Preamble: The six unclued entries are members of a group; their unchecked/mutually checked letters could spell I ISSUED PAILS. The group cryptically suggests how to change each of seven identical letters to another letter (always leaving real words). These seven letters must be joined with a curved line, starting and ending at different cells in column 1, creating a pictorial representation of the group. Finally the letters in five cells, two of which contain a pair of letters, must be changed into characters thereby creating a symbol.
Another reasonably gentle Inquisitor. I pretty much sailed through in one sitting with the exception of the NW corner. Eventually 12a succumbed and I was able to complete it. Of course it wasn’t helped by there being two unclued answers and 1d not being in Chambers.
As the unclued entries began to form, it looked fairly obvious that g1-l1 was going to be PISCES. Then l1-l7 looked like SAURIES (plural of SAURY) which indicated that there was something “fishy” going on. 3d and 20d were proving tricky but, on re-reading the preamble, I decided that they were likely candidates for the two cells containing two letters. This in turn led to me finding ICHTHUS in e6-i6.
So, definitely fish coupled with ICHTHUS led me to the Christian “fish” symbol to be drawn through the only seven F’s in the grid. But wait, they have to be changed thematically – I had to let my subconscious take over and consequently woke up in the middle of the night saying, “aha, F is H”, so every F has to be replaced by an H.
The unclued answers are:
a1-f1 DISCUS
b1-b4 SEIR
g1-l1 PISCES
l1-l7 SAURIES
a11-f11 SPARID
g11-l11 SARDEL
Last thing to do then is change ICHTHUS to its symbols: 
. (alternate upsilon (looks like a U) used in grid picture.)
As I said, nice and gentle but no less enjoyable because of it. And how remarkable that Shark managed to construct the grid with no superfluous F’s and H’s.
Thanks Shark.
| Across |
||
| Clue |
Entry |
Wordplay |
| 7 Western Pacific capital near the ocean (not Southern) (4) |
TOEA | TO (near)+sEA (the ocean; minus Southern) |
| 8 Spinal deformity’s brief spasmodic pain in the body (8) |
SCOLIOMA | SOMA (the body) containing COLIc (spasmodic pain; brief) |
| 9 Riding or flying one can touch down on this (8) |
GRIDIRON | RIDING OR (anag: flying) |
| 10 Banned nerve gas releasing nitrogen (4) |
TABU | TABUn (nerve gas; minus Nitrogen) |
| 12 Old cavalryman, one travelling round Indonesia? (7) |
FARRIER HARRIER |
FARER (one travelling) containing RI (Indonesia) |
| 13 Practically increase the bulk of a rope primarily with threads (5) |
FILAR HILAR |
FILl (increase the bulk of; practically)+A+Rope (primarily) |
| 15 SA President clutches East Indian crab’s chest? (7) |
PEREION | PERON (South American president) containing East+India |
| 17 Female chromosome removed from books (completely the opposite) (3) |
IDA | IDAnt (chromosome) minus NT (books: New Testament) |
| 21 Upset wife squandering money (3) |
ATE | mATE (wife) minus Money |
| 22 Uninitiated light research about electromotive force units (7) |
AMPERES | lAMP (light; uninitiated)+RESearch containing Electromotive force |
| 26 Ridiculousness following topless party (5) |
FOLLY HOLLY |
Following+jOLLY (party; topless) |
| 27 Posh friend somehow not discharged (7) |
UNFIRED UNHIRED |
U (posh)+FRIEND (anag: somehow) |
| 29 God’s painful back (4) | EROS | SORE (painful; rev: back) |
| 30 Rural prior accepting answer by phone (8) |
PRAEDIAL | PRE (prior) containing Answer+DIAL (phone) |
| 31 They admire Cockney lass wearing lapel? (8) |
REVERERS | ‘ER (Cockney lass) inside REVERS (kind of lapel) |
| 32 US gambler’s brilliant cycling (4) |
EARP | PEAR (brilliant; anag: cycling) |
| Down |
||
| Clue |
Entry |
Wordplay |
| 1 Asian warblers, independent mouths beginning to sing (5) |
IORAS (not in Chambers but it’s in Oxford: https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/iora) |
Independent+ORA (mouths)+Sing (beginning) ORA can be found under OS in Chambers |
| 2 Rat on crew (5) | CADRE | CAD (rat)+RE (on) |
| 3 Cry from church after mass (somewhat loose) (7) |
