I’ve learnt from experience that a puzzle by Ifor is something to look forward to – the clueing is usually high quality, but on the tough side.
Preamble: Eighteen answers need some letters to be added. Two of them must be originally entered in bold text and read in order; then notice a different set before two others that don’t have a clue. One further entry is meaningless, having some letters dropped.
Before solving them, some clues need a letter to be hidden; others need a letter to be deposited. A phrase describing letters from both sets (3,5,2,5) must be written under the grid.
I think I solved only a handful of across clues first time through, but then about 5 of the first 8 down clues succumbed very quickly. The fact that all of those needed an A to be “lost” before solving, and their answers, being one short of the space available, didn’t intersect the top row gave me the first hint of what was going on. The bottom half was a bit slower, but I soon realised that those clues whose answers stopped just short of the bottom row needed an A to be “deposited”. And what phrase describes those letters that we have to lose or deposit? Why – THE FIRST OF APRIL, of course.
APRIL FOOLS emerged soon enough to fill the two unclued slots at 21a & 29a (note to ed.: bloggers do prefer all entries to be numbered, not just those that are clued), and with a little effort I had the grid filled bar the top & bottom rows, and the central column shortly before I called it a day – 40a ERGS had rankled for some time as it had been the second answer I’d got yet the last wordplay to tumble to.
Day 2: make sense of the somewhat perplexing first paragraph of the preamble and tackle the top & bottom rows (which for some reason had “See preamble” instead of clues), and the central column at 10d (which didn’t). Hmm. Looking for an entry for 1a that made real words with the intersecting down entries I came up with the satisfying DEAD-LETTER BOX, and I turned to 42a to look for something similar – and came up with the equally satisfying POSTE RESTANTE. Now for 10d which seemed to terminate in MAIL … a flash of inspiration later and I realised that if we start with MEANINGLESS and move some letters lower (“some letters dropped”) then ENNGESSMAIL fits perfectly, and with no ambiguities.
But why those pesky italics in the preamble, and the irritating “Eighteen answers” need letters to be added when there were only 16 answers treated thus plus maybe the two long unclued entries? Surely Ifor wouldn’t use such precise but inaccurate language? And then I saw it: the italicised bits were in fact clues and 1a & 42a were indeed answers:
DEAD-LETTER BOX = E(ntered) in [BOLD TEXT & READ]*; and
POSTE RESTANTE comes from POSTER (notice) [SET]* ANTE (before).
Thanks Ifor – very impressive.
The next day, still puzzling over the title Pallo, the final resolution: what do you get if you make an anagram of PALLO and IFOR? I leave that to you …
| Across | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| No. | Clue | Answer | Wordplay | |
| 1 | See preamble | |||
| 9 | Joker uncovered – Ifor returns to high regard (6) | ESTEEM | (F)este (joker, Twelfth Night) ME< (Ifor) {see comment #13} |
|
| 11 | Scald in seconds from spilling hot tea, stupidly (4) | POET | (s)P(illing) (h)O(t) (t)E(a) (s)T(upidly) | |
| 13 | Skip missing a trick (4) | SCAM | SCAMPER (skip) − PER (a) | |
| 14 | Recipient needs nothing new after society’s given up (5) | DONEE | [NEEDS O (nothing)]* − S(ociety) | |
| 15 | Players piled up in scrum, idiotically (4) | MIDI | (scru)M IDI(otically) | |
| 16 | Islander’s sailing-boat having nothing as power (6) | SAMOAN | SAMPAN (sailing-boat) with O (nothing) for P(ower) | |
| 18 | Irritated line edging into position (7) | NIGGLED | [L(ine) EDGING]* | |
| 19 | Perhaps beady eye reported in pursuit of unending gang violence? (5) | AGGRI | I (eye, homophone) after AGGR(o) (gang violence) | |
| 22 | Decoction on one side after being emptied out (6) | PTISAN | PARTISAN (on one side) − A(fte)R | |
| 25 | Digs out letter from Telegraph as source (9) | ROOTSTOCK | ROOTS (digs out) TOCK (t, letter from Telegraph) | |
| 27 | Won seat, leading to change after polling (6) | GAINED | [(l)EADING]* | |
| 32 | Coward perhaps retreating to shelter marks someone that’s worthless (5) | LEMON | NOEL< (Coward perhaps) around M(arks) | |
| 35 | Structures that offer manufactured alternatives to alimentary openings (7) | STOMATA | initial letters of words in clue | |
