Hello again. I liked this crossword, which I thought was well-crafted, fair, and moreover had a welcome tinge of the sciences about it, what with a stalwart piece of lab kit, an element, some particles and no less than two moons of Jupiter..
I use the standard TfTT conventions like underlining the definition, CD for cryptic definition, DD for a double one, *(anargam) and so forth. Nho = “not heard of” and in case of need the Glossary is always handy.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | Chat with me and Mark about union negotiator (10) |
| MATCHMAKER – *(CHAT + MARK + ME). Union, as in marriage of course. | |
| 6 | Block return of large sum of money (4) |
| STOP – Pots (of money), rev. | |
| 9 | Fever interrupts the French classes (7) |
| LEAGUES – AGUE (fever) in LES, French the. | |
| 10 | Extremely dirty and unpleasant old soap (7) |
| DYNASTY – D(irt)Y + NASTY, unpleasant. Dynasty, an old “how the other half lives” American TV soap, famous for its huge shoulder pads.. | |
| 12 | Beware cuddling large bear (5) |
| CALVE – L(arge) in CAVE, a warning. Bear as in give birth to, rather than grizzly or brown as I initially thought. | |
| 13 | Picked up chess piece, and something resembling it, in difficult situation (9) |
| NIGHTMARE – NIGHT, sounds like a chess “knight,” + MARE, a sort of horsey, as a chess knight is. | |
| 14 | Cooler to not tell the truth before huge fraud, and more stupid (6,9) |
| LIEBIG CONDENSER – LIE + BIG CON + DENSER, more stupid. Not a word everyone will know, but fairly clued; it is a very simple piece of lab kit, basically a pipe with a water jacket around it that cools what’s going through the pipe. | |
| 17 | Temporary hitch in the end admitted by celebrated coach scratching head (7,8) |
| STARTER MARRIAGE – TERM (the end) in STAR (c)ARRIAGE. Starter marriage, not a term I was familiar with.. I’m still on mine, after 52 years. Must try harder! | |
| 20 | With it starting late, perhaps March dance can encompass beginning of Easter (2,3,4) |
| ON THE BALL – E(aster) in (m)ONTH (March perhaps) + BALL, a dance. What we have to be, for a Times cryptic.. | |
| 21 | Pick up golf tip (5) |
| GLEAN – G(olf) + LEAN, tip | |
| 23 | Cryptically, 2 Kings 6:29, for example, is in disorder (7) |
| OVERSET – VERSE, such as that listed, in OT, the Old Testament, which it is. Naturally, I looked up the verse, which says: “So we boiled my son and ate him; and I said to her on the next day, ‘Give your son, that we may eat him’; but she has hidden her son.”
Words fail. |
|
| 24 | Three-dimensional representation of moon in theatre (7) |
| DIORAMA – IO (moon of Jupiter) in DRAMA, theatre. Whenever I see this word I am reminded of the dioramas I once saw at the museum at Waterloo, which appeared to show that Napoleon won the battle, not Wellington as I had always assumed. | |
| 25 | Pity husband after period of sexual excitement (4) |
| RUTH – RUT (a period of etc. etc) + H(usband). Ruth, pity or compassion is listed as archaic in Collins and the OED. | |
| 26 | School members married wearing decorated fabric, helped by me? (10) |
| BRIDESMAID – IDES (fish, ie school members) + M(arried), all in BRAID. One who helps at a marriage .. it does all make a sort of sense! | |
| Down | |
|---|---|
| 1 | Spies entertaining cryptic clue for “particles” (9) |
| MOLECULES – *(CLUE) in MOLES, spies. A mole is also the basic SI Unit of substance; so an opportunity missed there, setter 🙂 | |
| 2 | Drag queen hiding in shadow (5) |
| TRAIL – R(egina), queen, in TAIL, to shadow. | |
| 3 | Lady in charge content to shout — big match nerves? (13) |
| HOUSEMISTRESS – s(HOU)t + SEMI STRESS, big match nerves, as regularly suffered by the England mens’ teams, but not the women apparently. | |
| 4 | Element of surprise ultimately lost by Wenger, football manager no longer in charge (7) |
| ARSENIC – ARSEN(e) + IC. This is a lovely clue, carefully crafted, and every word doing its job. Arsene Wenger is indeed Arsenal football manager no longer, he is Chief of Global Football Development for FIFA. | |
| 5 | European arranged to house pet for president (7) |
| ERDOGAN – DOG (pet) in E(uropean) RAN (arranged). The president of Turkey. | |
