Chalicea often serves up clues that are on the easy side, followed by a task that involves a certain amount of head-scratching whilst staring at a completed grid.
Preamble: Identifying one thematically placed letter in each clue leading to a 3, 4 or 5-letter solution and reading them in clue order will reveal an instruction concerning the event spelled out by the letters in the grey cells.
The across clues tumbled one by one, and when I got to the end half of them were solved. The down clues fell even more quickly – only three left to do before I returned to take a further look at the across clues I hadn’t nipped back to while tackling the downs. The grid-fill was a short affair, but I had other things to do so I put the puzzle away until the evening.
ARMISTICE had manifested itself in the grey cells, so it seemed clear to me that the ‘thematically placed letter in each clue’ would be the 11th. Bashed the clues into a spreadsheet, removed spaces and other punctuation, picked out character number 11 to reveal shade the poet and what he recalls. Scanned the grid and after a minute or so spotted SASSOON in the rightmost column; a quick check for Siegfried – no joy there, let’s move on.
What to make of the rather vague what he recalls? A lark in the sky, a fallen comrade, a memory of schooldays in happier times? Searched the grid left and right, up and down, tried a few diagonals … resorted to the web – no luck … checked the ODQ – found nothing there either. Gave up in frustration.
While walking on a sunny Sunday morning, I thought back to a couple of Chalicea‘s puzzles – long quotes running along many diagonals. So, having copied the filled grid into a spreadsheet (for the blog), I renewed my search: shuffled each row one place to the right, then shuffled each row one place left instead, then tried moving each column one cell down – & bingo! There appeared Everyone suddenly burst out singing, starting in every fifth cell around the diagonal and finishing adjacent to the poet. The ODQ informs me that it is from the poem Everyone Sang (1919).
Thanks Chalicea – par for the course I guess. Don’t think I can illuminate the title (‘Such Delight’) though. {See Comment #1.}
| Across | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| No. | Clue | Answer | Wordplay |
| 1 | Neurotransmitter used ethically once (13) | ACETYLCHOLINE | ETHICALLY ONCE |
| 10 | A bit of resistance in order involving hospital (3) | OHM | OM (Order of Merit) around H(ospital) |
| 12 | Suffered anguish since offence recalled by 9 (8) | AGONISED | AGO (since) SIN< (offence) ED(itor, see 9d) |
| 13 | To merge with universal god (4) | DIEU | DIE (merge) U(niversal) |
| 14 | Curious item with globe in horological gadget (8, 2 words) | TIME BALL | [ITEM]* BALL (globe) |
| 15 | Incarnation of backsliding renegade, a vice-admiral (6) | AVATAR | RAT (renegade) A VA (vice-admiral) all< |
| 17 | Lacking integrity after junking house to clear out birds (7) | DISNEST | DISHONEST (lacking integrity) ¬ HO(use) |
| 20 | Cardinal’s carried stuff friar dropped (5) | EIGHT | FREIGHT (carried stuff) ¬ FR(iar) |
| 22 | Natural watering-hole destroyed (6) | INNATE | INN (watering-hole) ATE (destroyed) |
| 23 | Causes of chaos on Wall St as funds without depth collapse (6) | SNAFUS | [AS FUNDS ¬ D(epth)]* |
| 26 | Maybe drug addict’s desperate ruse (4) | USER | [RUSE]* |
| 28 | Part of foot scattered over one leg (7) | SEMEION | SEMÉ (scattered over) I (one) ON (leg, cricket) |
| 30 | Second letter following complaint (4) | BEEF | BEE (second letter) F(ollowing) |
| 31 | Rubbish about couple of articles in garland (6) | TORANA | ROT< (rubbish) A NA (articles) |
| 32 | African beasts’ tortured groans (6) | NAGORS | [GROANS]* |
| 35 | Fruit baskets worker ultimately drags around (5) | TRUGS | (worke)R in TUGS (drags) |
| 37 | African fellow to haul about over on Skye, say (7) | OUT-OWRE | OU (man, S Afr) TOW (haul) RE< (about) |
| 39 | Group of old fossils lounges about without showing general intelligence (6) | OLENUS | [LOUNGES]* ¬ G(eneral intelligence) |
| 41 | Lout and others recalled restricting upper-class with small divisions (8) | LOBULATE | LOB (lout) ET AL< (and others) around U(pper-class) |
| 43 | Lint crop if husked produces traditional eastern item (4) | INRO | (l)IN(t) (c)RO(p) |