| 36 | Mobile certain to eliminate electronic flash (6) | CRIANT | [CERTAIN]* − E(lectronic) | |
| 37 | Minister to the end, when he’s sacked (4) | TEND | THE END − HE | |
| 38 | Mate clutching welcome bottle (5) | PHIAL | PAL (mate) around HI (welcome) | |
| 39 | Unfinished encoding system for cells (4) | ASCI | ASCI(i) (encoding system) | |
| 40 | Regions of shifting sand? Good to move to the inside of tents (4) | ERGS | GERS (tents) with G(ood) moved inside | |
| 41 | He’s called someone just like me (6) | RINGER | double definition | |
| 42 | See preamble | |||
| Down | ||||
| No. | Clue [hidden] {deposited} | <X> | Answer | Wordplay |
| 1 | Sees [a]bashed existence (4) | A | ESSE | [SEES]* |
| 2 | Narrow bend? Scrap st[a]irs (5) | A | SCARP | [SCRAP]* |
| 3 | Ifor regularly me[a]ns to hurt feelings (8) | A | EMOTIONS | [I(f)O(R) MENS TO]* |
| 4 | Crowd of yokels [a]voided spot all the time, once (6) | A | MONGST | MONG (crowd, dialect) S(po)T |
| 5 | First-born; he[a]r one needs winding (4) | A | HEIR | [HER I (one)]* |
| 6 | Casually authorised p[a]in burdening small child (5) | A | LEGIT | LEG (pin) IT (small child) |
| 7 | No time for ne[a]t paintings (4) | A | OILS | TOILS (net) − T(ime) |
| 8 | Swellings made worse for heart in occasionally missing be[a]ts (6) | A | EDEMAS | [MADE]* in (b)E(t)S |
| 12 | News broadcast is no good after three times a day (7) | TIDINGS | [IS NG (no good)]* after TID (three times a day) | |
| 17 | French chestnut leaves on one tree (5) | MARRI | MARRON (chestnut, Fr) − ON + I (one) | |
| 20 | Retreating in f{a}iling action about tobacco (8) | A | NICOTIAN | IN< [ACTION]* |
| 21 | Imposing finish to the circus act (7) | AUGUSTE | AUGUST (imposing) (th)E | |
| 23 | Carmaker doesn’t ask about rejecting what’s sent after manufacture … (5) | SKODA | [DOESN’T ASK]* − [SENT]* | |
| 24 | … be{a}t he intends to strike when taking delivery (6) | A | BATTER | double definition |
| 26 | Surgical tool uncovered scars behind rot{a}ting fragment (6) | A | TROCAR | (s)CAR(s) after ORT< (fragment) |
| 28 | Snakes slide back when sp{a}ring ends (5) | A | ELAPS | (r)ELAPS(e) (slide back) |
| 30 | What’s used for imp{a}lement that’s clean broken? (5) | A | LANCE | [CLEAN]* |
| 31 | Criminal gang’s rem{a}inder of tonight succeeded after firing this shot (4) | A | TONG | TONIGHT S(ucceeded) − [THIS]* |
| 33 | Poet gives {a}way to work easily for another (4) | A | ETHE | GOETHE (poet) − GO (work) |
| 34 | {a}Do bird (4) | A | STIR | double definition |
|
|
||||
Gosh, that was indeed clever; too clever for me, alas. Filled the obviously clued grid, saw APRIL FOOLS, saw what needed to be written below, saw the title anagram and even got the “meaningless” mystery down entry. But failed to extract the hint MAIL DROP or to identify the italicized bits as clues. It would all make sense, I was sure, once I deduced the top and bottom rows from possible letters; but I never did.
No complaint implied; it was all quite fair and I’m still kicking myself.
A nice April Fool’s jape. I worked out the significance of the missing/added A’s quite quickly (being April 1st, I was expecting something along these lines), which led to the unusual situation of having the “final” phrase under the grid before making much headway into solving the actual puzzle. The clues within the preamble took me far longer to spot, and it didn’t help that I was determined that one of the entries should be POISSON D’AVRIL despite all evidence to the contrary. Nice PDM when it came, and I then recalled a Listener from several years ago which used a similar trick for April 1st.
Thanks for the explanation of the title – I never did work it out. I seldom do.
At the risk of looking like a complete fool (not just an April one): is there any further connection between mail drops and April Fools beside the misdirection? If so, I can’t see it.
Enjoyed the puzzle and completely finished it. However, I don’t understand the relationship between the post related items, being the top and bottom rows and the MAIL in 10D; and April Fools?
Thanks
I sat down to do this one on Saturday April 1st and thought, “I wonder if there’s going to be some tomfoolery!”
Then I looked at the title and immediately realised that PALLO and IFOR was an anagram of APRIL FOOL. Two seconds later I realised that the phrase was going to be THE FIRST OF APRIL.
