Here’s the preamble in full:
Clues are presented in the correct order. The completed grid, which does not have one letter per square, displays mirror symmetry, and resembles the item given by the unclued entry (verifiable, though not the precise form used, in the Oxford Dictionary of English). Clue numbers and bars must not be entered. Those letters which are not one per square, when combined with those in the four shaded cells, can be rearranged to give a thematic word which must be written under the grid. Chambers Dictionary (2014) is recommended, but does not contain one reasonably common foreign word; one entry is an abbreviation.
I found this one extraordinarily difficult. I must therefore thank the fellow Answerbank user the Bear, who gave me the hints without which I would almost certainly not have completed it.
Admittedly, I wasn’t helped by not knowing what ‘mirror symmetry’ was. I really should have googled it, because it was key to the whole puzzle, allowing you to work out which rows held which clues. After that one could, as it were, slot in the down clues.
The first across clue, COST A BOMB, clearly had the same initial letters as some of the down clues. However, there were four clues to be fitted in for the A. Initially, I could only solve ACID, so I couldn’t tell that all four began with A. AEROMETRY eluded me because I couldn’t tell that ‘any old’ became ARY.
And so on. If I’d worked out that mirror symmetry meant that COST A BOMB most likely had to take up the whole first line, and had solved ALIT and its chums, then… well, frankly, I’d have still probably been pretty stumped for a long time.
Oh, and it would have really helped if I’d ever heard of a SNELLEN CHART. I’ve seen (or not seen) a fair few of them, but we weren’t previously on first name terms.
It is, however, a wonderfully put together puzzle. I don’t want to detract from that. It’s really, really lovely. I’m really pleased by its construction even though I was beaten by it. It’s one of those that is quietly warming and pleasing, and is definitely one of the best puzzles I’ve seen – quite possibly my favourite. (Since writing this entry, I’ve been banging on about it to anyone who will listen.)
The completed grid looks like a Snellen Chart. The As that I didn’t quite have slotted together to form a 4×4 block of As, as you can see in the grid below. The preamble says that the grid shouldn’t have ‘one letter per square’, so I assume that the blocks of letters should be replaced with a single letter, as per a Snellen chart.
The ‘Snellen letters’ – A, I, I, C, A – along with the shaded letters – T, G, S, M from the bottom row – can be rearranged to give ASTIGMATIC, which is to be written under the grid. (It’s worth noting that the shaded letters are placed to fit in with the Snellen chart.)
All the best people are astigmatic, meaning they don’t watch Top Gear.
Notation
(xxx) = definition
[xxx] = (anagram/homophone/container/etc.) indicator
XXX* = anagram
< = reversal
Please post a comment if the explanations are not clear.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| COST A BOMB | CO (Firm) STAB (attempt) [to hold] < MOB (many people) [back] to be very expensive (9, three words) |
| ACE | One GRACE (to favour) [ousting] GR (old King) (3) |
| EAU | Drain [openings] for EAST ANGLIAN USERS (3) |
| VIE | L (Lecturer) [to escape] VILE (horrible) life in Strasbourg (3) |
| DEGRADING | {DAD and GINGER}* [nuts]? It’s disgraceful (9) |
| MAD | I (One’s) [abandoned] MA |
| SNELLEN CHART | Unclued (12, two words) |
| THIR | [Openings] in THE HOSPITALITY INDUSTRY [lead to] RECRUITMENT? Not those in Glasgow (5) |
| OISE | Part of Northern France IS [captured by] OE (Old English) (4) |
