We last met Syd Lexis in Inquisitor 1249, more than a year ago. Welcome back! A long preamble indicated the importance of 1A and 1D:
Wordplay in each of six (not seven) across clues leads to a non-word answer containing a two- or three-lettered word which needs to be relocated in one of the other affected answers: while clues have 1 Across correctly sequenced, in the grid they appear in 1 Down. Single extra letters generated by the wordplay in each down answer generate a reference to a relevant performance. On completion of the grid, solvers should highlight the seven thematic words, plus a relevant name (23 cells in total).
Quite soon after starting I spent some time looking for EUMIS (hidden in 21A), and finally entered lightly EUSOL (an antiseptic solution). The importance of this did not dawn for quite a while!
After some successful solves, I had ?H?R?GH????E? for 1A and ?H?WR???O???? for 1D. Now those of you of a certain age (or who watched the recent television retrospective) might recognise these as “THE RIGHT NOTES” but in “THE WRONG ORDER“, a misquote from a famous Morecambe and Wise Christmas spectacular in 1971 with Andre Previn, or Andrew Preview as he was referred to by Eric Morecambe. In the sketch Previn conducts and Morecambe is the piano soloist in “Grieg’s Piano Concerto by Grieg”. Previn castigates him saying “You are playing all the wrong notes!”, to which Eric replies “I’m playing all the right notes, but not necessarily in the right order.” The extra down letters spell PREVIEW CONDUCTS MORECAMBE.
So the preamble was asking us to relocate notes, and the previous encounter with EUMI(s) and EUSOL indicated that we had to replace MI with SOL, and there would be five other similar substitutions. Another became clear in 13A, when OUTRAGE (Spenser’s word for clamour) minus O led to UTRAGE but the answer to the clue was MIRAGE so MI replaces UT
Locating them all was quite a task. We are looking for the sol-fa notes: UT (or do), RE, MI, FA, SOL (or so), LA and SI (or ti).
UT moves from 13A to 37A
RE moves from 15A to 39A
MI moves from 21A to 13A
FA is unmoved in 26A, AFARA
SOL moves from 29A to 21A
LA moves from 37A to 29A,
SI moves from 39A to 15A
Note that they occur in “the right order” in their original places (i.e. UT, RE . . . SI) reading from top to bottom, but after the move they occur as MI, SI, SOL, FA, LA, UT, RE i.e. “the wrong order”.
Finally we were to locate a relevant name. Two Zs near the bottom of column 6 seemed unlikely to be a coincidence, and sure enough there was GUIDO OF AREZZO, an eleventh century monk, the inventor of the sol-fa method of musical notation.
Highlighting GUIDO OF ARREZO + UT,RE,MI,FA,SOL,LA,SI took the required 23 cells.
There we have it. Very clever Syd. I could have wished that FA had been moved instead of (or as well as) SI, as Guido did not have a si/ti in his system, and that UT touched Guido as the other notes do, but apart from that an excellent solve.
So, many thanks to Syd for a first class crossword, with excellent clues and a superb musical theme, and for bringing back memories of some never-to-be-equalled comedy!
| Across Note Clues | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| No. | Clue (definition) | WP answer | Grid | Wordplay |
| 13 | Spenser’s clamour, nothing less, is something illusory (6) | UTRAGE | MIRAGE | OUTRAGE (Spenser’s clamour) minus O (nothing less) |
| 15 | Ford conceals unknown factor on edge of path (7) | WAYREDE | WAYSIDE | WADE (ford) round Y (unknown factor) + RE (re=on=concerning) |
| 21 | Petroleum is, in part, an antiseptic solution (5) | EUMI | EUSOL | Hidden in petrolEUM Is |
| 29 | Return for series or flux unit (5) | TESSOL | TESLA | SET (series) reversed + SOL (the heraldic tincture or) |
| 37 | Roll of wool – no good for flock (4) | ROLA | ROUT | ROLAG (a roll of wool) minus G(ood) |
| 39 | Headland with uranium is reversing obliteration (6) | RASUSI | RASURE | RAS (headland) + U(ranium) + SI (is reversed) |
| Normal Across Clues | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| No. | Clue (definition) | Answer | Wordplay |
| 10 | Capacity of Hebrew (+) pigeon (5) | HOMER | Double definition |
| 12 | Base William’s to leave, shielding soldiers’ fire? (7) | ELEMENT | E (base) + LET (Shakespeare’s leave) round MEN (soldiers) |
| 16 | Police organisation is certain Bond’s lost heart (6) | SURETE | SURE (certain) + T(i)E (bond) |
