I have a soft spot for Nutmeg‘s puzzles; typical clues are polished gems.
Preamble: Down answers are entered with one letter out of place, that letter being moved to the shaded upper/lower edge. The perimeter entries must be completed to show a common 20th Century saying (six words), a demonstration thereof, and a person who, given his orientation, might interpret the saying in a different way. Across answers are entered normally.
Not many clues: good for the blogger, less good for the solver. I was tackling this whilst on a brief walking holiday on the Gower peninsula, where the Wales Wide Web was not available, so I was glad that access to neither G… nor W…a was needed.
Not too easy, but not that hard either. 
I had enough across answers to be able to identify which letters of the several down answers I’d solved had to be moved – mainly ‘up’, with just a few ‘down’. After a while, a study of the top row (right) and right hand column (top) led me to realise that they would become WHAT GOES UP and MUST COME DOWN – I felt a slight smile (a little smug, if I’m honest). A little while, and some more solved clues later, I realised that the bottom row also had to be WHAT GOES UP – another smile (this time in appreciation of the setter); WHAT GOES UP MUST indeed COME DOWN as well.
I still had a bit of work to do on the bottom left, plus 11a on which I spent ages trying to justify DOODAHS. (Was “cleaning” to be attached as “devices for [cleaning]” or as “[cleaning] ladies”?) I was expecting some grand revelation of “a person who, given his orientation, might interpret the saying in a different way“, but the penny dropped with something of a clunk – it was merely PALINDROMIST.
Still, thanks Nutmeg – some lovely clues. But right at the end, it felt a bit deflated.
| Across | ||
|---|---|---|
| No. | Answer | Wordplay |
| 9 | ADJUST | AD (bill) JUST (by the skin of your teeth) |
| 10 | BANTU | BAN TU (slogan for anti-Unionists) |
| 11 | LOOFAHS | LOOS (ladies, lavatories) around FAH (note) |
| 12 | DUOS | O (love) in SUD< (south, Fr) |
| 14 | CREANT | RE (religious teaching) in CANT (vernacular) |
| 15 | NEWS | homophone: NUS (Greek letters) |
| 16 | ORGANIC | [IN CARGO]* |
| 17 | DRAPE | DR (medic) + APE (take off) |
| 18 | CLUEDO | CLUE (what’s this?) DO (party) |
| 19 | RAVISH | LAVISH (liberal) with R for L (wrong side) |
| 22 | SERUM | RE< (engineers) in SUM (total) |
| 24 | OLD DEAR | (boar)D in [ORDEAL]* |
| 26 | APSE | (l)APSE (passage) |
| 27 | KERRIA | [IKEA]* around RR (Right Reverend, bishop) |
| 29 | IOTA | IOTA (Greek character, used twice in Ευριπιδης) |
| 30 | ESPARTO | (fak)ES PART O(f) |
| 31 | SWINE | (see)S WINE (red, perhaps) |
| 32 | MEADOW | MEW (gull) around ADO (trouble) |
| Down | ||
| No. | Answer | Wordplay |
| 1 | DOWNER | DOWN (fluff) + ER (queen) |
| 2 | JOHN | double definition: (lavatory); Augustus & Gwen JOHN |
| 3 | SACHET | ACHE (long) in ST(one) |
| 4 | THROUGH | homophone: THREW (cast) |
| 5 | POSER | double definition |
| 6 | BEAGLE | B(on)E AG(i)LE (sprightly) |
| 7 | AD NAUSEAM | [MAN USED AA]* |
| 8 | TORPID | DIP (sink) + ROT (rubbish) all< |
| 13 | JASPIDEAN | ASP (snake) I’D in JEAN (stout cloth) |
| 18 | CHRISOM | IS in CHROM(a) (quality of colour) |
| 20 | WALLOW | (s)WALLOW (migrant bird) |
| 21 | STERNE | homophone: STERN (back of ship) |
| 22 | ESCAPE | E(nglish) PACE (speed) all< around S(econd) |
| 23 | PUSHTO | PUSH (try to sell) OT< (books) |
| 25 | AGREE | AGE (mature) around RE (about) |
| 28 | CURD | CURSED (banned, archaic) − SE (Home Counties) |
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Nutmeg has, for some years, been among my very favourite setters… and this puzzle did not disappoint.
With gratitude, I dedicate my “Boom, Boom” joke to her …
Q. When does a palindrome NOT go up and down ?
A. When it’s LEVEL
Nutmeg is one of my favourite cluesmiths but I am with HG on this one. It actually didn’t work for me as I would have expected the same letters that go up to come down – not just have the same phrase appear top and bottom.
We agree with HG and Nick about this one. As HG says, lovely clues from Nutmeg so thanks for that and thanks also to HG for the blog.
I’m with Murray Glover@1 on this one. For me, lots of fun. One PDM when I realised what the phrase was, another when I realised that “what goes up” had to “come down” to produce the bottom row and a final one (and a snort of laughter) when I realised what the left hand edge had to be.
As always, many thanks to setter and blogger.
I too concur with HG, a most enjoyable solve with several fine PDMs on the way, just let down slightly by the final revelation. I didn’t have the doodah debacle, though I did spend a while trying to find an Edward Nolan connected to the film Gravity, but just kept getting Christopher Nolan and Interstellar, which frankly was no use at all.
Like Nick, I was slightly puzzled by the repetition of WHAT GOES UP. In most cases the letter that goes up in an upper entry comes down in a lower one, and that’s fine as an interpretation of the phrase; in single-entry columns it just about works if the entry is in the upper half, because the letter that goes up can also be made to go down by the solver’s filling the unchecked cell; where it seemed to me to go a bit awry was in columns 4 an 10, where the letters start by going down. For a consistent pattern I think a different grid construction was perhaps needed.
I also felt the entry in column one was a bit of an anti-climax (I spent some time trying to find a two-word name to fit). I would have been more excited by the longest 12-letter palindrome, coined by James Joyce – tattarrattat (apparently in OED). It’s not hard to find the word on the internet, so I don’t think it would be unfair.
Having said all that, I did enjoy solving the puzzle.
My views are similar to many of the above contributors really. I found it satisfying making steady progress through the grid and was pleased when I worked out the phrase. I too spent some time trying to spot the name of a person emerging on the left, including googling LORD NOLAN.
Thanks Nutmeg
I enjoyed this all the way through, and found the word on the left hand side seemed more clever the more I thought about it. Many thanks to setter and blogger.
I’m with MG@1 and BF@4. The bottom row was perfectly logical and the first column delightfully misleading – I also looked for gravity and Nolan links until the pennies dropped. This was part of the fun, so I cannot see what the whingers are complaining about – a good’un, Nutmeg. (Delayed response due to holiday away from the technology)
DaveW@9, something along the lines of ‘so I cannot see why others are being negative’ would have got your point across without resorting to trolling.