An easy-to-moderate puzzle with a pretty obvious theme. A couple of unusual words that may cause some eyebrows to be raised, but all fairly clued by Juno, I thought. One clue still evades me, though.
All done in 14:03, but with a vile pink square where I typed EEBERS instead of EMBERS. Should have taken the time to double-check my solution.
I’m not sure whether the theme is planets or gods. SUN and EARTH appear, but aren’t gods, but so does HADES, which isn’t really either a planet or a god, but is linked to mythology. But where is Mars? Venus appears in the bottom row, but I can’t find Mars anywhere. Given the setter’s name, I’m going to go with the “gods” answer.
Definitions underlined in bold italics, (Abc)* indicating anagram of Abc, deletions and [] other indicators.
| Across | |
| 1 | Crude, primitive art, hyped somewhat (6) |
| EARTHY
Hidden in (somewhat) “primitivE ART HYped”. |
|
| 4 | The world of surreal nouns, oddly overlooked (6) |
| URANUS
Only the even letters (oddly overlooked) of “sUrReAl NoUnS“. |
|
| 8 | When visibility is excellent on minor thoroughfares? (5,8) |
| BROAD DAYLIGHT
I feel I’m missing something in this clue. I see B-ROAD for “minor thoroughfare(s)”, but there doesn’t seem to be anything in the clue that gives DAYLIGHT. Still, I had most of the crossers, so biffed this one. |
|
| 10 | Dresses right: awards from palace to follow (5) |
| ROBES
R (right) + OBES (awards from palace). It turns out I’ve had this wrong my entire life. I thought OBE stood for “Order of the British Empire” and contrasted with MBE for “Member of the British Empire”. In fact, OBE is the abbreviation for “Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire”, and MBE is “Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire.” So there you go. Most excellent. |
|
| 11 | Top Olympian jumper missing third, having crossed it (7) |
| JUPITER
JU[m]PER (missing the third letter), crossing IT. For once, a theme helped me. I’d already seen URANUS and SATURN by this time, so when this started with a J, in it went. |
|
| 13 | Protective lotion with newspaper put on TV (9) |
| SUNSCREEN
Another themed clue? SUN (UK newspaper), on SCREEN for TV. |
|
| 17 | Stand up awkwardly, producing small shovel (7) |
| DUSTPAN
Anagram (awkwardly) of (stand up)*. |
|
| 18 | Deer filmed initially by angler making big impression (5) |
| BAMBI
First letters (initially) of By Angler Making Big Impression. |
|
| 19 | Very happy about copper rod for electrical component (7,6) |
| MERCURY SWITCH
Another one in the collection of gods/planets. MERRY (very happy) about CU (copper – element symbol) + SWITCH (rod). MERCURY went in quickly and then the “rod” meaning of SWITCH was dredged up from somewhere. |
|
| 21 | Boy with flat on street (6) |
| STEVEN
Random boy’s name, being EVEN (flat) on ST (street). |
|
| 22 | Consumes drink on purpose (4,2) |
| USES UP
SUP (drink) on USE (purpose, noun). |
|
| Down | |
| 1 | Remains of arms and legs, perhaps, but no head (6) |
| EMBERS
[M]EMBERS, (arms and legs perhaps), without the first letter (no head). |
|
| 2 | Ornate rosebush inlaid with first of many diamonds (9) |
| RHOMBUSES
Anagram (ornate) of ROSEBUSH + M, M being the first of M[any]. |
|
| 3 | Was in possession of drugs for underworld (5) |
| HADES
Another in the theme? HAD (was in possession of) ES (drugs). E for Ecstasy is common enough, but I’m not sure about just sticking an S on the end to make the plural. |
|
| 5 | Concerned with northern Scandinavian’s pronounced regression (7) |
| RELAPSE
RE (concerned with) followed by a homophone (pronounced) of Lapp’s (northern Scandinavian’s). |
|
| 6 | Horse is worry, constantly (3) |
| NAG
A straightforward double definition. |
|
| 7 | God rested next to vase (6) |
| SATURN
SAT (rested) next to URN (vase). |
|
| 9 | Proximity of a disc jockey, expert contacted originally in New York (9) |
| ADJACENCY
