Enigmatic Variations 1200: Rule of Thumb by Jaguar

The EV clock has ticked over to 12:00 – midday/noon, or midnight? Will this be significant? We celebrate another century of EVs with … yet another jigsaw (gaaahh!). Chambers defines ‘RULE OF THUMB’ as ‘A rough-and-ready practical method, found by experience to be convenient‘, which pretty much describes my approach to these jigsaw-type puzzles!

The preamble states that:

“In accordance with the speaker’s RULE OF THUMB, as presented in the third and fourth lines of the first verse of a song, clues are not presented in the conventional order, but rather in an order to be determined. The wordplay in each clue leads to the answer and an additional letter not to be entered into the grid; in conventional clue order, these give the sixth and seventh lines of the verse. Solvers must highlight a cryptic representation of the fifth line (11 cells). Chambers Dictionary (2014) is recommended, and one entry is an abbreviation.”

So…we have a barred puzzle but no numbers, unnumbered clues in a to-be-determined order, and some extra letters giving us lines from a song…plus some hidden thematic material. But where to start?

My ‘rule of thumb’ for crossword jigsaws is to make a list of possible entries in descending size order..so there are two 11s and two 10s, ten 7s, eight 6s, two 5s, fourteen 4s…and a solitary 3…so at least I know where one answer will go! And the 10s, 11s and 5s seem a good point of entry, especially as the 11s and 10s intersect, as do the 11s and 5s. My second preparatory step is to take an enlarged copy of the grid and mark entry lengths around the perimeter, so the first row has a 6 to the left and a 4 to the right, etc. I find this helps at the filling stage, not to have to count and re-count all the blank spaces when looking for somewhere to put a word. And lastly, use a pencil and have an eraser handy!

Enough dallying…on with the puzzle…at which point I found that it is all very well knowing your point of initial attack, but it doesn’t help if your first few passes don’t throw up any 5s, 10s or 11s to work with… As is often the case with these jigsaws, I found myself coming back several times and picking away at things, until there was a flurry of activity (with a couple of lucky guesses and plenty of rubbing out!) when the bulk of it fell into place. Good job we have nearly 3 weeks to do these in…

I had one of the 10s – HABERGEONS – early on, and guessed (fortuitously) at it being in the second row, rather than second to last. I also had the 5s – OGLER and USAGE – so toyed with the permutations of these in either position to see how they helped with the 11s. The central 3 would have helped, but that didn’t fall until much later! However the flurry began with OSCILLATION and UNREWARDING, and I had a very rewarding session slotting in many of my other answers, and finding crossing letters for as yet unsolved entries.

Back to the preamble and the extra letters/order of the questions – I eventually had plenty of the extra letters, but couldn’t use them to make the phrase until I had enough answers in to be able to make out the ‘conventional’ order to make them into something useful. It didn’t help that I was writing the answers down in my separate list of descending order of lengths, rather than next to the clues on the printed puzzle, but at some point I realised that the printed clues were coming out in reverse alphabetical order of their answers – WHIPPET first down to AIRLINE last…so that helped to narrow down and wheedle out a few of the remaining answers.

And eventually I had a full grid – 11 by 13, so no symmetrical diagonals to search for thematic material – and although I could see the name ‘TALLULAH’ across the middle row, I couldn’t work out why it had ‘REP’ next to it.

So, more elbow work needed – a fresh blank grid with clue numbers manually added this time, and then work through the ‘conventional’ order of clues and the extra letters, to get:

‘SO IF YOU REALLY NEED TO YOU’LL KNOW HOW TO FIND ME’

as the 6th and 7th lines of the song.

This didn’t trip off the tongue for me, but a bit of Wiki-oogling threw up the song ‘My name is Tallulah’, from Bugsy Malone:

Line 1:   My name is Tallulah
Line 2:   My first rule of thumb
Line 3:   I don’t say where I’m going
Line 4:   Or where I’m coming from
Line 5:   I try to leave a little REPutation behind me
Line 6:   So if you really need to
Line 7:   You’ll know how to find me

So that explained the middle row, with TALLULAH (me, the speaker) and REP (a little reputation, behind) – as the cryptic representation of the 5th line. But I still don’t quite see how lines 3 and 4 indicate the ‘reverse alphabetical’ order of the clues? There didn’t seem to be any numerological connection to the puzzle number, 1200 – unless I have missed something. And the original Bugsy Malone film was released in September 1976, so no obvious anniversary or other connection – maybe it is just a favourite of Jaguar’s? Never mind – the theme was worked out, the denouement had been arrived at, and a final, tidied up, version of the puzzle was submitted! Time to go for a lie down…

I have been gently chided (chid?) in the past for describing a tough puzzle I (eventually) solved and blogged as a ‘slog’ – as this was perceived to have negative connotations. But, going back to Chambers, it has this as ‘a strenuous spell of work; something which requires strenuous, esp protracted, effort’, which seems to fit the bill here – mental exertion, at least – and as any self-respecting masochist knows, a hard ‘slog’ up a hillside on a cold and rainy day has it’s own special enjoyment, and when you get to the top the views can make it all the more worthwhile!

