Jaguar is offering to take us on a JOURNEY…who knows where we will end up. As it happens, I was away on a family holiday in the South-West that week, and ‘are we there yet?’ was a familiar refrain.
The preamble tells us that:
Fourteen clues contain a misprint in the definition part that must be corrected before solving; in clue order, the correct letters give the start and end points of a JOURNEY. In a further 11 clues a single letter has been omitted from the definition, occasionally affecting capitalisation and spacing, but always leaving behind real words; the omitted letters can be rearranged to form one of the travellers. Two more of the travellers must be highlighted (a total of 12 letters), and solvers must complete the perimeter with the source and its author. Chambers Dictionary (2011) is recommended.
So…there ‘might’ be a misprint in the definition, or there ‘might’ be a letter missing from the definition, or the clue might be normal…which meant approaching each clue with these three possibilities in mind…
Things weren’t helped by the printed version that weekend missing the bottom row of the grid (I was in deepest-darkest-Devon with a flaky ‘InterNOT’ connection and no printer, so had to buy a copy of the ST for once…)
Despite these potential pitfalls, I was lucky to hit the wavelength of this puzzle fairly quickly and, as the grid filled up, the perimeter soon yielded the title of a well known journey – ‘THREE MEN IN A BOAT’ by JEROME K JEROME, and its (maybe not so familiar?) sub-title ‘…TO SAY NOTHING OF THE DOG’. The story of a late 1800s trip ‘up’ the Thames from KINGSTON to OXFORD by JEROME and his companions GEORGE and HARRIS (SIRRAH!) – and ‘the dog’, MONTMORENCY.
(Like many solvers, I suspect(?), I am familiar with this book’s title and author, but have never actually read it – and had to rely on some e-research to find the other thematic elements.)
I found this an enjoyable puzzle, thankfully not too taxing for a busy week trying to relax – if that makes sense?! – so thanks to Jaguar, and no thanks to the EV gremlins at the ST printers!
| Across | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Clue No | Length | (Corrected misprint)/ [missing letter] |
Entry | Clue (definition underlined, affected word(s) in bold) / Logic/Parsing |
| 8 | (8) | [M]ALICE | MEANNESS | Alice to design shelters having taken time out (8) / MEAN (design, intend) + NES(T)S – shelters, with T – time – taken out) |
| 10 | (3) | THIN(K)S | EGO | What things English stake (3) / E (English) + GO (to stake, or bet) |
| 11 | (8) | VORACITY | Will’s perhaps to warn about financial district’s greed (8) / VOR (to warn, Shakespearean) + A (about) + CITY (financial district) |
|
| 12 | (4) | SCRAP[E] | RASP | Scrap fruit in Aberdeen (4) / double defn. – RASP can be to scrape, or grate on; and also Scottish coloquialism for raspberry |
| 14 | (7) | R(I)NG | CORONET | Stop short over lowest rung (7) / COR(K) – to stop something up, short of a letter + O (over, cricket) + NET (lowest, subject to no further deductions) |
| 15 | (6) | EATAGE | Make ’ot mature ’orse’s ’ay? (6) / (H)EAT – make ‘ot’ + AGE (mature) |
|
| 16 | (5, two words) | MEA(N) | GET AT | Georgia’s pony meat (5, two words) / GE (Georgia, the country, not the US state, which is GA) + TAT (tattoo, or tat – native-bred indian pony) |
| 18 | (4) | [C]LOTH | JEAN | Ugly Jane’s loth (4) / anag (i.e. ugly) of JANE |
| 19 | (5) | (G)OAD | HASTE | Takes ends of the road once (5) / HAS (takes) + T(H)E (end letters of THE) |
| 21 | (5) | KINGS | College books (5) / double defn, – Kings College, Cambridge; Kings I & II – books of the Bible |
|
| 23 | (3) | DIS | Gods originally show scorn (3) / DI (Latin – gods, plural of ‘deus’) + S (original letter of ‘show’) |
