It’s always a pleasure to blog an Oxymoron (or Schadenfreude!) puzzle, and this one was titled A Figure produced by Oxymoron—intriguing!
Only eleven misprint clues this week, the balance being made up of two unclued entries and twenty-nine normal clues. The misprints gave an entry, minus one word, to be found in three editions of The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, and luckily one of my two (5th) is included. A fairly short quotation by the sound of it then.
A fairly straightforward solve this week, with the alternatives of TYRE and TIRE at 15dn causing the only perplexity. It was only when I was tackling the bottom left corner that I noticed the preponderence of Xs and Ys in the grid, and guessed that they would be crucial. Indeed, with the corrections to misprints finally showing Egghead weds…, my ODQ revealed a headline, completed by the word hourglass, attributed to Variety in 1956 on the marriage of Marylin MONROE to Arthur MILLER, the two unclued entries.
It didn’t take long to highlight the hourglass in the completed diagram produced by four occurrences of OXYMORON in the grid. This finally fixed 15dn as TYRE. Great fun.
Legend:
Definition in clue
ABC ABD = correction to misprints in clues
X = Correct letter in misprints
ABC* = anagram
ABC< = reversal
abCDef = hidden
| ACROSS | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| No | Entry | Correct Letter |
Clue and Explanation |
| 1 | TOTARA | E | A TO (for) TA (army) around (circling) AR (autonomous region) |
| 6 | PSOCID | A louse from Ohio arrested by detectives chasing police sergeant (6) O (Ohio) in (arrested by) CID (detectives) chasing (after) PS (police sergeant) |
|
| 11 | MONROE | Unclued | |
| 12 | EPOXY | G | Setter’s penultimate rotten E (penultimate letter of settEr) + POXY (rotten) |
| 13 | RONDO | Rector to proceed with the same musical composition (5) R (rector) + ON (proceed) + DO (=ditto, the same) |
|
| 14 | BRIXTON | Prison Times penned by UK citizen (7) X (times) in (penned by) BRITON (UK citizen) |
|
| 16 | ODIN | G | I endlessly [i]ODIN[e] (I, chemical symbol) |
| 17 | AESC | Ash or horse-chestnut chopped in half (4) AESC[ulus] (horse-chestnut) |
|
| 18 | STRIATE | Condition holding (keeping) Rex and I marked with streaks (7) STATE (condition) keeping R (rex) + I |
|
| 20 | ARMOZINES | Silk materials left out of normal size supply (9) (NORMAL SIZE – L (left))* |
|
| 23 | SHIRE-MOOT | Medieval court fee in Scotland, low when held in street (9, hyphenated) HIRE (fee) + MOO (low) in ST (street); ‘in Scotland’ seems superfluous as it doesn’t appear to be a particularly Scottish meaning |
|
| 27 | COCOYAM | Gas company has permission to back West African plant (7) CO (gas, = carbon monoxide) + CO (company) + MAY< (has permission to) |
|
| 29 | PERI | Fairy queen in state of confusion (4) ER (queen) in PI (state of confussion) |
|
| 30 | ORYX | Railway crossed by bovine African beast (4) RY (railway) in (crossed by) OX (bovine) |
|
| 32 | UNBONES | Cooked buns wrapping undivided fillets (7) BUNS* outside of ONE (undivided) |
|
| 34 | PROXY | Substitute pair of variables (5) PR (pair) + O (of) + X + Y ((two) variables) |
|
| 35 | RONES | Copy reduced square features of a Glasgow roofscape? (5) RONE[O] (copy, reduced) + S (square) |
|
| 36 | TOERAG | H | GREAT* about O (nothing) |
| 37 | ARTIST | It’s up with star performer (6) (IT + STAR)* |
|
| 38 | MILLER | Unclued | |
| DOWN | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| No | Entry | Correct Letter |
Clue and Explanation |
| 1 | THEBANS | More than one Greek girl’s kicked out of Elizabethan high society (7) (ELIZABETHAN – ELIZA (girl))* + S (society) |
|
| 2 | OSPREY | E | OS (very large) + PRY (nose) holding (inhibiting) E (European) |
| 3 | TAOISTIC | American is to broadcast short work concerning a Chinese philosophical system (8) (A (Amerrican) IS TO)* + TIC[k] (work, short) |
|
| 4 | ROY | Bathsheba’s lover has no time for this man (3) TROY (Bathsheba’s lover) – T (time) |
|
| 5 | AN MO | Maureen’s following a new massage system (4, 2 words) MO (short for Maureen) after A N (new) |
|
| 6 | PRONTO | A | Prince aware of PR (prince) + ON TO (aware of) |
| 7 | SORER | More afflicted old soldiers nursed by sister (5) O (old) + RE (soldiers) holding (nursed by) SR (sister) |
|
| 8 | COND | D | Conservative director CON (conservative) + D (director) |
| 9 | INDITE | W | Old-fashioned T (tenor) in (adopted by) INDIE (record company) |
| 10 | DRONE | E | Drawer attached to single DR (drawer) + ONE (single) |
| 15 | TYRE | Tube runs inside common land in places (4) R (runs) in TYE (common land, dialectic) |
|
| 19 | ANTENNAL | Final backing by Newton bolsters analysis of a sensory organ (8) NET< (final) + N (Newton) in (bolsters) ANAL (analysis) |
|
| 21 | ZORB | 2000 yellow and black concentric spheres (4) Z (2000, old Roman) + OR (yellow) + B (black) |
|
| 22 | SCISSOR | Cut is bandaged by Red Cross (7) IS in (bandaged by) CROSS*; ‘red’ = revolutionary? |
|
| 24 | HORROR | D | O (of) R (king) R (run) O (over) in H (front of His) R (queen) |
| 25 | MAUMET | An idol encountered carrying gold money (6) MET (encountered) carrying AU (gold) M (money) |
|
| 26 | FREEZE | S | sounds like FREES (releases) |
| 27 | COPRA | Source of oil soldiers obtain at the front (5) RA (soldiers) + COP (obtain) in front |
|
| 28 | YO-YOS | Only half of your jumping bean goes up and down (5, hyphenated) YO (half of YOur) + SOY< (bean) |
|
| 31 | YONT | More distant Scots somewhat unhappy on trial (4) in unhappY ON Trial |
|
| 33 | NORM | Girl, not athletic type (4) NORMA (girl) – A (Athletic) |
|
| 35 | RAI | Popular music active in Ocean State (3) A (active) in RI (Rhode Island, the Ocean State) |
|
An interesting and fun solve – thanks to Oxymoron, and Dave H for the blog.
My a-ha moment was also the suspicious number of Xs and Ys at the left-hand extremities of the eventual figure – although I wasted a lot of time thinking it was a flattened ‘figure’ of eight, until I eventually found the quote.
Strange that the preamble didn’t mention the unclued entries, which were fairly key to the denouement?…
Yes, I saw figure-of-eight too for a while, before the penny dropped. A pleasant solve, got the idea that OXYMORON might be the non-thematic word quite early which helped me to get into the top half.
Thanks for the blog.