What delights does Warbler have in store for us with A TRIP OUT? A magical mystery tour? A druggy ‘trip’? Or maybe a wildlife safari – is that ‘OUT’ an anagrind, with TAPIR as A TRIP ‘out’?
The preamble asks the solver to find an extra letter in the wordplay of all but two clues – leading to a quotation, thus leading in turn to 8 entries around the perimeter, and a hidden author, ‘aptly’ displayed… All standard EV devices, although that ‘all but two’ was enough to introduce an element of uncertainty and double checking of clue parsing.
3D & 5D were quite ‘gettable’ early on, and seemed a good place to start – yielding lots of crossing letters. No complaints with the general (excellent) standard of clueing, and a few interestingly obscure words – ARSHIN, WRAXLE, CAUL(D) – which had me thumbing through Chambers to confirm.
The extra letters eventually fell out to give ‘ON WITH THE DANCE, LET JOY BE UNCONFINED’ – confirmed by a quick scan in ODG, once I could see ‘JOY’ and ‘UNCONFINED’, as I was familiar with the phrase, but not the source. Which was Lord Byron, and the quote is from ‘The Eve of Waterloo’.
So, in the end, we were ‘tripping the light fantastic’. Around the perimeter I spotted CHARLESTON first, and then more dances – helped by those two Js in the unchecked letter phrase – JIG; BEBOP; VALETA; TWIST; MINUET; JIVE; SALSA.
I found the 5 letters of BYRON – with two possibilties for the N – but struggled with the phrase ‘aptly displayed’ in the preamble. I looked for some way to involve ‘joy’, or maybe I needed some of the other Bs, Ys, R, etc. in the grid, joined up to make an ‘apt’ shape? In the end, I guessed that it was as displayed below, for my submitted entry. I think I have now twigged that I guessed right – the ‘ON’ has to be next to the first two letters of ‘SALSA’, to chime with the thematic phrase – ‘on’ with ‘the dance.’
I’m not sure if there was any significance of timing involved with the theme – was it the final of Strictly, that week? Anyway, to sum up: a very enjoyable EV from Warbler – ticked plenty of boxes on construction; extra letters; quotation; perimieter entries; and a hidden word! And nearly ‘trip’ped me up with that choice of Ns at the end!
(Presumably out of Warbler’s control, there were a couple of minor gremlins: ‘invered’, rather than ‘inverted’ in 15A; and an incorrect enumeration at 27A, which should have been 9 (or 5-4?), rather than 8.)
| Across | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Clue No | Extra Letter | Entry | Clue (definition in bold/ Logic/Parsing – extra letters in (B)rackets |
| 8A | O | ARSHIN | Measure swirling rain engulfing most of shop (6) / anag (i.e. swirling) of RAIN, around SH(O) – most of shop |
| 10A | n/a | INDRI | Mammal’s home found by deserted ruin oddly (5) / IN (at home) + D (deserted) + RI (odd letters of RuIn) |
| 11A | N | TABU | It is forbidden for drug head to miss last of treatment (4) / TAB (drug, tablet) + (N)U (nut, or head, without T – last of treatment) |
| 12A | W | OHMS | Leaders of scientific milieu who worked out SI units (4) / anag (i.e. worked out) of (W)HO + SM (first letters of Scientific Milieu) |
| 14A | I | TEREBRATE | Soak returned drunk, with a sting in the tail perhaps (9) / TER (ret, or soak, backwards) + EBR(I)ATE (drunk, intoxicated) |
| 15A | T | LLAMA | Cloth cap completely invered (5) / (T)AM (o’shanter, hat) + ALL (completely) – then inverted (gremlin – invered?) |
| 16A | H | FOY | Boat carrying fine parting gift (3) / (H)OY (boat) around F (fine) |
| 17A | T | AERY | Spiritual rector quits main channel (4) / A(T)ERY = ARTERY without R – rector |
| 18A | H | HOSANNA | Girl embraces old style expression glorifying God (7) / HANNA(H) (girl) around OS (old style) |
| 20A | E | VOCODER | Repaired old covered device for producing synthetic speech (7) / anag (i.e. repaired) of O (old) + COV(E)RED |
| 22A | D | CAUL | Net in Scottish weir (4) / double defn, of sorts – CAUL = net, CAUL(D) = Scottish weir, or dam |
| 25A | A | GAR | Pike is silver with a touch of red (3) / (A)G (Argentum, silver) + A + R (first letter of Red) |
