Although I got to the ‘bottom’ of the theme quite quickly, the second variation had me chasing my own tail, and even barking up the wrong tree, for a while. But(t), it was the more feline clue at 20A which had me stumped the longest.
Anyway, allow me to introduce myself to the group: my name is ‘mc_rapper67’, and I am a crossword-aholic. Like many of you, (I’m guessing), I suffer from a time-wasting form of OCD (Obsessive Crosswording Disorder). I have solved and submitted the EV for many years now, and have been the proud recipient of the ‘distinctive’ Telegraph fountain pen on at least three occasions. This is my first blog, so please be gentle with me!…
Most of the non-thematic clues rolled off the pen in good order, and the grid soon filled up nicely to suggest ‘TELEPHONE’, ‘NAME’ and ‘CITE’ for Variation A – which all seemed to have ‘CALL’ in common. Variation C had three four-letter words with what looked like a common set of letters: ‘A’, ‘G’, ‘E’ and ‘N’. Linking this with the use of ‘curvaceously’ in the preamble, and the notion of the Three Graces as ‘beauty personified’ led me to CALLIPYGEAN – CALL + IPY + GEAN. (From the Greek ‘kallos’ beauty, and ‘pyge’ buttock = ‘having beautiful buttocks’.) This also explained why WELL was being added to the bottom of three down lights – INK, BRIDE and FARE – with the ‘w’ in a nicely rounded lower-case font, as per the preamble.
(I guess Rustic is an admirer of the more well-rounded female form from behind – and/or in possession of such a form, if Rustic is a she?!)
But, what of that middle section – IPY – and its associated variations: 8D ‘ELPY’, 9D ‘AP_’ and 39A ‘A_KB’? A quick trawl of paper- and laptop-based reference material, and some popular online search engines, only yielded ‘International Polar Year’ for IPY; while ELPY sounded like a phonetic rendition of LP – so no joy or logic to either of these lines of thought. It was a head-scratching while before I recalled an old childhood game we used to play with our grandfather – taking the first letter (or two) from a word and putting it at the end to make a secret code – to finally get Y-IP and its variations Y-ELP, Y-AP and B-ARK.
Ank-th ou-y ery-v uch-m, Ustic-r!
| Across | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Clue No | Length | Entry | Derivation/logic |
| 1A | (8 hyphenated) | TWO-FACED | Double defn of TWO-FACED – false, and Roman god Janus |
| 7A | (4) | GENA | Variation C – anag of GEAN |
| 10A | (4) | NAME | Variation A – synonym of CALL |
| 11A | (6) | PHILIP | PP (abbrev for parish priest), with HILI (scars) ‘carried’ inside |
| 12A | (6) | LOURY | Homonym – artist LOWRY and LOURY (scowling) |
| 13A | (6) | CRISPY | CR (abbrev for councillor) + I + SPY (observe) |
| 16A | (3) | YOB | Reversal of BOY (lad) |
| 18A | (4) | PLOW | P (from plane) + LOW (near the ground) gives US spelling of Plough (constellation) |
| 19A | (4) | OMSK | OK (correct) ‘retaining’ MS (manuscript) |
| 20A | (4) | PURR | Well – this stumped me for ages – how can it be cryptic? ‘The sound of a cat (4)’. Looks like a straight-forward definition of PURR, which fits! Schoolboy error – look closely…’a’ can mean ‘per’, as in ‘£3.50 a pint? You must be kidding!’, and PER is a homonym for PURR – brilliant! |
| 22A | (6) | HIKERS | Anag of SHRIKE |
| 23A | (4) | WERY | WRY (cross) about E (from election) gives WERY – Sam Weller (in Pickwick Papers) tended to mix his Vs and Ws, giving WERY for VERY (extremely) |
| 24A | (4) | COLT | Doube defn COLT means to beat, and is also a type of pistol |
