun puzzle.
15 minutes with AXE as my LOI, solved eventually from the second definition ‘discharge’. I knew of Axminster in Devon but not that it stands on a river from which it takes its name.
I lost ages at 22dn trying to recall what a young ferret is called. I knew that I knew it but was unable to bring it to mind. Eventually I got to SPRY by other means and then looked up the word that had eluded me, a kit. If only I’d thought of that sooner I could have dismissed it as irrelevant and moved on without wasting so much time.
DNF
The combo of MAYDAY and the river completely defeated me. The rest of it I found hard as well.
Thanks all
Had the part of a tennis match as GAME and pondered ‘Rome’ for see which had the advantage of fitting but didn’t have much elese going for it. I don’t think I’ve heard of a LOVE GAME as a very casual tennis watcher – that must be what they mean when someone wins a game to love -and didn’t know ‘Vega’ either so that clue had me in a lot of trouble. Needed the O to get to OYEZ. Didn’t know those were spelled like that. Top half a lot slower than the bottom but the whole lot was slow. All green in 25.15.
15 minutes. I was glad to get this out after yesterday’s frustrations – same as everybody else. I learnt a new three-letter English river for my LOI; there is also the Usk in my mental cheat list. I really am trying to get interested in AI but what passes for my native intelligence won’t let me!
There’s something pretty special (for a 13×13) in the grid today – well done to Breadman.
A big thanks in more ways than one to Merlin for the blog and those of the last few weeks.
Yes, I spotted it. It helped me get AXE.
Oh, yes. Didn’t spot it whilst solving.
Grumble, grumble, moan, whinge, grumble, really!!
Beaten all ends up by Breadman today but determined not to have two DNFs in a row.
Started with OYEZ and finished with MAYDAY in 13.06
Thanks to Merlin and well played Breadman
Took a while to get 3 Down but a full house today without reference to solvers or dictionaries
Challenging, but I much enjoyed all 17 minutes of this solve – see I don’t only like the easier ones. Some clever clues, some interesting GK (I had not heard of Vega or the river Axe, LOI and entered to complete the rare double pangram), and some definitions which stretched me – “gust” for rush (and for that matter August for period, but I suspect cluing it as month would have been too simple), “yam” for potato, and “jerk” for suddenly throw (I would consider jerk more of a sudden pull).
Compared with those I thought Breadman’s definition of WOKE was a masterpiece of conciseness and lack of controversy.
Many thanks Merlin for guiding us through this one.
Cedric
Wow, I thought that was tough. The bottom half was fine but I struggled all over the top. Particular hold outs were LOVE GAME (what?), where like others I thought that “see” could be “Rome” … which would mean that there was an “omega” in there … which felt like it could be a “bright star” … lots of blind alleys to run up there …, MAYDAY and LOI AXE.
Having got the two Zs early on I thought it was going to be a double pangram, but I never find that any help when solving because who the heck has time to count the letters mid solve?!
Limped home in 12:35 for a Bruising Day.
Many thanks Breaders and Merlin
Stumped by ducks and tennis, but also a few guesses and uncertain parses, so thank you for the blog. NHO UZI (not good on guns, I’m glad to say) but it had to be more likely than UXI or UYI.
Oh… I was nowhere near BADGER. NHO LOVE GAME – what “part of tennis match” is that, please? Thank you, Mendesest: meaning of “wins a game to love” is not obvious to outsiders but I presume it’s “the loser got no points”? NHO VEGA (nor any of the others you cite – golly, do we have to learn all those …..). Thought it might have been lode or pole – do they not qualify?
Ducks = ELUDES is difficult (obscure? the equivalence seems tenuous).
Guessed SPRY; NHO ferret – PRY. Surely, in your sample sentence:
“The curious journalist tried to ferret/pry the truth out of the reluctant witness.”
– the correct verb there is not pry (which means “to make an impertinent or uninvited inquiry about a private matter” – Collins) – but prise. Ah – might have guessed: Collins says PRY in this sense is a US word for prise. Always resent US usages in our crosswords.
