A fun Christmas Eve alphabetical jigsaw from Julius. Unfortunately the instructions were incorrect in that the clues are not presented in alphabetical order.
There is however a clue with the start letter of each letter of the alphabet, with two doubles. This is our first jigsaw puzzle we’re blogging and it was wholly enjoyable. The clues themselves were not too tricky fortunately. A couple of new ones for us were PENNANT STONE and ISONOMY. Having not heard of sockeye salmon or hunter watches, we took a while to parse those. WAR BRIDES, COQUETTISHLY, KEW BRIDGE and ARTWORK were some of the favourites of the day. Many thanks to Julius!
“Poetry” describes Milan designer (7)
VERSACE
VERSE describes AC (as in Team AC Milan)
Mature supermodel Kate put on over a pound in retirement (7)
BLOSSOM
(MOSS (supermodel Kate) put on O (over) + LB (a pound))< (<in retirement)
Welsh composer, lovelorn, runs away, devastated (7)
NOVELLO
(LOVELO[r]N)* (runs (R) away) (*devastated)
Hang on a sec, Jack . . . uranium atoms become volatile! (4,1,2)
JUST A MO
J (Jack) + U (uranium) + (ATOMS)* (*become volatile)
Saudi neighbour and enemy, unfortunately (5)
YEMEN
(ENEMY)* (*unfortunately)
A bit hungover at Easter; consumed too much (7)
OVERATE
[hung]OVER AT E[aster] (a bit)
Held up in Chennai, Potus is, like, in a dreamy state (7)
UTOPIAN
([chen]NAI POTU[s])< (<held up in)
Small nose, small arm? (7)
SHOOTER
S (small) + HOOTER (nose)
Just about manage to unite extremists (4,4,4)
MAKE ENDS MEET
Double definition
Stage where Roy Orbison starts to play guitar (7)
ROSTRUM
R[oy] O[rbison] (starts) + STRUM (to play guitar)
American thug, loud, in swanky hotel can’t find reception! (2,2,3,5)
GO ON THE FRITZ
GOON (American thug) + F (loud) in THE RITZ (swanky hotel)
Özil ignoring wingers; I’m so upset about new movement (7)
ZIONISM
[o]ZI[l] (ignoring wingers); (I’M SO)* (*upset) about N (new)
Lorry transport reversing, say, three feet (7)
DRAYAGE
(EG (say) + A YARD (three feet))< (<reversing)
For them, it was literally trouble and strife on day one! (3,6)
WAR BRIDES
Cryptic definition (“trouble and strife” is cockney rhyming slang for wife)
Quite costly hotel rebuilt in an archway (12)
COQUETTISHLY
(QUITE COSTLY H (hotel))* (*rebuilt)
Interpret as: in an arch way
Painting vessel transporting right number of animals? (7)
ARTWORK
ARK (vessel) transporting R (right) + TWO (number)
Interpret as: the correct number of animals in the ark was two
Absurd, patent nonsense to ignore Home Counties rock deposits (7,5)
PENNANT STONE
(PATENT NONSEN[se])* (ignoring SE (home counties) *absurd)
In the UK, the South East (SE) are the home counties
Cargo area radioed after being hit by torpedo (5)
HOLED
“hold” (cargo area, sounds like, i.e. radioed)
Thames crossing traffic jam reported by Ms Jones, losing time (3,6)
KEW BRIDGE
“queue” (traffic jam, sounds like, i.e. reported) by BRIDGE[t] (Ms Jones, losing T (time))
Island, very French name, with yen for egalité (7)
ISONOMY
I (island) + SO (very) + NOM (French name) with Y (yen)
Egalite is the French word for equality
Roped in girl as cover for old journalist (7)
LASSOED
LASS (girl) as cover for O (old) + ED (journalist)
Bone fragment turned up on northbound A1 (5)
TIBIA
(BIT)< (fragment, <turned up) on (AI)< (<northbound)
Herb’s Winnebago involved in Chile crash (7)
CHERVIL
RV (Winnebago, recreational vehicle) involved in (CHILE)* (*crash)
Watch Liam, leading blood sports enthusiast (9)
FOX HUNTER
HUNTER (watch), FOX (Liam Fox, leading)
A hunter is a watch whose face is protected by a metal case
Console crooner Pat, having planted kiss after kiss? (4,3)
XBOX ONE
BOONE (crooner, Pat) having planted X (kiss) after X
Variety of salmon served tail first, eaten typically for starters in orbit (3,6)
EYE SOCKET
SOCKEYE (variety of salmon, served tail first, i.e. EYE before SOCK) + E[aten] T[ypically] (for starters)
Entertained by DJ, I’ve disco-danced (5)
JIVED
[d]J IVE D[isco] (entertained by)
This could potentially be interpreted rather as an anagram of DJ IVE
Flinched after queen got sick (7)
QUAILED
QU (queen) + AILED (got sick)
The two J’s was my starting point, and I only had one, the B, in the wrong place for a while. Didn’t know the G phrase, my LOI. Another smashing jigsaw from Julius, thanks.
