MynoT is a fairly tricky setter, but his puzzles are always worth the challenge. Here, like many of his recent EVs we had an alphabetical jigsaw, with sixteen answers requiring thematic modification before entry. The theme was somehow STATELESS, so my money was on the USA, a topical theme given what’s going on over there.
The first thing was to note answer versus available grid lengths. There were fifteen clues with entry lengths of 9, 10, 11 or 12 letters, but no grid entry of those lengths. Something thematic therefore needed to be dropped before entry.
My first pass through the clues enabled me to get 23. Of course, that didn’t help me with being able to put anything in the grid. With the basic structure of initial letters, I managed to whittle the unsolved clues down to eight with about two hours of solving under my belt. Those final eight took some coaxing, with the tail end being STEAM UP, TARRE, NATTIER BLUE and finally RHODY and RETINA.
I should have sussed the theme from the common endings of EPITHALAMIUM and PROTHALAMIUM… but I didn’t. It was only when I reread the premable that “somehow stateless” enabled the penny (belatedly) to drop. The theme was the five tastes, and we had to become tasteless, with 3 BITTERs, 4 SALTs, 4 SOURs, 2 SWEETs and 3 UMAMIs being dropped from the answers. So that’s 3 bottles of beer, 4 salt cellars, 4 lemons, 2 spoons of honey and 3 jars of Marmite… which I love!
This ended up being trickier than it should have been, but I got there in the end.
Solving time: about 3½ hours.
Legend:
Definition in clue
TASTELESS in entry
ABC* = anagram
ABC< = reversal
abCDef = hidden
| ACROSS | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Clue No | Grid No | Answer/ Entry |
Clue and Explanation |
| 1 | 22dn | AHAB | Ancient king and Captain (4) 2 meanings; king of Israel & Moby Dick |
| 2 | 4dn | ALAMEDA | A game with lawyer in walk between poplars for example (7) A LAME (game, adj) + DA (lawyer) |
| 3 | 22ac | ANIMA MUNDI | An Islamic leader and German one is worldly soul (10, two words) AN IMAM (Islamic leader) UND (and, German) I (one) |
| 4 | 31dn | ANTA | Tapir found in William’s cave, mostly (4) ANTA[r] (cave, Shakespeare, mostly) |
| 5 | 31ac | ARDEB | Measure Arab girl (5) AR (Arab) DEB (girl’s name) |
| 6 | 32dn | BOOT SALE | Unofficial market to provide profits and beer (8, two words) BOOTS (profits) + ALE (beer) |
| 7 | 28dn | DEERE | Grievously returned javelin without it’s point (5) [j]EREED< (javelin, without its first letter, reversed) |
| 8 | 28ac | DREAM UP | Plan about 500 sheets in duplicate (7, two words) REAM (about 500 sheets) in DUP (duplicate) |
| 9 | 23ac | EIGHTS WEEK | Frantically seek weight for period of rowing races (10, two words) (SEEK WEIGHT)*; see Eights Week |
| 10 | 14ac | EMU | Unit of measurement for bird (3) 2 meanings; electromagnetic unit (EMU or emu) and bird |
| 11 | 38ac | EPITHALAMIUM | Aim them pilau cooked for the wedding song (12) (AIM THEM PILAU)* |
| 12 | 12ac | ETTLE | On Skye, object to land without sun (5) SETTLE (land) – S (sun) |
| 13 | 9dn | EUROSCEPTIC | Brexiteer is drunken roué caught in clan I see in audience (11) ROUE* + C (caught) in SEPT (clan) IC (sounds like I see) |
| 14 | 30dn | FORESTALL | Wood for everybody to anticipate (9) FOREST (wood) + ALL (everybody) |
| 15 | 24dn | GERBIL | Rodent found in Georgia, Botswana and Israel (6) GE (Georgia) RB (Botswana) + IL (Israel); RB for Republic of Botswana is no longer given in the 13th edition of Chambers |
| 16 | 19ac | HARRIS TWEED | Drear whites manufactured in this cloth (11, two words) (DREAR WHITES)* |
| 17 | 19dn | HETEROUSIAN | Straight Scot embracing American of unlike essence (11) HETERO (straight) IAN (Scot) around US (American) |
| 18 | 34ac | INBYE | Batting extra near the house in Holyrood (5) IN (batting) BYE (extra) |
| 19 | 15dn | KLIK | Return of kind follower of Jay for a kilometre (4) ILK< (kind, reversed) K (follower of J) |
| 20 | 5dn | LIBRETTIST | Composer’s partner is dry in well-worn trilbies (10) TT (dry) in TRILBIES* |