| OTIOSITY | {IT IS TOO} + NAUGHTY, [ultimately], to loll around in idleness (8) |
| WIMMIN | Feminist view of females showing WIN (some success) [around] MMI (2001) (6) |
| EINE | HEINE (German poet) [ditching first] article in German (4) |
| TEAD | |
| SNEE | S (Second) NEED (requirement) [cut]? No longer cut (4) |
| ACS | AC |
| NTH | Not precisely specified on the list, NORTH (bridge player) [has no] OR (alternative) (3) |
| TAL | Chess GM TALE (no longer reckoning) [to skip] [end of] GAME (3) |
| SCIATICAL | SCI (Science) HEPATICAL (of the liver) – [not] HEP, more like hip (9) |
| CANT | What tosser will do: use jargon (4) |
| KOPF | German head KO (put down) PUPILS’ FATHERS [initially] (4) |
| TANG | Point T (to) N (name) [inscribed in] AG (silver) (4) |
| SYCE | SYE (Local riddle) [about] C (colt’s) groom (4) |
| STEM | Stop A (American) [leaving] STEAM (force) (4) |
| Down | |
| CAD | Scoundrel was concerned to dispose of soldiers (3) |
| OCEAN | Company picked up barcode system a great deal (5) |
| SEGO | One puts on showy display: singular self-confidence (4) |
| TERMLIES | Regular publications displaying linkages around European finance measure and pound (8) |
| ALIT | Settled island, having crossed lake (4) |
| AEROMETRY | [Motion of] METEOR* [captured by] ARY (any old) science of gasses (9) |
| ANOSMATIC | A NOTIC |
| ACID | Papers supporting sort of current drug (4) |
| BUDDHIST | DD (Divine) HI (greeting) [adopted by] BUST (broken) religious follower (8) |
| OVID | Poet‘s O (over) I (one) D (Duke) [penning] V (verse) (4) |
| MINOR | [Most of] MINT (untried) OR (logic circuit) having little impact (5) |
| BEG | BEING (Person) [dropping] IN to make request (3) |
| AS TO | |
| STEY | OR (Soldiers) [escaping] STOREY (floor) tilting dramatically in Dundee (4) |
| INCAN | IN CAN (Location of completed films) of old American people? (5) |
| INAPT | Unsuitable A (article) [brought into] IN (fashionable) PT (port) (5) |
| TEA SET | Chip beginning to tarnish crockery (6, two words) |
| WICCA | W (Weight) given to < {ACC account I} [sent up] depicting witchcraft (5) |
| NEAFE | What helps to confiNE A FErocious Duke in Shakespeare? (5) |
| VELLUM | Have to consider turning over paper (6) |
| NATS | Patriotic types < STAN |
| HIKE | H (Hard) |
| ING | Arena not including top meadow locally (3) |
| COS | CO (Senior officer)’S function (3) |
| C | O | S | T | A | B | O | M | B | |||
| A | C | E | E | U | V | I | E | ||||
| D | E | G | R | D | I | N | G | ||||
| A | A | O | M | D | D | O | S | ||||
| S | N | E | L | L | E | N | C | H | A | R | T |
| T | H | I | R | O | I | S | E | ||||
| O | T | O | S | T | Y | ||||||
| T | W | M | M | N | V | ||||||
| E | I | N | E | T | E | A | D | S | N | E | E |
| A | C | S | N | T | H | T | A | L | |||
| S | I | A | I | C | L | ||||||
| E | C | A | N | T | R | I | K | O | P | F | U |
| T | A | N | G | S | Y | C | E | S | T | E | M |
Thank you for your comments – the solution grid is far better than I managed! I was particularly pleased with the way this one came together, so I hope it’s been enjoyed, however hard it may have been. There’s a blog on the creation of the puzzle at Enigmatic Variations No. 1175: Here’s Looking at You
I don’t normally comment on these blogs (although I always read them), but thought I should say something for this one.
My three thoughts on solving this puzzle were, in no particular order (and bearing in mind the original submission had no entry lengths):
1. I can’t believe that nobody has used this as a theme before. As Phi kind of says in his blog, many of us will have stared at a blurry Snellen Chart many times in our lives (in my case once per year since the age of ten), yet failed to think “oh, look; an arrangement of letters that might fit in a square”.