Some excellent clueing – not too hard in themselves, maybe, but extra thought needed with the added complication of picking out the extra letters. Particularly enjoyed the surface reading of OGLER! A few new (to me) words, like HABERGEONS, TAMISE and IWIS.

With that – many thanks to Jaguar for the challenge, and congrats to everyone involved with the EV series – editor, setters, solvers and bloggers – on notching up another century…onwards and upwards!…

CLUES (in order presented)
Clue No	Extra Letter	Solution	Clue (definition underlined) / Logic/Parsing (extra letter in [s]quare brackets)
*	Y	WHIPPET	Speedy tank driver with sense of duty? One’s not shown (7) / WHIP (driver, or coachman) + P(I)ET[Y] (sense of duty, without I, one)
*	S	WHEEZE	Gag in Edinburgh’s to silence almost 2000 English (6) / WHEE[S](H) (almost WHEESH, Scottish, hence ‘in Edinburgh’, interjection for ‘silence!’) + Z (2000 in Roman numerals) + E (English)
*	E	USAGE	Apply for backing to join mature practice (5) / [E]US (sue, or petition/apply for, backing) + AGE (mature)
*	O	URANIUM	Element discovered by German or French braincase having removed carbon (7) / [O]U (ou, ‘or’ in French) + (C)RANIUM (brain case, with C – carbon – removed)
*	N	UNREWARDING	Dull sister artist’s recalled in gallery’s entrance (11) / [N]UN (sister) + REWARD (drawer, or artist, recalled) + IN + G (first letter, or entrance,of Gallery)
*	A	ULA	USB initially prepared with small microchip with unconnected logic circuits (3) / U (USB, initially) + [A]LA (prepared with, cooking, as in ‘a la mode’)
*	O	TAMISE	Thin fabric for a payment given to a king, once (6) / T[O] (for) + A + MISE (payment made to a new king, once)
*	E	STIBIUM	Bitumen is ground with Nitrogen extracted to produce antimony (7) / anag, i.e. ground, of BITUM[E](N) IS, without N – Nitrogen)
*	T	SINE	Without knight in position (4) / SI[T]_E (position) around N (knight, chess)
*	F	PRELUDE	Introduction to unusual penny dreadful Danny curiously overlooked (7) / anag, i.e. unusual, of PE(NNY) DRE(AD)[F]UL with the letters of DANNY overlooked
*	Y	POSH	Smart, humourless and bashful (4) / PO (humourless, po-faced) + SH[Y] (bashful)
*	O	POCHARD	Habit-forming heroin’s left behind Dog & Duck (7) / PO[O]CH (dog) + (H)ARD (habit forming, of a drug, with H – heroin – left off)
*	O	PIGEON	Dirty fellow and Eastern Beatles wife’s affair (6) / PIG (dirty fellow) + E (Eastern) + ON[O] (Yoko Ono, Beatle’s – John Lennon’s – wife)
*	Y	PEAG	Shell money in Peru colourful, in retrospect (4) / PE (Peru) + [Y]AG (gay, colourful, in retrospect)
*	W	OSCILLATION	Crazy actions over will bringing regular instability (11) / anag, i.e. crazy, of ACTIONS + O (over) + [W]ILL
*	I	OPUSES	Old Greek character once observes compositions (6) / O (old) + P[I] (Greek character) + USES (observes, archaic, or once)
*	W	ONAGER	Secured advanced German siege engine (6) / [W]ON (secured) + A (advancd) + GER (German)
*	L	OGLER	He may cast amorous glances, at first looking on girlfriend’s lovely effeminate rear (5) / first letters of ‘[L]ooking On Girlfriend’s Lovely Effeminate Rear’
*	T	LEGIBLE	The French returning large half of letter that’s easy to read (7) / LE (definite article, in French) + GIB (big, large, returning) + LE[T] (half of LETter)
*	U	IWIS	Maori tribe found in US? Certainly, once (4) / [U]_S around IWI (Maori tribe)
*	E	IDEM	I think the same (4) / I + DE[E]M (think)
*	O	HALO	Husband mostly reserved, showing ideal glory (4) / H (husband) + ALO[O](F) (mostly aloof, or reserved)
