Our esteemed EV editor has clearly decided that jigsaws are for life, not just for Christmas! At least on alternate weeks, as this is the second Samuel jigsaw I have blogged in a row – see EV1311 – and EV1313 was two-jigsaws-for-the-price-of-one. Unlike the real jigsaw I helped do at Christmas, which was missing a corner piece, this one has an extra ‘piece’…and a ‘specific’ number of pieces are too big to fit where they should…
The preamble states that:
“Clues are presented in alphabetical order of their answers, which must be entered where they will fit. A specific number of answers must each have a string of letters removed on entry; clues to these answers consist of a definition to the answer, and wordplay leading to the grid entry. Read in row order, the removed letter strings suggest a word which is also the answer to the one clue whose answer does not fit into the grid; this word must be written beneath the grid. Some answers consist of two or three words, and Chambers Dictionary (2016) is recommended.”
Cue much cold solving and tallying/categorisation of the different length grid slots to cross-reference against. My notes show that after the first hour-or-so I had ten solves, with one suspicious looking PETIT (favourite = PET, IT = Italian) with a definition (sweet thing) which looked like it should give PETIT FOUR.
Time passed!
I had teased out ORDINATE and SHOOTERS as two of the four eights – always good to find some longer entries to try and cross with others to get a foothold in the jigsaw. And another pointer to the theme – SCHOONER (glass) had wordplay leading to SCHOR(L) (black mineral. So I has a missing FOUR and now ONE – two possible ‘strings of letters’ as mentioned in the preamble. Mental note to look out for TWO, THREE, etc…up to that ‘specific’ number.
The jigsaw was still empty at this point, but my candidate word lists were filling up – too many 5s and 6s to see any obvious starting points, but only four each of 3s, 4s and 8s (I didn’t get the two 10s until right near the end!)
My entry-point to the jigsaw was finding (THREE)PIT – which didn’t seem to work in any of the other three 3-slots, but in that SW corner it looked like it might fit with the P in OPPOSE and the I of PEIRCE, which then led to OR… in an 8-slot, so ORDINATE could go there…and SCHOR would then fit in the row below. All in pencil of course, to start with!
And so steady progress was made as jigsaw pieces fitted in, and I started to find the other letter strings of written out numbers:
- CARO(TEN)E
- CA(NINE) LETTER (joint-ish LOI with BUNCH OF FIVES!)
- LIGHTW(EIGHT)
- (SIX)SHOOTERS (took a while, as SHOOTERS could work on its own?)
- BUNCH OF (FIVE)S
- PETIT (FOUR)
- (THREE)PIT
- A(TWO)OD
- SCHO(ONE)R
And at some point in the process I spotted COUNT(Y) DOWN as the extra jigsaw piece, and the final PDM was that the numbers TEN down to ONE occurred in descending order row-by-row from the second row – a COUNT DOWN in more ways than one!
So I went from trepidation at ‘yet another jigsaw’ on the Sunday to a completed puzzle around Wednesday morning, having spent a fair proportion of my hour-each-way commutes on the Monday and Tuesday working on this – so a few hours’ effort – towards the harder end of the EV scale? Thanks to Samuel for the challenge…fingers crossed for a non-jigsaw in 4 weeks’ time!