| 17 | Teases earth out of currants (4) | RIBS | RIBES (currants) minus E(arth) |
| 18 | South California retains love for Caribbean music (4) | SOCA | S(outhern) CA(lifornia) round O (love) |
| 20 | Author’s Caribbean estate (3) | PEN | Double definition |
| 22 | It’s prepared in the manner of Good Book’s translation… (5) | ITALA | IT + A LA (in the manner of) |
| 24 | …to make a careless mistake with drug provides a complication in the story (4) | NODE | NOD (to make a careless mistake) + E (drug) |
| 26 | Remotely, a tree growing in Africa (5) | AFARA | AFAR (remotely) + A |
| 28 | Crowd is endlessly cunning (4) | RAFT | (c)RAFT(y) |
| 31 | Large closed eddy from river round hill (5) | ROTOR | R(iver) + O (round) + TOR (hill) |
| 34 | What’s put on by Japanese (+) to bewitch (3) | OBI | Double definition |
| 38 | Man after maiden over has highest pitch returned (4) | MALE | M (maiden over) + E-LA (highest pitch) reversed |
| 40 | Old peer’s friend, one to annoy with clamour (7) | PALADIN | PAL (friend) + A (one) + DIN (to annoy with clamour) |
| 42 | Alter boundaries – hybrid in old enclosure’s beginning to escape (6) | REZONE | ZO (hybrid – nice to see its return!) in REN (old form of run = enclosure as in “chicken run”) + E(scape) |
| 43 | Turn sharply back in fight, not beginning to do as Gray did (7) | ELEGIZE | ZIG (turn sharply) reversed in (m)ELEE |
| 44 | A flaming rocket – new one in small furnace up north (5) | ONION | N(ew) I (one) in OON (Scots form of oven) |
| 45 | Trying to alter agreed terms I get on great in exchanges (13) | RENEGOTIATING | [I GET ON GREAT IN]* |
| Down Clues | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| No. | Clue (definition) | Answer | Wordplay | Xtra |
| 2 | Boastful, ardent couple… (6) | HOT-AIR | HOT (ardent) + |
P |
| 3 | …upset, rue rises, go out again (7) | REISSUE | [RUE |
R |
| 4 | Lead’s fine in Scotland (4) | GUID | GUID |
E |
| 5 | In this place short cardinal holds lesser clergyman back (4) | HERE | H(is) E(minence) round RE |
V |
| 6 | Backing the only one of its kind after father’s left drink (5) | NEGUS | SU |
I |
| 7 | 49-religious days observed by Basque organisation’s code of honour (6) | OMERTA | OMER (7 week period in Judaism) + |
E |
| 8 | Coming from the south wingless grasshopper with ends of nose growing out (5) | ENATE | |
W |
| 9 | Confirming reach covers useless, broken engine failing to finish (13) | STRENGTHENING | STRET |
C |
| 11 | Perhaps extinct bird turned up near Spain (5) | MAYBE | M |
O |
| 13 | In short written copy covers a benevolent creature with a Latin religious tome (6) | MISSAL | MS (written copy) round |
N |
| 14 | Theatre supported by young man providing partitions (5) | REPLA | REP (theatre) + LA |
D |
| 16 | Ian’s touchy with me informally over music! (4) | SAIR | |
U |
| 19 | Reptile gulps Californian city cigar (5) | CLARO | CRO |
C |
| 23 | Rag’s to prevent old gossip (6) | TATTLE | TATT (rag) + LE |
T |
| 25 | Believer’s to leave off (5) | DEIST | DE |
S |
| 27 | Cultivate European food (4) | FARE | FAR |
M |
| 28 | Opportunity with helpful woman in old tale of chivalry (7) | ROMAUNT | RO |
O |
| 30 | Plant special power over driver (6) | SPURGE | S(pecial) + P(ower) + URGE |
R |
| 32 | God’s to stop working on island bones (5) | RADII | RA (god) + DI |
E |
| 33 | Clips on-loose type of shoe (6) | SLIP-ON | [ |
C |
| 35 | Confine in a bundle, always in Scotland (5) | BAYLE | B |
A |
| 36 | Test player’s pop group in performance (5) | GREIG | {Tony Greig – cricketer}: GIG (performance) round RE |
M |
| 40 | Bard’s to live in deep hole in the village (4) | POET | |
B |
| 41 | Opposed one with restraint (4) | ANTI | AN (one) + TI |
E |
A real masterpiece in my opinion. It took me a long time, and a lot of googling (I’d never seen the Morecambe and Wise sketch, or heard of the ut….si notation), but it was worth it in the end. I didn’t quite manage to suss it all though…even after filling the grid, and finding all the thematic elements, I still couldn’t work out how ‘sol’ and ‘re’ were originally indicated in the clues (although I’d worked out where they must be), so thanks to Hihoba for pointing those out. Extremely subtle clueing. I was also convinced at first that the preamble had been misprinted…the references to 1A and 1D didn’t make sense until the sublime PDM!
