Qaos is this morning’s setter.
I found this at the tougher end of the Qaos spectrum. The puzzle had his trademark numbers in it, as usual, but even when you’re expecting them, they can still throw you off guard. It took me ages to see the parsing of CITY and EIGHTH, but in the end, with the help of a little sporting knowledge for RUSHMORE and OVERTHROWS, I got there. If there is a theme to the puzzle, I can’t see it, but that’s not unusual for me as I’m normally too busy parsing clues to notice the emergence of a theme.
Thanks, Qaos
| ACROSS | ||
| 8 | JUBILANT |
Jack built new houses: a number on top of the world (8)
|
| J (jack, in a pack of cards) + *(built) [anag:new] houses A + N (number) | ||
| 9 | CLEAR |
Obvious Charlie’s King (5)
|
| C (Charlie, in the NATO phonetic akpabet) + (King) LEAR | ||
| 10 | MANY |
Removing a corner from wood stacks (4)
|
| [removing] A + HOG (“corner” as in “corner the market”) from M(a hog)ANY | ||
| 11 | DARJEELING |
Japanese fish served in wild leaves (10)
|
| J (Japanese) + EEL (“fish”) served in DARING (“wild”) | ||
| 12 | MEMOIR |
In 2000, Spain rejecting port’s account (6)
|
| In MM (2000, in Roman numerals), E (internal vehicle registration code for “Spain”) + [rejecting] <=RIO (“port”) | ||
| 14 | NOVEMBER |
Time period at the heart of Romeo and Juliet? (8)
|
| N (NOVEMBER, in the NATO phonetic alphabet) lies halfway between [at the heart of] R (Romeo) and J (Juliet) | ||
| 16 | ATHEIST |
I don’t believe helium is found in a nucleus of matter (7)
|
| He (chemical symbol for “helium”) + IS found in a A + [nucleus of] (ma)TT(er) | ||
| 18 | INSTEAD |
At home with special hot date? Rather! (7)
|
| IN (“at home”) with S (special) + *(date) [anag:hot] | ||
| 21 | WHITENER |
Frenchman retired after shake with artificial milk (8)
|
| <=RENE (“Frenchman”, returned) after *(with) [anag:shake] | ||
| 23 | ENDING |
Finish mailing out 17 (6)
|
| (s)ENDING (“mailing”) with S (son, the answer to “17” down) out | ||
| 24 | STIR-FRYING |
Cooking mash first then the ultimate in jelly-filled doughnut (4-6)
|
| *(first) [anag:mash] then [the ultimate of] (jell)Y filling RING (“doughnut”) | ||
| 26 | MIST |
Film society hosted by Cambridge University (4)
|
| S (society) hosted by MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology (a “university” in “Cambridge”, USA) | ||
| 27 | LEWES |
50 close to farms keep sheep in Sussex town (5)
|
| L (50 in Roman numerals) + [close to] (farm)S keep EWE (“sheep”) | ||
| 28 | ASTEROID |
Radio set played rock (8)
|
| *(rado set) [anag:played] | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | BUDAPEST |
American friend’s a nuisance in European 2 (8)
|
| BUD (“American friend”) + A + PEST (“nuisance”)
The 2 in the clue refers to 2dn (CITY) |
||
| 2 | CITY |
100,120 went off football team? (4)
|
| C (100 in Roman numerals) + I (one) + T(went)Y with WENT off | ||
| 3 | WANDER |
Wife more majestic once King George departs to ramble (6)
|
| W (wife) + (gr)ANDER (“more majestic” once GR (George Rex, so King George) departs) | ||
| 4 | STARING |
Looking for our sun, perhaps, in edge of galaxy (7)
|
| STAR (“our sun, perhaps”) + IN + [edge of] G(alalxy) | ||
| 5 | ACRE |
Measure the holy soul (4)
|
| Soul (centre) of (a)ACRE(d) (“holy”) | ||
| 6 | SEX-LIMITED |
To secure vote, Reform lied with items like male pattern baldness? (3-7)
|
| *(lied items) [anag:reform] to secure X (vote) | ||