| 21 | 35ac | MANNER | Man embracing girl in this way (6) MR (man) around ANNE (girl) |
| 22 | 29dn | MINOR SUIT | Criminal in tourism for deal in diamonds or clubs (9, two words) (IN TOURISM)* |
| 23 | 33ac | MOO | Low satellite not quite all there (3) MOO[n] (satellite, not all there) |
| 24 | 37ac | NATTIER BLUE | It’s cleverer to squander soft azure (11, two words) NATTIER (cleverer) BLUE (to squander) |
| 25 | 8dn | NILE | Flower of evergreen ilex (4) in evergreeN ILEx |
| 26 | 26dn | NUMNAH | Miners having no local pad for seat (6) NUM (miners, National Union of) + NAH (no, local word) |
| 27 | 2dn | OCTUOR | Fetch out company to back eight players (6) (ROUT (fetch out) CO (company))< |
| 28 | 18ac | OUST | Where French saint is cast out (4) OU (where, French word) ST (saint) |
| 29 | 7dn | OUTRUN | In remote pasture wicket could be down if two halves were exchanged (6) RUN OUT (wicket could be down thus, two halves swapped) |
| 30 | 1dn | PLASTERED | Place flower on Ed who is drunk (9) PL (place) ASTER (flower) + ED |
| 31 | 1ac | PROTHALAMIUM | Triumphal Mao performed engagement ode (12) (TRIUMPHAL MAO)* |
| 22 | 11ac | RETINA | Receiver in Rome guilty about money (6) REA (guilty, Latin word) about TIN (money); REA is referenced under mens rea |
| 33 | 20dn | RHODY | Member of group’s crew heard to produce shrub (5) sounds like ROADIE (member of rock group’s crew) |
| 34 | 10ac | SCHOLION | Note he sculpted House celebrity (8) SC (he sculpted) HO (house) LION (celebrity) |
| 35 | 21dn | STEAM UP | Mates could get excited (7, two words) I’m not sure how to describe this, but I’ll go with ‘reverse clue’, ie STEAM UP is MATES* |
| 36 | 16ac | TARRE | Set on judgment of tribunal with time to begin (5) ARRET (tribunal judgement) with the T at the start |
| 37 | 3dn | THAT’S LIFE | Stealth broadcast about condition for show (9, two words) STEALTH* about IF (condition); for those not old enough to remember, That’s Life was a popular BBC show in the 70’s and 80’s |
| 38 | 27ac | THEO | Boy found in Pantheon (4) in panTHEOn |
| 39 | 6dn | TOEAS | Digit when used for coins (5) TOE (digit) AS (when) |
| 40 | 17ac | TOELESS | Like The Pobble to see about adopting large son (7) (TO SEE)* about L (large) + S (son); reference to poem by Edward Lear |
| 41 | 13dn | TRONE | Translator to precede unit in market place (5) TR (translator) + ONE (unit) |
| 42 | 36ac | TROUPIAL | Publisher in test for singer (8) OUP (publisher, Oxford University Press) in TRIAL (test) |
| 43 | 6ac | TWITTERBONE | Palpitate with good energy to find excrescence on horse’s hoof (11) TWITTER (palpitate) + BON (good) E (energy) |
| 44 | 25ac | UROSTHENIC | Primitive heavyweight (at that time essentially epical) having a tail for propulsion (10) UR (primitive, prefix) OS (outsize, heavyweight) THEN (at that time) IC (epICal, essentially) |
I’m afraid MynoT won this one – I had an almost full set of answers, and could see at least 15 of the 16 that needed changing – because they were all too long! – but spent far too long trying to extract American states from them, and then decide discretion was the better part of valour in this case, and walked slowly away from it!
Thanks for the explanation, Dave H – and for the challenge, Mynot.
This was a toughie. I made steady progress cold solving but then seemed to grind to a frustrating halt. Like mc, I spent some time pondering US states. The door opener for me was spotting bitter in both librettist and nattier blue. I didn’t have twitterbone solved at that time, but had ‘twitter’ scribbled down in my workings, so that was the catalyst I needed to complete. I couldn’t parse retina so thanks to DH for clearing that one up as well as the comprehensive blog. I’m afraid I don’t share your opinions on Marmite, whose price increase has no impact on this household’s outgoings.
Great puzzle from MynoT, with some tricky jigsaw elements which succeeded in throwing me before the grid was complete