So, theme cracked immediately but it still made for an enjoyable solve.
DEAD LETTER BOX and POST RESTANTE also fell out fairly quickly though I took a while to understand the significance of the italics in the preamble.
Finally, I understood that 10d was MEANINGLESS with a few letters missing but I never twigged that the letters of MAIL had to fall.
I still don’t understand the connexion between the thematic answers and APRIL FOOLS though 🙁
We too spotted the April Fool theme early and soon filled the grid apart from the top and bottom rows and the central column. We eventually got the rows filled, but like kenmac@4 left 4 cells blank in the column. We assumed some letters dropped out, but with MAI- near the bottom we really should have worked out that they dropped down. By the time Kippax tipped us off our incorrect entry was in the post.
We spent a lot of time looking for links between April Fool and mail drops. As nobody has suggested one here yet, it’s beginning to look as though there were two discrete themes.
An enjoyable April Fool, with most going in straightforwardly enough, once I’d worked out that I needed to, in effect, ignore the top and bottom rows as far as some of the downs were concerned. Completely failed to work out the significance of the title, so I guess the fool was on me. 🙂
The comment by Trebor@3 says it all. Surely there must be a link or are we being taken for April Fools in looking for it?
I completed the clued grid, and saw APRIL FOOLS early on, but remained totally baffled by the central column and unclueds across top and bottom. I guessed that MAIL would conclude the central column, and, thinking that BATTER would become BATTERY,convinced myself that the bottom one started with MYSTERY … but there were too many unches and alternative extra letters to get much further.
Having seen HG’s fine blog, I can now see what was beyond me at the time.
As regards the link between MAIL and the two top and bottom rows, there is surely NO link between them and April Fools ? … they are merely a cryptic confirmation of the letters A (The “first of April”) being dropped or deposited, as per preamble, both DEAD LETTER BOX and POSTE RESTANTE being facilities for letters to be dropped or deposited ?
Again the Listener this particular week was somewhat more enjoyable, if only for being a bit easier !
I got there in the end despite the mischievous preamble. I think the theme is nothing more than Ifor’s April Fool trick of making us think of letters in the grid without recognising their postal significance. Very imaginative and thoroughly enjoyable.
I think the Listener referred to by c@3 was Playfair by Dolos in 2000, where every sentence in the preamble was in fact a clue to one of the otherwise unclued entries.
I think people are missing the point when looking for a connection between April 1st and the mail drop theme. First of all, Ifor gives us three fairly straightforward (in IQ terms) hints that this is a date-related puzzle, viz., the 21 & 29 entries, the phrase under the grid and the Ifor-Pallo anagram.
Then the punchline is the April Fool played on the solver by taking the phrase “See preamble” to its extremest interpretation: the italicised words in the second sentence and the whole of the third sentence form complete clues for the entries at 1A, 10 & 42.
A really astute solver (not me!) would be able to solve these as a self-contained puzzle without even looking at the conventionally listed clues. Just one cross-checking letter is needed to confirm which of the across entries goes where.
I have been doing the Inquisitor since before it became the Inquisitor and cannot recall having met this before. Well done Ifor.
Yes, loved it like the others. I confess to missing the fact that MAIL had dropped, though I had rearranged MEANINGLESS correctly and had the theme and the below-the-grid phrase pretty early on in the solve. Like HG I grasped the PALLO title last!
Same experience as Murray at 8, except that I also had PATTERN OF at the end of the top row, so …….PATTERN OF MYSTERY STANDS, or STAIRS was too ingrained in my brain to allow me to get any further.
As ever, my thanks to blogger and all who commented. One very minor point is that the Joker in 9ac is a jester, not Feste (and that the clue was intended as a further hint that all might not be as it seems). Later comments are correct in their reading of my intentions. I was especially pleased to read that the order in which thematic elements became clear varied from solver to solver.
Ifor
Thanks Ifor, I too thought it was Feste, but am pleased to see Jester was intended.
I belong to a long established club, called The Jesters, for worldwide players of real tennis, rackets, squash and fives, and I know it includes among its members some keen ultracruciverbalists. I wonder if any of them twigged it ?
“Floreamus Joculatores”
A wonderfully constructed puzzle but I found this possibly the toughest IQ of the year so far. I established the April 1st theme fairly quickly but the top and bottom lines took ages. I was still not fully convinced about my central column when I sent it off but happily I seem to have guessed correctly.
A toughie !
Thanks to HolyGhost for tidying up a few loose ends for me and to Ifor the the brain bending exercise.
Too difficult for me. I filled three-quarters of the grid and got he April Fool reference, even though it was into May by the time I got round to starting the puzzle. Impressive puzzle and blog. Thank you.