*	I	HABERGEONS	Begin a hero’s intricate light mail coats (10) / anag, i.e. intricate, of BEG[I]N A HERO’S
*	O	FUST	Mouldy smell of earth with no end of mould (4) / [O]F (D)UST (of earth, with no D – the last letter, or end, of moulD)
*	D	FUME	Give off not entirely enjoyable medicine (4) / FU(N) (not entirely fun, or enjoyable) + ME[D] (medicine)
*	K	FOOLISH	Battered fish look silly (7) / anag, i.e. silly, of FISH LOO[K]
*	O	EXHUME	Again mention former residence outside university (6) / EX (former) + H[O]_ME (residence) around (outside of) U (university)
*	R	ENIGMA	Cipher, German, Rejewski ultimately cracked (6) / anag, i.e. cracked, of GE[R]MAN + I (ultimate letter of ‘RejewskI)
*	L	EGER	Bore on… very nearly an age! (4) / [L]EG (on, the ‘on’ side in cricket) + ER(A) (nearly an age)
*	U	EECH	Bard’s to augment revenue, alternately, with church (4) / EE[U] (alternate letters of ‘rEvEnUe’ + CH (church)
*	R	DRAM	Maybe have a whisky and hock after drive (4) / DR (drive) + [H]AM (hock)
*	F	DECORUM	Drunkard originally enjoying 50% coffee and rum, showing good manners (7) / DE (Drunkard and Enjoying, originally?) + CO[F] (50% of COFfee) + RUM
*	L	DECIDUA	What’s discharged after giving birth to twin after December 1? (7) / DEC I (1st of December) + DUA[L] (twin)
*	D	COLUMNATED	Like some old temples of St Columba, lacking soul and old-fashioned (10) / COLUM(BA)N (of St Columba, lacking BA – soul) + [D]ATED
*	L	CANDOR	Perhaps Obama’s frankness can defeat Rand Paul’s extreme points (6) / CAN + DO (defeat) + R[L] (extreme letters of ‘Rand pauL’)
*	M	AYAH	Old maid’s expression of surprise seeing another maid (4) / [M]AY (archaic/poetic word for ‘maid’) + AH (expression of surprise)
*	N	ARUM	Titan perhaps in North America – strange! (4) / [N]A (North America) + RUM (strange)
*	E	ANIL	Australian river plant (4) / A (Australian) + NIL[E] (river)
*	N	AIRLINE	Glaswegian’s iron railway – one is owned by Richard Branson (7) / AIR[N] (Scottish, or Glaswegian, for iron) + LINE (railway)
ACROSS – conventional order)
Clue No	Extra Letter	Solution	Clue / Logic/Parsing (extra letter in [s]quare brackets)
1	S	WHEEZE	Gag in Edinburgh’s to silence almost 2000 English (6) / WHEE[S](H) (almost WHEESH, Scottish, hence ‘in Edinburgh’, interjection for ‘silence!’) + Z (2000 in Roman numerals) + E (English)
6	O	FUST	Mouldy smell of earth with no end of mould (4) / [O]F (D)UST (of earth, with no D – the last letter, or end, of moulD)
9	I	HABERGEONS	Begin a hero’s intricate light mail coats (10) / anag, i.e. intricate, of BEG[I]N A HERO’S
11	F	DECORUM	Drunkard originally enjoying 50% coffee and rum, showing good manners (7) / DE (Drunkard and Enjoying, originally?) + CO[F] (50% of COFfee) + RUM
12	Y	POSH	Smart, humourless and bashful (4) / PO (humourless, po-faced) + SH[Y] (bashful)
14	O	POCHARD	Habit-forming heroin’s left behind Dog & Duck (7) / PO[O]CH (dog) + (H)ARD (habit forming, of a drug, with H – heroin – left off)
16	U	IWIS	Maori tribe found in US? Certainly, once (4) / [U]_S around IWI (Maori tribe)
17	R	ENIGMA	Cipher, German, Rejewski ultimately cracked (6) / anag, i.e. cracked, of GE[R]MAN + I (ultimate letter of ‘RejewskI)
18	E	USAGE	Apply for backing to join mature practice (5) / [E]US (sue, or petition/apply for, backing) + AGE (mature)
20	A	ULA	USB initially prepared with small microchip with unconnected logic circuits (3) / U (USB, initially) + [A]LA (prepared with, cooking, as in ‘a la mode’)
22	L	OGLER	He may cast amorous glances, at first looking on girlfriend’s lovely effeminate rear (5) / first letters of ‘[L]ooking On Girlfriend’s Lovely Effeminate Rear’