Don’t normally bother with these jigsaw puzzles but decided to give it a go. Quickly realised instructions were incorrect but persevered.
One of the reasons I don’t do these is that it can be very difficult to know where to start entering solutions, especially if you haven’t managed to crack certain crucial clues.
The clue for TIBIA wouldn’t work as an across clue and I had BLOSSOM as an answer. So, risking that there wouldn’t be a 7 letter answer ending in B, I entered TIBIA at 4d. As NNI says, the two solutions beginning with J also help.
Quite a few answers I was unfamiliar with: KEW BRIDGE, ISONOMY, DRAYAGE, PENNANT STONE and guessed VERSACE but couldn’t see where the AC came from. D’oh!
Got there in the end. Thanks to all.
It was more fun with the incorrect instructions. First one cracked was JIVED which `was almost at the end so ditched the signposts.
Definitely a pencil job but my guess proved correct at the top and was a good building block.I wasnt familiar with GO ON THE FRITZ but that was a minor hurdle.
The shoehorn section was XBOX ONE , WAR BRIDES and JUST A MO
Havent even checked if theyre correct but I’ll post this at the risk of looking a Wally.
Great puzzle, thanks to Julius and Teacow
Our setter knows my views on alphabetical jigsaws, but I’ll take this opportunity to wish him a Merry Christmas
I usually like Julius’s puzzles, so I really persevered with this. I got all 4 of the 5 letter clues, 3 of the 4 12 letter clues, and 2 of the 9 letter ones very quickly, so thought I’d manage to fit it all together.
However there was no way I was ever going to get GO ON THE FRITZ, FOXHUNTER, or EYESOCKET.
So now I’m sitting here on Christmas Eve feeling bitterly disappointed & grumpy.
Many thanks to teacow for the review. I wish everyone a very happy Christmas and a successful and peaceful 2019. I’m not sure what happened with the mix-up with the preamble and I’m sorry if the confusion held anyone up unduly.
I feel especially bad about grumpy, and have DHL’d a case of Chateau Margaux ’89 by way of compensation.
warmest regards to all, Rob
You are very kind, baerchen.
Thank you.
Merry Christmas everyone!
Thank you baerchen! Great crossword, and a privilege to blog an alphabetical jigsaw, we always love them!
Don’t encourage Grumpy though 🙂
Happy Christmas to one and all!
My error, apologies to Julius. Though solvers seem to have overcome the wrong instructions problem.
Thanks to Julius and Teacow. I struggled with this one off and on over the course of a day and finally pieced out many of the solutions. I did not know Liam Fox and could not parse WAR BRIDES but with some experimentation (starting with the Js) I started filling in the grid (though the absence of alphabetical ordering did slow me down). ISONOMY defeated me but I did get GO ON THE FRITZ. A challenge but worth the effort.
Once I got the easy Y and Z, I knew something was wrong about the instructions … must have added another 15 minutes to the time. Fortunately, most of the clues were quite crackable. Thank you Julius and Teacow
It’s a pity the FT can’t get the instructions right for a crossword that many readers might have a crack at over the holiday break. I persevered, but many won’t have done so.
All the more galling because the prize crossword in the previous FT issue had indecipherable instructions.
Edited by Admin to remove a spoiler reference to a live prize puzzle.
I did realise that the clues (lights) were not in alphabetical order but the absence of this information made the crossword harder to solve. Although I had eight clues solved I could not be sure about fitting them into the grid so abandoned ship.
Poor show FT. Was this an error by Julius or the print composer?
We should be given an explanation.
@DavidEvershed
These alphabet puzzles are available in three formats, in ascending levels of difficulty as follows:
1. by first (given) letter
2. in alphabetical order of their solutions
3. random/jumbled
The editor makes the call which version to publish. In this case, the wrong preamble was used which although unfortunate isn’t particularly fatal to the solver – I believe – since it should become apparent fairly soonish. The editor has posted a comment further up this thread in comment 9.
Sorry this has plunged you into a bad mood during Yuletide
I started by solving the clues for the four 5-lettered lights. So it was immediately obvious that the clues were not in alphabetic order of the solutions. End of.
Thanks Julius and Teacow
I didn’t get to the puzzle until last night, but had seen the blog headline for it that advised of the clues not being in alphabetical order – so started off well aware. Actually don’t mind whether they’re in order or not – just love this style of crossword regardless.
Had to solve around 20 of the clues before fitting any into the grid – BLOSSOM and JUST A MO the first couple. Two of the long ones – MAKE ENDS MEET and PENNANT STONE finally gave the breakthrough to writing them in. It didn’t take all that long after that to finish it off, with WAR BRIDES and the tricky ISONOMY the last couple in.
Think that it’s pretty fair to have a couple of harder puzzles to contend with over the holiday break and thoroughly enjoyed this one!!
Just been catching up with this one as I printed it off to attempt as a team effort in the pub. Definitely at the trickier end of Julius’s range, but a very entertaining challenge…