Barcode by Xanthippe
Clues are given in normal order and solvers must complete the grid, which has no symmetry and contains 4 barred off empty cells. Two entries are clued by wordplay only and are not real words. These entries are cryptic representations of two book titles. One normal entry is the surname of the author of one book, a second normal entry is an anagram of the surname of the author of the second book. Solvers must identify and highlight 9 letters from the grid and arrange these below the grid to form a name linking the two books.
Oh-oh! It’s a carte-blanche and regular readers will know how I feel about them! Still, I am learning to overcome my fears knowing that the clues are always presented in alphabetical order of their answers but wait! They’re not this time. This time the clues are in normal order. OK, that’s not too bad as I can look for length patterns which match (back to front) in the across clues. Oh no, the grid isn’t symmetrical! Panic has well-and-truly set in.
As it happens, things weren’t too bad. The clues were, mainly, quite gentle. Having solved the first clue and then solved the first one in the third column and given that the grid is 13×11, I took a chance that they intersected and, taking a leap of faith, I started to enter answers. Obviously, the clues didn’t have numbers but I’ve taken the liberty of adding appropriate numbers to my tables and my grid.
A couple of clues caused me problems. I guessed that 2d was THE COLONIES and it wasn’t until writing this blog I managed to justify it. 28d was easy to solve – [p]LANE (crate) anagrammed made ÉLAN but, of course, completely wrong as it turns out.
Not surprisingly, 35a and 10d caused the biggest headache as they’re not real words. 35a led to THE WIND IN THE WILLOWS (by Kenneth GRAHAME) and 10d gave us WINNIE THE POOH (by Alan Alexander MILNE). GRAHAME can be found in 3d and MILNE is an anagram of 22a.
OK, what do TWITW and WTP have in common? Time for a bit of Wikipedia research. It appears that they were both illustrated by Ernest Howard SHEPARD, known as E H SHEPARD (9 characters). By this time. I’d completed my grid in Excel and I could see that there were only three P’s – a7, m8 and e11. And the only one that’s surrounded by the other appropriate letters is e11. Selecting h10-g9-f10-f11-e-11-e10d9-d8-c8 gives us H-E-S-H-P-E-A-R-D, which can be arranged to spell E H SHEPARD.
The trouble with the above is I have no confidence. There are a few things that I’m not sure of:
2. Why those particular squares?
3. Why are there four barred off empty cells?
4. What does the title mean?
So … thanks to Xanthippe for giving me a carte-blanche that wasn’t nearly as scary as it could have been. And I hope that someone out there can explain my misgivings.
M A J O R U P D A T E
Thanks very much to Gaufrid (site administrator) for explaining my misgivings.
- E H Shepard is, indeed, who we’re looking for.
- Not those cells at all.
- The bars form the outline of the appropriate letters
- The “coded” bars give the name of our man in outline form
Using the outlines of the barred of squares and a few others, we can spell E (h6-h7), H (f8-f9), S (c3-c4), h (e4-e5), e (h9-h10), p (k2-k3), a (i3-i4), r (g5-g6), d (c9-c10) as shown in the next two pictures. The first showing the bars together with original letters and the second showing the relevant bars with no other “fluff”.
So … many thanks to Gaufrid and, now, hats off to Xanthippe for a remarkable construction.
| Across |
||
| Clue |
Entry |
Wordplay |
| 1 New gate scan traps odd macho chap once in charge of transport (13) |
STAGECOACHMAN | GATE SCAN+M[a]C[h]O (odd) anag: new |
| 11 Reactor’s first on African soil splitting these to slow fast neutrons (10) |
THERMALISE | THESE containing Reactor (first)+MALI (African soil) |
| 12 Providing service in flight crossing small island (7) |
WAITING | WING (flight) containing AIT (small island) |
| 13 Enemy once of Greens (3) | FOE | (double def) FOE (enemy; archaic: once) FoE (Friends of the Earth: Greens) |
| 14 Top dessert (3) | ICE | (double def) ICE (kill: top) ICE [cream] (dessert) |
| 15 Rest upon a hill-range, finally walking off (4) |
RIDE | RID[g]E (hill-range; minus [walkin]G) |
