As Eileen said in her blog of Arachne’s brilliant Guardian Prize puzzle published on 14th July (Bastille Day) – which just happened to be Eileen’s 80th birthday (she has agreed to me revealing this) – writing the preamble is usually the hardest part of compiling a blog.
As Eileen was blogging a puzzle that celebrated her own birthday, it was obviously more difficult than usual compiling an appropriate preamble. I (Bert) now find myself in a similar position, as I also compiled a puzzle for Eileen’s great day, which I initially emailed solely to her on the day. To my delight, she enjoyed it so much that she wanted it to be available to a wider audience via fifteensquared, and offered to send it to anyone who asked via her blog of the Arachne puzzle.
If you would like to tackle the puzzle, don’t read any further – you can download it here:
I gave Eileen the following hint: ‘You may come ACROSS an ABBREVIATED message in the grid’.
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
Before the Blog proper, I must thank Gaufrid for agreeing to publish it, and of course Eileen for her years of erudite contributions to the site, and for her kind comments on the puzzle – I had great fun compiling it!
In case it wasn’t obvious enough from the hint – all the across entries can be officially abbreviated to one (or in one case two) letter(s), spelling out the message.
| Across | ||
| 1 | Smack diplomat for returning home without fascist leader (6) | |
| HEROIN (H) | HE (his excellency – diplomat) |
|
| 5 | Bales out failing totalitarian (8) | |
| ABSOLUTE (A) | An anagram of BALES OUT – anagrind is ‘failing’ | |
| 9 | Call attendant (4) | |
| PAGE (P) | Double definition – 1 – as in make a call on a PAGEr, 2 – as in a PAGE boy | |
| 10 | Sanctimonious article’s definitely not soft (5) | |
| PIANO (P) | PI (sanctimonious) A (article) NO (definitely not) | |
| 11 | Kids in class long to miss end of lesson (4) | |
| YEAR (Y) | YEAR |
|
| 12 | Heavy Metal band’s first practice by dilapidated hut (7) | |
| BISMUTH (BI) | B (first letter of ‘band’) ISM (practice) + an anagram of HUT – anagrind is ‘dilapidated’ | |
| 13 | Republican goes after socially acceptable change in India (6) | |
| RUPEES (R) | R (Republican) PEES (‘goes’) after U (socially acceptable) | |
| 16 | Having scrapped old Ford, latest model’s an electric vehicle (5) | |
| TESLA (T) | An anagram of LATES |
|
| 18 | Old kings‘ right to oust the French in Royal Regatta succeeded (6) | |
| HENRYS (H) | R (right) replacing or ‘ousting’ ‘le’ (the in French) in HEN |
|
| 20 | Measure of temperature in custom-made greenhouse (6) | |
| DEGREE (D) | Hidden in custom-maDE GREEnhouse | |
| 22 | Surprise expressed over album’s beginning (5) | |
| ALPHA (A) | AHA (expression of surprise) round LP (album) | |
| 24 | New Englander‘s almost naked, running amok in the old enclosure (6) | |
| YANKEE (Y) | An anagram of NAKE |
|
| 25 | Oriental teas blended in the Queen’s name (7) | |
| EASTERN (E) | An anagram of TEAS (anagrind is ‘blended’) in ER (the Queen) N (name) | |
| 28 | Taken for a ride, wings fall off, land in sea (4) | |
| ISLE (I) | ||
| 30 | Batter‘s going to be regularly incorporated into dessert (5) | |
| POUND (L) | ON (going) ‘regularly incorporated’ into PUD (dessert) | |
| 31 | Member of the House of Lords is ancient, not all there (4) | |
| EARL (E) | EARL |
|
| 32 | English love being in pure chaos with an identity Brexiteers don’t want us to have (8) | |
| EUROPEAN (E) | E (English) + O (love) in an anagram of PURE (anagrind is ‘chaos’) + AN | |
| 33 | Country‘s new boundaries are unknown (6) | |
| NORWAY (N) | N OR W (‘boundaries’ of ‘new’) A (are) Y (unknown) | |
| Down | ||
