A Major Restraint by Kruger
Preamble: Answers to ten clues must have one checked letter changed to reveal ten elements of a set. Ten other clues have a single letter misprint in their definition and the correct letters may be arranged to provide assistance. Contents of the yellow cells can be used to form another member of the set which must be written below the grid. Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase & Fable is recommended.
Oh, oh! I don’t have a copy of Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase & Fable – will I be in trouble later on?
So, once again, it’s Kruger vs kenmac. Just who’s stalking who? 😉
As usual, I read through the clues, to see if any of them would fall easily. In this case, 18a was first to crumble. This led to 12d then 20a and soon the majority of the NE corner, and my first clash (in l4).
In general, I found the clueing to be on the gentler side though the clashes made things that bit harder. Very soon I had enough of the yellow squares to hazard a guess at the word, which turned out to be TEMPERANCE. At this stage I didn’t have all the corrected misprints but with what I had plus MOON and DEATH from the resolved clashes, I realised that we were looking for TAROT CARDS.
The ten clashes led to:
| Clue |
Card |
| 1a | WORLD |
| 18a | POPE |
| 27a | SUN |
| 39a | FOOL |
| 45a | EMPRESS |
| 4d | LOVERS |
| 8d | DEATH |
| 13d | MOON |
| 33d | HERMIT |
| 38d | STAR |
I don’t know much about Tarot cards, in particular so I wonder if the ten (above) plus TEMPERANCE form a subset of Tarot cards (as, ambiguously, hinted in the preamble) or whether they just represent a “random” collection of cards’ names. Maybe Brewer’s would help here.
Finally, the title, I think, refers to: Temperance (XIV) is the fourteenth trump or Major Arcana card in most traditional Tarot decks – as per this Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temperance_(Tarot_card).
Nevertheless, it was a nice enough puzzle and not too taxing. Thanks to Kruger – till we meet again!!
| Across |
||||
| Clue |
Entry |
Misprint |
Correction |
Wordplay |
| 1 We hear timber is what’s desired (5) |
WOULD WORLD |
Sounds like WOOD (timber) | ||
| 7 Right away parodies grotesque fatty (7) |
ADIPOSE | PArODIES (minus Right; anag: grotesque) | ||
| 13 Imagined pagan got dog pursuing child’s mother (7) |
MAHOUND | goT->goD | D |
MA (mother)+HOUND (dog) |
| 14 Will’s to entangle bounder in camouflaged net (6) |
ENROOT | ROO (bounder) inside NET (anag: tangled) | ||
| 15 Trustee gathers wealth in fiddle (6) |
TEASER | Fiddle->Riddle | R |
TRustee containing EASE (wealth) |
| 17 Ring hospital doctor about returning advanced drug. That’s a shame! (6, 2 words) |
OH DEAR | O (ring)+Hospital+DR (doctor) containing (Advanced+E (drug); rev: returning) | ||
| 18 To thrust forward is fine in physical education (4) |
POKE POPE |
PE (physical education) containing OK (fine) | ||
| 19 Unitarian rejected cash from Nigeria (5) |
NAIRA | unitARIAN (rev: rejected) | ||
| 20 Avoiding personal appearance, government aide keeps young sow in temporary lodging (7) |
SHELTER | SHERpa (government aide; minus PA (personal appearance) containing ELT (young sow) | ||
| 22 Second of patients, sick to begin with then seriously ill, not beginning to recover with dropsy (9) |
ASCITICAL | pAtients (second letter)+Sick (first letter)+CrITICAL (seriously ill; minus Recover (first letter) | ||
| 24 Like a gravitational unit of measurement (4) |
POND | lIke->lAke | A |
(double def) |
| 27 Fish out of a barrel (3) | TUN SUN |
TUNa (minus A) | ||
| 28 Tape Indian court official preferring English to Irish (4) |
NAZE | Tape->Cape | C |
NAZir (English replaces IRish) |
| 31 Wanting to have temperature nearly touching mid-forties for half of February? Possibly (9) |
FORTNIGHT | FOR (wanting)+Temperature+NIGH (nearly)+forTies (middle letter) | ||
| 35 Listener solver primarily shunned erroneous “PAINKILLER” (7) |
TRILENE | LIsTENER (minus Solver (first letter); anag: erroneous) | ||
| 37 One of mixed descent is the personification of prudence (5) |
METIS | (double def) | ||
| 39 Weapon’s extremely useful at last (4) |
TOOL FOOL |
TOO (extremely)+usefuL (last letter) | ||
| 40 Others associated with a foreign disturbance (6) |
UNREST | UN (A (foreign))+REST (others) | ||
| 41 British relatives in Italy twice supplying beachwear for women (6) |