| 7 | GRANDE |
Singer in terrible danger (6)
|
| *(danger) [anag:terrible]
Refers to American singer Ariana Grande. |
||
| 13 | OVERTHROWS |
Public arguments involving husband’s ‘extras’ (10)
|
| OVERT (“public”) + ROWS (“arguments”) involving H (husband)
In cricket, if the ball is returned to the wicket area, but is missed by the fielder at the stumps, a batter may be able to make an extra run or two, and these could be considered as extra runs, although not extras in the purest sense (byes, wides, leg byes, no balls), hence the quotation marks around extras in the clue. |
||
| 15 | VAN |
Hooligan ignores young bloke reversing vehicle (3)
|
| VAN(dal) (“hooligan”) ignores <=LAD (“young bloke”, reversing) | ||
| 17 | SON |
Uplifting new Big Issue (3)
|
| [uplifting] <=(N (new) + OS (outsized, so “big”)) | ||
| 19 | AGNOSTIC |
Sceptic’s odd actions over the origin of God (8)
|
| *(actions) [anag:odd] over [the origin of] G(od) | ||
| 20 | ARTISAN |
As seen, Bogart is a naturally skilled worker (7)
|
| Hidden in [as seen] “bogART IS A Naturally” | ||
| 22 | HOTELS |
H-h-housing? (6)
|
| H is HOTEL in the NATO phonetic alphabet, so HH would be HOTELS (“housing”) | ||
| 23 | EIGHTH |
What describes authority to abolish leader’s position? (6)
|
| EH (“what” did you say) describes (r)IGHT (“authority”) with its leader abolished | ||
| 25, 26 | RUSH MORE |
Former Liverpool striker regularly worried about header from Mason Mount (8)
|
| (Ian) RUSH (“former Liverpool striker”) + [regularly] (w)O(r)R(i)E(d) about [header from] M(ason) | ||
| 26 |
See 25
|
|
The theme is Wes Anderson movies: Rushmore, Asteroid City, Grand Budapest Hotel, Darjeeling Limited, and the filmmaker himself Wander Son.
Well done Tim @1. I didn’t even look, but this theme would maybe have been within my range.
I solved CITY quickly because I was hoping 1D would be one, which it was. I was pleased to solve and parse NOVEMBER quickly too, sometimes you feel like you dodged a bullet.
For balance, I was dim about GRANDE (having dismissed it), didn’t parse the partial anagrams when solving WHITENER or STIR FRYING and took a while with EIGHTH.
I liked DARJEELING, OVERTHROWS, RUSHMORE and INSTEAD.
Thanks Qaos and loonapick
Bit trickier than I usually find Qaos.
I couldn’t see a theme but did spot BUDAPEST and HOTELs and having not watched that I assumed it was along those lines.
Enjoyed NOVEMBER and my last one in DARJEELING
Thanks Qaos and Loonapick
I was pleasantly surprised to finish this after struggling to get started. Being a Liverpool fan helped with RUSHMORE and I’ve heard of Ariana GRANDE, but only in a previous crossword! There were several I failed to parse including ACRE and MANY, also NOVEMBER was a guess as I couldn’t be bothered to work out the alphabetic position. Enjoyable once I got going, Thanks to Loonapick and Qaos.
Thanks Q and L. My usual experience with Q – some answers have to be what they are, then come here for parsing.
Loonapick- slight typo for ACRE. It should be (S)ACRE(d).
Also, I’m confused by the ‘s in the clue for CLEAR. Anybody tell me what it’s there for, other than readability?
‘MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology (a “university” in “Cambridge”, USA)’
Loonapick seems to be implying that MIT isn’t a real university, and that Cambridge in Massachusetts doesn’t deserve the name.
Quite tricky, an enjoyable challenge with some quirky clues.