| 7 | Posed around clergyman’s house with a drink (6,3) |
| TASMAN SEA – TAS (posed, rev.) + MANSE (clergyman’s house) + A | |
| 8 | Recipient of money agreed to cut exercises (5) |
| PAYEE – AYE, agreed, in PE, exercises. | |
| 11 | Crazy Horse entering Hell (6,7) |
| NETHER REGIONS – *(HORSE ENTERING). | |
| 15 | Court test cases dispatched, ignoring second demand (9) |
| EXACTMENT – C(our)T, in EXAM (s)ENT. | |
| 16 | Shot her away from the coast, in part of Germany (9) |
| RHEINLAND – *(RHE) + INLAND, away from the coast. A gimme, if you like wine as much as I do.. | |
| 18 | Schedule includes a chicken for cooking? (7) |
| ROASTER – A in ROSTER, a schedule. Another neat clue! | |
| 19 | Referred every man dropping dead, at first (7) |
| ALLUDED – ALL (every) + DUDE, man, with the initial D dropping to the end. | |
| 20 | Musk is old and miserable (5) |
| ODOUR – O(ld) + DOUR, miserable. Fun fact: Collins says the word musk derives from the Sanskrit word for scrotum. | |
| 22 | Some paralegals lying about satellite (5) |
| ELARA – hidden, reversed, as above. Another wee moon of Jupiter, with a diameter of only 80Km. Sympathy if you haven’t heard of it, but again, friendly clueing. | |
Just over an hour but even then I had a letter wrong with ENACTMENT instead of the NHO EXACTMENT which is also unknown to the ODE. Disappointing, as I’d coped with all the other unknowns including LIEBIG CONDENSER, STARTER MARRIAGE, OVERSET and ELARA.
I also didn’t know ERDOGAN although he came up quite recently, I think on my watch.
Jerry, you are missing some underlines at 15 and 16dn.
Thanks Jackkt, corrected .. I couldn’t find ODE online, but Collins has exactment.
I think Jerry often underestimates the difficulty of puzzles. I didn’t have trouble with it, but I could see how that might happen. The more comfortable you are with working the cryptics and ignoring the literals, the better you will do. I was a little surprised by starter marriage – is that a thing? – but star + term + [c]arriage is clearly pointing in that direction, so that must be the answer. Same thing with exactment. I did have to biff arsenic, because I have no idea who Wegner is, but it’s an element for sure.
Time: 31:57
I merely point out that I didn’t say it was easy. Only fair, which I still say it is.
I didn’t like this at all. Seemed to be too many obscure words and phrases with convoluted clueing. LIEBIG CONDENSER, STARTER MARRIAGE, NHO either. No penny-dropping moments with ‘wow, that was clever’, just hard work. I’m sure I’m in the minority but it was no fun for me.
Thanks Jerry.
Not to worry. You’re in the same minority as me.
I’ve virtually given up saying anything because of perpetually being in the minority.
If The Times is having to resort to things like the obscure LIEBIG CONDENSER and STARTER MARRIAGE, then we’re really in trouble.
STARTER MARRIAGE is also inaccurate, because neither participant starts off believing it’s only temporary. They can’t possibly know that. The term can only be applied in hindsight to marriages that fail in the short-term, in an attempt to put a positive spin on what has probably been a disaster.
An interesting point re starter marriage, which was also an NHO for me. However, Wikipedia informs me that this refers to a marriage which HAS failed after 5 years (i.e. like a salutary lesson). The term was first coined in a New York Times article in 1994. Thus it can only be applied to any given marriage RETROSPECTIVELY which means that the unfortunate couple could not have known at the time of their union that it would later be described as ‘a starter’.
I spent just under an hour and ten minutes on this and was pretty well entertained as well as pleased to finish, which is by no means guaranteed. The cluing was generous enough to get me there in spite of the unknowns, and I had some laughs as the pennies dropped.
Great blogging from Jerry. I went and read the whole chapter; they are eating their children because they are besieged and have run out of food. Not so uncommon apparently as I just ran across similar accounts while reading about the great slave uprising of the 9th century in what is now Iraq.
