A tasty treat of a puzzle – maybe at the easier end of the EV spectrum, once the nicely topical theme had been cracked.
The solver was to find four unclued entries making an interim ‘product’, which had to be treated according to an another unclued entry, and then moved thematically, to reveal the final product. Corrected misprints in 28 clues suggested a potential hazard if this movement occurred unsuccessfully, and four further undefined entries would give common accompaniments.
As luck would have it, I didn’t start this until the Tuesday after publication, and I spent the train journey home from London fitting in as many non-thematic entries as I could, while mulling over the fairly complex preamble. As I walked through the door, my senses were assailed by the sound of excited children, the smell of lemon juice and golden syrup – and the ‘plop’ of an unsuccessfully tossed pancake hitting the floor. ‘Here’s Daddy, he’s a much better tosser than Mummy’ – or at least, I think that’s what she said – and it all fell into place, soon after.
The interim product is 19A – ‘batter’ – made of the unclued EGG, FLOUR, MILK and SALT, each with plenty of crossing letters to help work them out. This interim mixture had to be entered in lower case and flipped over, so the ‘b’ makes the ‘p’ of pANCAKE, down from the square numbered 19. Accompaniments were LEMON, SUGAR, JAM and ORANGE. The corrected letters gave ‘OUT OF THE FRYING PAN, INTO THE FIRE’.
Personally, I found the clueing relatively gentle, but enjoyably so, and quite a few of the misprints were easy to spot. The lower case/flipping device was a nice touch. CRUORES (blood masses, or clots), PAREIRA (climbing plant) and LAPJE (South African cloth, or rag) were new to me, as well as ORZO (pasta, in 24D), so a bit of Chambers referencing was required, once these clues had been parsed.
Anyway, I was thinking of giving up crosswording for Lent – but it is hard when they are as tasty and enjoyable as this one!…
| Across | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Clue No | Misprints | Entry | Clue, with corrections in bold / Logic |
| 1A | LOWER CASE | See preamble (9, 2 words) / Unclued – thematic deduction |
|
| 8A | EGG | Unclued (3) / Unclued – thematic deduction |
|
| 11A | O | CRUORES | Vintage gold excites vacuously blond blood masses (7) / CRU (vintage, as in wine) + OR (gold) + ES (ExciteS emptied, or vacuous) |
| 13A | ORANGE | Love to take sides (6) / O (love, or zero/nil) + RANGE (to take sides, line up) Undefined – ‘accompaniment’ |
|
| 14A | U | GOOSE | Dick’s Duck’s larger relative goes running round circuit (5) / anag (i.e. running) of GOES, around O (circuit, or lap) |
| 15A | T | EMERGE | Issue our out edict initially to combine (6) / E (initial letter of Edict) + MERGE (combine) |
| 17A | O | EATS | Ford Food river tides emptied (4) / EA (river, or running water) + TS (TideS emptied) |
| 18A | F | PAREIRA | Rapier disfigured amateur climber bound found in India (7) / anag (i.e. disfigured) of RAPIER, plus A (amateur) |
| 19A | batter | Be impatient for old-timers overcoming the resistance (6) / BATE (obsolete for be impatient) around T (the), plus R (resistance) Undefined – ‘PRODUCT’ – entered in lower case, and flipped over |
|
| 21A | FLOUR | Unclued (5) / Unclued – thematic deduction |
|
| 22A | T | LAPJE | Surround judge beginning to efface Mandela’s cloth bib bit? (5) / LAP (to surround, or enclose) + J (judge) + E (beginning of Efface) |
| 24A | H | BEAUNE | Perhaps write white wine books – slave historically gets gold for his! (6) / B (books) + E-AU-NE (ESNE – slave – with AU – gold – for S – his, possessive indication) |
| 26A | E | ENHALOS | Salon he disrupted adds gloaming gleaming covering to head? (7) / anag (i.e. disrupted) of SALON HE |
| no num | SALT | Unclued (4) / Unclued – thematic deduction |