| 16 Drink – regret, we hear, finishing barrel (4) |
BREW | B[arrel]+REW (sounds like RUE (regret)) |
| 17 Arab city hospital, outside one who didn’t make it (4) |
DOHA | DOA (dead on arrival: one who didn’t make it) containing Hospital |
| 20 Swimming regularly in the Solent is old bony fish (7) |
TELEOST | T[h]E[s]O[l]E[n]T[i]S[o]L[d] (regularly; anag: swimming) |
| 22 Sublime narcotic maintains sleep threshold (5) |
LIMEN | subLIME Narcotic (hidden: maintains) |
| 23 Muslim teacher returns greeting on mobile (6) |
MOLLAH | Mobile+HALLO (rev: returns) |
| 24 Controversial European and what might get her heard? (7) |
POLEMIC | POLE (European)+MIC[rophone] (what might get her heard |
| 25 Person from Argos put annual return with pay (6) |
ARGIVE | AR (Annual Return)+GIVE (pay) |
| 27 Lemur close to water in part of Asia, lacking tail (5) |
INDRI | wateR (close to) inside INDI[a] (part of asia; lacking tail) |
| 29 Bone from neck ape fractures (7) |
KNEECAP | NECK APE (anag: fractures) |
| 31 Nursemaid’s daughter quits opera (3) |
AIA | AI[d]A (opera; minus Daughter) |
| 33 Bear witness to but not at trial (4) |
TEST | [at]TEST (bear witness to; minus AT) |
| 34 Audibly perceive number for this object (6) |
HERETO | HERE (sounds like (audibly) HEAR (perceive))+TO (sounds like TWO) |
| 35 Sign of Zorro in old Spanish coin reflected by sherry I poured (12) |
OSZEPHYRIERS ZEPHYR (the wind) inside OSIERS (the willows) |
PESO (old Spanish coin; rev: reflected) containing Z (sign of Zorro)+SHERRY I (anag: poured) |
| Down |
||
| 1 Way of playing rhythmically to par inside rough (11, 2 words) |
STRIDE PIANO | TO SPAR INSIDE (anag: rough) |
| 2 Compiling these, index initially includes: Delaware, Georgia, Virginia and 10 others (11, 2 words) |
THE COLONIES | THESE+I[ndex] (initially) (anag: compiling) containing COLON (hiding, sneakily, at the end of includes:) |
| 3 Chap’s joyful exclamation during bit of fun (7) |
GRAHAME | RAH (joyful exclamation) inside GAME (bit of fun) |
| 4 Ruler is first when taken up with prince (4) |
EMIR | If spelt backwards after Prince it would be PRIME (first) |
| 5 Like charged particles of calcium and iodine in medicine (8) |
CATIONIC | CAlcium+TONIC (medicine) containing Iodine |
| 6 One in worn-out rank-smelling old top (4) |
OLID | I (one) inside OLD (worn-out) – and – Old+LID (top) |
| 7 Senior French trustee evacuates racecourse (5) |
AÎNÉE | AIN[tr]EE (racecourse; minus TRustee) |
| 8 German poet books into hotel taking up shelter (6) |
HEBBEL | BB (books) inside Hotel+LEE (shelter; rev: up) |
| 9 Drink contains source of orange bitter purgative (4) |
ALOE | ALE (drink) containing Orange (source of) |
| 10 Amphibian eats insects primarily, he’s on mere mostly hot (11) |
NIEWTHEPOOH W in NIE THE POOH |
NEWT containing Insect (primarily)+HE+POO[l] (mere; mostly)+Hot |
| 13 Prankster’s frequently half-cut on strong drink reportedly (9) |
FROLICKER | FR[equently]+O[n] (half cut)+LICKER (sounds like liquor; strong drink) |
| 18 Lass greeting scruffy lad (5) | HILDA | HI (greeting)+LAD (anag: scruffy) |
| 19 ‘Per diem’ befuddling woman of dubious character (7) |
DEMIREP | PER DIEM (anag: befuddling) |
| 20 Sole of horseshoe and the initially shabby edging locally hobnailed (7) |
TACKETY | TACKY (shabby) containing [horsesho]E (sole of)+T[he] (initially) |
| 21 Garland’s supporting role playing legendary siren (7) |
LORELEI | LEI (garland) following ROLE (anag: playing) |
| 26 Heartless rogue tails low-down sort (5) |
GENRE | GEN (low-down)+R[ogu]E (heartless) |
| 28 Decrepit plane with diminished top speed (4) |
RATE | [c]RATE (decrepit plane; diminished top) |
| 30 ‘Diplomacy takes time’ – second book by John? (4) |
ACTS | [t]ACT (diplomacy; minus Time)+Second |
| 32 Cut deeply into pollarded tree (3) |
ASH | [g]ASH (cut deeply; minus G (pollarded)) |
I thought this was an excellent puzzle, and for me it developed at a very satisfying pace, with the answers gradually forcing their way into the right places and potentially giving more crossing letters for other clues.
GRAHAME revealed itself quite early on, and when I entered LIMEN I didn’t twig the name MILNE straight away – but it came to me a little later. The two long non-words were great fun to solve.
