So, it is the weekend at the start of one of the biggest sporting events on the planet (Rugby World Cup 2015, if you hadn’t noticed) and it looks like we have a sporting theme from Ottorino…but hang on, aren’t there XV in a rugby team? Rucking hell! I’m ‘maul’ shook up! I’d better ‘try’ and see if I can kick this one into touch…
A fairly complex preamble states that:
“The first or last names of members of an INTERNATIONAL XI can be found clockwise in the grid’s perimeter. The definitions of half the clues must have two consecutive letters removed or restored (nine of each) before solving; these letters give the names of more members. Solvers must highlight four words (a total of 13 letters) in the grid to show the make-up of the INTERNATIONAL XI. The final member’s surname must be jumbled with the circled letters to make the goal scored by the XI; this must be written below the grid.”
So a mix of interesting devices: double letter additions and removals, rather than the more usual singles; a group of names (some surnames, some first names) mixed between perimeter and clue modifications – and one needing some circled letters for completion; and some hidden words to boot.
After some slow and steady solving I started to get some pairs of letters, and also some of the perimeter filled out. Still thinking of a sporting theme, I could see TERRY (John, of Chelsea football fame) towards the top right, and maybe FRANCIS (Trevor, showing my age a bit there!) around the bottom left corner – so maybe this is some sort of all-star (English) football XI?
However, it all turned out to be a very clever bit of mis-direction by the setter…with the PDM coming as a combination of ‘S|M US SO RG SK Y|G’ appearing in the modifications and ‘?ON?GG?R’ up the left of the perimeter looking like HONEGGER – a name vaguely familiar from the depths of my consciousness, but needing some e-research to confirm as a composer.
Arthur Honegger was a member of a group of French composers who called themselves ‘Les Six’, whilst Modest Mussorgsky was one of a group of Russian composers similarly styled as ‘The Five’…put the two together and you have an ‘international’ eleven! LES SIX and THE FIVE are the four words hiding in the grid – fairly clearly once I had the composers and their groups – maybe others saw these group names first and then confirmed the composers?…
The Six: Arthur Honegger, Georges Auric, Louis Durey, Darius Milhaud, Francis Poulenc, Germaine Tailleferre
The Five: Modest Mussorgsky, Mily Balakirev, César Cui, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Alexander Borodin
Underlined names were either modifications or perimeter, and the remaining member was CUI, combining with M and S to give MUSIC – the ‘goal’? they all ‘scored’!…
Educational stuff from Ottorino, and a nice sidestep/shimmy with the misdirection to put some of us (or just me?!) off our balance to start with?…
I will be out most of the day tomorrow – watching the England XV take on a bunch of Antipodeans at Twickenham – any comments and/or corrections most welcome, but they won’t get responded to until Sunday…if at all, depending on my mood by then (;+>)
| Across | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Clue No | Modification [removed] / (added) | Solution | Clue (definition underlined, modified word in bold) / Logic/Parsing |
|
| 7 | di[NI]ng | RANG | Did dining for Anglo-Saxon houses (4) / hidden word, i.e. ‘houses’ in ‘foR ANGlo-saxon’ |
|
| 9 | ISOHEL | Helios’ hot line? (6) / anag, i.e. ‘hot’, of HELIOS, ‘hot’ also doing duty as part of the definition? |
||
| 11 | SOY SAUCE | Dressing thus, holidaymakers essentially cause riots (8, two words) / SO (thus) + Y (middle letter, or essence, of holidaYmakers) + SAUCE (anag, i.e. riots, of CAUSE) |
||
| 12 | GHOSTS | Growth hormone that’s around back street haunts (6) / GH (growth hormone) + OS (that, around) + TS (ST, street, back) |
||
| 13 | i[KO]n | LESS | The French should firstly lower ikon estimation (4) / LES (the, plural, in French) + S first letter of Should) |
|
| 15 | GOOSE | One changing direction after work’s silly (5) / GO (work) + OSE (ONE, changing North to South) |
||
| 16 | DIPTERA | Stupid drip ate flies (7) / anag, i.e. stupid, of DRIP ATE |
||
| 18 | (LA)tent | DRY ROT | Tent degeneration back to initially ruin your day (6, two words) / TO + R (ruin, initially) + YR (your) + D (day) – all back |
|
