I found this a bit of a struggle! Nice theme, but well hidden and dependent on knowledge that I, for one, could only come by via a Wikipedia article. The last time we met Wickball he was “standing on the shoulders of giants” with Sir Isaac Newton more than a year ago. This theme could hardly have been further away from that one!
A short preamble stated “Except for the unclued 25, clues to themed answers comprise wordplay only and word-counts refer to grid entries; all other clues are normal. Sixteen cells reflecting the entry of the themed answers must be highlighted in the final grid.”
Note to self – Read the preamble carefully. What I didn’t notice was that 25A was one of the themed answers!
There was (were?) a number of unusual words in the grid, but the main difficulty lay in knowing neither how many themed answers there were nor where they were! I spotted that 32D must be one as it was RAMA (Vishnu) round H (head of Hindu), so the grid entries could not be real words. 15A seemed to be RELIGION, but then became difficult when IONA and HOTHOUSE made it R??NGTO?. RINGTONE with the E promoted? Surely not. There were some possibilities if I added letters to the beginning of the word, including ORPINGTON, ARLINGTON and BURLINGTON. RAHMA was BRAHMA without the B, so might 15A be ORPINGTON without the O? I googled “Orpington Brahma” and came up with this little gem on YouTube – Brahma vs Orpington. So breeds of chicken were the theme, and headless ones at that.
By now I had enough information in the grid to spot HEADLESS running down from the square below 19 and CHIC at 6D was clearly going to be the start of CHICKENS. This made 20D solvable as a word I’d never heard of KENSPECK (a kiss from Kenmac?), and led me to the six wordplay-only chickens. I thought there were seven, but 39A which I thought might be (A)SIL (SO ILL not terminal) turned out to be a red herring (red hen?).
Now the title began to make sense, it was SEVEN FOWL beheaded and 25A which I had tentatively identified in the early stages as ATHEISM AND GOD, turned out to be RHODE ISLAND RED, another headless chicken as the rubric clearly stated (but I hadn’t read properly as indicated above!)
So we had:
1A CORNISH
15A ORPINGTON
25A RHODE ISLAND RED
43A LEGHORN
8D MINORCA
24D WYANDOTTE
32D BRAHMA
The phrase to be highlighted was HEADLESS CHICKENS and shortly afterwards the remaining blank spaces had yielded.
There is no way I could have solved this without internet access and my trusty PC version of Chambers, so hats off to anyone who did! Thanks to Wickball for keeping me out of mischief for a day or two.
I don’t think the diagram leads itself to any animation, so it is just reproduced below with the headless chickens in red..
| Chickens | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| No | Clue | Fowl | Wordplay |
| 1A | Armed men turn in quietly (6) | CORNISH | OR (armed men) + IN reversed + SH (quietly) |
| 15A | One overlooked in old printing correction (8) | ORPINGTON | [O + PRINT(I)NG]* |
| 25A | Unclued | RHODE ISLAND RED | |
| 43A | Like a brass instrument (6) | LEGHORN | E.G. (like) + HORN (brass instrument) |
| 8D | Old SA royal with heart of gold (6) | MINORCA | INCA (old South American royal) round OR (gold) |
| 24D | Second person that was entertaining and fulsome (8) | WYANDOTTE | YE (second person that was) round AND OTT (fulsome) |
| 32D | Vishnu embraces Hindu leader (5) | BRAHMA | RAMA (Vishnu) round H(indu) |
| Across | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| No | Clue (definition) | Answer | Wordplay |
| 5 | Unfairly evict after note making (7) | FACTIVE | FA (note) + [EVICT]* |
| 13 | Phased out or phased in? Change of direction not popular (8) | ORPHANED | OR + PHANED which is PHASED IN minus IN (not popular) and N in place of S (change of direction) |