I could not parse 5d apart from the def = measure.
New for me: WHITENER = artificial milk; footballer Ian RUSH (for 25/26) – my loi today.
Favourites: DARJEELING, CITY, WANDER, MANY, NOVEMBER, EIGHTH, HOTELS.
I could not tell what the theme was although I have seen the film Grand Budapest Hotel and I know of the director. Clearly I am not a big fan – I think I saw 2 or 3 of his films and they all seem the same to me!
I disagree, MAC089@6 – Loonapick has put quotes round those words to indicate that they are in the clue, as he has throughout the blog. MIT is very much a real university, and Cambridge Mass is a very real part of metropolitan Boston! Anyway, I found this tough going in parts, but very enjoyable indeed. Thanks to Loonapick for unpicking a couple of bits of parsing that eluded me – for 21ac I spent ages trying to work out how “whit” could mean “shake”… hey ho.
Tough and ingenious stuff, and a theme I missed and know almost nothing about (at one time I thought it might be Guns’n’Roses with NOVEMBER Rain and Paradise CITY, but that’s all there was). Didn’t understand NOVEMBER, ACRE, HOTELS, EIGHTH or RUSHMORE (football, innit?); thought the WHIT was a very stretchy synonym for shake=a little bit, and only at the very last did I spot ARTISAN.
Liked DARJEELING (Japanese fish are in the same league as Bolivian poets), JUBILANT, LEWES, GRANDE, VAN, ASTEROID.
Me @5 – Second cup of coffee has sparked a few more brain cells into life, and I now see CLEAR is Charlie HAS King, rather than Charlie IS King.
I had to reveal a few, and use the Check button for others, but at least I remembered for once that there is another Cambridge University 🙂
I was delighted to see that at least two others shared my joy in finally deciphering ‘with’ in 21ac: a delicious chortle as the penny dropped.
I’m in complete agreement with moh @8 re 26ac: I always enjoy those ‘Cambridge University’ misdirections and this was a particularly good one.
Other ticks were for JUBILANT, CLEAR, MEMOIR, NOVEMBER, INSTEAD, ASTEROID, CITY, WANDER and SON – lovely surfaces throughout, as ever
Since I wasn’t blogging the puzzle, I didn’t at all mind missing the theme, although there obviously was one, as usual.
Many thanks to Qaos for a lot of fun and to loonapick for a great blog (which I read in the very early hours, during a spell of insomnia).
Super challenge with a lot of tricky parsing. I counted six clues, which involved removing letters, which seems a lot in one puzzle, although I’m far from complaining, I really enjoy the device. The numerical clues were also fairly clued. JUBILANT, DARJEELING and NOVEMBER were my standouts. For all the hype about Mo Salah, Liverpool will never see another like RUSH, with 346 goals in all competitions. It should also be pointed out that Mason Mount plays for Man Utd, their greatest rivals.
Ta Qaos & loonapick.
I meant to add @12 that there’s a whole lot more fun to be had with Goliath (Philistine) in the FT:
https://www.ft.com/content/8aa4acb9-8a21-4e7a-8680-76bfdde3082c – I feel really spoiled today.
NOVEMBER and MANY had to go unparsed – way too difficult; I couldn’t parse VAN or ACRE, either. CITY is a great clue; I also liked EIGHTH, BUDAPEST and DARJEELING.
I figured the Wes Anderson theme after spotting the Grand Budapest Hotel and some googling… I think LEWES (a jorum for me) may also be thematical. Thanks Qaos and loonapick!
Just couldn’t enjoy this. Too much struggling with parsing when the solution was clear from crossers. The theme being outside my GK didn’t help. Thanks both.
Didn’t spot the theme (even though, like michelle, I’ve seen some of the films and know of the director).
Thoroughly puzzled by 14A, a guess based on the crossers (made mental note to check later if the play takes place in that month).