| 26A | (6) | PEACOD | Another one that took a while – I was trying to fit PECOD (maybe an alternative spelling of ‘Pequod’ from Moby Dick?) around A, but couldn’t find a definition of a ‘fish pod’. Turned out to be over-analysing it – P and E are the ‘surroundings’ of PiroguE + A + COD (fish) gives PEACOD (a pod). |
| 27A | (4) | NELL | Homonym – girl’s name NELL sounds like KNELL (sound of a bell) |
| 28A | (4) | AMYL | AMY (may ‘converted’) + L (Liberal) |
| 29A | (4) | CITE | Variation A – synonym of CALL |
| 30A | (3) | ENG | Double defn – ENG is an abbreviation for engineering, and also the phonetic symbol for ‘ng’ |
| 36A | (6) | LAGERS | LAAGERS (defensive formations) less A (American) |
| 37A | (5) | SCRAE | S and E are the ‘outside’ of ‘some’, with anag of CAR inserted |
| 38A | (6) | ORNERY | Anag of NERO + RY (railway) gives ORNERY, American variant of ORDINARY |
| 39A | (4) | ARK-B | Variation B – BARK – synonym of YIP – top to tail |
| 40A | (4) | EVEN | EVEN is most of (run up to) EVENT (festival) |
| 41A | (8) | FORESAIL | FAIL (as in ‘bottle it’) around anag of ROSE |
| Down | |||
| Clue No | Length | Entry | Derivation/logic |
| 1D | (8) | TELEPHONE | Variation A – synonym of CALL |
| 2D | (8) | WOODLICE | WO (variant of WOE, or misfortune) + anag of COILED |
| 3D | (4) | ONUS | BONUS (extra payment) less B (a billion) |
| 4D | (4 + 4) | FARE+WELL | Double defn of FARE, augmented with WELL |
| 5D | (4) | CECA | Contained word from ‘FranCE CAbbies’ gives CECA, American variant of CAECA (pouches) |
| 6D | (6) | EPRISE | Half of stEP + RISE (mount) |
| 7D | (4) | GIST | IS in GT (abbreviation of ‘gutta’, medical term for a ‘drop’) |
| 8D | (4) | ELP-Y | Variation B – YELP – synonym of YIP – top to tail |
| 9D | (3 – not 4!) | AP-Y | Variation B – YAP – synonym of YIP – top to tail |
| 14D | (3 + 4) | INK+WELL | IN + K (from kettle), augmented with WELL |
| 15D | (7) | PORTAGE | PORT (drink) + AGE (mature) |
| 17D | (5 + 4) | BRIDE+WELL | B (from Beau) + RIDE (journey), augmented with WELL |
| 20D | (8) | PEACOCKS | PEA (seed) + COCKS (piles of hay) |
| 21D | (8) | RYOTWARI | Anag of IT and YARROW gives RYOTWARI (Indian system of land tenure) |
| 25D | (6) | EMBRYO | Anag of BIOMETRY less IT |
| 31D | (4) | GANE | Variation C – anag of GEAN |
| 32D | (4) | AGEN | Variation C – anag of GEAN |
| 33D | (4) | TSAR | T (from thirst) + SAR (Scottish form or savour, or taste) |
| 34D | (4) | ARBA | B-ARBA-RIAN (foreign) less BRIAN gives ARBA (screened wagon) |
| 35D | (3) | ZOE | ZO (form of ZHO or DZO – hybrid/cross Himalayan cattle) + E (European) |
Great début blog, mc_rapper67.
Rustic is a male, who would have had no trouble getting the puzzle past the EV crossword editor…
Cheers for the blog.
This puzzle seemed ‘to nice and easy’ 30ac ENG I didn’t put in because it looked too simple – §the first three letters of the cluing? I managed 90-92% of this puzzle but 1dn as TELEPHONE and 20ac as PURR ? I’m kicking myself now looking back at the answers I didn’t bother to put in because I was looking too hard for more obscure solutions.
So I’ve learned that ‘looking too hard for something usually means you find nothing’!
Nice to meet you mc rapper67, thanks for debut.
I looked up -callipygian |?kal??p?d???n| (also callipygean)
having well-shaped buttocks.
but variations of telephone call etc…. I instantly thought ‘thats not going to be it’ even though the 3 Graces being women an all.
I feel an idiot.
nmsindy/jake – thanks for making me feel welcome – it was a bit nerve wracking – didn’t want to make an @ss of myself, especially given the theme of the puzzle!
mc_rapper67.
Although I’ve only been using this site for a year or so, I’ve found everybody here to be very welcoming and kind, and very helpful with clues I’ve managed to not solve. As with your own
blog, very informative.
Nice one.