Finished with no problems today apart from a MER at MANLIEST=most brave. I remembered Breadman’s fondness for using the high value scrabble letters which gave me AXE but had not noticed the double pangram until pointed out above. Thanks Merlin for your customary enjoyable blog.
5:56. Finished with the unknown river AXE, which held me up for a minute or so at the end as I resorted to an alphabet trawl, but I verified by it by seeing it completed the pangram. I see the river is only 22 miles long, so it’s scarcely a major one..Thanks Breadman and Merlin.
Axminster is on the river Axe, and we’ve definitely had that as a word clued by carpet. There’s another one near Bristol, apparently. Would be great to be in a town which had -on-Axe as part of its name.
My daughter lives in Cheddar and goes running by the Axe. It runs through a lovely little village called Axbridge.
In my part of the world the Axe is the local river. Nice walk along its banks looking at the mud. Therefore my first in!
17:57
I confused tavernas with trattorias, so initially thought 10a would be AROMA.
Took many minutes over my last three – EXCLUDES, MAYDAY and AXE.
Did not spot the double pangram.
Thanks Merlin and Breadman
I was surprised to see the Quitch running so high, as I completed in more or less average time for a very decent WITCH.
No real hold ups, but MAYDAY and AXE gave pause for thought. It takes a lot to get my eyebrows to twitch, but “most brave” = MANLIEST caused a distinct upward movement! However, being alert to injustice and prejudice is most definitely “socially sound”, so bravo to Breaders there. Liked BADGER.
6:23
Finished this in the early morning, in the peace and quiet, with not a living soul in sight. What a relief.
Crossed the river Axe yesterday. It has burst its banks with last week’s downpours and flooded many fields.
Dnf…
Funny how we all see things differently. Perhaps I’m having a slow morning, or just wasn’t on the wavelength, but I found this really hard and didn’t have many clues after 15 mins. Upon reflection, there are a few I should have got, but I still think it was towards the more difficult side.
FOI – 8ac “Oyez”
LOI – Dnf
COD – 7ac “Maharaja”
Thanks as usual!
Templar called it “tough”. I’d be more inclined to call it loose.
FOI OYEZ
LOI AXE
COD UZI
TIME 5:56
They are not getting any easier this week. Started slowly and never really picked up the pace, hopping all over the grid. Maharaja took ages, as for some reason 🙄 I always think of wine when I see hock, but the real hold up was over my last pair: Informed and Staffa. I spent too long fixated on pro/ace, before a likely Med for sea more or less confirmed I was on the wrong track. At this rate the thirty minute post is soon going to need a new coat of paint, given I keep bumping in to it. CoD to 15d, Excludes, for the parsing. Invariant
PS are there two Exe’s as well, Merlin?
Double pangram, each letter appears at least twice. If you are fans of ChatGPT here is the prompt I used to check “I will paste in the solution to a from a blog: Working on just the answers, provide a distribution of each letter’s frequency.” And then just to check I asked where the Exes are:
Got the following
The two “X”s are in the following answers:
AXE (Across 11)
EXCLUDES (Down 15)
. . .Cam, Exe, Ure, Ayr, Dee, Esk, Exe, Fal, Wye, Tay 😉
I found that very much on the hard side taking 13:16. LOI AXE which river I haven’t heard of. MANLIEST wasn’t a hard clue but struck me as dubious!
DNF as NHO UZI and picked UXI (not UYI). Found it on the hard side, with a couple of biffs needed (MAYDAY, LOVE GAME).
Very slow crawl to the end today. Initially had rain for SNOW until WOKE caused me to reconsider. LOI was BLAMED – just couldn’t see how bed = apparently asleep (and still can’t tbh). Didn’t like MANLINESS (obvs). Thought MAYDAY was clever. Lots of misdirections (BADGER, SPRIG, AUGUST) – great for improving my (persistent and persisting) rigid thinking! Thanks for the informative blog Merlin. Thanks Breadman. Some nice challenges.