|
| 24 | (5) | RO[O]M | STOWS | Has ROM for section leaders of team operating Word software (5) / S (section) + TOWS (first letters of ‘Team Operaing Word Software’) |
| 26 | (5) | THALE(S) | IONIC | Thaler perhaps is charged (5) / double defn. – Thales was an Ionian philosopher, hence IONIC, and, if a particle is charged with an ion, it can be IONIC |
| 28 | (4) | ARIA | Melody entrances [but tenor is missing] (4) / A(T)RIA – entrances, with T – tenor – missing |
|
| 29 | (5) | (T)OOTH | MOLAR | Dead bird rotting at first, left inside booth (5) / MO_A (extinct bird) around L (left, inside) – plus R (first letter of rotting) |
| 30 | (6) | ALO[N]E | SINGLY | Aloe resin – glycose in part? (6) / hidden word in ‘reSIN GLYcose’ |
| 31 | (7) | LY(O)N | OEUVRES | Lynn works and manages with skill, but no admiration expressed? (7) / (MAN)OEUVRES – manages with skill, without MAN! – interjection expressing admiration |
| 33 | (4) | TERN | Flighty one’s bent, by the sound of it (4) / Homophone – TERN (bird, flighty one) sounds like TURN (bent, manner, aptitude) |
|
| 34 | (8) | FIANCEES | Women engaged Parisian fairies to collect one and one and one hundred (8) / F_EES (French for fairies) around (collecting) I (one) + AN (one, again!) + C (one hundred) |
|
| 36 | (3) | [T]ILL | EAR | Previously ill from drugs — not good (3) / (G)EAR – illicit drugs, without G – good |
| 37 | (8) | KEE(N) | TEARIEST | Perhaps most likely to keep amending treaties (8) / anag (i.e. amending) of TREATIES |
| Down | ||||
| Clue No | Length | (Corrected misprint)/ [missing letter] |
Entry | Clue (definition underlined, affected word(s) in bold) / Logic/Parsing |
| 1 | (3) | [Y]EAR | TET | Periodically treats new ear (3) / alternate (periodic) letters of ‘TrEaTs’ |
| 2 | (8) | T(O)PPER | HATSTAND | Without prison initially, fine saint and hang tipper here (8) / (P)HAT (slang, fine or excellent, losing P – first letter of Prison) + ST (saint) + AND |
| 3 | (6) | ENOUGH | Fairly defaced tree and Irish lake (6) / (B)EN (tree) and (L)OUGH (Irish lake) – both ‘defaced’ – i.e. first letter missing |
|
| 4 | (5) | EERIE | Early English rule that is weird (5) / EE (Early English) + R (rule) + IE (id est, that is) |
|
| 5 | (7) | SE(X) | ESCORTS | Last of discrete groups acquiring cubic companions from a different set (7) / E (last letter of discrete) + S_ORTS (groups) around (acquiring) C (cubic) |
| 6 | (4) | INTO | Enthusiastic about old pub and town — not half! (4) / IN (obsolete/Spenserian for inn, pub) + TO(WN) (not half of town) |
|
| 7 | (6) | (F)LASHING | AGLEAM | Clashing in Annual General Meeting adopting measure (6) / AG_M (Annual General Meeting) around (adopting) LEA (measure of yarn) |
| 9 | (6) | S(O)NGS | DIRGES | Daughter drives, reportedly, and sings (6) / D (daughter) + IRGES (homophone, i.e. reportedly, of ‘urges’, drives on) |
| 13 | (6) | PANGEA | God finally joining ends of Europe and America, making a supercontinent (6) / PAN (Roman god) + G (final letter of followinG) + EA (end letters of EuropE and AmericA) |
|
| 14 | (7) | RATI[O]S | COSINES | Rat is found in comfort almost (7) / COSINES(S) – comfort, missing last letter, i.e. ‘almost’ |
| 17 | (6) | EXTANT | Extra worker surviving (6) / EXT (extra) + ANT (worker insect) |
|
| 20 | (8) | IRO[N] | FORGEMEN | Workers of IRO move steadily on ships (8) / FORGE (move ahead steadily) + MEN (ships, as in ‘men of war’) |
| 22 | (6) | SI(R) | SIRRAH | Angrily sip ‘petite’ American wine with extra heart (6) / Type of Californian wine, ‘petite Sirah’, with its middle letter, or heart, repeated (extra) |
| 23 | (7) | DOZENTH | Practise Buddhism on Thursday 12th? (7) / DO (practice) + ZEN (Buddhism) + TH (Thursday) |
|
