Got there in the end, but a Serpentine puzzle! The rubric read:
The completed grid is inspired by a famous image. Other than 8, wordplay in each across clue leads to the answer with an extra letter. Extra letters should be inserted into the unchecked cells in five unclued entries to form thematic words, one a fictional character. Each down clue contains an extra word, to be removed before solving. The name of the image, to be written below the grid, may be deduced from the extra words in clue order and the letters in four unclued entries.
The wording suggested that I should be looking at the sense of the removed words in the down clues, so I was rather late in finding the words PARANOIAC CRITICAL PICTURE spelled out by their initial letters.
By the time this revelation occurred to me, I had finished most of the grid, but not the two unclued answers on the bottom row and not the two three-letter unclued answers on row 10. I had BLACK, TUNDRA, WHOOPER, TRUMPETER and AFRICAN (as I thought) SWANS completed using the unclued letters from the across clues, which I thought were OBANKRUPTARTAID but which I now see should have been A BANKRUPT ART AID – though the meaning of this escapes me (surreal huh!).
Anyway, as my cultural pursuits lean more to the musical and literary rather than art, I resorted to Mr. Google. Strangely “paranoiac critical” on my tablet led to Paranoiac Critical Solitude (below), a picture by SALVADOR DALI. Had I Googled the phrase on my laptop I would have got “paranoiac-critical method”, of which I am informed that “The technique consists of the artist invoking a paranoid state (fear that the self is being manipulated, targeted or controlled by others). The result is a deconstruction of the psychological concept of identity, such that subjectivity becomes the primary aspect of the artwork.” Hmm!!! Dali used the technique in his paintings involving optical illusions and multiple images. Paranoiac-critical Solitude is one such.
I was short of two four-letter down answers at the bottom left and right corners and the realisation that the four three-letter unclued answers (AVA LID, ?DS and LA?) could be an anagram of SALVADOR DALI helped me to find OMSK and RYND – neither of which seems difficult now, but had me stumped at the time.
Mr. Google was called on again to investigate “dali swan”. This led to “SWANS REFLECTING ELEPHANTS” – the name of the image to be written below the grid.
The remainder of the grid now fell into place. TRUMPETER was both a swan and an elephant, the top half of the grid had three swans (BLACK, TUNDRA and WHOOPER) and the bottom half had three reflected elephants, AFRICAN, ASIAN and TANTOR??
Google again. TANTOR is the name of the elephant in the Tarzan stories by Edgar Rice Burroughs. I was unaware of this as my Rice Burroughs tastes in my youth were more in line with the beautiful Dejah Thoris and the whirling moons of Barsoom!
Great grid (anyone who can get RHOPALOCEROUS and SOCKEYE SALMON into a grid is a genius!) and devious puzzle from Serpent. I’m sure the art aficianados among you will have had less trouble with it than I did, but an excellent theme and some tricky parsing in many clues.
Across |
||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| No. | Clue (definition) | Answer | Wordplay (extra letter) | X |
| 8 | Camouflage shape or colour like butterflies (13) | RHOPALOCEROUS | [SHAPE OR COLOUR]* | |
| 11 | Next to nothing stopping Elizabeth I agitate for Shakespeare (6) | BETOSS | BESS (Elizabeth I) round (A)T (next to) + O (nothing) | A |
| 13 | Pluck out Worried Blues on electric violin initially (6) | EVULSE | E(lectric) V(iolin) + [(B)LUES ]* | B |
| 16 | Promotional material going after family groups (5) | KINDS | KIN (family) + (A)DS (promotional material) | A |
| 18 | Heart drug does not contribute to attitude (5) | MIDST | MI(N)DSET (attitude) minus E (drug) | N |
| 20 | Ravel likes minor key? (4) | ISLE | minor key = small island: [LI(K)ES]* | K |
| 21 | In first half of term studied brand of Poetry (5) | TEADE | brand = poetic (Spenser) torch: TE (first half of term) round (R)EAD (studied) | R |