I enjoyed this, despite not having ever heard of the “cooler,” nor one of the moons of Jupiter, if memory serves (it didn’t, in any case), and not having a clue who Wenger was. There is a current US sitcom called Georgie and Mandy’s First Marriage. I think the title is most likely just meant to emphasize the newness of the experience for the pair. I would doubt that anyone—any two—ever seriously dub their marriage a STARTER until it’s over or obviously doomed. But the Collins definition seems to leave open the possibility that some might enter such a union with that understanding of it, or even that it would be the accepted status of the union in the eyes of everyone involved—the couple, their families, their church(es)…: “a brief first marriage between two young adults, regarded as preparation for subsequent, longer-lasting marriages with different partners.”
OVERSET would not have been such a difficult clue if the word itself were more common.
I remember ‘trial marriage’ (not in ODE, but in Collins [American Eng]), from childhood.
Wenger, not Wegner. Arsene Wenger. Unusual name, granted..
Apparently I was taking Vinyl’s word for it.
I found this puzzle a mixed affair, I really liked the way the setter clued tricky words in a fair way, and OVERSET and NIGHTMARE were very clever. But other clues felt unfairly wordy, e.g. did 4d really need the extra verbiage of “football manager no longer”?
Doesn’t the “no longer” cut the “e” from the end of Arsene?
No.. the E disappears because of the element of surprise, ultimately lost …
Ahh fair enough, missed that. In which case I agree with the good Dr!
If it didn’t have that there would undoubtedly be other complaints, since he no longer is one! I saw it as a rather clever way to help, by saying he was a football manager, and covering self since he isn’t now.
21.55
Fairly straightforward – I had vague memories of the LIEBIG CONDENSER, but NHO my LOI STARTER MARRIAGE, which I now see features in several TV series, all American.
COD DYNASTY (also American TV).
BIFD BRIDESMAID
You can rely on me to point out the Americanisms. But Collins makes no such mention, and the three examples quoted are all from the Sunday Times!
About 20 minutes.
– Had to trust the wordplay for the unfamiliar LIEBIG CONDENSER and STARTER MARRIAGE
– Thought the ‘6:29, for example’ in the clue for 23a was giving T as in time, but eventually reconsidered to get OVERSET
– Didn’t figure out the ‘ides’ part of BRIDESMAID as I forgot that they’re a type of fish
– Slightly surprised to see the German spelling of RHEINLAND, though the cluing was fair
– Didn’t know ELARA, but again the wordplay was kind
Thanks Jerry and setter.
FOI Calve
LOI Overset
COD Matchmaker
17:10. I did not enjoy this. As Quadrophenia says, too many gratuitously obscure terms and over-convoluted clueing. And 23ac is a car crash of a clue.
I agree wholeheartedly
33 mins. Tough in places but no silly bagpipe moments. I enjoyed the “and now for something completely different” side to this.
I remember the lab kit but NHO ELARA despite being fairly up on all the non-squishy sciences.
LOI EXACTMENT following the wordplay assiduously.
Was going to nominate OVERSET as COD but what a grisly choice. Thanks setter and to JerryW.
P.S. Also thanks to Jerry for the polenta chips tip. Tried yesterday – delicious.
Ah, glad you liked them. An alternative career opens!
24.58. Starter marriage was a NHO and as a result took me ages. Similar with overset till I realised verse was the key. Bit of a curate’s egg I thought.
Same surprise/struggle as others with the nho STARTER MARRIAGE. To me, a very odd concept, the wording of which seems to imply doom from the outset. It was a relief, solving online, to have the Success! notification pop up once I’d entered OVERSET – I hadn’t parsed it. I do think it’s a neat, if cheeky, construction and was happy to forgive the setter! Faves inc ARSENIC (COTD), TRAIL, NETHER REGIONS, TASMAN SEA and DYNASTY. Time around 30 minutes though that included a break to make coffee – it felt as if it took longer.
Thanks setter and blogger
19.16 despite the oddities. I met LIEBIG a few days ago in another crossword, but can’t find him in the so-far-unblogged Times ones, so it may have been an Indy. At least that meant I knew he was into physics, and his device seemed at least likely. The wordplay was kind.
I was wondering whether we had a setter with a slightly jaundiced view of nuptials, with the arranger, the attendant, the short-lived version and the resultant NIGHTMARE. Was RUTH or ELARA involved, and was her determination to be MISTRESS of the HOUSE a factor in the failure? Did she become the PAYEE of the divorce EXACTMENT? Or did she resort to ARSENIC because of the ODOUR problems from his NETHER REGIONS? There’s a whole Vera (or Morse etc) episode knocking around in there.
I have to admit the content of 2 Kings 6.29 didn’t spring readily to mind, but it looks like a rather mischievous choice, the sort interviewers use to bait MAGA fundamentalists. The Bible can be a great source of oo-erness. Other examples on request!