| 16 | Split trusts boycotting instant account (3) | ISA | This was the last one to get the wordplay for. Remove ISA from INSTANT and you get NT..NT – i.e. two National Trusts. |
| 17 | Largely damaged old-fashioned alarm (6) | SCARRE | Most of SCARRED (damaged) |
| 18 | Parasite finding space at inside of swelling (8) | NEMATODE | EM (space) + AT in NODE (swelling) |
| 22 | Deposit in bank holds cross (4) | ANKH | Hidden in bANK Holds |
| 23 | Overheard confession of violence that may be false (7) | EYELASH | Sounds like I LASH |
| 27 | Soldier’s defence role mimic adopted (7) | PARAPET | PART (role) round APE (mimic) |
| 30 | Northern soil gathered in East London? (4) | EARD | Sounds like HEARD in Cockney. |
| 33 | Objective private secretary gets through binding part (8) | ENDPAPER | END (objective) + PA (private secretary) + PER (through) |
| 36 | Biased joiner bandaging broken leg (6) | ANGLED | AND (joiner) round [LEG]* |
| 39 | So ill, but not terminal (3) | SIC | SICK with no end |
| 40 | Furs are just right for ornate chest (8) | FITCHETS | FIT (just right) + [CHEST]* |
| 41 | Fellow damaged his foot in working unit (8) | MANSHIFT | MAN (fellow) + [HIS]* + FT (foot) |
| 42 | A drunk teacher rejected some in higher class (7) | ARISTOS | A + SOT SIR (drunk teacher) reversed |
| Down | |||
| 2 | Supplementary enclosure holds one in SA city (7) | RIPIENO | PEN (enclosure) holds I (one) all in RIO (South American city) |
| 3 | Climbing a first choice Hebridean island.(4) | IONA | A + NO I (number one) reversed |
| 4 | Very delicate old solver wearing socks (8) | HOTHOUSE | THOU (old solver – you are the solver!) in HOSE (socks) |
| 5 | Thallus maybe found unacceptable over river (5) | FROND | FOUND, non-U (unacceptable) round R(iver) |
| 6 | Smart card has integrated circuit on top (4) | CHIC | First letters of Card Has Integrated Circuit |
| 7 | Weaver utilising odd scraps from trashcan (4) | TAHA | Odd letters of TrAsHcAn |
| 9 | Advanced bit by bit to make thrilling degree day, bad year forgotten (5) | EDGED | [DEGED]* – DEGED is DEGREE DAY minus YEAR |
| 10 | Particle smasher’s energy drops a notch (5) | CRENA | CERN with E(nergy) dropped a place + A |
| 11 | Gadget largely deployed by US force (4) | GISM | Most of GISMO |
| 12 | Boosts, for I achieved high point when spinning round (8) | EGO-TRIPS | GOT (achieved) in SPIRE (high point) reversed |
| 14 | Smitten father aroused about onset of parenthood (5) | ÉPRIS | SIRE (father) reversed round P(arenthood) |
| 19 | Leading man in adult promotion (5) | AHEAD | HE in A(dult) + AD (promotion) |
| 20 | Ailsa’s conspicuous knowledge covers not very much (8) | KENSPECK | KEN (knowledge) + SPECK (not very much) |
| 21 | Spanish village supplied by local dealers (5) | ALDEA | Hidden in locAL DEAlers |
| 26 | Muscle changing voter’s allegiance? (7) | ERECTOR | ELECTOR (voter) with L changed to R |
| 28 | Primate adopts earliest of notions about lack of inspiration (5) | APNEA | Reference to breathing: APE round N(otions) + A(bout) |
| 29 | Eastern strain given lively airing (6) | RAGINI | [AIRING]* |
| 31 | Turned out once after demand – finally – to settle. (5) | DREST | (deman)D + REST (settle) |
| 34 | Local dukes collected fines (5) | NEIFS | Fists: [FINES]* |
| 35 | Constant royal support (4) | PIER | PI (constant) + ER (royal) |
| 37 | More of the French strangeness? No way! (4) | LESS | LES (the French) + S(trangeness) – of quarks |
| 38 | Pukka article holding first of claims up (4) | ECHT | THE round C(laims) reversed |
| 39 | Old king had end away in special hospital (4) | SHAH | HA(D) (end away) in S(pecial) H(ospital) |
Thank you Hihoba for very clear blog – I struggled for quite a while with 16A to get ISA.