| 2 | Initially, Eileen’s real age deceives – it’s amazingly, truthfully eighty! Shine on! (8) | |
| ERADIATE | First or ‘initial’ letters – congratulations Eileen!!! | |
| 3 | Roman theatre features poem sung by returning Greek character (5) | |
| ODEUM | ODE (poem sung) MU (Greek character) reversed or ‘returning’ | |
| 4 | Volatile liquid‘s an amalgam of sodium, phosphorus and hydrogen that’s not perfect (7) | |
| NAPHTHA | NA (sodium) P (phosphorus) H (hydrogen) + THA |
|
| 5 | Acting judge accepted by cleaner (4) | |
| AJAX | A (acting) J (judge) A (accepted) X (by) – yes, they do still make it!! | |
| 6 | Bob has pesos, gold and a lot of South African cash in a Scotsman’s purse (7) | |
| SPORRAN | S (shilling – ‘bob’) P (pesos) OR (gold) RAN |
|
| 7 | Secular place (3) | |
| LAY | Double definition | |
| 8 | To go to raucous party with nothing barred, start in Leicester (6) | |
| TRAVEL | T |
|
| 14 | Youngster gets round agreement to hand over the cash (3,2) | |
| PAY UP | PUP (youngster) round AY (agreement) | |
| 15 | Leading revolutionary embraces independent female (5) | |
| CHIEF | CHE (revolutionary) round or ‘embracing’ I (independent) + F (female) | |
| 17 | A little bit of bacon (5) | |
| SPECK | Double definition | |
| 19 | Salvation Army College Rector’s song for church sanctuaries (8) | |
| SACRARIA | SA (Salvation Army) C (college) R (rector) ARIA (song) | |
| 21 | Rawhide thong used in making a chair – one in Empire style (7) | |
| RIEMPIE | I (one) in an anagram of EMPIRE – anagrind is ‘style’ | |
| 22 | Amateur group performing “Surrender” (7) | |
| ABANDON | A (amateur) BAND (group) ON (performing) | |
| 23 | Saunas adapted for sub-tropical location (6) | |
| NASSAU | An anagram of SAUNAS – anagrind is ‘adapted’ | |
| 26 | People’s heritage destroyed, disregarding historical period (5) | |
| THEIR | An anagram of HERIT |
|
| 27 | One of 5 horses described endlessly (4) | |
| QUIN | ||
| 29 | I depart after completion of puzzle (not quite a pangram!) (3) | |
| EGO | GO (depart) after E (last letter or ‘completion’ of ‘puzzle’) – it’s almost a pangram, but there’s no Z | |
“BertandJoyce”/Bert/Egbert, What a wonderful gift it was to give Eileen this crossword on her birthday. It was also very generous of you to give permission to share it more broadly. Solving it was such fun. Even though I found the grid a bit difficult, with not a lot of crossers, I did enjoy it.
I liked the birthday wishes you so cleverly incorporated into the initial letters for the across clues. As well, the admonition in the clue for 2d ERADIATE, “Shine on!” was just perfect for our “shining star of solving”, Eileen. It was also great that you could include “Leicester” as part of the fodder for 8a – very apt.
My LOI was 19d SACRARIA. Unfortunately, because I had filled in a partially unparsed SACRISTY, I was held up for a while in the SE. Favourites (aside from the Eileen references) were 20a DEGREE and 6d SPORRAN. Thank you to setter and blogger (one and the same), and to” Joyce”, for being such kind, clever and caring contributors to our(a)cross-continents cryptic crossword community.
Lovely puzzle B&J. Super present for crossword blogging supremo.
I was particularly amused by 30a, POUND, which provided the L for EILEEN in the message. Threw me briefly. Excellent.
What a stunning grid fill, on a par with those from the likes of Picaroon! I would be fascinated to hear something how that was created. Nina-blind me of course failed to see it when I solved the puzzle, despite the heavy hint.
Notwithstanding missing the point (der!), I enjoyed solving this, with just a couple of nitpicks about cryptic syntax, which I’m too blown away by the fill to bother mentioning here (but which Bert has received by email via Eileen, I believe).