Inquisitor 56 THREESOMES by Lato
Posted by Colin Blackburn on February 2nd, 2008
It’s always difficult starting a puzzle with several different clues types. Here we had extra words in eight clues, misprints in six and no definition in two. That still leaves plenty of normal clues. I usually scan the clues hoping to find the normal ones first. Once there are a few letters in the grid the thematic clues are often easier to work out. This process threw up a couple of the extra words quite quickly. Having found dame, billionaire and slugger I realised that looking for similar descriptions of people might be fruitful. It was and the grid started to fall into place. What took me longer was the theme itself. I had tentatively penciled in EVERAGE for one of the unlued entries realising it fitted with dame. I then got 23a, DANE and saw that it was an anagram of EDNA. A couple of glances at the grid gave MARTIN as a possible answer fitting with DEAN (a crooner) another anagram of DANE.
So, I was looking for anagrams of the unlued entries hat gave names, initially I assumed gven names but in the end it included surnames. Oh, and there was a ship in there just to confuse things. The six misprints formed ACTORS, two of the thematic entries.
I had to look up (MYRA) BRECKINRIDGE a transexual but other than that I knew all the thematic elements.
The five thresomes are:
DANE
edna EVERAGE dame
dean MARTIN crooner
ARMY
mary ROSE ship
myra BRECKINRIDGE transexual
THRU
BABE ruth slugger
john HURT actor
MANOR
roman ABRAMOVICH billionaire
norma JEAN BAKER Monroe
LARDOON
CRISTIANO ronaldo footballer
orlando BLOOM actor
A blue asterisk, *, indicates the clues lacking a defnition. Red letters within the blue words are the corrected misprints. The remaining blue words are the extra words in the clues.
| Across | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 11 | AKEE | A+KEE(n) | I used to an AKEE being a fruit but I guess the must grow on something. | |
| 12 | OBTAIN | (IN BOAT)* | dame | |
| 13 | MORESCO | OR in COMES* | ship | |
| 14 | ETAS | impossiblE TASk | ||
| 15 | LOOKOUT | (ROOK – R) in LOUT | R = take | |
| 23 | DANE | DANTE – T | * | |
| 24 | INVAR | IN + VAR< | a RAV is a teacher, new one on me. | |
| 25 | NUTS | STUN< | loCo | |
| 27 | COUNTENANCER | NANCE in COUNTER | ||
| 33 | FOUSSA | (OF USA’S)* | a Madagascan civet appaently. | |
| 35 | LIMO | LI(t) + MO | billionaire | |
| 37 | LARDOON | RD in LAO + ON | * | |
| 39 | ISMAIL | ISM+AIL | Monroe | |
| 40 | ARMY | R in AMY | * | |
| 41 | THRU | TH’ + RU | * | I had this one marked as a normal clue until near the end as I convinced myself that ‘to follow’ defined THRU rather than serving as a connecting word. |
| Down | ||||
| 1 | JAMMY | MM in JAY | MM = gentlemen. | |
| 2 | HERR | EH< + RR | loRd | I’m not certain of an element of the word play here. RR = moderator, is this because RR = Right Reverend or is there another reason, Chambers offers no help. |
| 3 | NEE | “nay” | bOrn | |
| 4 | BASIC | AB< + SIC | footballer | ABS is more common than AB but it’s the abdominal muscle. |
| 5 | OBOLI | (I LO BO)< | ||
| 6 | OTT | TOT with T lowered | OTT = over the top. | |
| 7 | MANOR | “manner” | * | |
| 8 | ON TO | PRONTO – PR | ||
| 9 | SLAUGHTERS | A in SLUG + H + REST* | ||
| 10 | EASTER | SET* in EAR | ||
| 16 | RING | BORING – BO | bAnd | |
| 17 | KINE | KIN+E | transexual | KINE = cattle, KIN = catty, an eastern weight. Nothing to do with catkins! |
| 18 | IONA | ON in A1< | the A1 is the main London to Edinburgh road and the datum point for the English part of the fascinating UK road numbering system. | |
| 19 | SEAN | double def. | neT | |
| 20,36 | AVATAR | AV+A+TAR | AV = Avocat and the definition here is glorifcation. | |
| 21 | NANA | NARNIA – (R + I) | ||
| 22 | DUKE | K in DUE | slugger | |
| 26 | OCELOT | (siames)E in O+CLOT | ||
| 28 | TALMA | T(ouch) + ALMA | crooner | I’d not come across ALMA, a dancing girl, or TALMA, a cape, before. |
| 29 | NELIS | SILEN(t)< | ||
| 30 | NORMS | R in NOMS | ruleS | a cruel misprint this one I thought. I spent a fair while tring to make NORMS or NORMA fit without the misprint. |
| 31 | KANYE | KENYA* | KANYE West is an American rapper and record producer, m’lud. ‘slightly’ hints at the limited movement in the anagram. It’s not an extra word! As I thought for a short while. | |
| 32 | EMIR | (p)RIME< | ||
| 34 | SORA | ? | SORA is a rail (bird) but I don’t follow the word play “Rail crash essentially nothing criminal” The clue has no misprints or additional words unless I’ve made some mistake elsewhere. | |
| 38 | DAB | BAD< | ||
February 3rd, 2008 at 4:49 pm
“crash essentially nothing criminal” = (c)RAS(h)+ O anag = SORA
February 3rd, 2008 at 5:15 pm
Thanks Mike. Annoyingly I considered “crash essentially” = A but not RAS.
February 4th, 2008 at 10:18 am
2d Chambers defines Right Reverend as “a bishop, or Moderator of the Church of Scotland” so you’re right about RR.
11a It also gives AKEE first as a tree, then as its fruit.
February 5th, 2008 at 8:22 pm
This was a superb puzzle – I was delayed by writing in (Norma) JEAN in the top left where JOHN eventually appeared so I struggled with HERR too – I found the Moderator late also – if memory serves, it took three steps in Chambers RR to right right to reverend and then to revere and there’s the Moderator. Must try to remember it for the future.
I was very impressed with the consistent and imaginative thematic treatment, it cannot have been easy to fit it all in the grid.