Apparently asleep= In Bed (as that’s where most people tend to sleep).
The student (L for learner) and in the morning (AM) are thus in BED. B(L+AM)ED
Thanks Raffles. So you have to assume the ‘in’ part is implied by the fact that L and AM are placed within (in) BED… This is definitely above my current level 😂
Relatively tough but not as difficult as yesterdays to finish. Having said that, although I crossed the line in 10.42, I had UXI instead of UZI, so a DNF for the second day running.
Quite a workout, which I solved in 8.22, but with a typo, AUGUSH. Drat! Thanks Breadman and Merlin.
DNF x 3. Did not solve MAYDAY, BLAMED or AXE. Struggled with some of the others in the top half – not on the wavelength.
Oh sorry, DNF x 4. NHO the ferret.
Thanks for much needed blog, Merlin. The double pangram was clever but had the effect of making the puzzle less enjoyable as far as I was concerned.
Tough but fair: finished in 25 minutes but one incorrect: at 6d I put DECK. If you deck someone you suddenly throw a punch, and jack, queen and king are in a deck of cards. Feeling pleased with myself I put it in. Merlin’s parsing makes more sense: so who’s the jerk? Sigh.
DRENCH was well hidden, as I took cheekily to be an anagram indicator at first. No problems with LOVE GAME (my tennis was rained off thus morning). Liked the jar and the ham, and broadcast meaning sow leapt off the page as it’s precisely that time of year for lawn repairs: “broadcast the seed evenly…”. With two early Zs I knew something was afoot on the pangram front: thanks to Breadman and to Merlin.
Another DNF. Only 6 clues solved on first pass, then very slow progress through the middle phase. An error at 20d – raiN (a perfectly good solution to the clue) – rendered both 20a (r_R_G) and 23 (_i_E) impossible to solve. In addition, MAHARAJA, MAYDAY and AXE (I thought of eXE, urE and Dee) all remained unsolved when my cut-off time (40 minutes) intervened and I gave up.
A horrible experience, but at least I was saved from another 40 minutes of unproductive anguish.
Verdict: Way too hard for me.
Thanks to Merlin for the blog.
Having given up early on yesterday’s I was determined to finish this one (luckily had more time today). It took me 40 minutes which is longer than I can remember ever taking before. A combination of a tough crossword and a lack of active brain cells I think. Some rather loose clueing I thought – a definite MER at MANLIEST = most brave and a slight twitch of the eyebrows at gust = rush for example. I noticed the pangram on the way through but not that it was a double.
FOI – 8ac OYEZ
LOI – 4dn BADGER (spent far too long pondering whether ‘Harry’ referred to a member of the royal family or a fictional wizard and completely forgot about ‘to harry’
COD – 7ac MAHARAJA
Thanks to Breadman and Merlin
12:05
Tough but fair I thought.
LOI AXE after a trawl.
Thanks Breadman and Merlin.
6:45
Intended to submit ten seconds earlier but realised I hadn’t completed 22d, the answer for which fortunately leapt out at me quickly. I had been temporarily stumped in the NW, however BLAMED and MANLIEST (had to write down the letters) turned up leaving the trickier MAYDAY and AXE – I had heard of the river though it had not popped up when I scribbled a list of three-letter rivers – also missed ESK. Spotted that it was at least a single pangram – didn’t occur to me that it might be a double.
Thanks Breadman and Merlin
Congratulations to Breadman on a double pangram which didn’t seem at all forced.
I nearly finished but needed the checkers to show that 20d RAIN and 23a WISE were incorrect before completing in 51m (allowed myself extra time as it felt achievable.)
COD: JERK. Thanks Merlin.
It’s so annoying, when you’ve done all the hard work, to find a pink square for a momentary loss of concentration (EXCLUDED instead of EXCLUDES). Hey ho. 13.11 on a good puzzle. LOI MAHARAJA, where I had to stop and take a deep breath when faced with all those As and nothing else.