A + DJ (disk jockey) + ACE (expert) + C (first letter of contacted – originally) in NY (New York). Not a word I knew, but the word play was clear. |
|
| 12 | Thin mist’s disorientated metal workers (9) |
| TINSMITHS
(Thin mists)* (disorientated). |
|
| 14 | Write revolutionary melody for trident carrier (7) |
| NEPTUNE
PEN (write), reversed (revolutionary) + TUNE (melody). |
|
| 15 | Partially concede massage causes medical conditions in US (6) |
| EDEMAS
Hidden in (partially) “concEDE MASsage”. Medical conditions in the US, since the same thing in British English is an “oedema”. I suspect this clue will have caused some harrumphing. |
|
| 16 | Cleric’s blunder before work (6) |
| BISHOP
BISH (blunder) before OP[eration] (work). Chambers has “a blunder, a mistake” as the definition for BISH, which I didn’t know. |
|
| 18 | Gets out basins (5) |
| BOWLS
Double definition: the first is a cricket reference. “Jack bowls Fred” means that Jack makes a delivery hit Fred’s stumps. |
|
| 20 | Caviar reordered on reflection is more than needed (3) |
| ROE
Parsed this one post-solve: ROE is hidden in rEORdered when reversed. So the reflection of “reordered” is more than is needed: you can throw the other letters away. |
|
18:18. Wanted eats up or ends up first before crosser gave s for USES UP. Also thought of rhomboids before I saw the anagram for RHOMBUSES. Besides being the Greek underworld HADES is also the name of the Greek god of the underworld , equivalent to the Roman Pluto.
15:38. I wondered where Mars had gone too; I can’t see him lurking anywhere in the grid. I’ll go for planets (or astronomy), rather than gods as the theme, with EARTH(Y) and SUN appearing, but I’m not fussed.
Obvious now but I couldn’t parse ROE. Definite harrumphing for EDEMAS; US spelling or not, I’ve never heard the word used in the plural. I think 8a is meant to be an &lit with BROAD (minor thoroughfares?) and DAYLIGHT (When visibility is excellent) as the wordplay and the whole clue as a cryptic def. Maybe you could quibble that it should be ‘thoroughfare’ in the singular.
Didn’t see the hidden in ROE, but that hardly mattered. No problem, hence no harrumph, with the spelling of EDEMA, and no problem with the plural, since I thought it just meant ‘swelling’; but I see Bletchley’s point now. 7:18.
The theme helped me get SATURN, I had no hope with Edemas, but the rest of it was OK!
I started off well enough, but had trouble finishing. I had biffed circuit something instead of mercury, and had to backtrack, which didn’t help. Adjacency fixed that, but maybe I should have just paid attention to the theme. Roe was my LOI, a biff of the obvious answer.
Time: 10:09.
15:23 but with one pink square. I decided that a certain lamp in a theatre must be a BROADWAY LIGHT, there’s your “thoroughfare”. Of course it is (8,5) rather than (5,8)….
Also distressed by the missing Mars.
Surely STEVEN is also “in the US”, we use Stephen here.
Not a very satisfying puzzle, for me.
Leaving aside the enumeration as mentioned, the other problem with BROADWAY LIGHT is that it doesn’t exist as an expression!
Both spellings of the S name are common on both sides of the Atlantic but most of them seem to call themselves ‘Steve’ now whatever their spelling. ‘Stephen’ wouldn’t fit here anyway and the wordplay leading to STEVEN is very clear.
Agreed – I have known several UK Ste[ph|v]ens of both spellings including my brother (ph) and my brother-in-law [v]
10 minutes. I chose to ignore HADES as part of the theme and went instead for the Solar System which covers all the other special entries. Mars is missing, but in a 13×13 grid one can’t have everything. Although I don’t think it has ever been officially confirmed I’m pretty sure that Juno is another pseudonym of Crossword Editor, Richard Rogan, who can usually be relied on to give us a Nina, theme or tricksy device involving letters or numbers. This is only Juno’s 16th puzzle although the first appeared in June 2014.
