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I noticed last week that the deadline for EV entries moved, with effect from number 1039, from Friday to Thursday. I guess we should be posting our blogs sometime on Friday now, in line with other competitions.
In this week’s Oxymoron, we had letters to be omitted from 23 entries to give a quotation, and the middle letters in the extra words of the remaining clues giving thematic words. We were helped by being given the lengths of the answers of the former clue type, rather than the entry lengths. Six unclued entries were also thematic, and a two-word ‘feature’ needed to be found and highlighted.
Despite being able to distinguish the two clue types, I still found this a bit of a tricky solve. Luckily, after about a third of the clues, I deduced VILLENEUVE and VICTORY starting in the top left. The quotation wasn’t the usual “England expects…”, but “Thank God, I have done my duty“, to be found under Last words in the ODQ. The middle letters of extra words in clues spelt out Bucentaure, Gravina and Collingwood.
So the lead players in the Battle of Trafalgar were: Horatio NELSON aboard HMS VICTORY with his second-in-command Cuthbert COLLINGWOOD, with VILLENEUVE aboard the BUCENTAURE and Spanish commander GRAVINA. Other ships involved were HMS TEMERAIRE and ships of the French Navy FOUGUEUX and REDOUTABLE, somewhat confusingly of the French Téméraire class.
And it all took place just off Cape Trafalgar, CABO TRAFALGAR, to be found in south-west Spain and the main SW-NE diagonal of the grid.
Legend:
Definition in clue and [extra word]
X = letter omitted from entries
YY = central letter(s) omitted from extra word in clues
ABC* = anagram
ABC< = reversal
abCDef = hidden
| ACROSS | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| No | Entry | Omitted/Middle Letters |
Clue and Explanation | |
| 1 | TAVERT | T | Bewildered Scots, tense, turn away (6) T (tense) + AVERT (turn away) |
|
| 7 | PHONIER | H | More fake honey in pie recipe (7) HON (honey) in PIE R (recipe) |
|
| 11 | VILLENEUVE | See preamble | ||
| 14 | TELERGIC | BU | Gretel badly [sunburnt] in Cuba is working at a distance (8) GRETEL* + I (in) + C (Cuba) |
|
| 15 | STEEPER | CE | Exercises in line [noticeably] become more difficult (7) PE (exercises) in STEEN (line) |
|
| 16 | LEANT | A | Inclined section of Tyrolean track (5) in tyroLEAN Track |
|
| 17 | TEMERAIRE | See preamble | ||
| 18 | TRANSEPT | N | Baroque pattern covering southern part of church (8) PATTERN* around S (southern); ‘baroque’ is a nice anagram indicator |
|
| 20 | FLANKER | K | Feminine and comparatively thin rugby player (7) F (feminine) + LANKER (comparatively thin) |
|
| 22 | MYSORE | NT | My [centre] provided engineers for an Indian city (6) MY + SO (provided) + RE (engineers) |
|
| 24 | GOLFERS | G | Broken legs for Charles and Norman perhaps (7) (LEGS FOR)*; reference to golfers Sir Bob Charles and Greg Norman |
|
| 26 | OSTLER | A | [Bad] groom lost out on retiring (6) LOST* + RE< (on, retiring) |
|
| 28 | RUFFLED | UR | Agitated pope showed [church] the way (7) RUFF (pope) + LED (showed the way; pope is another name for the freshwater fish, the ruff |
|
| 31 | MORTGAGEE | EG | Time to evaluate in rather [unintegrated] building society perhaps (9) T (time) GAGE (evaluate) in MORE (rather) |
|
| 35 | AERO | RA | [Operator] of aircraft, aged or retired (4) AE (aged) + OR< |
|
| 36 | PURLOIN | VI | Jack left nothing in — Nick [survived]! (7) PUR (jack) + L (left) + O (nothing) + IN; ‘pur’ is a jack in the old card game, post and pair |
|