Many thanks, Jerry, for an entertaining blog.
Ha ha!
👏
Very good!
42:22 struggled with this one. Not helped by an erroneous ALLUDES blocking BRIDESMAIDS accounting for atleast 5 minutes of that.
Not heard of a STARTER MARRIAGE and really wanted to put in ‘shotgun marriage’ despite only half parsing.
OVERSET was OVERSEE for too long. Other than the verse I didn’t understand it until reading the blog.
Also NHO LIEBIG CONDENSER but knew both the component parts and it seemed plausible.
Some neat clues and all fair in hindsight but couldn’t quite get on the correct wavelength.
COD MATCHMAKER
Thanks blogger and setter.
Not entering a time does mean that I can follow the devices and desires of my own heart, That didn’t help with OVERSET or the unheard of STARTER MARRIAGE, both left blank. My abiding memory of Arsene Wenger is him struggling with his anorak zip. I have the same problem. A bit convoluted in places. Thank you Jerry and setter.
24’33”. Didn’t know the Bible verse, but such horrors in the OT were common in the region for hundreds of years. Some became folk tales. I was stuck for a while after putting in the English spelling ‘Rhineland’.
My LOI was STARTER MARRIAGE, so far outside my moral compass that it still seems horrid.
Thanks jerry and setter.
DNF. Defeated by STARTER MARRIAGE a NHO for me too and couldn’t parse it as I overlooked that sense of ‘term’ despite the recent discussion thereof. Finally arrived at MATCHMAKER after all the songs from Fiddler on the Roof had been considered. Inordinately pleased to get LIEBIG CONDENSER (COD for me), one of those I didn’t know I knew!
Thanks to setter and JerryW.
34:22
I often wonder about how setters go about building their puzzles. It seems bizarre but quite deliberate that this setter has taken two relative obscurities – the Americanism STARTER MARRIAGE (unheard of in the UK), and the science-specific LIEBIG CONDENSER – and built the puzzle around those. Seeing as these were my last two in, and both entered with a huge dollop of ho-hum, I feel slightly robbed entertainment-wise – like watching Crystal Palace go 3-0 up in the first half, and with all the promise of a big score, choose to bring all of the academy players on in the second half, and fail to add to their goal tally. Everything else seemed fair enough though.
Thanks Jerry
“Starter marriage” is in Collins, is not marked as an Americanism and has three quotes, all from the Sunday Times.. so not unheard of, whatever else.
My thanks to JerryW and setter.
DNF. I thought it hard, more so than Tricky Thursday and it’s only Wed….
17a NHO Starter Marriage; I don’t believe it!
20a On the ball, too clever for me.
23a Overset, too hard for me and too grisly to contemplate.
5d Erdogan, I was a bit concerned at ran=arranged and wondered if I had missed something, but no.
16d Rheinland, I didn’t trust the clue and entered the English Rhineland which comprehensively got in the way of 17a and 21a Glean.
22d NHO Elara, or more likely just forgot.
19.59
Very rare of me to disagree with luminaries such as Messrs Keriothe and Sawbill but I really liked this, and normally I don’t love wordy clues. However, ARSENIC was very clever and I liked NETHER REGIONS as well. OVERSET was my LOI slightly with fingers crossed but it had to be from the w/p. Nor had I heard of the two long ones but once I trusted to the w/p the answers seemed entirely plausible.
Thanks Jerry and setter.
Up my street, this one, as I knew the chemistry and the moons. NHO a starter marriage. But SHOTGUN didn’t fit. Had to guess OVERSET from WP, and went wrong at first with LEIBIG not LIEBIG until exactment came along. But I did get RHEINLAND not Rhineland right first time. I Liked TASMAN SEA for drink. Thanks @jerry.
I tried to comment earlier on but got a “429 too many requests” notice when I went to send it. Anyone else having that problem or is it something on my laptop gone wonky?
Oh yes lots of us have been having it intermittently for quite a while now.
MATCHMAKER; STARTER MARRIAGE; BRIDESMAID. Is there some sort of convoluted Nina in here?
I’m at odds with Jerry in positively detesting this puzzle, especially being a lapsed classicist rather than a scientist (I wasn’t allowed to sit Physics or Chemistry at “O” Level in order to preserve the school’s success ratio).
I accept the fairness of the clueing, and I returned a decent time, but NHO LIEBIG CONDENSER, STARTER MARRIAGE, OVERSET, or ELARA. Four in one puzzle is only acceptable to me in either Mephisto, or Club Monthly.