I agree with BletchleyReject that the BROAD DAYLIGHT clue is a cryptic definition.
I think ES is fine as a plural as people would refer to the tablets as such in conversation. If one had to write it I guess one would put Es or possibly E’s for clarity.
Your lifelong readings of OBE and MBE are fine, Doofers, as in everyday usage they are said to stand for ‘Order of the British Empire’ and ‘Member of the British Empire’. Chambers has this covered with ‘(Officer of the) Order of the British Empire’ and ‘Member of (the Order of) the British Empire’. If one wanted to go the whole hog one would need to expand ‘Order of’ to ‘Most Excellent Order of’.
No wonder your times are impressive, the rest of us have to struggle with a 13×13 grid 😉
Thanks for that!
Despite spotting theme (for probably the first time ever) I slowed progress when I couldn’t remember Poseidon’s other name. Kicked myself when checkers arrived to make it plain. Needed the theme for JUPITER which I admired for being so simple – all the bits in plain sight. Excellent. All green in 14.
20 minutes of enjoyment seeing the planet theme early on.
FOI: URANUS.
LOI and favourite: USES UP
7.58
Not on the leaderboard as something odd happened on the club site and all my letters suddenly disappeared. Noted my time and finished on the main puzzle page.
Even I spotted the theme in this pleasant puzzle though I wasn’t aware of the SWITCH meaning of rod
Thanks all
Yes MER oedema… when I was practising would have been hard pressed to find a use for the plural as the cause of the misplaced fluid is almost always a singular one… but if I had I would have used the word oedemata. 18min
Thanks D and J
The curse of the pink square struck as I rushed my proofreading in an attempt to come in under target (which I missed anyway) leaving me with NEPTUEE.
Nothing too tricky although I made life harder for myself by biffing sinks at 18d, knowing it was probably wrong even as I typed it in. Fortunately, did not know the ‘normal’ spelling of EDEMAS so that went in with no problems.
Started with EARTHY and FINISHED with BISHOP, once I’d figured out the mess I’d made of the SE.
Thanks to Doofers
I’ve taken a policy decision not to proof read, on the basis that doing it properly takes too long and doing it badly is pointless. If it’s pink it’s pink. (Fortunately my one finger typing on my phone is so unreliable that I tend to check everything as I go along!)
HADES isn’t a God???? Tell that to his dad Cronus and his brother Zeus. Harrumph.
A fun puzzle and the theme was so clear that even I spotted it while solving. This turned out to hinder as much as help, because while it assisted with JUPITER and MERCURY, it meant that I approached every clue with the thought “So this one must be Mars …”.
COD BROAD DAYLIGHT, all done in 07:45 for 1.2K and a Very Good Day.
Many thanks Juno and Doofers.
Templar
A very quick start made me think this would be a doddle. Fat chance.
A mix of clever clues and disjointed sets of clues clearly sourced to lever into the theme.
Didn’t enjoy this.
A slow 16.32, but after yesterday’s puzzle I was pleased just to have finished. I also wasted time looking in vain for Mars. Last two in were EDEMAS and STEVEN.
Not at all on wavelength. I found this tricky and got bogged down in the SE corner with BOWLS (not sinks), BAMBI, USES UP, SWITCH and LOI BISHOP (not parson) in 13:05. I didn’t look for or spot a theme while solving but then it wouldn’t have helped me solve my final clues. Like Blighter, I didn’t enjoy this offering and as Templar would say….next!
Even I managed to see the theme of gods/planets and did finish. Was too lazy to go out for the paper as am shopping later, so solved on line for the first time.
Liked the theme, and BROAD DAYLIGHT,BISHOP, but had to biff the switch, which I belatedly saw was a planet too.
(Last minute panic today to dig up geraniums and plant bulbs before the frosts.)