| 22 | Men in pursuit of couple performing exit (4) | DOOR | D(U)O (couple performing) + O(ther) R(anks) (men) | U |
| 23 | Observant prefers eating non-kosher (4) | TREF | Hidden in observanT (P)REFers | P |
| 24 | Publication has material covering red hot issue (5) | MAGMA | MAG (publication) + MA(T)(erial) | T |
| 26 | Show off crop containing circle (4) | CROW | CR(A)W (crop) round O (circle) | A |
| 27 | To local, Thatcher’s material society ultimately divides country (5) | YEALM | (societ)Y in (R)EALM (country) | R |
| 28 | Scores goal – not with the head – to get into final (5) | LANDS | (e)ND (goal – without first letter) in LAS(T) (final) | T |
| 35 | Miserable jumble sale in May (6) | MEASLY | M(A)Y round [SALE]* | A |
| 36 | Crawling is simply ignoring the case for vengeance (6) | SNAILY | (I)S + NAIVELY (simply) minus “case” of V(engeanc)E | I |
| 37 | Swimmer hit peer and former party leader (13, 2 words) | SOCKEYE SALMON | SOCK (hit) + EYE (peer) + (Alex) SALMON(D) (former party leader – now former MP!) | D |
Down |
||||
| No. | Clue, definition, (extra word) | Answer | Wordplay | X |
| 1 | Arsenal’s top (players) and supporter overturned coach (4) | ARBA | A(rsenal) + BRA (supporter) all reversed | P |
| 2 | Endless fortune cheers Indian copper (anew) (4) | LOTA | LO(t) (endless fortune) + TA (= thanks = cheers) | A |
| 3 | Currency debacle as rouble flees (Russia) (4) | CASH | CRASH (debacle) minus R(ouble) | R |
| 4 | (American) car manufacturer‘s model not beginning on schedule (6) | TOYOTA | TOY (model) + (r)OTA (shedule not beginning) | A |
| 5 | (Notices) snow is still rising (4) | NEVE | EVEN (still) reversed | N |
| 6 | Flatten (outdoor) pitch (4) | ROLL | Double definition (though to a sailor, pitch and roll are not the same!) | O |
| 7 | (Irresponsible) American newspaperman took drugs regularly (4) | USED | US (American) + ED (newspaperman) | I |
| 9 | Criticism engulfs society after (aloof) director assumes authority for explosive case (11, 2 words) | POWDER FLASK | FLAK (criticism) round S(ociety) after POWER (authority) round D(irector) | A |
| 10 | Obscene channel screens (carnal) “religious education” of rural dean (11) | RURIDECANAL | RUDE (obscene) CANAL (channel) round RI (Religious Instruction) – clever misdirection – I thought carnal was part of the anagram for a while | C |
| 12 | Form of tenure leads to rebellious serf kicking (contemptible) yeoman out (9) | SOKEMANRY | Leads to Rebellious Serf Kicking anagrammed with YEOMAN. i.e. [RSKYEOMAN]* | C |
| 13 | (Romantic) sagas describing the same conditions affecting many people (9) | EPIDEMICS | EPICS (sagas) round IDEM (the same) | R |
| 14 | Advisor educated (investment) houses in face-saving device (7) | VISORED | Hidden in adVISOR EDucated | I |
| 15 | Fuss I raised about (taxi) concession for group without hard cases? (7) | ISOPODA | ADO + I (fuss I) reversed round SOP (concession) | T |
| 16 | Equipment emptied (in) temporary pool (5) | KITTY | KIT (equipment) + T(emporar)Y | I |
| 17 | Dumb sergeant (confusing) major guarding corporation (5) | STUMM | SM (sergeant major) round TUM (corporation) | C |
| 18 | Perhaps (abuse) lead character in speech (5) | METAL | Sounds like METTLE (character) | A |
| 19 | Unusually wet garters haven’t ruined great (lambswool) trousers (5) | TREWS | [WET (garte)RS]* – garte = ruined great | L |
| 25 | Monkey using (prehensile) tail to swing and grip (6) | GRIVET | G (tail to swinG) + RIVET (grip) | P |
| 29 | Informal agreement about month’s (internship) in City (4) | OMSK | OK (informal agreement) round M’S (month’s) | I |
| 30 | Bags (clash) with sound of instrument (4) | SACS | Sounds like SAX(ophone) | C |
| 31 | Circus performer brewed leaf (tea) (4) | FLEA | [LEAF]* | T |
| 32 | Articles in (Umbrian) dialect I don’t understand (4) | ANAN | AN + AN (articles) | U |
| 33 | Expensive car maintenance eliminating any (rust) (4) | LIMO | ALIMONY (maintenance) minus ANY | R |
| 34 | Try and start (events) late for supporter of The Rolling Stones? (4) | RYND | (T)RY (a)ND (start late!) | E |
Great puzzle and great analysis – I really enjoyed this one!