SNEEZEWEED, CANINE LETTER, DERAYS and PEIRCE (strange spelling!) were new to me. DOOSRAS is a cricketing term of Indian origin that some may not be familiar with? And another Indian connection with GEETA, or Gita, a girl’s name meaning literally ‘song’. (I wasn’t aware of that originally, although I do know a Gita – but it had to be GEETA from the wordplay…)
Slight quibbles – I could only find ELCHEE (and ELCHI/ELTCHI – Turkish ambassador) in my various copies of Chambers. It had to be ELCHE from the wordplay, so I proceeded with that… And my Chambers has SNEEZEWEED as only a ‘plant’, whereas SNEEZEWOOD is a ‘tree’…
NB 1 I have just noticed that the preamble refers to putting a ‘word’ (COUNTDOWN) under the grid, whereas my submitted entry and animated grid above have it as two words, COUNT DOWN, mainly because I took COUNTY DOWN and removed the Y! Chambers seems to allow both permutations, hopefully my use of the two-word version hasn’t invalidated my entry…
NB 2 I will be away skiing for a week from Sunday, so may be slow to respond to any comments below, but don’t let that stop you commenting!…
| Clues | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Clue No | Original solution | Entry | Clue (definition underlined) / Logic/Parsing |
| * | ALAS | My uncovered carriage / ( |
|
| * | ANI | Article on current flier / AN (indefinite article) + I (current, physics) |
|
| * | A(TWO)OD | AOD | Regularly avoid dystopian writer? / AOD (regular letters of ‘AvOiD’) |
| * | BRA | Support card game having lost $1000? / BRA( |
|
| * | BUNCH OF (FIVE)S | BUNCHOFS | Sign of aggression reduced profit, German court agrees at last / BUNC( |
| * | CA(NINE) LETTER | CALETTER | Dancing, almost clattered two before tango? / anag, i.e dancing, of almost all of CLATTERE( |
| * | CARO(TEN)E | CAROE | Sing with American lacking orange colouring / CARO( |
| * | CATCHY | Memorable hotel one leaves in Cyprus / C_Y (Cyprus) around A( |
|
| * | CHARTA | After occasional work, cheers formal agreement / CHAR (odd job; occasional work) + TA (cheers, or thanks) |
|
| * | COHERE | Hold together business in this place / CO (Company, business) + HERE (in this place) |
|
| * | COPLEY | Revere painter perhaps with work in cold open country / C (cold) + OP (work) + LEY (lea, meadow or open country) |
|
| * | COUNT DOWN | (not entered!) | Unknown leaves part of province before launch? / COUNT( |
| * | DECTET | With promotion of clubs, notice musical group / DETE( |
|
| * | DERAYS | Heartless dude beams and goes wild / DE (DudE, heartless) + RAYS (beams) |
|
| * | DOOSRAS | Fix head after large leg breaks / DO (fix) + OS (outsize, large) + RAS (headland) |
|
| * | ELCHE | Angry as this diplomat could make Chelsea… / subtractive anagram, i.e. angry, of CHEL( |
|
| * | EURYALE | …monster drink following Euro trophy’s final / EUR (Euro) + Y (final letter of trophY) + ALE (drink) |
|
| * | FIXED PRICE | Non-negotiable agreement did for Jordan? / FIXED (did for) + PRICE (Katie Price, aka Jordan, UK model/celebrity) |
|
| * | GEETA | Suit cheers woman of song / GEE (G-suit) + TA (cheers, thanks) |
|
| * | GRASPS | Holds Greek snakes / GR (Greek) + ASPS (snakes) |
|
| * | ICED | Like some cakes kitchen occasionally had / ICE (occasional letters of ‘kItChEn’) + D (contraction of ‘had’) |
|
| * | IN RE | Hint Greg uncovered is concerning / ( |
|
| * | IONIC | What’s charged by independent college philosopher / ION (what’s charged) + I (independent) + C (college) |
|
| * | LIGHTW(EIGHT) | LIGHTW | Insubstantial entry won / LIGHT (entry, in a crossword grid) + W (won) |
| * | MACAW | Love to leave Asian territory with flier / MACA( |
|
| * | OPPOSE | Face out of print model / OP (Out of Print) + POSE (model, sit) |
|
| * | ORDINATE | Note after running road in straight line / ORDINA (anag, i.e. running, of ROAD IN) + TE (note, in Sol-Fa notation) |
|
| * | PEIRCE | Astronomer’s terribly precise, ignoring sun / anag, i.e. terribly, of PRECI( |
|
| * | PETIT (FOUR) | PETIT | Favourite Italian sweet thing / PET (favourite) + IT (Italian) |