Thanks for blog, Doofers.
After the past couple of days, 29:07 felt good. I felt weary after ten mins and having not put in much other than SATURN, URANUS, NAG and DUSTPAN. Then from some reason HADES popped in there quickly followed by the rest of the NW. Not sure I would have got through it without the theme.
A reasonable 18:11 for me. FOI EARTHY, LOI BAMBI. Spotted the Nina early on which meant I got MERCURY quickly, suspected SWITCH – but couldn’t dredge up the rod connection – so had to wait for all the crossers. Would normally harrumph at EDEMAS but the clue made it fair.
Taken slightly over target today at 16 minutes for no very good reason. The theme was obvious, but missing MARS puzzled me at the end, although squeezing everything else into the 123 available squares in the grid was something of a miracle in itself – well done Juno (wife of JUPITER, and fourth largest asteroid in the Solar system!, which makes me think that the system is the theme, rather than the gods). MARS might be there (tenuously) in ROE, the ROE deer sometimes being called the red deer, and MARS being the red planet. Thanks Chris and Juno.
A not overly quick finish in 10.23 for me, mainly due to the fact that not many clues were solved on first read. I was dodging all over the grid to finish this one. As usual I failed to spot a theme until I’d finished, as I tend to treat each clue on its individual merits without reference to what’s gone before. I don’t think it would necessarily improved my time if I had spotted the theme.
Anyway, well done Juno, a very well constructed crossword as far as I’m concerned.
Lawks-a-mercy, I spotted a theme, but where’s Mars? Is that Mars? Maybe there’s no Mars.
Slowly getting quicker this week. BAMBI LOI (?!), JUPITER biffed from J and theme, BROAD DAYLIGHT COD.
7:12
FOI EARTHY, LOI ROE. COD JUPITER, but miffed that I didn’t spot the theme until I came here. Complered in a similar time to yesterday’s, but I enjoyed it not so much as I felt that the setter was always looking for new (and by implication somewhat unfair) wys to bamboozle me, but, having read other comments above, now perceive that it was just my feeling. I am left with only EDEMA to gripe about: firstly, words like COLOR and MANEUVER have featured, appropriately flagged, in wordplay, but I have not seen them in an answer, secondly, I don’t think it is ever used in the plural, and if it were so used, the plural is u likely to be EDEMAS, and all that in one QC amswer. Thanks Juno and Doof.
I appear to be in a minority today as unlike our blogger I did not find this easy and unlike most commentators I did not find it either elegant or enjoyable. Too many clues biffed or put in from checkers and too many question marks in my mind for it to be very satisfying alas.
Broad daylight seems to me to be an odd clue – the daylight part is not really clued at all – and I had NHO Mercury switch (nor do I really understand rod = switch – is it an angling term?), so those two went in only after all checkers present and with some trepidation and a wee shrug. NHO Edemas either, in either the singular or plural, but at least it was a fairly easy-to-find hidden. Relapse was not a difficult clue, but it is not very politically correct – the people concerned use the word Sami for themselves and the L-word is only marginally less offensive to them these days than the N-word is to others. Shrug again. And Steven is my least favourite type of clue, viz a random name, in this case compounded by slightly loose cluing (even is not really the same as flat, unless one is talking about cricket pitches at Rawalpindi) – but as the answer clearly wasn’t Stuart, the only alternative 6 letter boy’s name beginning with ST I could think of, it too went in with a shrug. And when too many clues go in with a shrug it is Not a Good Day.
Goodness, I am a grumble-pumpkin today. Apologies to Juno – your bad luck it was your puzzle that coincided with my less-than-enthusiastic state of mind. Will try harder tomorrow.
Many thanks to Doofers for the blog.
Cedric
I think it’s rod/switch/cane in the sense of chastisement
Ah yes, thank you. Not a phrase (or a method of chastisement) I have ever used.
When I were a young golfer, the greenkeepers switched the greens early in the morning, meaning that they swished a long, long cane over them from side-to-side to knock the dew off the grass. If they greens still had dew on them when you came to play, they hadn’t been switched.