| 45 | What stops flier bearing handle? (8) | AIR-BRAKE | AIR (bearing) BRAKE (handle) |
| 46 | Through power of office, holding good self-image (3) | EGO | EO (ex officio) around G(ood) |
| 47 | No donkey’s been hurt without someone knowing of it (13, 3 words) | BEYOND ONE’S KEN | [NO DONKEY’S BEEN]* |
| Down | |||
| No. | Clue | Answer | Wordplay |
| 2 | Knife, it’s popularly said, pruned herb (4) | CHIV | CHIV(e) (herb) |
| 3 | Lost relation partly remembered (3) | EME | (r)EME(mbered) |
| 4 | Time with feeling of pity for actuality (5) | TRUTH | T(ime) RUTH (pity) |
| 5 | Retreat and touch of despair for Glamis landowner (5) | LAIRD | LAIR (retreat) D(espair) |
| 6 | Tool’s regularly hooked (3) | HOE | H(o)O(k)E(d) |
| 7 | A spike taken up in festooning plant (5) | LIANA | A NAIL (spike) all< |
| 8 | Heard brief declaration of intention to stay in holm (4) | ISLE | homophone: I’LL (declaration of intention) |
| 9 | Chief journalist rejected nonsense I’d left to email (6) | EDITOR | ROT (nonsense) I’D E(mail) all< |
| 11 | Filled with idols immediately due to be changed (7) | STATUED | STAT (statim, immediately) [DUE]* |
| 15 | Old letter’s wrong case (4) | AESC | [CASE]* |
| 16 | Australian handed over tropical plants (5) | AGAVE | A(ustralian) GAVE (handed over) |
| 17 | Drug’s prime feature is to relieve sickness (7) | DISEASE | D(rug) IS EASE (relieve) |
| 18 | Hunters of walrus in unusually icy temperatures at first? (5) | INUIT | IN U(nusually) I(cy) T(emperatures) |
| 19 | Picturing erstwhile seat of authority on northern meadow (6) | SEEING | SEE (seat of authority, obs) ING (meadow, N Eng) |
| 21 | Artless lad, smart to avoid promises to settle up before start of uni (6) | INGENU | INGENIOUS (smart) ¬ IOUS (promises to settle up) U(ni) |
| 24 | Orkney’s misty drizzle edges up on start of rain (5) | SMIRR | RIMS< (edges) R(ain) |
| 25 | Reparation once paid on contraband (7) | BOOTLEG | BOOT (reparation, OE law) LEG (on, cricket) |
| 27 | Dippy aunts have position in Holyrood (5) | STAUN | [AUNTS]* |
| 29 | Singular twerp to behave cheekily in LA (4) | SASS | S(ingular) ASS (twerp) |
| 30 | Graduates going down and up hugging old black tree (6) | BAOBAB | BA BA< (graduates) around O(ld) B(lack) |
| 33 | Hunchback’s rattletrap overturning objection (5) | GOBBO | GOB (rattletrap) OB< (objection) |
| 34 | Assured once in Ayr on the jumps (5) | HOTEN | [ON THE]* |
| 36 | Devices for controlling kidneys (5) | REINS | double definition |
| 38 | Storyline partly leaning to the right (4) | TORY | (s)TORY(line) |
| 40 | Impulse endlessly wells up (4) | URGE | (s)URGE(s) (wells up) |
| 42 | Mounting pulse in Glaswegian lover (3) | LAD | DAL< (pulse) |
| 44 | S African pass not used in the past before end of trek (3) | NEK | NE (not, obs) (tre)K |
|
|
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HG, the title links to the next line of the poem – ‘ singing … and I was filled with such delight’.
Sorry, HG, I forgot to thank you for the blog. My grid-filling experience was much like yours, the clues themselves being on the easy side. I didn’t spend an awful lot of time on the endgame – from previous experience, I knew the diagonals were likely to be involved, and they were.
The puzzle’s title also describes my solving experience of this appropriate puzzle by one of my very favourite setters. I was impressed by how she managed to just the right amount of information needed in what must be one of the most concise preambles of all time. Many thanks, Chalicea.
Thanks all round. Timely, enjoyable, gentler than certain exhausting recent challenges … and I always like it when the endgame doesn’t need a trip to the emporium of Messrs Google & Wikipedia. Some time wasted looking for a deviously hidden SIEGFRIED (we had DAS RHEINGOLD in IQ#1567 — could these cunning setters be in collusion?), so great relief that HG didn’t find him either.
I remember my only previous Chalicea (entitled ‘Heaven’) being the most approachable of all the Inquisitors I’ve tried, and because I also enjoyed the theme on that occasion I had no hesitation in taking on this puzzle.
I found the clues in the bottom half of the grid, where there was a preponderance of unfamiliar words, more of a challenge than those in the top half, and I left 37a unsolved, not finding the answer in any dictionary.
