I do enjoy Beelzebub’s very occasional forays into thematic/special instructions territory, and it perhaps wasn’t a huge surprise to find just such a puzzle on the Sunday before Christmas.
We were told that Solvers must shade cells containing letters ignored in wordplay
. Not knowing whether all of the wordplay was likely to be present for any particular clue did make for a slow start, but soon enough entries such as 19dn and 34ac slotted into place. Taking a leap of faith that the shaded squares would be arranged symmetrically paid off, and soon an image of a christmas tree was taking shape in the lower half of the grid.
That left a handful of clues with dauntingly little wordplay with which to work—in one case, at 32dn, there was none at all—but spotting a thematic message within the tree design helped a great deal, the letters omitted from wordplay spelling out A MERRY CHRISTMAS TO YOU.
All in all, good seasonal fun and a very enjoyable change of pace. You’ll have to help me out at 6ac/6dn though, where a trawl through the alphabet hasn’t yielded anything that I can find in Chambers.
*=anagram, []=dropped, <=reversed, cd=cryptic definition, dd=double definition.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | TOSSY – SOT< + S[uddenl]Y. |
| 6 | ..ER.E – Time for prayer having church support? Just the reverse (6). |
| 12 | AESTHETE – THESE* in ATE. |
| 13 | TEENAGE – (E’EN in TAG) + [hous]E. |
| 14 | FRESCO – FRES[h] + C. |
| 16 | RAETIAN – IT< in ARENA*. |
| 18 | ADVICE – AD VICE. |
| 20 | HAEMONY – NOME< in HAY. Apparently a magical plant in Milton’s Comus. |
| 21 | CLAIR – CLI[mbe]R. |
| 24 | CONSUME – CONSU[l]. |
| 26 | RECUSE – ECUS + E[uro]. |
| 29 | CHRONON – NO-NO<. |
| 31 | ARTIST – (T’ + RA)<. |
| 32 | MASTABA – A BA. |
| 33 | TABLETOP – TAB + LET + P. |
| 34 | EMBRYO – EMB[a]R. |
| 34 | THERE – THE + RE. |
| Down | |
| 1 | TETRARCHATE – (A TRACT THERE)*. |
| 2 | OREADS – READ in OS. |
| 3 | SLEEVE NUT – ([failur]E + EVEN) in SLUT . |
| 4 | SANTIM – SAN[e] + TIM[e]. |
| 5 | GAGA – GAG A. Nicely done: your “first joke”, to be followed by “gag b” &c. |
| 6 | .EE – Target top of shrine (3). |
| 7 | ETRIER – E + TRIER. |
| 8 | RHEUM – HE in RUM. |
| 9 | ETCH – it took a while to see the wordplay, but I think this is [f]ETCH, as fetch seems to fit “distance at sea”. |
| 10 | DEOXYGENATE – (E in (DOXY + GEN)) + ATE . |
| 11 | SAIC – CIA’S<. |
| 15 | SHOGUNATE – (GUN + A) in SHOT + E. |
| 17 | FAIR – A in IF<. |
| 19 | ELMY – EL, the Spanish definite article. |
| 21 | CURSER – CUE + R. |
| 22 | SCOTCH – CO in SCH. |
| 23 | ISOBAR – IS + O[utrage] + BAR. |
| 25 | STILB – + LB. |
| 27 | ERST – ET. |
| 28 | BRAE – BRA[v]E. |
| 30 | HAPU – P[aua]. |
| 32 | MOO – there is no wordplay here, and the definition is simply “low”. |
I had TIERCE for 6ac, which according to Chambers is one of the hours of the Divine Office, terce. I suppose a tier could be a support.
That gave me TEE for 6dn, which Chambers tells me is the target in quoits and curling, but I don’t know what the shrine is.
Apart from getting the word play in 32ac – thinking the second A should be shaded before realising what the message was – I don’t recall any other problems.
According to Chambers tee(3) is “The umbrella-shaped finial of a dagoba”
So it is. (Looks up “dagoba”.) I was suitably misled and was looking for a word for “shrine” starting tee-.
Sorry to be the spectre at the feast, but one of the principal reasons I love Beelzebub is that it is hard but absolutely straight. There are other places where rubrics are applied to barred puzzles, and I would go to them if I liked that sort of thing.
Having said that it would be churlish not to reciprocate the greeting. (FWIW I checked out the dagoba thing at the time of solving (he added smugly).)
Best to all.
Conrad