The best sort of puzzle…a mass of confusion, but you just know that it’s going to slot into place if you just keep staring and staring…
And a history/entertainment/music lesson thrown in too! I agree that it would have been nice if ‘ut’ touched ‘Guido’, but the grid must’ve been almost impossible to produce as it stands, so that’s hardly a criticism.
Bravo Syd Lexis…it’s worth waiting a year when they’re this good, and thanks to Hihoba for completely unravelling it.
Wow! We comleted the grid but failed at the last hurdle!
Thanks Hihoba for explaining the ‘si’ and ‘re’ in 15 ac. We were hooked on ‘do’ for factor and completely missed the relevant word – on! DOH!!
Having completed the grid we kept on coming back to the puzzle to identify the relevant character. We hate to admit it but in desperation we decided it must be 36d – the composer of the relevant concerto but didn’t notice that the spelling was wrong.
Thanks Syd Lexis – a very enjoyable puzzle. We only wish we had noticed that the notes really were in the correct order and had identified Guido. Our admiration for the puzzle has increased since visiting the blog. Please don’t wait so long for the next one!
We’ve just had a thought – 36d contains all the right letters for the composer but not necessarily in the right order!
Very true! Good point Bertandjoyce (#2). I’m not sure whether it is relevant, but interesting! I did wonder at one stage whether it was the name to highlight, but gave up on it as it was too short.
It may be me being thick, but surely in the EUMIS/EUSOL example given, the transposition is not in accordance with the preamble? Otherwise it would end up as EUSOLS? I knew what was going on but when I struggled with this conundrum (it was my first to try to transpose) and couldn’t resolve it, I kinda gave up
Anyone?
It wasn’t actually EUMIS, I had the S in to try to make it 5 letters before I understood it properly. It was actually EUMI. The preamble does indicate the exchange of 2 for 3 and 3 for 2 letters.
I found this a real challenge with lots of potential misleading byways and alleys. I got the “right notes in the wrong order” parts quickly (the BBC’s current Saturday night reruns of M&W helped jog the memory- coincidence ?) but finding the notes wasn’t that easy and some came about only through some reverse engineering, including “ut” in 37ac which I’d never heard of.
Before then I had another, relatively short thankfully, mental detour, with a possible Simpsons connection with 10ac- Homer and “doh” ?
Thanks to Syd Lexis and Hihoba, great stuff !
This was tough going but I got there in the end, helped by remembering the original M&W sketch. Thanks Hihoba for explaining where the RE in 15a comes from and the SOL in 29a; both “on” and “or” were too well hidden for me! Thanks to the setter as well for another challenging Inquisitor.
A lovely puzzle I thought, with its double theme of the Morecambe & Wise sketch plus Guido of Arezzo’s invention of musical notation. Many thanks to Syd Lexis for the entertainment & education (though I didn’t find the puzzle as difficult as others seem to have done).
I agree with Hihoba (to whom thanks for the blog) that it was a shame that FA wasn’t also one of the relocated notes – I can’t see that it would have been that hard at all to slip it into the wordplay of a clue between 21a (MI) & 29a (SOL) and redo one of the others. (Having said that, FA would then have been the middle note in not only the scale but also the grid entries, so in some sense ‘in the right order’ in both.) But I’m not really moaning – nice one Syd!
Loved this one, but it took me much longer than average for an IQ. Once the penny dropped with 1A and 1D, progress accelerated but I spent a *LOT* of time scratching my head on both 29A and 39A, two of the affected clues.
Lovely observation by bertandjoyce at #3, that didn’t click for me, despite thinking at the time it was close to the composer’s name.
Many Thanks Syd for the challenge and hihoba for another great write-up.
I had it all except the original Tessol for 29a even though Tesla was evident. It was clear where the swap went but was it so or sol. Knowing that there were 23 cells to be highlighted confirmed sol. Not much to add except praise for an excellent puzzle and thanks to Syd Lexis and Hihoba.
Gorgeous puzzle. I couldn’t quite complete the note-shuffling, so thanks to Hihoba, and of course Syd Lexis.
And then I got sad, because I couldn’t think of a comparable comedy sketch or event in the last twenty five years or so.
And you can split your sides again at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7GeKLE0x3s. Unequalled!
I was wondering whether Syd L got his inspiration from BertandJoyce’s blog for the Indy Prize cryptic no 8429 (19/10/13). They had trouble parsing 6d CAVEAT; I quote:
C (conservative)……… well that’s as far as we got! We looked at hAVE A GO AT losing the H for hospital and then thought about GOSH (Great Ormond Street) for the hospital but then what happens to the S? It was a bit like the famous Eric Morecambe quote – the letters may be there but not necessarily in the right order!