| 37 | LIBERATE | NA | Free ecstasy and speed — politician’s first [lunacy] (8) E (ecstasy) + RATE (speed) preceded by LIB (politician) |
|
| 39 | REDOUTABLE | See preamble | ||
| 40 | COGGIES | O | Jock’s bowls deceive German that’s seventy (7) COG (deceive) G (German) IE (that is) S (seventy) |
|
| 41 | DARTER | D | Badly tarred freshwater diver (6) TARRED* |
|
| DOWN | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| No | Entry | Omitted/Middle Letters |
Clue and Explanation | |
| 1 | AVOSET | CO | A [homecoming] bird, one very old and determined (6) A (one) V (very) O (old) + SET (determined) |
|
| 2 | VICTORY | See preamble | ||
| 3 | RILLET | I | A very small brook runs above island hill northwards (6) R (runs) + I (island) + TELL< (hill) |
|
| 4 | TEEPEE | LL | Home of brave [Willie], Mark and Jimmy (6) TEE (mark) + PEE (Jimmy); ‘tee’ is the mark aimed at in quoits or curling and ‘Jimmy’ is short for Cockney rhyming slang, Jimmy Riddle |
|
| 5 | UNTEMPER | IN | [Drinks] destroy the self-control of secretary embraced by a French king (8) TEMP (secretary) embraced by UNE (a, French) R (king) |
|
| 6 | HEHE | H | Explosive male laugh (4, hyphenated) HE (explosive) + HE (male) |
|
| 7 | PULSAR | A | Almost beat Arabian star (6) PULS[E] (beat, almost) + AR (Arabian) |
|
| 8 | OVERALL | G | A lover composed [elegies], fifty including everything (7) (A LOVER)* + L (fifty) |
|
| 9 | VIRGER | V | Griever losing heart upset the caretaker at St Paul’s (6) GRI[E]VER* |
|
| 10 | ERECTOR | E | European clergyman’s muscle (7) E (European) RECTOR (clergyman) |
|
| 12 | AINEE | WO | [Overworked] senior apprentice forgetting transactions (5) TRAINEE (apprentice) – TR (transactions) |
|
| 13 | BEDFAST | D | Democrat replacing Liberal in British capital is unable to rise for Morag (7) BELFAST (British capital) with D (Democrat) replacing L (Liberal) |
|
| 19 | TARO | O | One of the food-plants that root regularly (4) regularly in ThAt RoOt |
|
| 20 | FOUGUEUX | See preamble | ||
| 21 | NELSON | See preamble | ||
| 23 | RENTFREE | N | Torn apart, unattached squatters live thus (8) RENT (torn apart) + FREE (unattached) |
|
| 25 | RETICLE | O | Charlie leaves broken electric grid [exposed] (7) (ELECTRIC – C (Charlie))* |
|
| 26 | OXALIC | D | Type of acid [feeding] heavyweight after neat cocaine (6) ALI (heavyweight) after OX (neat) + C (cocaine) |
|
| 27 | SEMEIA | E | Division marks in heraldry scattered in area (6) SEME (scattered, heraldry) I (in) A (area) |
|
| 29 | FERMATA | M | French mathematician introduces a musical pause (7) FERMAT (French mathematician) + A |
|
| 30 | DUNCERY | Y | Stupidity of civil engineer chasing horse on railway (7) CE (Civil Engineer) after DUN (horse) + RY (railway) |
|
| 32 | DORBUG | D | Beetle grub mashed by cook (6) GRUB* next to DO (cook) |
|
| 33 | GRADUS | U | Greek and Dutch covered by academician’s classical dictionary (6) GR (Greek) + DU (Dutch) surrounded by A’S (Academician’s) |
|
| 34 | TELLAR | T | Inform on a right sucker (6) TELL (inform) A R (right) |
|
| 38 | TORY | Y | Right-wing attempt to take over (4) TRY (attempt) taking in O (over) |
|
An enjoyable and educational puzzle and theme – at least to someone who didn’t take in much history at skool. I spotted ‘Trafalgar’ in the diagonal and then spent a while trying to find a right-angled word to make an arrowhead (the point?) at either end, before I thought to check what ‘Cabo’ meant.
Good point on the change in deadline – although I find it useful to have that Friday evening wind-down from the week finishing off the EV blog – I’m sure it would be a bit more stressful to do that on a Thursday!…