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A nice challenge from Caos.
The special instructions say: “Before being entered in the grid the solutions to twelve clues need three or more of their letters changed to 19 22 alternatives.“ Caos kindly gave us quite easy clues to 19 and 22, leading to PREDICTIVE TEXT,meaning that the changing of letters was as used to happen on mobile phones I had a few years ago. With the increasing use of smartphones with QWERTY keyboards this system – technically known as T9 – is much less common than it used to be.
I found two resources to help me (some might call it cheating, I suppose) with finding alternatives: this site, which emulates the T9 system, and some lists of T9-equivalent words on a page created by Mark Longair, aka our very own blogger mhl (I think I remember seeing these before, but came across them this time just by googling). So then it was just a case of solving clues, and resolving conflicts when they occurred. A sneaky twist in the pouzzle, which I only fully realised at the end, is that the modified words are all in the down answers – in fact all downs except one are modified. There are a few (deliberate?) red herrings: for example the first two across answers both have plausible T9 equivalents: 6a BUTTON could have been AUTUMN, and 7a PHONES could be SIMMER or SINNER (and other less likely possibilities).
In general I found the puzzle quite hard to complete, largely because crossing letters for the modified words – which were not defined – were not always much help. If the clue was intractable I would try to find possible answers, see if they had any equivalents, and if so try to match those to the clues. I can’t fully explain 8d, and so am unsure if it’s right, but I can’t find anything else that will fit. Despite the difficulties, I found this enjoyable and absorbing: a suitable candidate for the slot, so thanks to Caos. In the explanations below, I’ve shown the modified word (as entered in the grid) in brackets after the answer to the clue.
| Across | ||||||||
| 6. | BUTTON | Former Asian PM divorced husband by note for stud (6) [Benazir] BHUTTO less H, + N |
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| 7. | PHONES | Calls for strong acids? (6) A substance with pH 1 or PH ONE is a strong acid |
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| 10. | STRAIN | Small vehicle race (6) S + TRAIN – race/strain in the biological sense |
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| 11. | EPILATES | Key exercise removes hair (8) E + PILATES |
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| 12. | MINI | At home I’m spinning a dress (4) Reverse of I’M IN |
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| 13. | BOTTICELLI | Artist born with excessive diamonds rejecting 75% of will (10) B + OTT + ICE + reverse of [w]ILL |
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| 14. | CONSOLE GAME | Cheer up birds, it’s digital entertainment! (7,4) CONSOLE (cheer up) + GAME (birds) |
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| 19. | PREDICTIVE | Anticipating pierced hysterics over ITV comic (10) ITV* in PIERCED* |
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| 22. | TEXT | Reading from New Testament extract (4) Hidden in testamenT EXTract (with “New” being redundant) |
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| 23. | PENCIL IN | Provisionally arrange course of medicine with iodine left out (6,2) PENICILLIN less I (one of them) and L |
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| 24. | FERULE | Feel angry about sport being used for punishment? (6) RU in FEEL* |
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| 25. | TOEING | After taunting Eton, I received good kicking (6) (ETON I)* + G |
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| 26. | OCTAVE | English tax firm returns set of 8 (6) E VAT CO, all reversed |
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| Down | ||||||||
| 1. | CAPTAIN (ABSTAIN) | Third person assumes fitting rank (7) APT in CAIN (first son of Adam and Eve) |
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| 2. | MUTATION (OTTAVINO) | Stomach upset at lunchtime – working, for a change (8) TUM reversed AT 1 (1pm, lunchtime for some) ON |
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| 3. | GOANNA (HOBNOB) | Leave girl and monitor lizard (6) GO + ANNA |
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| 4. | VISITING (THRIVING) | Singer welcomes 1 after 6 dropping by (8) VI + I in STING (singer) |
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| 5. | FORBID (ENRAGE) | Outlaw delivers one better than 3 NT? (6) Homophone of “four bid” (one better than 3 No Trumps in a Bridge auction) |
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| 8. | RUDELY (STEELY) | Suddenly, even around ten, lady forgets today’s date (6) This is the only combination I can find that fits, but I can’t parse it. We have “suddenly” as the definition (as in “rudely interrupted”), and LY could be LADY less AD (“today’s date”), but even if that’s right the rest eludes me. I hope someone can put me out of my misery on this one. Thanks to Norman – it’s the even letters of aRoUnD tEn , + L[AD]Y as I thought. |
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| 9. | CENTILLIONS | Lots and lots of money? I will get a number of notes (11) CENT (money) + I’LL + 10 (number) + NS (notes) |
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| 15. | STALLING (SUCKLING) | Silence before one’s final bet, with Greek leader playing for time (8) ST (be quiet!) + ALL-IN (potentially final bet in poker etc) + G |
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| 16. | MAVERICK (MATERIAL) | Unorthodox mother, Queen Victoria embraces king (8) MA + ER (queen) in VIC + K |
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| 17. | ASSERT (ARREST) | Defend American then lock up (6) A + reverse of TRESS (lock of hair) |
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| 18. | EXCLUDE (EXALTED) | Former wife’s suggestion about daughter: send to Coventry? (7) EX + D in CLUE |
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| 20. | FEARED (DECREE) | Stood in awe of The Listener under fine editor (6) F + EAR + ED |
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| 21. | DEFEAT (EFFECT) | Best agent promoted by top club (6) FED reversed + BEAT (club) “topped” |
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Thanks for the blog. Rudely is even (letters of) aRoUnD tEn plus, as you say, lady minus AD. It was one of my last ones in, only once I’d twigged that it was all the downs save one that changed – and it took me a while to remember how to parse it after reading your notes.
Gave up on this – couldn’t do it, even with the help of my old Nokia; can only use predictive text as I’m not very dextrous! Hoping September’s is easier.
Apart from that some good clues, so thank you Qaos. Thanks too to Andrew for the blog.
We did finish this – and parsed 8d the same as Norman – but agree that it was tricky and at the end were reduced to searching for words that fitted, then ‘back-converting’ to look for possible solutions.
Mrs Beaver’s nice new smart phone was no use at all, fortunately I still have an old dumb phone, so I spent a lot of time trying different on it, but then it has quite a limited dictionary which doesn’t contain words like OTTAVINO !
Overall, good fun, though…
Had to give up – I had lost my mobile, and without one it was too hard to guess what the transformed words might be (I didn’t think of looking for a simulator)
Hi all,
Many thanks for the comments and to Andrew for the blog – glad you managed to make it to the end of the puzzle!
With being a little different from the usual missing/extra letters/words, I hoped that the “twist” would justify the extra effort required. The original preamble also included 6ac/7ac to highlight the T9 system in particular. My generated word list did provide a few good red herrings, but I hoped the solver would spot the pattern of changes only being in the down solutions.
Interesting to see people turning to phone simulators – I hope their dictionaries were up to the task! Personally, I just saw the words as being mapped to numbers (e.g. ANODISE and BONFIRE being 2663473) and went from there. The inspiration came from seeing MAVERICK pop up after typing MATERIAL one time.
Best wishes,
Qaos
Thanks Andrew and Qaos. Not easy, but the “twist” for me made it a very satisfying solve. I spotted the across/down distinction in time to avoid the distractions of the autumn sinner.