| 19 | (IM)proves | ROSIN | This proves violin’s sound is retrospectively taken from medley of Rossini (5) / anag, i.e. ‘medley’, of ROS(SI)NI – without SI, or IS, retrospectively |
|
| 20 | NISEI | Immigrant’s child is not one-time East Indian (5) / NIS (obsolete for ‘is not’) + EI (East Indian) |
||
| 22 | bu(IL)t | THOLOS | Tomb but with dome allowing American belated praise (6) / THO (US spelling of ‘though’, allowing for) + LOS (obsolete for praise) |
|
| 25 | OUTRATE | Extravagant hedging to offer higher return (7) / OUTR_E (extravagant) around (hedging) AT (to) |
||
| 27 | s[HA]lot | NICHE | Delightful to eat hot shallot (5) / NIC_E (delightful) around (eating) H (hot) |
|
| 28 | t(UD)or | ROSY | Tops to rise over seventy yards, like a tor? (4) / first letters, tops, of ‘Rise Over Seventy Yards’ |
|
| 30 | FABLER | Liar visiting ineffable rogue (6) / hidden word, i.e. visiting, in ‘inefFABLE Rogue’ |
||
| 31 | f[LO]or | SNAKEPIT | Twin Peaks involved with leaving hospital floor disturbed (8) / anag, i.e. involved, of T(W)IN PEAKS, leaving out W – with |
|
| 32 | h[UI]as | INTERN | One who huias place at school with old aquatic bird (6) / IN (with, obsolete?) + TERN (aquatic bird) |
|
| 33 | ACTA | Perform advanced proceedings (4) / ACT (perform) + A (advanced) |
||
| Down | ||||
| Clue No | Modification [removed] / (added) | Solution | Clue (definition underlined, modified word in bold) / Logic/Parsing |
|
| 1 | INDOOR | Not being outside fashionable party circuit (6) / IN (fashionable) + DO (party) + OR (computing/electronics – type of circuit) |
||
| 2 | [SM]out | LISTERIA | Bacterium giving smout encephalitis materialises mutated without same components (8) / anag, i.e. mutated, of (M)ATERI(A)LIS(E)(S) without letters (components) of S A M E |
|
| 3 | men[US] | EROS | God matching women with menus, perhaps, of bitter vetch sandwiches (4) / ER_S (bitter vetch) around (sandwiching) O (of) |
|
| 4 | per(SO)n | ESSE | Existence of pern in Eastern Sweden and Southern Spain (4) / E (Eastern) + S (Sweden) + S (Southern) + E (Espana, Spain) |
|
| 5 | ROAST | Nothing stopping return of Russian leader Peter Pan? (5) / R_AST (TSA_R (Russian leader, Peter, returned) around (stopped by) O (nothing) |
||
| 6 | alle(RG)y | RHUSES | No. 10 shortly to exploit singular plants whose fruits kill in alley (6) / RH (Rh, rhodium, see clue number 10!) + USE (exploit) + S (singular) |
|
| 8 | GASSY | Verbose Byzantine sayings lacking in content (5) / anag, i.e. Byzantine, of SAY(IN)GS, without IN |
||
| 10 | hu[SK]ed | RHODIUM | Defective humidor element forming rose-husked salts (7) / anag, i.e. defective, of HUMIDOR |
|
| 13 | b(YG)one | LITHE | Attend to bone fragment in Israeli theatre (5) / hidden word, i.e. fragment, in ‘IsraeLI THEatre’ |
|
| 14 | IRISHER | Is her Ivor on vacation before Clare’s man maybe? (7) / IR (IvoR vacated) before IS HER |
||
| 16 | [EO]an | DOTTY | Eoan epithet for eccentric starts to day or to tomorrow and yesterday (5) / first letters, i.e. starts to, ‘Day Or To Tomorrow and Yesterday’ |
|
| 17 | PRONATOR | Forearm muscle almost lying anterior to radius (8) / PRON(E) (almost lying) + A (anterior) + TO + R (radius) |
||
| 21 | STRATA | Beds rampant hussy in South Australia (6) / S_A (South Australia) around TRAT (TART, hussy, rampant, or rising) |
||
| 23 | bo(RG)os | LIBRA | In Rome did boos welcome this necessary book by artist? (5) / LIB (Latin, liber, book) + RA (artist, Royal Academician) |
|
| 24 | OCLOCK | According to timer, overcharge twice, pocketing pound then krone (6) / OC_OC (overcharge, twice) around (pocketing) L (pound), then K (krone) |
||
| 26 | ROKER | Ray’s new co-worker abandoning Alderney perhaps (5) / anag, i.e. new, of (CO-W)ORKER, (without COW, or Alderney, perhaps) |
||
| 29 | slav(ES) | SERF | One of the modified Slav climbing refreshment bottles (4) / hidden, reversed word, i.e. ‘climbing’ and ‘bottles’, in ‘reFREShment’ |
|
| 30 | FIVE | See entertained by whimsical cardinal (4) / FI_E (whimsical) around (entertaning) V (vide, Latin, see) |
||
Good blog, and a really good puzzle from Ottorino, who seems to be a relatively new setter. I too fell for the misdirection of the number eleven and the finishing goal scored.
I knew the members of Les Six (although I’m not sure how or why), but had never heard of The Five. A quick Google search gave me the names, however. Educational, fun, and not about sport. Perfect!
Honegger wrote a piece of music called Rugby.