I guessed the correct interpretation of ‘thematically placed’ first time. The poet was easy to find, and I was lucky to find the verse quite quickly by noticing the word EVERY in a diagonal near the top left corner.
The theme was well executed and, considering how much space the name and the verse took up in the grid, the gridfill was impressive. This is the second time in an Inquisitor that I have encountered single letters being ‘thematically placed’ in the clues, and I was pleased this time that there was enough of a thematic hint for the idea to work perfectly.
Regarding 37a OUT-OWRE, I felt the fact that ‘owre’ is in Chambers does not excuse the lack of a warning that ‘out-owre’ is not. (In a recent puzzle we were told in the preamble that an answer-word was not in Chambers but could be found elsewhere.)
Thanks to Chalicea for a puzzle as good as her ‘Heaven’ puzzle that I still remember, and to HolyGhost for a blog up to the usual high standard.
Alan B @5
Regarding your penultimate paragraph, OUT-OWRE is in Chambers:
out-over or out-owre
adverb and preposition (Scot)
1. Out over
2. Over
Alan B @5
It’s in my Chambers iPhone app, which represents Chambers 15th edition.
FYI: you can get it here: https://wordweb.info/Chambers.html
Thanks to H___G____ for the blog and to Chalicea for a nice welcome break from the recent onslaught of tuff uns.
Lots of fun as ever from Chalicea, a welcome change of pace. Pretty quick grid fill, and much to my surprise I found the quote to highlight without too much ado.
Caran @1: thanks – clearly I could have saved myself a lot of frustration & time by entering ‘Sassoon Such Delight’ into a search engine. Ah well.
Ken @7: isn’t the iPhone app the Chambers 13th (not the 15th) edition?
H___G____ @9
Oh deary me, it looks like a touch of dyslexia. I didn’t check my phone but I was convinced that the website said “15th”.
Gaufrid @6, kenmac @7
You’re both right, of course, and you have my apologies. I wasn’t the only solver to fail to find it (I checked with another solver before posting @5), and it’s just taken me two further attempts to find the entry for ‘out-over or out-owre’ in my Chambers.
It wasn’t a major issue at the time of solving (the W being the most likely fit for the wordplay), but I was of course surprised at not finding it in any dictionary. Perhaps it is in Chambers and nowhere else.
I filled the grid in minutes and then spent hours trying to find where everyone was singing. In retrospect I think I should have found it sooner as it is the obvious thing to look for and not difficult to read once it has been seen. Thanks to Chalicea and HG.
Thanks to all and especially to HolyGhost. I initially interpreted your final comment as a statement that it hadn’t given you much delight. Knowing that I have a reputation for putting long quotes in diagonally, it seemed logical to give no additional pre-rambling indication (number of cells/ words, for example) but to keep it short. Yes, ‘OUT-OWRE’ is in all my copies of Chambers but I admit that I have never heard any of the numerous Scottish relatives use it – I was constrained to do so by the quantity of thematic material.
A reliably enjoyable puzzle from Chalicea, thanks very much. In searching for the right poem I was prompted to read several of Sassoon’s works, something I wouldn’t have done since school so thank you also for that.
Thanks HG for the blog.
Oops! I smugly thought I had cracked this one until I read the above. I finished the grid and the instruction and quickly spotted SASSOON. Then I found “Everyone sang” on the internet which I took to be sufficiently synonymous with “Such Delight” and so searched for these words in the grid. I found EVERY and ONE on the diagonals mentioned and then found a contorted SANG linking ONE to EVERY. I wondered whether the shape produced by this had some significance but could not think of one. I think that an indication of how many cells were to be shaded would had allowed thickies like me to arrive at a complete finish.
Thanks to HG for a thorough blog and to Chalicea for an enjoyable solve with (for me) a slightly unsatisfactory finish.
I enjoyed this very much and managed to complete the grid, but exactly like Dave W at 15, I didn’t find the full quotation and assumed it had to be “Everyone Sang”, though the way it appeared wasn’t satisfactory. I loved the poem, which I hadn’t come across before, and found it very moving.
I enjoyed this, not so much for the grid fill and the 11th letter instruction, but for the hunt for the quotation. After I spotted Sassoon I was led by Google to a collection of his war poems, which I read and found to be incredibly moving. Thank you Chalicea and HG.
Sorry DaveW and Susan Howarth that you missed the full quotation but I agree that Sassoon’s poetry is still very moving. His later works never reached the same heights – I think he, too, was a victim of what he had gone through, even though, unlike Owen, Sorley and so many of the others, he did survive the War.
Chalicea @18: had the instruction read “… and line one of poem” instead of “… and what he recalls” (same character-count) then maybe solvers such as DaveW and Susan Howarth would have reached a more satisfying conclusion.