After a rapid search I found the 9-letter name E H Shepard and guessed it would be the right one, even though it is really (1,1,7) rather than (9). What I didn’t expect to see was the amazing pattern of bars to make the rigidly rectangular forms of the letters of that name. I decided not to take that final instruction in the preamble too seriously (I hope it’s not infra dig to say that) because (1) I wasn’t certain of the name and (2) I couldn’t find any neat arrangement of those letters in the grid. Now that I’ve seen the solution, though, I have nothing but admiration for the way this grid was put together, with those shapes having to delimit proper words plus the two deliberately improper words. I noted, of course, the correct case (upper/lower) of all the letters of E H Shepard.
Many thanks to Xanthippe, and to kenmac for such a painstaking blog.
Thought that was excellent, thoroughly enjoyable. The non-real word answers leading to the book titles raised a smile, as did the spelling out of the name using the bars. Nice idea. I’m a huge Milne fan so guessed all we were looking for pretty early, which aided a not too difficult solve. Thoroughly enjoyed.
My solving experience followed that of Kenmac almost exactly: daunted at first, then finding it not too bad and then highlighting the exact same letters for the same rather unconvincing reasons. In the end I was left with the same unanswered questions listed by Kenmac. Even if I’d thought to look at the arrangement of the bars I’m not sure that I would have recognised the letters, given that not all bars were used and that there was a mix of upper and lower case letters. So I have to admire the construction of Xanthippe and take solace from the fact that I was in good company in my failure to complete the puzzle. Thanks to both.
It was generous of Xanthippe to give us a 1 across that stretched right across the grid, as it helped with the placing of subsequent entries. I twigged the thematic books and their authors quite quickly, and an internet stretch led to EH Shepard as almost certainly being the linking name. But where to find him?
I ended up highlighting the very same letters as Kenmac. With a bit of imagination the shape formed looks like a dog, and I spent some time researching a connection between the illustrator, his dog and the two writers. Needless to say, I failed to find anything, and I wasn’t really satisfied for the same reasons as Kenmac.
An online forum gave me a nudge to putting the bars in and then all became clear. I would never have thought to put the bars in myself, because we’re told it’s not required in this type of puzzle so often that I’ve come to consider it almost axiomatic that bars aren’t necessary unless we’re specifically told to enter them.
Were we given enough information to make the leap, or was this a GWIT puzzle? I’m not sure, though either way the construction is incredibly clever. I will be interested to see how many people got to the true solution unaided.
Should the letters of EH Shepard not be written below the grid as they appear in grid, i.e. lower case except for the initials?
Very enjoyable – a blank grid is always a positive in my book. Even without the symmetry of the grid it came together relatively quickly, although I had my KNEECAP in the wrong place for a while, intersecting with the C in CATIONIC, which confused matters. I spotted the letters emerging midway through the solve, which helped too (I thought there was enough information pointing to this – the reference specifically to the grid twice in the preamble as well as the title and the blank cells, which needed to be there for a reason). I was initially a bit irritated by what looked like a random mixture of capital and lower case letters, but once I finally turned to Google to identify the connection and saw the three capitals were exactly required I was kicking myself that I hadn’t thought of this when trying to work out the name.
Cruciverbophile @4: What is a GWIT puzzle?
I couldn’t find the letters within the grid, but spotted the capitals E, H, and S from the bars. Then I saw the small d and knew I was on the right track given the title BARCODE. Finally, the need for the 4 blank squares became obvious. A very clever grid.
@6 GWIT = Guess What I’m Thinking, used mostly for Listener puzzles where solvers can’t work out what’s required from the information given and can only guess at what the setter had in mind.
Like many, I enjoyed the solve, and looked forward, having filled the grid, to an easy cruise to the end. Google offered EH Shepard; and then I put my pencil down. But isn’t it odd that there’s an E to the left of all the empty boxes?
Thanks to Xanthippe and kenmac / gaufrid
Thanks, Xanthippe and kenmac. Very clever and much enjoyed. I appreciated the relative gentleness of the carte-blanche arrangement and saw MILNE (or rather LIMEN) almost immediately after entering GRAHAME, but got distracted by assuming that the connection must involve Toad of Toad Hall, Milne’s stage adaptation of The Wind in the Willows.
For the endgame I spent some time staring at two versions of that vaguely unsatisfactory block of letters — (a) as highlighted in the first grid above, and (b) with the other nearby R (diagonally SE of the first) highlighted instead. No apparent way to choose between the two, so it must be something else. I got there in the end by taking the hint of the title and filling in the bars, but at first missed the middle horizontal in the S … Finally wrote E H SHEPHARD underneath, and while searching for an envelope realized this could be a final trap. So it went in with “E H Shepard” instead. Whether this was necessary will presumably be revealed.