2. This is difficult; and
3. What a superb puzzle.
Setters might think that editors are superhuman creatures who wield the red pen of rejection or change without hesitation or forethought when vetting a puzzle submission. Some might be, but this one isn’t, and I agonised for some time over Here’s Looking at You, Kcit, recognising that it was substantially more difficult than EV solvers might be expecting when sitting down to a puzzle with their Sunday morning porridge. The agonising wasn’t really over whether to accept or reject the puzzle, but more how to make it a bit more tractable for solvers. This internal (and external) debate took some considerable length of time, before I ended up back at my original thought of publishing as the puzzle was originally submitted, but with answer lengths added.
Apologies to any solvers who found this very difficult, but to those who climbed this particular mountain, I hope it was worth it. I certainly thought so; I placed this somewhere (I’m not saying precisely where) in my list of “top five puzzles I’ve received as EV editor”.
Thanks also to Mr Sting and the other EV bloggers on 15^2. I’m sure you might sometimes bemoan the lack of comments on the blog entries and so wonder if the effort is worth it, but it most definitely is; solvers often mention the blogs to me in correspondence, and they give me valuable input in allowing me to assess which types of puzzle and which themes are better received than others.
Thanks to everyone involved in this puzzle and blog:
Firstly to Kcit for creating such a superb and, dare I say, quirky puzzle and for giving us a detailed setter’s blog;
Secondly to Chris for accepting the puzzle and for his comments above;
Thirdly to Mr S for having drawn the short straw at 15² Blog HQ;
Lastly to me for having persevered with this one and having the pleasure of seeing it all fall into place.
This was indeed an extraordinarily tough one, and well done Mr S for an excellent blog and for confessing to having used external sources. Your answer grid is particularly fine.
I think the main problem I had was how I interpreted “does not have one letter per square”. I immediately assumed that squares contained more than, rather than less than, one letter. Of course, the fact that those not one per square anagrammed to make a word meant that most were normal, but I failed that deduction for a long time as well.
If answer lengths had been excluded, I think I would have found this one impossible, so congratulations to Chris on having solved it in that form, and extra thanks for having put them in. In his blog, Kcit mentions the idea of having an empty grid with just tick marks along the edges. That may have made me realise what was going on a bit (as in 5 minutes) sooner. I also made the mistake of thinking that, once I realised there was a 4×4 A in the top of the grid, there weren’t other large letters floating around!
It would be interesting to know how many solvers managed to complete and submit this one, but I think entry stats are an EV HQ secret.
Dave.
No need to apologize, Chris, even though I certainly did find this difficult. But a really tough one now and then surely does no one any harm. Considering the cleverness and creativity evident in EV and similar puzzles in other newspapers, I’m surprised they’re never published collectively in books, as more conventional crossword puzzles are. If I had to quibble I would say that Auld Reekie means Old Smoky and has nothing to do with smell, but then the word reek these days is used to refer to a stink.
It would be great to see more books of advanced thematic cryptics, Tony, but unfortunately their difficulty means that the audience is limited, and so books of these puzzles are unlikely to be financially viable. There have been five books of Listener crosswords over the years (three from Penguin in the1970s, and two more in the 1990s/2000s), and there was a book of Independent Weekend puzzles (later rebadged as the Inquisitor) in 2005 – all of which are worth tracking down.
There were five EVs in the Telegraph centenary crossword book (along with a brief guide to how to solve the EV), and of course there are many years of puzzles on the Telegraph Puzzles website. I think a book is unlikely, though.
It’s interesting to hear, Dave, that a blank grid with space indicators along the perimeter might have made things easier for you. We considered this for a while, as Kcit has indicated; there was a Magpie puzzle (I think) many years ago that had such a grid, which was the basis for the idea. In the end I thought this could well deter more casual solvers from having a go, so stuck with the straight carte blanche.
More books to dig out: three books of Independent Magazine crosswords between 1993 and 1995 and The Daily Telegraph Bumper Book of Word Games and Puzzles in 2000 with 25 EVs.