| 26A | N | ROOPS | Leaving Spain Spooner abandoned hoarse sounds (5) / anag (i.e. abandoned) of SPOO(N)R -Spooner without E – Spain |
| 27A | C | ORANG-UTAN | Weirdly almost all nature can go ape (8, hyphenated) / anag (i.e. weirdly) of NATUR (most of Nature) + (C)AN GO (gremlin – 9 letters, or 5-4) |
| 29A | E | DAGO | In Madrid James takes part in groundage operation (4) / hidden word in grounDAG(E) Operations. ‘Dago’ being a (mis)pronounciation of Diego, Spanish for ‘James’ |
| 31A | L | ATOC | American fool trips over skunk (4) / A (American) + TO(L)C (clot, or fool, tripping over) |
| 32A | E | ENVOI | In translation even I love author’s last words (5) / anag (i.e. in translation) of EV(E)N I + O (love) |
| 33A | T | PURDAH | Placed dagger behind top of rood screen (6) / PU(T) (placed) + R (top of Rood) + DAH – dagger |
| Down | |||
| Clue No | Extra Letter | Entry | Clue (definition in bold/ Logic/Parsing – extra letters in (B)rackets |
| 1D | n/a | WRAXLE | In Falmouth grapple with bottom of anchor pin (6) / W (with) + R (last letter of anchoR) + AXLE (pin) |
| 2D | J | SHUT | Locked end of hatch juts out (4) / anag (i.e. out) of H (last letter of hatcH) + (J)UTS |
| 3D | O | TIME AND AGAIN | Don’t imagine AA’s constituent parts are changing repeatedly (12, 3 words) / anag (i.e. constituent parts are changing) of D(O)NT IMAGINE AA |
| 4D | Y | ISH | Scot’s issue is good-looking except for daughter (3) / ISH(Y) – DISHY (good looking) less D (daughter) |
| 5D | B | NIMBOSTRATUS | Rainbringer sadly burst boats after game (12) / NIM (game) followed by anag (i.e. sadly) of BOATS (B)URST |
| 6D | E | EDGAR | Poe’s unsettling – agreed? (5) / anag (i.e. unsettling) of AGRE(E)D |
| 7D | U | TRITON | Spin including current time of satellite (6) / T(U)RN (spin) including I (current) + T (time) + O (of) |
| 9D | N | NORTHER | Norwegian bird maintains height in gale (7) / NOR (Norwegian) + TER(N) (bird) around H (height) |
| 13D | C | MARC | Scotsman drinks most of vineyard brandy (4) / MAC (Scotsman) around (C)R – most of ‘cru’ – vineyard |
| 16D | O | FORETOP | Troop of engineers initially assembled nautical platform (7) / anag (i.e. assembled) of TROOP (O)F plus E (first of engineers) |
| 19D | N | NAOS | Bread distributed round very large temple (4) / NA(N) (bread) around OS (outsize, very large) |
| 21D | F | OARING | None succeeding in rowing (6) / O (none) + (F)ARING (succeeding) |
| 23D | I | UPROAR | University academician involved in earlier outcry (6) / U (university) + PR(I)OR (earlier) around A (Academician) |
| 24D | N | NAEVI | Tipping over middle of spanner damaged vein causing pigmented spots (5) / NA (middle letters of spANner, turned up) plus (N)EVI – anag (i.e. damaged) of VEIN |
| 28D | E | NARE | Old breathing hole’s close to last of ice (4) / N(E)AR (close) + E (last letter of icE) |
| 30D | D | GEO | Nearly all of druse found in creek in Orkney (3) / GEO(D) = nearly all of GEODE – or ‘druse’, a geological term |
Good blog as usual, mc, and a neat puzzle from Warbler. However, I think there’s an extra gremlin at work: in 24dn, AN aren’t the middle letters of spANner. Not that I can guess what it was meant to be.
Thanks Dave – and good point on 24D.
Can’t remember what my solving process was, but as I blogged it I put AN(N) as the middle letters of spANNer, with the N as the extra letter…but then there was also an extra N in the agaram of VEI(N) – so I changed it to AN –> NA, and promptly forgot to mention it!
I think I gave Warbler/the editor the benefit of the doubt by subconsciously reading it as ‘some of the middle-ish letters’ of spANner…
Thanks, mc. I don’t see what the shading is meant to represent, unless it’s the arms in some disco dance. Nice puzzle though.
I thought some of the clues were a little far-fetched, for example “faring” for “succeding” (I thought succeeding was faring well) or tablet for drug.
27A was also marked as being 8 long, and I didn’t count so didn’t get it. Apart from that, I don’t get any joy when I’m constantly reaching for the dictionary – so I guess it’s back to “Sun Quickie” for me!