I thought I’d leave it for a while and see if anyone else spotted EWE:MAN (shepherd/Shepard) in c2-c4:h6-h8.
Coincidence??
Oh dear! I really must learn that if I am not totally satisfied with my solution, then I should seriously consider that I may have missed something. Like Kenmac and others, I had shaded the Shepard letters at the bottom and could not decide on which R to choose. I eventually opted for e9 as the shape then looked something like a lamb and compounded this by guessing that the title was a pun on “baa” – two very weak links to Shepard/shepherd. Added to this, I then decided that the blank squares were just the product of a difficult grid construction. So, three very good reasons to think that I might be barking up the wrong tree, rather than there being shortcomings in the puzzle.
Still, at least I am in good company. Many thanks to Xanthippe for fooling me so successfully.
I absolutely loved this IQ and expect it to feature in my end of year voting. The grid fill wasn’t too tricky for a carte blanche, though I made an error with an initial misplacement of ASH which hampered my bottom line entry for a while. A crossword with a series of PDMs. The bottom line first, followed by WTP, both producing a smile. I tried to think of a character who may be connected before admitting to using Google to uncover EH Shepard. 9 letters, it must be him. Then followed a long grid stare, and I failed to pick out the trail of letters that some on here spotted. But why the four blank cells, as it was clear that the setter could have made words there…. And why the title?
That’s when I decided to fill in the bars, and even then it wasn’t until I had half of them filled in, I realised what was going on. An absolutely brilliant construction.
Thanks to Xanthippe for the ingenuity and the fun and kenmac for the blog.
I sat there for a few days resisting the temptation to highlight E H SHEPHARD lower down and towards the left – that couldn’t be right. I returned to the puzzle on & off: why the barred-off cells? what does the title mean? and the strange phrasing in the rubric “identify and highlight 9 letters from the grid” not “in the grid” niggled. Eventually I sought help … ‘That can’t be right. Look at the bars.’ So I did, carefully, and all was revealed. But I wouldn’t have got there without that friendly nudge.
PS I wrote “E H Shepard” below the grid, respecting the case used in the grid letters. Thanks Xanthippe for the diversion and kenmac for the honest blog.
I had a very similar experience to Kenmac, and didn’t bother to put all the bars in – d’oh!
An enjoable solve but we were left with a disappointing endgame. We thought there ought to be something more and like HolyGhost we sought help. With a little nudge we spotted the correct upper and lowercase characters. What an amazing grid construction. We are sure it will be included in the most enjoyable IQs at the end of the year.
Thanks to kenmac, Xanthippe and Gaufrid.
I enjoyed filling the grid very much but couldn’t work out where to find EH Shepard. I spotted the cells as shaded by kenmac but this didn’t seem enough. I don’t think I would not have considered the published solution satisfactory if I had managed to find it myself. It seems a little too arbitrary to just pick any old combination of bars that might form letters, and in the wrong order too. cruciverbophile @4 sums up my thoughts with the “Guess What I’m Thinking” comment.
Thanks to Xanthippe and kenmac.
I’m with cruciverbophile and PeeDee with regard to the final instruction in this puzzle (‘find the name’). My earlier comment made it clear that, at the time of solving, I wasn’t even certain of the name and, partly for that reason, made only a token effort to find it. I was underwhelmed at seeing the final answer here and the tenuous indications given for it. By contrast, I thought the setter’s skill in creating such a substantial and enjoyable crossword using preset shapes for many of the bars was astounding.
What a strange competition it is in which those who are already lucky enough to have found the hidden treasure then get an increased chance of winning a prize because the unlucky ones have ruled themselves out. (I don’t feel any personal resentment about this because I don’t send in my solutions anyway! This was an excellent crossword, and I have no reservations about that.)
Thanks for the comments and Kenmac for the blog. Good to see many enjoyed it. Phil R mentioned ‘Grid Stare’ – my title until very late in the day was ‘Grid staring’ but John’s team thought (correctly as feedback show) that solvers needed more help identifying the bars. Thanks to John and his team for that and the vetting of the puzzle. The jumble of letters in the cells that some found was not deliberate (although I expected solvers to initially look for such a pattern before PDM I didn’t check for this – thankfully they weren’t in a line as this would have been very misleading and unfair).
Interesting how setters and solvers think differently. Setters will try for symmetry first and tend to only deviate from this when forced to by the theme. Random barred of cells would also not be acceptable unless thematic in some way. For those that didn’t get the final step – hopefully next time!
My inspiration for this puzzle was a print (looks like an original) of a Winnie the Pooh sketch signed by E H Shepard in a friend’s house in Sheringham.