Thanks to Breadman for the puzzle and to Merlin for the exceptionally fine blog
DNF
Two in a row. Today’s downfall was SPRY. I didn’t think pry for ferret and thought there was maybe a small mammal called an ure giving me SURE which I thought might be sure footed or agile. Obviously not!
Spotted one pangram which helped with several answers but not the second which wouldn’t have helped as I already had 2 Ys in MAYDAY.
PS post solve I offered the clues to Ross who got 80% done in 4 minutes but biffed ARC for discharge as in electrical discharge so he obviously hasn’t yet learnt from Merlin.
Tough, didn’t really get going,assisted by assumption that biffs were unerringly accurate – e.g.FORE HAND in lieu of LOVE MATCH, I was brought up on a farm and never called a ferret a PRY,, although I did own one called’ fancy’
Understand now how ferret= PRY
To ferret around is to search out, hence, look into, pry.
Having got OYEZ early on I was on the look for a pangram and quickly realised a double was on the cards which was helpful in getting words like MOSQUE and UZI. LOVE GAME is a very common phrase in tennis commentary and is often achieved by strong servers.
12.20 Pleased with that, looking at the other times and the Quitch. Both pangrams passed me by. I watched far too many eighties action films back in the day so UZI (9mm) was a write in. LOI AXE took more than two minutes. I was stuck on oozing and shooting discharges, and I’d forgotten the river. Thanks Merlin and Breadman.
DAWN is destined for the Hall of Fame clearly. I acknowledge my position in the minority that found that clue easy, and indeed the puzzle as a whole, and this one for me is considerably harder.
WOKE I liked, MANLIEST I did not like, and the rest of it somewhere in between.
Found this hard with a number of clues eluding us.
16m
Done in 2 sittings. Last 3 to fall were spry, informed where I was slow to think of pro=for and LOI staffa.
COD Spry.
Snap
Tricky but enjoyable, coming in at 15:04. I feel a bit lucky to have all of the required GK (bar the river) but I’m hardly going to complain about that.
Thank you for the blog!
At 14:50 this was a slower solve than usual for us but we didn’t find it as difficult as the Quitch would imply. Having the GK (including having heard of the Axe) helps enormously of course. Correctly anticipated the draught from the raising of many eyebrows at 1d. Wondered also about JERK, for me you can JERK something by pulling it sharply but it doesn’t really fit with throwing. The wordplay was inescapable though. LOI EXCLUDES caused a lot of hesitation because I could neither see any other option nor fully get the parsing for quite some time. In retrospect of course you wonder what the problem was. Thanks all.
Well into the club, but happy to finish in the presence of many many distractions. Fun puzzle, impressive double pangram which of course I didn’t really see though I was dimly aware. I was baffled by BLAMED but it’s my favorite now that the penny has dropped. I maintain a discreet silence about MANLIEST and applaud WOKE.
Thanks Breadman and Merlin!
A challenging but enjoyable puzzle. Into the SCC but happy to stroll through it over breakfast. Realised very early on that a pangram was likely, and soon after that it was likely to be a double, which helped in shaping ideas about later clues.
28:00, but I was determined to finish today after yesterday’s DNF. Hadn’t heard of the River Axe, hopefully that will stick.
Thanks to Breadman and Merlin.
27 minutes.
Another truly awful day for this incompetent solver. It gets worse, not better!
Got majority of clues in big crossword but took forever. Made several errors and nowhere near capable of doing this in anything approaching a competent manner.
No fun or sense of achievement and still stuck in my bubble of woe.
68 minutes for the week so far, with a DNF as well. Shocking!
A DNF for us. Just couldn’t get in the groove and didn’t particularly enjoy it. Similar to others manliest and yam caused raised eyebrows, and some seemed a bit contrived. Hey ho – tomorrow’s another day…but I too will adjust default signature block to ‘yours verily’, which did make me smile – thanks Merlin.