SCREECH | SCREE (mass somewhat loose)+CHurch |
| 4 Inferior topping of iced cake (5) |
POORI | POOR (inferior)+Iced (topping of) |
| 5 Insist about protests (6) | SIT-INS | INSIST (anag: about) |
| 6 This may light up Greek Island’s entertaining festival (opener’s dropped) (7, 2 words) |
COAL GAS | COS (Greek island) containing GALA (festival; with its first letter dropped: ALGA) |
| 11 TV awards cut out adult material (4) |
BAFT BAHT |
BAFTa (British Academy of Film and Television Arts; minus Adult) |
| 13 Cardinal’s meal in US omits Latin (4) |
FOUR HOUR |
FlOUR (meal) minus Latin I wasn’t sure what US was doing in the clue but MEAL means maize flour in USA) |
| 14 Hats off fitters! (7) | TITFERS TITHERS |
FITTERS (anag: off) |
| 15 Maybe reflexologist advanced dancer? (7) |
PAVLOVA | PAVLOV (reflexologist, maybe)+Advanced |
| 16 Frosted border adjoining yard (4) |
RIMY | RIM (border)+Yard |
| 18 Portal to mimic gate (4) | DOOR | DO (mimic)+OR (gate – as in electronic circuit) |
| 19 Poetical deceiver to rush short sermon (6) |
FALSER HALSER |
FALl (rush; short)+SERmon |
| 20 Jack’s holding girl’s palms (7) |
THENARS | TAR‘S (Jack’s) containing HEN (girl) |
| 23 Promoted revolting Labourite becoming refined (5) |
PURED | UP (refined; rev: revolting)+RED (Labourite) |
| 24 Fish devoured by Queen’s bird (5) |
EIDER | IDE (fish) inside ER (Queen) |
| 25 Almost venerated companion once (5) |
FEARE HEARE |
FEAREd (venerated; almost) |
| 28 American sheltered in free accommodation in Marrakesh (4) |
RIAD | RID (free) containing American |
Neat puzzle, but I went with y/upsilon = Y as in Chambers. Why should the alternative be entered?
One of those very rare occasions, like a (visible) UK solar eclipse, with IQ as a single-session solve, and preliminary Listener gridfill done on same day,and its endgame quickly twigged next morning. No family visiting that weekend helped.
Loved the F is H idea, (lots of setters now maybe working on similar letter substitution possibilities … M as K, OX for D, etc. ?) I guessed early on that the unclueds might be fish, possibly even some of the many delightful synonyms for SHARK in Bradford … angel, cow, porbeagle, soupfin, tiger etc.
Agree with Fiddler’s Green,(I love that song,) that capital upsilon is preferable as Y … one of those other rare occasions, when a classical education has actually been of some practical use. All Romano-British inscriptions I have seen show ichthus that way.
Thanks Shark and Kenmac.
All thanks to Shark and Kenmac. Enjoyed this enormously, although the fish outline brought a resurgence of my old fear that ineptitude at freehand drawing may Count Against — rejected for insufficient pointiness at the front end, oh the embarrassment.
After confirming 1D online, I sort of assumed that this must be in Chambers 2016, which in my case I have not got. Seeing “F is H” was a very happy moment.
For the last step I focused on “must be changed”, which persuaded me that capital U should become the Greek capital Y. This nevertheless left me feeling itchy about how to change I to I. By way of compromise I added serifs to that one, as in the two versions reproduced in Wikipedia.
@1 – lacking any kind of Greek education, it was all “nu” to me.
I chose the U version in my animated grid because, IMO, it fitted better with FOUR/HOUR. When I came to put the blog on to WordPress, I had the same characters represented in the text. It looked OK in draft but then disappeared when I “published”. I tried a few more ideas and eventually had to admit defeat and copied the small picture file that you see. And, to be frank, I couldn’t be bothered going back and changing my grid.
So, in essence, no real reason and I guess either one will be acceptable.
Enjoyable, and a bit of much needed relief after the previous week’s. 🙂 32ac I thought was a bit of a tough clue at the close. My biggest doubt though was the shape of the fish – most representations are the other way round, and I was worried I was missing something obvious, despite the clear instruction that we were to start and end in column 1. Phew.