Unusually, I actually finished this one!
Missed the PARANOIAC CRITICAL PICTURE reference, but did note that the FINAL letters of all the down clues spells out SWANS REFLECTING ELEPHANTS!
Obviously I mean the final letters of the extra words in the down clues, not the clues themselves…
Wow – I’d completely missed the message in the last letters, which makes this an even more impressive puzzle than I had thought.
A very enjoyable puzzle, with bits falling into place steadily over the week. I spotted the swans reasonably early and then ‘paranoiac critical’ started to emerge when I listed the extra words vertically by the grid (my initial thought was that the words would form a cryptic clue of their own). I also had to use google as the phrase meant nothing to me and from there it became relatively straightforward. I failed to identify three of the extra letters (and also that they spelled a message) so thanks to Hihoba for the fulll explanation.
If only I’d spotted the name of the picture in the last letters, it would have saved me a lot of grief, and a lot of googling! An impressive puzzle, I liked the way that the grid did, indeed, represent the image.
All thanks to Serpent and Hihoba. Loved this one, though it took some time. The key for me was seeing PARANOIAC CRITICAL, which had to mean Dali. Of course it helped that there was a blockboard print of Swans Reflecting Elephants on the wall of our holiday flat for many years – is that cheating? Serpent gave fair warning of TANTOR with “fictional character” in the preamble. It wasn’t until after I’d finished that I idly checked the last letters of those spare words and found …
Lovely puzzle, and (more or less) solveable too. I too missed the final letters of the excluded down words, but once I’d decided an elephant was involved, there weren’t too many Dali’s to choose from. Am I the only one who found the bottom third of the puzzle trickier? I had to give up with it half blank.
Many thanks to Serpent and Hihoba.
Great blog to support a lovely puzzle. I found this tough, the endgame taking me quite some time to unravel, and, admittedly, it took quite a bit of internet searching to get to the right painting. Bravo to those who spotted the last letters, I completely failed to do so and it would have saved me quite some time, not to mention internet bandwidth.
Loved 20A and 34D
Many thanks Hihoba and Serpent.
Having read the above comments, we are even more impressed by the grid construction and denouement.
We also needed a Mrs Google for inspiration and also for the name of the fictional elephant.
A very impressive blog too so many thanks to Serpent and Hihoba.
I’ll add my voice to the chorus – a highly enjoyable, inventive, slightly tough puzzle which went up another few notches in my estimation after I’d read Ryaaan’s comment #2 – hadn’t even thought to look beyond the first letters (as so often, careful reading of the preamble would probably have alerted me to there being something else going on – odd wording is usually there for a reason).
Ryaaan’s comment #2 makes me even more impressed by the grid and clue construction!
Very enjoyable, and a fully completed grid and phrase written under it. I failed to notice both PARANOID CRITICAL and BANKRUPT ART AID but as they were not required to be highlighted by the instructions I think I get away with it.
I didn’t find this as hard as most people seem to have done. There are other puzzles that everyone else seems to find easy but stump me. Horses for courses I suppose.
We have not heard from regular contributor Murray Glover recently. I hope everything is all right with him.
Thanks All.
PeeDee @#12 … Most touched by your kind concern. I am not bad, considering. Have had one or two falls recently, but luckily at weekends when kind ex-rugger-playing neighbour can come round and haul me up. My great triumph was voting on June 8 on my electric tricycle … rode to the polling station, then straight in, completed all the voting procedure, exited, and back home … all without ever having to dismount. Hope Brexit will be as easy.
Like you, I did not have too much bother with this one, and noticed both sets of helpful letters, first and last.
But I am still finding that the current inevitable format, where endgames can only be completed after tedious “instructions” have been discovered and understood, means that puzzles have become more of a lengthy and frustrating challenge than the delightful diversion they were in the good old days. Having said that, I take off my hat to those who can dash them off !
All best to all IQ fans, and thanks again. Murray
Saw a couple of possible swans in the upper half, and when I wrote a list of the extra words in the down clues I immediately spotted SWANS REFL… thereby allowing me to finish the puzzle with relative ease, after a much tougher time earlier. (I had spent much of the second weekend in a row grading exams – so solving the puzzle was piecemeal again. But they are done now.)
Thanks Serpent, and thanks Hi(hoba).
PS re: comment @13 – please don’t mention Brexit.