I figured 13D must be some sporting term – possibly baseball or american football, about which I know nothing. Wrong there, too – though my knowledge of cricket is only a fractionally less minuscule.
6D was another guess – as was
DARJEELING, an especially lucky one, since I would never have connected wild with daring and know as much about Japanese fish as cricket, baseball, American universities, Liverpool football players….
Under the circumstances it’s a flaming miracle I completed the thing!
At least I’d heard of Ariana Grande and King Lear.
Thanks Qaos & loonapick
I had a good few unparsed, needed help via Word Wizard for a few clues, and eventually revealed two. But none of this was at the expense of enjoyment: as tricky as it was, it was never a slog.
When the first two that went in for me were AGNOSTIC and ATHEIST I began to believe (or not) that there might be some kind of theme going on. But I see that idea was very wide of the mark today. Wasn’t too enamoured with J representing both Japan and Jack in same puzzle. But in the end this was above my pay grade today, so well done those who managed to complete it…
Doing this in the ad breaks of a streaming soap, missing bits of parsing thru inattention, like hog=corner in the mahogany subtraction. Tricks like ’20 went off’ are a bit silly, but that’s the fun! Beaut puzzle, thx Q and loona.
I took the N at 14a as the central letter of Romeo aNd Juliet! So much for (1963, Scotland) O level arithmetic.
Unlike most solvers, I like the numerical clues as they give me a sure way in.
Couldn’t see the theme, but a satisfying puzzle nonetheless.
Thanks to Qaos and to loonapick for sorting out some impenetrable (to me) parsing.
I convinced myself that haitch was an alternative way of spelling aitch and put in Haitch for HOTELS. Unlike AlanC, I struggled with all the subtractions, but I enjoyed the puzzle.
[Juliet is not in the NATO alphabet, but Juliett is; I think this is to avoid ambiguity in the pronunciation.]
Solved OVERTHROWS without the slightest idea of what it meant. Even by cryptic standards, this piece of cricket arcana seems a bit much.
I parsed NOVEMBER as Jack@21
Like others, missed the WHIT derivation too. And the theme of course.
FOI RUSHMORE, being of a certain age (btw get well soon King Kenny and KK – YNWA)
Great crossword and thanks to night owl loonapick.
Jack@21 – I think I prefer your parsing for NOVEMBER!
Strictly speaking, the heart of “Romeo and Juliet” would be “nd”, I suppose, but then “n” for NOVEMBER would still be at the heart (together with the “d”).
And, as GrahamH@24 points out, “j” in the NATO alphabet is Juliett, not Juliet.
Thanks to Qaos and loonapick.
Way too hard for me!! Solved about half of them. Will learn from the other half!
Quite a tough one in my opinion. I finished it, but missed parsing for 10. MANY, 11. DARJEELING (I was trying to fit around LING), 14. NOVEMBER (clever!), 5. ACRE and 23. EIGHTH (EH so often catches me out).
Thanks loonapick for the elucidation and Qaos for the mental work-out.
Without giving setters a pass on the perennial Juliet/t debate, going back years, we might as well say goodbye to this much beloved couple in crossword land
I thoroughly enjoyed this and spotted the theme, though I’m kicking myself for missing W.ANDER SON. I always like a bit of Qaos!
Too hard – got bored. Only solved about a third of the clues. The parsing of MANY and EIGHTH would never have come to me.
I’m getting better at these. Managed to parse everything except NOVEMBER & ACRE.
gladys@9 – just for clarity WHIT in 21a is not parsed as a synonym for shake – it’s an anagram of “with” with “shake” as the anagrind (as loonapick said in the parsing).
Is there any signifance of EIGHTH as the position in 23d, other than fitting the rest of the surface?
Thanks Qaos & loonapick.
Completed, but looking forward to confirming the parsing on several.
Thanks both.
On the basis that I don’t have a Danny who Wes Anderson is, it’s just as well I didn’t search for a theme.