BIKINI | British+Italy+KIN (family)+Italy | ||
| 43 Again explain about ancient mound (6) |
RETELL | RE (about)+TELL (ancient mound) | ||
| 44 Bass is excellent in steamer (7) | STRIPER (not in Chambers) STRIPED BASS (Oxford on-line) |
RIPE (excellent) inside STR (steamer) | ||
| 45 To create a profound effect on price I provide food outside (7) |
IMPRESS EMPRESS |
I+MESS (provide food) containing PRice | ||
| 46 Dim Scots leave top off water heater (5) |
ETTLE | Dim->Aim | A |
kETTLE (water heater; top off) |
| Down |
||||
| 2 County Down’s wooden, ineffective boxer (6) |
OAKHAM | Down->Town | T |
OAK (wooden)+HAM (ineffective boxer) |
| 3 Greek’s base son not adopted by old African (7) |
RHODIAN | E (base) and Son removed from RHODesIAN (old African) | ||
| 4 They can be used to gain the upper hand possibly in Lesotho (6) |
LEVERS LOVERS |
LS (Lesotho) containing EVER (possibly) | ||
| 5 Shorten fight directly (3) | DUE | DUEl (fight; shortened) | ||
| 6 English nationalist with appointment to meet leader of insurgents inside – he aims to influence policy (8) |
ENTRYIST | English+Nationalist+TRYST (appointment to meet) containing Insurgents (leader of) | ||
| 8 Elegant hotel in Welsh town (5) | NEATH DEATH |
NEAT (elegant)+Hotel | ||
| 9 Examine fly perhaps, including end of zip (7) |
INSPECT | INSECT (fly perhaps) containing ziP (end of) | ||
| 10 In advance, design partitions in shell of pylon (7) |
PREPLAN | REPLA (partitions) inside PyloN (shell of) | ||
| 11 Flattered a group of tireless OAP educationalists (6) |
SOAPED | tirelesS OAP EDucationalists (hidden: a group of) | ||
| 12 A means of connecting several computers … three, ten? Questionable! (8) |
ETHERNET | THREE TEN (anag: questionable) | ||
| 13 Judgement lifted atmosphere here (4) |
MOOD MOON |
DOOM (judgement; rev: lifted) | ||
| 16 Paint dilapidated seat (4) | EAST | pAint->pOint | O |
SEAT (anag: dilapidated) |
| 21 Hot-tempered woman in tree top – holding it with force (8) |
SPITFIRE | SPIRE (tree top) containing IT+Force | ||
| 23 Former theatrical buffoon belonging to international union for actors skipping introduction to employer (8) |
INIQUITY | IN (belonging to)+International+eQUITY (actors’ union; minus Employer (introduction to)) | ||
| 25 He operates wheeled platform as before on lines – that is before origin of railway (7) |
DOLLIER | DO (ditto; as before)+LL (lines)+IE (that is)+Railway (origin of) | ||
| 26 Spot father and husband leaving to jeer abusively (7) |
FRECKLE | FR (father)+hECKLE (to jeer; minus Husband) | ||
| 29 Adult extremely tolerant with mostly unsatisfactory toy (7) |
ATTEMPT | tOy->tRy | R |
Adult+ToleranT (extremely)+EMPTy (unsatisfactory (mostly) |
| 30 For now, amateur quits side playing for money (6, 2 words) |
PRO TEM | PRO TEaM (side playing for money; minus Amateur) | ||
| 32 Gay American politician leaving powerful and ruthless person (4) |
NEON | gaY->gaS | S |
NapolEON (powerful and ruthless person) minus American+POLitician |
| 33 Allow first of pacemakers to reset timer (6) |
PERMIT HERMIT |
Pacemakers (first of)+TIMER (anag: reset) | ||
| 34 To get rid of staggering spilled Lambrusco initially not wanted (6) |
DISPEL | SPILlED (minus Lambrusco (intially)) anag: staggering | ||
| 36 Large cat brought back seven short pieces of wool (5) |
NOILS | LION (big cat; rev: brought back)+Seven | ||
| 38 Frighten underdeveloped parrot-wrasse? (4) |
SCAR STAR |
SCARe (frighten; short: underdeveloped) | ||
| 42 Wangle money in Scandinavia (3) |
ORE | Wangle-Tangle | T |
(double def) |
I made a stab at the yellow squares to get temperance as well, and spent a bit too long looking for the list of the virtues in there, even though it was obvious none would fit. Luckily a few of the better known tarot cards did leap out from the grid, and from then on this was pretty plain sailing. Is there anyone out there who did have access to the recommended copy of Brewers? 🙂 Thankfully Google and Wikipedia sufficed.
I got TEMPERANCE early on, looked in my 14th. edition Brewer, and all it said was “Apostle of, see Matthew” I then looked up Virtues and found it was one of the seven of that set, and one of the four Platonic virtues. So what’s all this about a set of TEN ?
I then wondered if it was connected with the Temperance Movement, and was pleased to find both PEKOE and TEA as diagonals in the lower half.