I entirely agree this was a horrible puzzle and had no place in a QC. An excellent puzzle though to make sure we discourage new puzzlers. By the way the plural of rhombus is rhombi and generally not buses al5hough it can be found it is rarely used.
Well, wonders will never cease. Not only did I spot the Nina before the end, but actually made use of it in 11ac, Jupiter. Likewise, a mercury switch is hardly a run of the mill electrical item, but again the Nina helped. Even so, I barely managed to squeeze in a sub-20 thanks to loi Adjacency – who would have thought a Disc Jockey clued adj rather than (adisc)* ? CoD to 22ac, Used Up, for the pdm. Invariant
25 mins…
Enjoyed this and liked the planet/gods theme – a rare example of actually spotting a Nina as I was doing the puzzle.
Main hold up was 15dn “Edemas” – oddly, I identified the hidden word early, but it didn’t register (I was thinking what on earth is an ‘eddymass’). 🙄
Liked 8ac “Broad Daylight” and 19ac “Mercury Switch”, whilst 18ac “Bambi” brought a sad tear to my eye.
FOI – 1ac “Earthy”
LOI – 15dn “Edemas”
COD – 7dn “Saturn”
Thanks as usual!
Trotted through this one until I had a slight holdup in the SE where I didn’t spot BAMBI and was torn between ENDS UP and EATS UP until the SWITCH was in place and BOWLS arrived. LOI USES UP. 6:51. Thanks Juno and Doofers.
I didn’t find this easy at all and struggled with the bottom half with EDEMAS, USES UP, BISHOP (what’s a BISH?) and STEVEN (don’t like these “name” clues) taking an inordinate amount of time to see. Liked the theme, though.
Why does “flat on street ” = steven … and not evenst?
. . .because for an across clue A on B = B + A (another one of those things like flower/flow-er that I’m afraid you just have to remember)
Thanks – nicely explained 👍
Our blogger wrote “E for Ecstasy is common enough, but I’m not sure about just sticking an S on the end to make the plural.”
Es are good, Es are good, he’s Ebeneezer Goode.
So sung The Shamen in their 1992 #1 hit that was drug references from start to finish. Great track of my youth. Went to a rave in a field once but never touched a drug
8 minutes. I saw the theme quite quickly (as Invariant says: wonders will never cease, although this was quite an obvious one) and that helped NEPTUNE, SATURN and JUPITER write themselves in. I also kept looking for Mars, and didn’t notice Venus tucked awaay in the bottom row.
I didn’t really understand the cluing for BROAD DAYLIGHT either and wondered if it was some sort of semi &lit, and nho MERCURY SWITCH, but did know rod = switch, so that helped.
Sorted for Es and Wizz – a Pulp song which means nothing to me – but shows you can have the plural 😅 L-plates must have posted above just as I was typing! Same era, I guess.
Nothing really stood out for COD although I did quite like BOWLS – amazing as cricket clues are usually lost on me! FOI Earthy LOI Uses up
Thanks Juno and Doof.
For the third day running, I found the biggie very approachable – finished in about 25 minutes. There’ll be a stinker tomorrow for sure!
Nice reminder on the Pulp song 👍 Disco 2000 was my fave by them
Thanks for the 15×15 tip off … 1hr50 with 3 words checked to get me home.
Well done! Onwards and upwards 😊 As I said, I’m expecting that Penny’s Law will kick in before too long – I have found this week’s biggies most enjoyable so far so something has to give 😅
This one was a nice relatively easy one for me, though USES UP had me stumped for a while.
Now to go deal with the cat who has broken into the cat nip sachet and is now on a high.
I’m another first-time theme spotter but I was still rather slow taking 21 minutes. Enjoyable though.
Back to normal after a total disaster yesterday. 34 minutes for me. No significant hold-ups, but few write-ins either. FOI was URANUS and LOI was USES UP. NHO SWITCH for ‘rod’ and was slow to parse EMBERS.