The majority of this was a relatively quick solve for me, but I was help up by a few obscurely clued obscurities (and some particularly obscure fish, I thought, or was that just me?). EARP, for example, had me doubting my sanity – I couldn’t see what EAR_ could possibly end with that made any sense of the clue, having never twigged that Wyatt was known as a gambler. I have a suspicion that I’ve been caught out by the E A R ? thing before, though. (Incidentally, I don’t think the ‘cycling’ is an anagram indicator, rather that the letters of pear are cycled around to make EARP.)
I’m intrigued about the genesis of this puzzle. In almost any other field I would assume that Shark is a Christian who wanted to make a puzzle that celebrated this symbol of his (?) faith, but I’m willing to bet that what actually happened was that at some point he read the word ‘fish’ as ‘f is h’ and then designed a puzzle around this neat little device. Perhaps that assumption says more about the relative importances in my life though!
The trouble with instructions to draw lines in puzzles is that there is always room for ambiguity – in this case there is nothing at all to suggest that the line doesn’t go from 8a to 8h and round anticlockwise
Overall though a great puzzle, albeit that I share OPatrick’s reservation about the cluing for PEAR – to rely on a (frankly) obscure characteristic of Earp as wordplay, when he is quite obviously better-known as a law-enforcer, was ridiculous, since it actually required you to back-parse and use Google to research!
@ 6. OPatrick
Indeed you are spot on that the whole puzzle stemmed from F is H, I then built a series of ideas around it … and, for clarification, I am an agnostic.
There have been a number of puzzles that I have created because they make a good theme, rather than a particular leaning towards the theme in question. I feel the theme is paramount to success as effectively they are “thematic” puzzles.
Glad you all enjoyed. Perhaps not the Shark infested waters some of you may be used to.
Darren
I thought this was a lovely puzzle – a bit on the gentle side.
Thanks kenmac for parsing 17a; I think I missed that one as I had a “?” next to the clue. And for what it’s worth, my capital upsilon looked like a Y but with curled upper forked limbs.
And thanks to Shark, though I do wish setters would wait a couple of days before commenting as that tends to close down further comments from others.
Enjoyable puzzle.
My version of Chambers – and many other references – have the anglicised version of ?????? (or ?????) as ichthys, no spelling with a u. The U had to be there in the original grid, however. The choice of the whether to use Y or u was surely dependent on whether you entered the other Greek letters in upper or lower case. I don’t think you should be allowed Kenmac’s mixture!
It was interesting that the checked letters would have allowed PISCES for the a1-f1 entry as well as g1-l1 and I actually had to use the phrase I ISSSUED PAILS to complete the fish. Normally these phrases don’t seem necessary unless I have to check them when writing a blog, but this one was!
Nice blog, nice puzzle “Nice Fish!”. Did anyone else see Mark Rylance in “Nice Fish!”? Funny and brilliant.
Sorry my nicely constructed Greek characters have been removed by WordPress! They were upper and lower case versions of Ichthus!
Hi @10: Yes, I did see “Nice Fish” – the play was OK, but not great. As the theatre critic Michael Billington wrote in his review, an apt subtitle would be “Waiting for Codot”.
I certainly didn’t find this as straightforward as others, but I did manage to crack it by the end of the week. Like Hi @10, I also found the I ISSUED PAILS pointer very useful in completing the themed entries as apart from PISCES the others were all new to me. I was pleased to solve the F IS H element and it also reminded me of a Guardian Genius from not too long ago that I think was built around lots of words like that. 32a was also my last one in and thanks to Terrier for helping to explain it.
Thanks to Shark and to kenmac for the blog – I hadn’t spotted that there were no other Fs or Hs in the grid, which makes the construction all the more impressive.
Wizzed though this one and drew the fishy-thing with Greek characters etc. I didn’t get most of the unclued lights, but just trawling the dictionary for obscure words that might fit the remaining spaces didn’t seem like much fun after the grid was filled.
I completely forgot to do the bit about replacing the Fs with another letter. Having seen the F is H device I am now very annoyed with myself that I didn’t pay closer attention to the instructions. A super idea!
Thanks to all.
Whizzed…