And my sympathy to anybody who put an N instead of an X at 15D, which added the best part of a minute to my travails at the end while I checked the parsing very carefully.
FOI MATCHMAKER
LOI EXACTMENT
COD NIGHTMARE
TIME 12:06
DNF. Not my favourite kind of crossword, and I put it in my CCC category (convolution causes conniption). But it was worth coming here just to read Zabadak’s comments.
19:09
I thought this was tough but fair. LOI OVERSET which I didn’t manage to parse. I decided to linger a bit longer over each clue today in the hope it would lead to more efficvient solving and for this puzzle it seemed to work.
COD: STARTER MARRIAGE
Thanks to Jerry (52 years married and counting!) and to our setter.
41 mins – way off the mark today: unfamiliar words, obscure moons and clues that just seemed too long for their own good. Loved it.
Hell, even I thought the moon was obscure!😃
I remember the LIEBIG CONDENSER from school science lessons. Something to do with distillation, I think. STARTER MARRIAGE completely stumped me. When did marriage vows lose their for ever aspect? Had enactment like others. And I wasn’t ON THE BALL
I thought the SNITCH was peculiarly low. This struck me as very difficult and there were several words (CALVE in that sense, OVERSET, EXACTMENT, STARTER MARRIAGE, ELARA) that I didn’t know, also some rather difficult connections like LEAGUES = classes and drink = TASMAN SEA, and some connections that weren’t difficult at all but which I made difficult because of dimness. I struggled to 71 minutes. It seems that nowadays I take over an hour more often than not, which may be the result of these crosswords being harder, or …
We have lost most of our avatars again, despite my repeatedly signing in again. Maybe this is something to do with the work that is being done to sort out the ‘Too many requests’ problem. [On edit: now it has come back. I wonder why.]
76:08. Very tricky in places, with some unusual vocabulary. I haven’t used a Liebig Condenser since school days. I enjoyed it though as it was testing and really engaging.
Well that gave the old neurons a bit of a workout! The highlight of this puzzle for me was reading Z’s comment here. I started with TRAIL and CALVE, and made reasonable progress until arriving at what were for me a number of obscurities. I got the CONDENSER part of 14a easily, but the LIEBIG relied on wordplay and a very vague recollection of schooldays. STARTER MARRIAGE was from wordplay only. EXACTMENT was a late entry, just preceding LOI, OVERSET when I finally realised I was looking for a verse in the Old Testament. OVERSET as a word is out of my ken. I Googled it afterwards and it apparently means overturn. Who knew? More or less managed to parse the rest of it. 31:03. Thanks setter and Jerry.
Busy day so completed after a few visits, which probably helped as I may have given up in one sitting. Worked out most of the parsing, except OVERSET, which I had little clue about and chose “set” over other options. Similar difficulties as others albeit I do know a number of the moons. I did initally have Lieden for the condenser, which is both the wrong spelling and the wrong apparatus.
Re the NHO STARTER MARRIAGE, I have an acquaintance who continually introduces his very pleasant missus of 50 odd years as “my first wife…”, I’m surprised (and disappointed) she hasn’t buried him under the patio by now…
Thanks Jerry and setter
Terry Wogan always used to refer to his (only ever) wife as the current Mrs Wogan
Ran out of patience with this one, inspite of the ‘ooh matron’ response to 25a. Having failed with 26a across and now seeing the answer, is the clueing of ‘helped by me’ really a reasonable pointer to BRIDESMAID?
I turned off the clock at 39 mins being totally stumped by STARTER MARRIAGE and EXACTMENT, neither of which I’d heard of. I got all the others answers. I was not helped by stupidly putting in SHOTGUN MARRIAGE early on. I very much liked the clue to NETHER REGIONS. Thank you to Setter and Blogger.
DNF – four short after my allotted hour. But LIEBIG CONDENSER went in early as I remember using one when learning about fractional distillation in O Level chemistry.
This took me the best part of an hour, although that included wandering off to make tea and toast. It felt like a bit of a slog to be honest. The clues were fair, but often rather inelegant.
I’m in the Quad/keriothe/sawbill/Phil camp; I didn’t enjoy this much. At least it passed 23:25 of my train home! Many thanks, Jerry.
43:11, with LOI BRIDESMAID holding me up at the end.
After over a week without correctly completing a 15×15, I am pleased just to have finished this one.
Thanks Jerry and Setter