23	L	CANDOR	Perhaps Obama’s frankness can defeat Rand Paul’s extreme points (6) / CAN + DO (defeat) + R[L] (extreme letters of ‘Rand pauL’)
25	Y	PEAG	Shell money in Peru colourful, in retrospect (4) / PE (Peru) + [Y]AG (gay, colourful, in retrospect)
26	N	AIRLINE	Glaswegian’s iron railway – one is owned by Richard Branson (7) / AIR[N] (Scottish, or Glaswegian, for iron) + LINE (railway)
28	E	ANIL	Australian river plant (4) / A (Australian) + NIL[E] (river)
30	E	STIBIUM	Bitumen is ground with Nitrogen extracted to produce antimony (7) / anag, i.e. ground, of BITUM[E](N) IS, without N – Nitrogen)
31	D	COLUMNATED	Like some old temples of St Columba, lacking soul and old-fashioned (10) / COLUM(BA)N (of St Columba, lacking BA – soul) + [D]ATED
32	T	SINE	Without knight in position (4) / SI[T]_E (position) around N (knight, chess)
33	O	EXHUME	Again mention former residence outside university (6) / EX (former) + H[O]_ME (residence) around (outside of) U (university)
DOWN – conventional order)
Clue No	Extra Letter	Solution	Clue / Logic/Parsing (extra letter in [s]quare brackets)
1	Y	WHIPPET	Speedy tank driver with sense of duty? One’s not shown (7) / WHIP (driver, or coachman) + P(I)ET[Y] (sense of duty, without I, one)
2	O	HALO	Husband mostly reserved, showing ideal glory (4) / H (husband) + ALO[O](F) (mostly aloof, or reserved)
3	U	EECH	Bard’s to augment revenue, alternately, with church (4) / EE[U] (alternate letters of ‘rEvEnUe’ + CH (church)
4	L	EGER	Bore on… very nearly an age! (4) / [L]EG (on, the ‘on’ side in cricket) + ER(A) (nearly an age)
5	L	DECIDUA	What’s discharged after giving birth to twin after December 1? (7) / DEC I (1st of December) + DUA[L] (twin)
6	K	FOOLISH	Battered fish look silly (7) / anag, i.e. silly, of FISH LOO[K]
7	N	UNREWARDING	Dull sister artist’s recalled in gallery’s entrance (11) / [N]UN (sister) + REWARD (drawer, or artist, recalled) + IN + G (first letter, or entrance,of Gallery)
8	O	TAMISE	Thin fabric for a payment given to a king, once (6) / T[O] (for) + A + MISE (payment made to a new king, once)
10	W	OSCILLATION	Crazy actions over will bringing regular instability (11) / anag, i.e. crazy, of ACTIONS + O (over) + [W]ILL
11	H	DRAM	Maybe have a whisky and hock after drive (4) / DR (drive) + [H]AM (hock)
13	O	PIGEON	Dirty fellow and Eastern Beatles wife’s affair (6) / PIG (dirty fellow) + E (Eastern) + ON[O] (Yoko Ono, Beatle’s – John Lennon’s – wife)
15	W	ONAGER	Secured advanced German siege engine (6) / [W]ON (secured) + A (advancd) + GER (German)
19	T	LEGIBLE	The French returning large half of letter that’s easy to read (7) / LE (definite article, in French) + GIB (big, large, returning) + LE[T] (half of LETter)
20	O	URANIUM	Element discovered by German or French braincase having removed carbon (7) / [O]U (ou, ‘or’ in French) + (C)RANIUM (brain case, with C – carbon – removed)
21	F	PRELUDE	Introduction to unusual penny dreadful Danny curiously overlooked (7) / anag, i.e. unusual, of PE(NNY) DRE(AD)[F]UL with the letters of DANNY overlooked
22	I	OPUSES	Old Greek character once observes compositions (6) / O (old) + P[I] (Greek character) + USES (observes, archaic, or once)
24	N	ARUM	Titan perhaps in North America – strange! (4) / [N]A (North America) + RUM (strange)
27	D	FUME	Give off not entirely enjoyable medicine (4) / FU(N) (not entirely fun, or enjoyable) + ME[D] (medicine)
28	M	AYAH	Old maid’s expression of surprise seeing another maid (4) / [M]AY (archaic/poetic word for ‘maid’) + AH (expression of surprise)
29	E	IDEM	I think the same (4) / I + DE[E]M (think)