Looking forward to the day when we have a theme pitched at my level (football, cricket, birds, golf…), though I guess many on here would find that intellectually insulting.
Nearly wore out the check button this morning; thanks to loonapick for sorting out some of the parsings I missed (ACRE, CITY and WHITENER among them). Nevertheless I enjoyed the wrangle and it was very satisfying when I finally realised what was going on with all the Hs in LOI HOTELS. Thanks to Qaos for the entertainment.
Good fun but tougher than usual for Qaos, I thought. I liked Jack building new houses and becoming JUBILANT (could have used jerry-built here as an alternative), all the misdirections in DARJEELING, Romeo and Juliet’s NOVEMBER, STIR-FRYING with ‘first’ unusually anagram fodder, CITY, which I only got after solving BUDAPEST, and Bogart as an ARTISAN in hiding. I failed miserably to parse MANY and ACRE.
Thanks Qaos and loonapick.
well done, loonapick – I would never have parsed many of these … a toughie from Qaos but none the worse for that.
Thanks for the blog , very good set of clues and tough in parts . MANY a neat subtraction , also ACRE and EIGHTH . ATHEIST a clever construction and DARJEELING was very misleading .
RUSHMORE surely refers to Ellen RUSH of COLSCWP , career goals over 700 , although technically she was a driver not a striker .
Nic@28 , you need to be more stubborn , have a break and try again later , often works . You had the rest of your life to solve this .
J for Jack@21, doing the arithmetic myself after your remark, I see we must be pretty much of the same vintage. Latin and General Science were some of the other subjects I sat then, the latter two becoming quite useful from time to time with these Cryptics…
When it’s Qaos, if the theme isn’t obvious I don’t bother looking for it, because (as is the case here) it will be built around something I know nothing about.
I would never have parsed NOVEMBER, CITY or MANY — or RUSHMORE, for that matter, so hat’s off to you, loonapick.
I’ll try the FT puzzle later, Eileen, when I wake up again. Thanks for it.
And thanks to Qaos and loonapick.
I originally had EIGHTY for 23D, being (W)EIGHTY, as in “having authority”, but it didn’t quite fit the description; and the final check rejected the last letter, so I bunged in EIGHTH unparsed. Thanks, loonapick, for showing me how it works.
As GrahamH@24 points out, the NATO alphabet has “Juliett” rather than “Juliet” ; it’s neat, though, that N falls midway between J and R.
Tough but fair, overall, for me. DARJEELING, nearly my LOI, was a fave.
Thanks both!
HIYD @35 – I can hear the gnashing of teeth from certain quarters if any of those (particularly the sporting ones) appeared as a theme. In my case, I wouldn’t spot a theme even if clue 1 started with “Today’s theme is …”
Just the sort of puzzle I love. A first glance at the clues makes me think it is beyond me, but gradually it all falls into place. PS “male” pattern baldness is not confined to men of course, though much rarer in women. Humans walked on the moon over half a century ago, so you’d think putting an end to God’s little joke wouldn’t be beyond us, would you …?!
Lots of ingenious clues and smooth surfaces. As always with Qaos, a few parsings eluded me. One of these days I will remember that “Cambridge university” is _always_ MIT in Guardian cryptics.
I was happy to write in CLEAR almost instantly… and that was about the last thing I got on my first pass until CITY (which came instantly). 23A and D were my LOIs, and purely by coincidence they were my least favorite clues in an otherwise very enjoyable puzzle.
[RUSH MORE – is anyone prepared to bet that Tr*mp won’t order one of the presidential faces to be re-chiselled into his?]
I found this tough, even by the standards of Qaos, but enjoyed the struggle. TTS&B
I got the theme right after I entered the last answer. Better than not at all, I suppose.
On Sunday I was at the other well-known American “Cambridge University”, but for obvious reasons Harvard doesn’t make its way into too many clues. [Just to complete the picture, there is also Lesley University in the same city. Would be very surprised to see that one show up in a G. puzzle.]