| 25 | (6) | TRA[M]P | TOERAG | Devious old great trap (6) / anag. (i.e. devious) of O (old) + GREAT |
| 27 | (6) | CICERO | Orator’s tailless bird eating headless insects (6) / C_RO(W) (bird, losing its last letter, or tail) around (L)ICE – insects, ‘headless’, or losing first letter |
|
| 30 | (5) | SHEAF | High Explosive in not entirely secure bundle (5) / S_AF(E) (secure, not entirely) around HE (High Explosive) |
|
| 32 | (4) | DECLARE(D) | VIED | Declarer once considered junking spades before losing advantage (4) / (AD)VI(S)ED – obsolete for ‘considered’, losing (junking) S (spades) and AD (advantage) |
| 35 | (3) | G[R]EEK | PSI | Pressure is uplifting geek character (3) / P (pressure) + SI (‘is’, uplifted) |
Thanks for the blog and glad you enjoyed the puzzle.
This took quite a while between conception and submission (over a year, in fact!), in part because I wasn’t quite sure what to do with the clues and how to get the message about the setting for the journey across. I first came up with the idea in later 2012, shortly after my first had been accepted, which encouraged me to write a few more puzzles. Building the grid was fairly tricky, as I’ve still not got the hang of that bit yet, but in the end it came together and I enjoyed the chance to include a clue for King’s College, my alma mater, too.
The set of eleven clues I wrote first, after the clue for “Cosines” came to me in a flash and I had to write the other ten to go with it! Hopefully the Rat is -> RatiOs transformation wasn’t too hard a logical leap for solvers to make.
To go alongside that I intended something closer to misprints giving “Boat journey on River Thames from Kingston to Oxford”, but other constraints in the puzzle seemed to make this a very tricky challenge, so when I came back to the puzzle in September 2013 I went for the slightly simpler tactic of just indicating the two place names, and the remainder of the message was moved to the preamble. There was a bit of unintentional misdirection in the misprint for the final N of Kingston as of course the correct definition in 37a could just as well be “most likely to weep” as well as “to keen”.
The puzzle was then submitted and accepted in late 2013 with some minor corrections needed. Later of course the same theme cropped up in Hedge-Sparrow’s excellent Listener “Trio by Bark”, with its glorious representation of the Thames running across the grid and all four characters making an appearance too. I’d considered some elements myself but couldn’t make it work with the perimeter, but it made for two very different treatments of the theme and I hope solvers could enjoy both in their own way.
I am grateful again to my test-solvers Artix, Chalicea and Shark, all of whom helped to tidy up the clues, and of course to the EV editor Samuel for accepting this. The printing error was unfortunate and a bit annoying but out of all our control. I hope it didn’t discourage too many solvers from attempting the puzzle.
Brilliant, thanks Jaguar and mc_rapper67. I’m new to advanced cryptics and this was a lot of fun. It’s even inspired me to read TMiaB.
I forgot to mention that this puzzle was intended to mark the 125th anniversary month of the book’s publication. And I hope you enjoy it Andy! One of my favourite reads too.
Apologies that this is a bit late, but thanks to Jaguar for giving some background to this puzzle’s creation, or even ‘gestation’, given the periods of time involved!
Now you mention it, I had a nagging thought in my mind that I had seen a TMIAB-themed puzzle recently, but couldn’t find anything searching through this site. In fact, I did attempt that Listener, but gave up with the grid not quite full and no idea where the theme was going…and I obviously scrubbed the experience from my memory.