It looked like it would be an easy week for me here. It was a small 10×6 grid, and there were only twenty clues, with no misprints or extra letters, and what seemed like a straightforward pentomino endgame. The only tricky aspect of the puzzle was that any square was entered as the digit for mod 5 of its position in the alphabet; crossing letters may be different but would encode to the same digit.
It sounded fairly straightforward, but in about ten seconds — if you continue reading — you’ll find out why this puzzle caused me so much grief!
I started on the acrosses. While 1 passed me by (I hadn’t come across MANG before), 5 was quickly pencilled in as MUSE (sounds like MEWS)! LUNCH and TAIGA were close behind, and it looked like the grid would be finished in record time.
Of course, I was wrong! Some of the clues were indeed easy, but others held me up for longer than they should have. Moreover, I initially stuck GROMA into column 1, with the G crossing the L of LUNCH. It was some time before I moved it to column 9. MOTOWN (nothing to do with Greek legends) and IDIOFA (!) were the last clues I solved.
The division of the grid into the different pentominoes sounded a bit daunting since there were ten different shapes that needed to be accommodated. However, the plus (or X in pentomino-speak) could only go near the centre and I slotted in all the others clockwise from there.
Five minutes later and the bottom right-hand corner jumped out and bit me. I had a 10-square region with three 1s and one 2! Thus began nearly an hour of checking and puzzling over my grid before I eventually realised that, while MUSE had 4 letters, its symmetrical entry was BASTE with 5. Two minutes later and WEIGH came to my rescue. It was just my luck that M, H and W all coded to 3 and S and I coded to 4.
After all that, the colouring was easy since only three were required as opposed to more esoteric structures which may need four.
Thanks for the headache, Elroy, although I suspect you’re someone else in disguise!
[Come back tomorrow for the Setters’ Blog and all will be revealed]
Solving time: Grrrrr!
Legend:
Definition in clue
ABC* = anagram
ABC< = reversal
abCDef = hidden
| ACROSS | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| No | Entry | Clue and Explanation | |
| 1 | MANGO | Old speak and start to ogle sweet thing MANG (speak, archaic) + O (start of Ogle) |
|
| 5 | WEIGH | Ponder street broadcast sounds like WAY (street) |
|
| 8 | LUNCH | Lump for some boat Australian abandoned LAUNCH (boat) – A (Australian) |
|
| 9 | TIAGA | Angry gladiator deposes drunken lord to obtain wooded area (GLADIATOR – LORD*)* |
|
| 12 | FLASHY | An insect has broken in, dazzling for a moment FLY (insect) with HAS* inside |
|
| 14 | MOTOWN | Test to recognise legendary label MOT (test, as in UK car test) + OWN (recognise) |
|
| 15 | SKIRL | Shortened border? Loudly at first, Scots shriek SKIR[T] (border, shortened) + L (first letter of Loudly) |
|
| 16 | BLURS | Bill of sale involving ancient instrument becomes unclear BS (bill of slae) containing LUR (ancient instrument; a trumpet) |
|
| 17 | BASTE | Hit struggling beast BEAST* |
|
| 18 | MIAUL | I’m backing topless Frenchman to cry IM< + [G]AUL (Frenchman without first letter) |
|
| DOWN | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| No | Entry | Clue and Explanation | |
| 2 | APEEK | A quick look upwards A + PEEK (quick look) |
|
| 3 | SILENI | Begin to idolise after mum exorcises church gods I (first letter of Idolise) after SILENCE (mum) – CE (church) |
|
| 4 | BRAT | Get to support up front T (to) preceded by BRA (support); get, noun |
|
| 5 | HOLD | Keep bag everyone leaves HOLD-ALL (bag) – ALL (everyone) |
|
| 6 | IDIOFA | Congolese town abbreviated foolish note IDIO[T] (foolish, abbreviated) + FA (note) |
|
| 7 | MATH | Dull, hard subject in Maine? MAT (dull) + H (hard) |
|
| 10 | GROMA | Gravitation used with Italian capital to produce measuring device used there G (gravitation) + ROMA (Italian capital); ‘there’ refers to Rome, GROMA being used in ancient Rome |
|
| 11 | BRIG | American bird’s black dress B (black) + RIG (dress) |
|
| 12 | URGE | Desire some courgettes in coURGEttes |
|
| 13 | KILN | Initially, Kate and Irene get natural log for furnace KI (Kate & Irene, initially) + LN (natural log) |
|
What an excellent puzzle from Elroy. The sort of thing that one expects to see occasionally in The Listener, but not elsewhere. At first I thought it would be very tricky but once I had got my head round the possible checking given by the modulo conversions, it was simpler than it looks. It was also good to learn more about pentominoes whilst researching the endgame. More like this please!!!!!!!
Well, I managed to solve most of the clues in the end, but the small matter of filling the grid made my head spin, I’m afraid. Perhaps with a little more patience…
I though this was a great achievement by the setters.
I’m glad I’m not the only one who got stuck trying to balance MUSE and BASTE.
When I opened the paper and read this I thought it may have been beyond me. And I was correct…
I managed to fill the grid after a few photocopies were messed up and binned, brat being my last to solve. I then approached the end game with some trepidation, not having heard of pentominoes before. I ought to have researched this more thoroughly as I managed to fulfil the criteria of getting 12 shapes each with the 5 numbers. But not in the right way. I hadn’t realised that the 12 shapes were pre-defined. It was only upon reading this blog’s mention of the ‘X’ that I realised. Rats !
So my entry had 4 colours and a bunch of incorrect shapes.
Nevertheless, I still thoroughly enjoyed having a go at something completely different.
Many thanks to Dave H for the blog and explanations.