I think most of the clues were not too challenging, and I could parse some of the words I had never heard of from the word play, and then look them up to see if they exist. I always like the logic of this – as in “I have never heard of that word but it must be . . ..”
Then, looking it up and finding that it really is a word that fits the definition.
I found the theme hard to crack. I followed the maxim of “if in doubt see if the puzzle title is an anagram”. Well, this gave me NO VOWEL – which led me a bit of a dance.
Eventually, _RPINGTON was the key.
And it was only after completing the puzzle that I got the significance of the title.
My anagram attempt was NEW LOVE – which didn’t help either!
No reference to Mike the Headless chicken who lived for 18 months? Oh, well.
Hey Hi – thanks for the name check. I didn’t finish this one, in fact I got nowhere near.
However, a kiss from me would be more than a peck and not forgotten easily 😉
We also struggled this one. The key for us was _YANDOTTE. Joyce remembered that she had come across a word with these letters in a previous crossword but could’t remember the initial letter or what the word meant! A search soon sorted out the answer. The significance of the missing letter then became apparent but we needed Wiki to uncover some of the other fowl.
Near the end we realised the significance of the title which helped us work out how many themed answers were left in the grid.
Thanks to S & B!
Further to Bertandjoyce at 5, I think that many non-crossworders think we are clever because we know some very obscure words.
But, it’s often the case that we only know them from long term crosswording.
I remember a few years ago being in a pub and overhearing two couples discussing ‘etui’ as an answer . . . . a word none of then had ever heard of before. Neither had I until I started doing crosswords.
Has anyone ever come across it in a novel or anything?
Ten bob postal order for the first successful reply.
I managed to get everything except for the ‘Hode Island Red’. I too understood the preamble to mean that 25A wasn’t like the other thematic entries, so I spent days trying to find a suitable phrase, but ultimately failed.
I’m kicking myself now.
jonsurdy@6 We were really pleased to come across a collection of little boxes once. We were very pleased to find that we understood the labels for these. If we hadn’t done crosswords for so long, we never would have know that these were etuis! Joyce wishes that she could remember where they were though!
Never got into this one. Got some of the more obscure words by guesswork: Taha, Epris, Scarre, but ultimately only managed to solve a relative handful. And I missed several obvious ones which I kick myself for, in particular Pier.
Sour grapes time: using SA to clue South American twice in the same xword doesn’t sit too well with me, and having two inclusions also seems to go against the grain.
But having seen the completed grid, I can appreciate its cleverness.
Not only etuis but I believe etwees is also acceptable.
There is a (probably long-forgotten)song which includes the words “little boxes, little boxes … and they all look just the same”. I think it concerned housing but who knows – perhaps a foresighted crossword setter?
Chesley, The little boxes are by Pete Seeger of Inquisitor 1330 “Ninety-four” fame, so a particularly apt set of etuis “made out of ticky-tacky” and all looking “just the same”.
I rather enjoyed this one having got the theme quite early from the CHICKENS running down from 6d and having heard of WYANDOTTEs. I’m also sure there used to be a band called the BUFF ORPINGTONs. I’m also pretty sure chicken breeds are a theme from time to time of other Xwords – seem to recall an old Guardian Genius ?
Anyway thanks to Wickball and Hihoba.
To Bertandjoyce, the ten bob postal order will be on the way soon . . . if I can remember where I put it.
I got a really long way with this, but couldn’t quite crack the theme. I should have listened to my husband who said “What about Foghorn Leghorn?” after taking a look at the bottom right hand corner!
jonsurdy @13 If you ever come to one of the S&B events in Derby, we’ll seek you out!