Then finally, after SUN, MOON, LOVERS and DEATH, something clicked, and I looked up TAROT in my Brewer’s and it was not at all helpful … so, as usual, off to Wikipedia, which confirmed the ones I was guessing at, i.e. EMPRESS and STAR, but could not confirm that these ten were a set … I fell back on the preamble meaning that our ten were merely elements of a complete set of Tarot cards.
The curiously topical clue for NEON had me puzzled for a time. I had not bothered with the misprint, as I had long since known that Tarot cards were the theme, so GAS was a great relief, as was then finding the lower case “napoleon” in my Chambers. I had been trying to get it out of “Neronian” for quite a while.
This must be one of the shortest blogs for a while… you were certainly a hare to my tortoise, Kenmac, well done.
And thanks, as usual, to “Oom Paul”.
Thanks to both Kruger and Kenmac. Another enjoyable IQ, and one of my faster theme guesses – ADIPOSE / NEATH was the first clash spotted, with DEATH the easiest resolution. It took a little while to think of the problem as “What set of at least 11 items includes DEATH?” … but the Tarot trumps were the first thing that then came to mind.
POPE was mildly tricky because the only Tarot pack I’ve ever owned was the A.E. Waite version with different names for some cards, in that case The Hierophant. But Brewer (1999 Millennium Edition) was reassuring on this point.
Couldn’t see any lurking significance in the card numbers: 0 Fool, 3 Empress, 5 Pope, 6 Lovers, 9 Hermit, 13 Death, 14 Temperance, 17 Star, 18 Moon, 19 Sun, 21 World.
Tricky for me as I’m not very familiar with Tarot cards. Found TEMPERANCE and 6 or 7 changed words but they mean nothing in particular to me. It was only when the anagram of the misprints revealed TAROT CARDS that I realised what was going on. Even then my ancient copy of Brewer’s wasn’t any help – I had 9 out of the 10 changed words, and had to resolve the final clash as POPE & SOAPED or POKE & SOAKED. POPE was an obvious alternative to Hierophant, and that was that.
Puzzled over NEON at 32a – was the wordplay NEOCON minus CO? (And not a good clue.) And then I read this blog, and was enlightened.
Never really got to grips with the title (now clear), but thanks to k & K.
H___G____ @4:
The penultimate sentence of your first paragraph looks like a tongue-twister and reminds me of the soap-on-a-rope craze of the 70s/80s – especially the tasteless Pope-on-a-rope!
No offence intended but I just had to look up an image on-line: http://www.shipoffools.com/gadgets/pope/174.html
Thanks to Kruger and kenmac.
I found the wording of the instructions a little odd: why not say that ‘clashes must be resolved’ etc.?
Once I had spotted that DEATH and STAR were likely affected words, tarot cards came to mind (thanks, Live and Let Die) and I looked them up on Wikipedia. The seven yellow letters I had all fitted with TEMPERANCE and I was away. I enjoyed searching for the remaining cards in my almost-complete grid. I’d made things tricky for myself by entering ABA at 27a and it was only by looking for where SUN might fit that I realised my mistake. Like HolyGhost above, I was puzzled for a long time by POPE, only resolving that when I finally got around to looking up what a Hierophant was.
I didn’t get around to working out all of the misprints – I assumed that they would spell Tarot Cards and left it at that.
I made an early guess at tarot cards after seeing DEATH and HERMIT. Started to look out for them and sure enough there they were, though I needed Wikipedia to find the less well known ones. I have a copy of Brewers but forgot to use it. Damn! Thank you Kruger and Kenmac.
Enjoyed this. I had moon, star and fool quite quickly and a quick Google led me immediately to Tarot Cards. After learning far more about them than I really wanted to know, I completed the grid quite easily, located Temperance and sorted out the Pope, poke, soak, soap ambiguity and eventually sorted the misprints, though, like Kippax, I nearly didn’t bother. I had neon, but gaS as a definition (so obvious now) eluded me for a while.
Thanks to setter and blogger
Thanks kenmac – we really needed you for this one. This was the first time for ages when we didn’t finish an IQ. Looking at the finished grid, we were ‘fooled’ by 24ac which we thought may be WAND despite not being able to parse it. We also missed 39ac – what fools we were!
This meant we didn’t have 21d.
Could we use the excuse that we were otherwise engaged? Perhaps not.
Apologies to kruger – we promise to try harder next time!
My thanks, as always, to Kenmac and to other contributors.
I actually spent a very enjoyable couple of hours with Kenmac at the recent York S&B and told him to expect an easy blog the following week. But next time …
I enjoyed this greatly and finished the week after ( as usual!) when I picked up the anagram as temperance. That also made me spot the ‘rot’ part of tarot and from then onwards it was google time! At the end I was left with just 28ac which was really a guess between Nape and Naze but as I missed the deadline by a day I didn’t mind too much. The delay in solving was due to having a much better crack at inquisitor 1516 which I did solve and send off in time! Recent retirement does allow for a much better crack at the fiendish inquisitor…