Mrs R finished in 24 minutes, which is about par for her at the moment. She is now doing battle with yesterday’s Wurm. I think I will keep out of her way for a while.
Many thanks to Juno and Doofers.
“EDEMAS” was my LOI, and I suspect it was the setter’s LOI too. If you ask one of those crossword help websites to list all the six letter words in English that can fill the gaps in the following: “_D_M_S” then it will return “no matches”. So we get an American spelling of the plural of a word which is almost never used in the plural. Still, when you’ve painted yourself into a corner, I suppose scraping the barrel can be forgiven.
Or rewrite the corner!
The plural of edema is edemata (as in stigmata, enemata). I have worked in clinical medicine for 42 years, including two years in Boston MA and have not once seen the word in the plural. That corner should have been re-written!
Another case of any complaints needing to be addressed to the lexicographers rather than the setter. The plural ending -s is specified as an alternative to -ata in SOED and in Chambers online. Suitability for inclusion in a QC is another matter and of course the setter must take responsibility for that but I assume he had no argument from the crossword editor!
Started very slowly with the across clues (better with the downs) and was therefore expecting a rather poor time. However I must have picked up speed because I was all done in 18 minutes, which I was pleased about. I noted what seemed to be a planetary theme on the way through, although didn’t spot Venus, but I never troubled to look for Mars. My medical knowledge is pretty poor so the US spelling and the questionable plural at 15dn never gave me a pause. BROAD DAYLIGHT went in from crossers without parsing.
FOI – 17ac DUSTPAN
LOI – 21ac STEVEN
COD – 3dn HADES
Edema not in my Oxford checker so MER there and do not like the plural of rhombus
All the usual dictionaries have RHOMBUSES as the preferred plural of ‘rhombus’ with ‘rhombi’ as an alternative. It has been the practice for decades now that imported nouns can take usually the standard English plural (adding -s or -es) rather than having to use the foreign language form.
As for ‘edema’ the clue specifies it as the US spelling and your checker may be rejecting it because it’s set to ‘English English’.
Struggled my way through this for a time around the 35 min mark. Can’t say I liked it, but I’m in the middle of a slump in form so perhaps it’s just me.
Very little came easily, although I did work out 19ac (which I had NHO) and 9dn.
Also NHO 15dn (my LOI) or the word ‘bish’ for blunder. Struggled to get 1dn and could have done without the ‘perhaps’ as this led me down blind alleys.
COD – 9dn, but I also liked 5dn.
At least it was an improvement on Monday and Tuesday’s performance, but, after my best week ever last week, I’m way off the pace and groping in the dark.
Thanks for the blog Doofers.
DNF this Times SLOW cryptic crossword. I actually had EDEMAS but binned it and gave up on the grounds “it couldn’t be”. And are MERCURY SWITCHes still used? Or am I simply too young to do the 13×13?
So much for Wednesday. Third dnf of the week. After reading the blog I realise there were clues I would never have solved e.g. Broad Daylight and Mercury (got the switch though)
But every day’s a school day and I missed some of the obvious clueing.
Thanks Juno and to Doofers for the explanations.
21:13
NHO MERCURY SWITCH but thanks to the obvious theme there were no problems.
edemas , the mas sounds like Mars
I liked this puzzle. Found it tough – over two hours in two sessions.
Finished after returning from 3 hours of bridge at a club – so quite focused
Parsed everything apart from Switch = Rod
Now time for bed!
Completing this a day late and I must say I rather liked it. Just outside the SCC, mainly due to LOI USES UP – too fixated on ‘consumes’ meaning ‘eats’. Have never seen EDEMAS (or rather ‘oedemas’) written in clinical notes but was happy to believe in the existence of a plural! Liked BROAD DAYLIGHT and RELAPSE. Biffed MERCURY SWITCH. Couldn’t parse BISHOP (thanks Doofers – NHO ‘bish’ for blunder). Tricky but entertaining. Thanks Juno and Doofers.