|
| 30A | F | RETAMA | Soak a short bloke slower flower in the desert? (6) / RET (soak) + A + MA (MAn, or bloke, cut short) |
| 31A | R | DATUM | Slung mud at numbed number set presented? (5) / anag (i.e. slung) of MUD AT |
| 32A | Y | DIGITS | Taunt Italian soldier at first – there’s two of these in forts forty(6) / DIG (taunt) + IT (Italian) + S (first letter of Soldier) |
| 33A | I | SKIDOOS | Sons pretend on outsize ace ice vehicles? (7) / S (sons) + KID (pretend) + O (on) + OS (outsize) |
| 34A | N | SEC | Tenor leaves party dry when describing wife wine (3) / SEC = SECT (party) minus T (tenor) |
| 35A | G | ONIONSKIN | Oik on inn’s broken very thin pane page (9) / anag (i.e. broken) of OIK ON INNS |
| Down | |||
| Clue No | Misprints | Entry | Clue, with corrections in bold / Logic |
| 2D | P | OCREA | Old race destroyed bit of a slant plant? (5) / O (old) + anag (i.e. destroyed) of RACE |
| 3D | A | WHAM | Crush Crash weak actor (4) / W (weak) + HAM (actor) |
| 4D | N | ERNEST | Nerd undressed to lodge map man of intent (6) / ER (nERd, stripped) + NEST (to lodge) |
| 5D | I | REGRATE | Historically left lift price on cage? (7) / RE (on, or regarding) + GRATE (cage) |
| 6D | N | ARREAR | Academy’s right to hold up movies monies due? (6) / A (academy) + R (right) + REAR (raise, or hold up) |
| 7D | SUGAR | Lookout post’s abandoned by navy (5) / SUGAR = SUNGAR (look-out post) minus N (Navy) Undefined – ‘accompaniment’ |
|
| 8D | T | EROSION | Run out during clamour over easing eating away (7) / ESION (NOISE – clamour – turned over) around RO (run out, as in cricket) |
| 9D | O | GEST | Old story about live love images teases somewhat (4) / hidden word in ‘imaGES Teases’ |
| 10D | NOSEBLEEDS | Noble sees about taking diamonds for haemorrhages (10) / anag (i.e. about) of NOBLE SEES + D (diamonds) |
|
| 12D | T | SEPARATIST | ESA ETA member, perhaps, upset space artist abandoning corps (10) / anag (i.e. upset) of SPACE ARTIST minus C (corps) |
| 16D | H | EEL | Strip bit of pad off fist fish (3) / EEL = PEEL (strip) with P (bit of Pad) taken off |
| 20D | E | APHOTIC | Apparently stop response – one can’t set see in such a place (7) / AP (abbrev. of apparently) + HO (stop, interjection) + TIC (response) |
| 21D | F | FACTION | Force lawsuit for partly tactual factual work (7) / F (force) + ACTION (lawsuit) |
| 23D | JAM | Journal’s backing mother (3) / J (journal) + AM (MA, or mother, backed up) Undefined – ‘accompaniment’ |
|
| 24D | I | BORZOI | Bug Big dog in the same place about eating pasta (6) / BI (IB, or ibidem, Latin – ‘in the same place’, raised) around ORZO (pasta) |
| 25D | R | USAGES | Flag ecstasy held by American two or move more customs (6) / US (American), around SAG (flag, or tire) plus E (ecstasy) |
| 27D | LEMON | The French madam’s tipsy (5) / LE (‘the’, in French) + M (Madam) + ON (drunk, or tipsy) Undefined – ‘accompaniment’ |
|
| 28D | LATHI | Stick strip in (5) / LATH (strip) + I (in) |
|
| 29D | E | CAKE | Clubs lay hold of topless rich broad bread(4) / C (Clubs) + AKE (tAKE, lay hold of, topless) |
| no num | MILK | Unclued (4) / Unclued – thematic deduction |
|
Thanks for the positive write-up, and I’m pleased that you enjoyed the puzzle. Most feedback received privately has been very positive, but I’d like to apologise to the two silvers I’ve heard from who thought it wasn’t clear whether just the first letter of BATTER, or the whole word. The answer is that one is surely meant to flip the entire interim product, or one would end up with a final product that looks most unappetising. Unfortunately after my culinary disaster on the day itself, I’d have been happy with just flipping part of the product. In my case, the message from misprints should have read “out of the frying pan onto the floor”!