This Christmas puzzle employs a device that I don’t remember Azed using before. The special instructions state: “In the completed diagram, eight words in jumbled form may be seen radiating from and including the central square, which must be deduced”.
The instructions continued: “four, each of six letters, proceed consecutively and diagonally towards the corners of the grid, and four, each of four letters, proceed consecutively north, south, east and west towards the mid-point of each side of the diagram”.
As you can see from the highlighting, the jumbled words form the shape of a snowflake. Reading clockwise from North, the jumbled four letter words are BUSH, BOOT, BIRD and BALL. The six letter words are GLOBES, MOBILE (the competition word), BOARDS and BRAKES. In each case you have to precede the word with SNOW “to form a compound” although in some cases it’s a two-word phrase and in others a complete or hyphenated word. It was easy enough to deduce that B must be the letter to insert in the central square. The only part of the special instructions that I didn’t understand was the word “consecutively”, which didn’t seem to me to add anything of value.
To make matters more difficult, the highlighted letters were ignored in the wordplay for all clues, although the definitions took them into account. This led to some rather short words in the centre of the diagram, at least for purposes of wordplay. In my explanations I have also ignored the highlighted letters.
| Across | ||
| 1 | QUESTRIST |
Who in Rome has time to accept rest, relaxing? One on a mission no longer(9)
*REST in QUIS, T. It’s a Shakespearean term (“no longer”). |
| 8 | PALP |
Examine china fragment of porcelain(4)
PAL P(orcelain). “China” = mate or pal. |
| 12 | KATHAK |
Attending Muslim physician, I’m denied dance with mime(6)
AT HAK(im). |
| 13 | CROME |
Local crook, king in commerce briefly(5)
R in COM. “Crome” is a dialect word for a crook or hook, so “locally” is appropriate. |
| 14 | MUSA |
Graduate university ‘gated’ – bananas(4)
U in MA. Musa is the banana genus. |
| 15 | CRINOSE |
Hairy canine to wash lightly(7)
C(anine) RINSE. |
| 16 | BLU-RAYS |
Computer storage methods left half of us space(7)
L U(s) in BAY. I’m not sure how the wording of the clue implies the insertion. |
| 17 | GRIP |
Power split(4)
Simple definition (of RIP). |
| 18 | REFRESHES |
Run among stormy reefs is enlivening(9)
R in *REEFS |
| 22 | YO-YO |
Useless so-and-so one cut short repeatedly(4)
YO(u) YO(u). |
| 23 | ALDI |
Face switching sections in supermarket(4)
DI AL with the parts exchanged. |
| 24 | PAULA |
Prince accepted girl’s name(5)
P A. |
| 25 | HUSS |
Fish which US seamen will be found netting(4)
Hidden in “which US seamen”. |
| 28 | CAKY |
Like e.g.sponges in 1,000 island fringes(4)
K in CAY. |
| 29 | TORII |
Temple gateway leads to this interior(5)
T(his) I(nterior). It’s both the singular and plural form of a Japanese word. |
| 30 | TUNE |
Nature’s thrilled RA with this air(4)
*NATURE less RA. |
| 31 | HAIL |
Greeting score at Murrayfield(4)
Cryptic definition: it’s a Scottish term for a score in a game. |
| 33 | SPINETTES |
Having spent wildly, tenor introduced period instruments(8)
T in *SPENT. |
| 35 | MARA |
Drive back pampas rodent?(4)
RAM (rev). |
| 38 | DEPORTS |
Exiles set out clutching duplicated bits of property(7)
PR(operty) in *SET. |
| 40 | EARMARK |
A maker’s modified special label(7)
*(A MAKER). |
| 41 | PLIE |
Rulebook: it’s learnt in ballet school(4)
Simple definition of the fourth meaning of PIE in Chambers. |
| 42 | DEICE |
Scrape maybe set back European company in e.g. Lyon(5)
E CIE (rev). Cie is the abbreviation for Compagnie, French for company. |
| 43 | SEPIUM |
Bony part of cuttle-fish muddled up sei(6)
*(UP SEI). |
| 44 | TATA |
Cheers pony with amateur on(4)
TAT (short for tatoo, a native-bred Indian pony) A(mateur). |
| 45 | STRETCHER |
Straight carver? An exaggeration(9)
STR(aight) ETCHER. |
| Down | ||
| 2 | UKULELE |
Self-contained rubber instrument(7)
ULE in ULE. |
| 3 | STARRILY |
Pen capturing air tripping in sparkling fashion(8)
*AIR in STY. |
| 4 | THRAE |
Scots from part of south Rannoch(5)
Hidden in “south Rannoch”. |
| 5 | RACY |
Pungent fish stuffed with bit of coriander(4)
C(oriander) in RAY. |
| 6 | SCRY |
Tell fortunes, frightening, to be avoided by amateur(4)
SC(a)RY. |
| 7 | TRIM |
Order neat dress fittings(4)
Triple definition, one a verb, one an adjective. and one a noun phrase. |
| 8 | PONGY |
Horse smelling strongly(5)
PONY – another simple definition. |
| 9 | AMOROUS |
Warm slice of mutton put in to stir endlessly(7)
M(utton) in AROUS(e). |
| 10 | PREPOSSESSED |
In a hurry to grab power, biased(12)
POSSE in PRESSED. |
| 11 | EMBRANCHMENT |
Born cowboys maybe having met galloping round mountain spur(12)
B(orn) RANCHMEN in *MET. |
| 19 | SALOP |
Special hot drink, sort of tisane(5)
SP(ecial). |
| 20 | ELOIN |
Front-runner in National? Distance no longer used(5)
EN – the representation of N, the first letter of National. Eloin or eloign is an archaic term meaning to convey to a distance. |
| 21 | SATI |
Sloth, something fatal for widow(4)
AI – the three-toed sloth. |
| 24 | PATS |
Working out what to serve with rolls?(4)
PT (physical training). |
| 25 | HOT TOPIC |
Cooked chip, dry inside, subject of much debate(8,2words)
TT (teetotal) in *CHIP. |
| 26 | SKIRRET |
Water-parsnip cocktail imbibed by exclusive group(7)
KIR in SET. |
| 27 | ONE-TIME |
Former marriage following love not once(7)
O NE (old term for not) TIE. |
| 32 | LAMIA |
Bloodsucker, reverse of direct going after pounds(5)
L AIM (rev). |
| 34 | EPOPT |
Devotee of Demeter went off by the sound of it?(5)
Sounds like “popped”. |
| 36 | SACS |
Cadet in specialized unit displaying baggy items(4)
C in SAS. |
| 37 | FRET |
Ornamental detail, metal ridge to etch(4)
Another triple definition. |
| 39 | EPEE |
What principal has held as part of noble peerage?(4)
Hidden in “noble peerage”. It’s a reference to duelling. |
Thanks to bridgesong and to Azed.
re 18ac BLU-RAY I concluded that the word ‘in’ had been left out of the clue, which should have ended ‘left half of us IN space’.
The surface then makes more sense and the clue parses easily.
Norman @1: that seems a very reasonable explanation. I’m sure you’re right.
Thanks Azed and bridgesong. Here is an extract from the relevant Azed slip:
I must also apologize for the mysteriously missing ‘in’ in the clue to BLU(R)AY(S), though few mentioned this, and also for the equally (to me) mysterious use of ‘cadet’ to indicate ‘c’ in the clue to SACS. I’ve simply no idea how I came to dream this up.