| * | PIGGOTT | Jockey’s set out in animal race / PIG (animal) + GO (set out) + TT (Tourist Trophy, annual motorbike race on the Isle of Man) |
|
| * | RELEARN | Once again pick up free sailors (not from London area) / RELEA( |
|
| * | ROOMS | On return, fix son’s appointments / ROOM (moor, fix, back) + S (son) |
|
| * | SCAD | Fish? A lot! / double defn. SCAD can be a fish; or, usually in plural, a large amount, e.g. of money |
|
| * | SCHO(ONE)R | SCHOR | Glass made from mostly black mineral / SCHOR( |
| * | (SEVEN)TH DAY | THDAY | Briefly, the dead always like particular sect? / TH (the, briefly) + D (dead) + AY (always, ever) |
| * | (SIX)SHOOTERS | SHOOTERS | Guns and books kept by blacksmiths? / SHO_ERS (blacksmiths) around (keeping) OT (Old Testament, or books) |
| * | SNEEZEWEED | After sign of cold, united to protect eastern tree / SNEEZE (sign of cold) + WE_D (unite) around (protecting) E (eastern) |
|
| * | STOPE | Prevent English mining / STOP (prevent) + E (English) |
|
| * | (THREE)PIT | PIT | Perhaps Geordie insisted on bed / PIT (bed) |
| * | TOERAG | Tramp got around, accepting age / TO_G (got, around) around (accepting) ERA (age) |
|
| * | VISION | Sight detective fleeing barrier / ( |
|
Thanks for the blog mc.
I had LIGHTW(EIGHT) and PETIT(FOUR) and had come to a bit of a halt.
But I decided that those and the title might point to a COUNTDOWN and went looking for that.
On this occasion, successfully.
Thanks to Samuel for the workout.
Good point about ELCHE – the only reference I can see is the way to pronounce ELCHEE in Chambers.
Nick
I’ve nothing to add to any of the above (other than to agree) but I would like to say something from a setter’s perspective about the suggestion made in the previous EV thread regarding the paucity of comments and thus the value of the blogs.
I’d be very sad if they were no longer to appear. As has been noted, lack of print space for solutions means that this is the only place where aspiring solvers (some of who may be drawn in from elsewhere on this site) can gain an insight into thematic puzzles, and regulars understand that impenetrable parsing in 13ac. And as a fairly regular setter I find the feedback of great value in improving my technique and gaining an insight into how solvers’ minds work and what they like. I applaud the hard work put in by all the bloggers (whether your preferred style is simple exposition or a discourse about the solving experience) – long may you continue. Likewise I hope that anyone with anything to say about EV puzzles will feel motivated to do so in this civilised forum.
Ifor, I can see how setters might get useful feedback from blogs like this one. For solvers they serve a more immediate function – explaining things we might not have fully understood when solving the puzzle in question. Bearing this in mind it would help if setters contributed to those blogs where there are elements in the solution that appear to be inexplicable, as seems to be the case here.
I made a few contributions to the ev strand in the past, but I attracted a lot of flak by being critical about the construction of a particular puzzle – some of that ‘feedback’ came from other setters defending the puzzle in question. I think setters are perhaps too reticent when it comes to addressing their colleague’s apparent errors. It would certainly help me to know if an error is ‘apparent’ or real, and whether I’m likely to see it pop up again in another puzzle – and setters are the experts after all.
Thanks, mcrapper67, for the blog.
Thanks, Samuel, for a good, entertaining and not too tricky puzzle.
Thanks, ifor, for your comments from a setter’s perspective.
Thanks, D Reynolds, for your insightful, pertinent comments.
My contribution… Is ‘slight quibbles’ (see blog) the most accurate way of describing what I think many solvers would class as ‘errors’? ‘Elche’ doesn’t seem to exist and Sneezeweed is not a tree. These held me up during solving as I was sure there must be correct answers that I was failing to see!