If ON THE DOT was by Harribobs, I would be expecting a fiendishly complicated join-the-dots endgame, in the shape of maybe an echidna, or Estonia…but this is by Chalicea, and she is usually a bit more gentle with us…isn’t she?…(repeat after me: ‘oh yes she is’…’oh no she isn’t’…etc.)
The preamble states that:
“ON THE DOT, five clued across solutions must be removed and become the five unclued down answers. One key item (unclued, 5,7) and its wearer (10) must be retained in full; the wearer must be highlighted. The final grid contains 27 empty cells and some non-words; Chambers Dictionary (2016) is recommended.”
As it happened, I started this just about ‘on the dot of midnight’ on the Monday night after publication (these winter evenings do fly by…I should get out more, as I hadn’t) and I made some swift progress, with plenty of crossing letters helping with those unclued down entries.
And before 00.30 I had the first PDM – that there was an unclued PUMPKIN and some MICE going down, and a CARRIAGE and some HORSES going across, and the main diagonal looked like CINDERELLA descending the stairs at Prince Charming’s Ball…tick tock…
At this point I made more like Sleeping Beauty (without the beauty), and in the morning picked up where I had left off …down the left was probably LIZARDS, although I didn’t remember what part they played in the story, and we had a GOWN turning back into RAGS, and a COACHMAN becoming a RAT, with the GLASS SLIPPER at the bottom, awaiting its rightful owner:
That left the FOOTMEN as LIZARDS – confirmed by a Wiki-oogle – and I was pretty much there, except for my LOI – HOGNOSE – which needed some checking, and SORGHOS, which looked like it was missing a definition – confirmed later with a correction on the publication of EV 1368, but causing some head-scratching that there was a subtlety in the preamble/endgame that I had missed…
So there we have it – a late winter Pantomime, and an enjoyable but not too challenging solve (for which a blogger is always grateful!)
The purists/masochists might bemoan the (slight) asymmetry of the barring, obviously necessary to fit the thematic material, and/or the empty cells/non-words…either/both of which might have been obviated by some more devious setting/clueing/barring, and/or maybe a bigger grid? But as an ‘entry-level’ EV this feels just about right – although I might draw the line at four uses of the same clue type – 5-letter word stripped of outer letters to give a 3-letter word: C-ORA-L, B-OAR-D, O-DEO-N and A-GEN-T!
My thanks to Chalicea – a pleasure as ever to solve and blog.
| Across | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Clue No | Solution / Entry | Clue (definition underlined) / Logic/Parsing |
|
| 1 | TESTAMENTARY | Unusual treatment, say, of a will (12) / anag, i.e. unuaual, of TREATMENT SAY |
|
| 7 | CARRIAGE | Male becomes cold in wedding coach drawn by horses (8) / ( |
|
| 9 | GAP | Break in continuity, leaf of book not completely turned (3) / ( |
|
| 10 | GHI | Cooking material in Notting Hill (3) / hidden word in ‘nottinG HIll’ |
|
| 12 | FECULENT | Foul erupting flatulence, all mostly horribly expelled (8) / anag, i.e. horribly, of F( |
|
| 13 | GOWN | Good wine from time to time for university members (4) / alternate letters, i.e. from time to time, of ‘GoOd WiNe’ |
|
| 15 | AECIDIUM | Idea oddly came up in revolutionary fruiting body (8) / anag, i.e. revolutionary, of IDEA + CMUI (odd letters from ‘CaMe Up In’) |
|
| 17 | FADDINESS | Short-lived idiosyncrasy saddens if mishandled (9) / anag, i.e. mishandled, of SADDENS IF |
|
| 20 | INEPTEST | Most futile in European Parliament trial (8) / IN + EP (European Parliament) + TEST (trial) |
|
| 21 | DEEK | See parasitic fly returning, circling Spain (4) / DE_K (KED, or parasitic fly, returning) around (circling) E (Espana, Spain) |
|
| 22 | ZOBO | Hybrid born in animal park (4) / ZO_O (animal park) arund B (born) |
|
| 23 | HORSES | Animals’ hard calamitous sores (6) / H (hard) + ORSES (anag, i.e. calamitous, of SORES) |
|
| 24 | FOOTMEN | Infantry, for example, involved in deformation abandoning fudged raid (7) / subtractive anagram, i.e. involved in, of ( |
|
| 27 | GEN | Information from representative failing to start or finish (3) / ( |
|
| 28 | RETRO | Knocked back malt liquor, lacking head, reminiscent of past times (5) / ( |
|
| 29 | BALLAST | Something that steadies blood alcohol level in the end (7) / BAL (Blood Alcohol Level) + LAST (in the end) |
|
| 31 | COACHMAN | Servant employed to drive in small company, a Chinese fellow (8) / CO (abbreviation, or small, of Company) + A + CH (Chinese) + MAN (fellow) |
|
| 35 | SORGHOS | Appeal for help involving yellow growth hormone in grasses (7) / S_OS (appeal for help) around (involving) OR (heraldic, yellow/gold) + GH (growth hormone) |
|
| 36 | OAR | Propel trimmed length of sawn timber? (3) / ( |
|
| x. | GLASS SLIPPER | Unclued (5,7) / Thematic deduction |
|
| Down | |||
| Clue No | Solution / Entry | Clue (definition underlined) / Logic/Parsing |
|
| 1 | TEGG | Before end of shearing, get round young sheep (4) / TEG (get, round) before G (end letter of shearinG) |
|
| 2 | SAI | Monkey not entirely already mentioned (3) / SAI( |
|
| 3 | AREAD | Declare Clare advertises coats (5) / hidden word in, i.e. coated by, ‘clARE ADvertises’ |
|
| x. | MICE | Unclued (4) / Thematic deduction |
|
| 4 | EAU | What might dampen article penned by Brussels? (3) / E_U (European Union, Brussels) around (penning) A (indefinite article) |
|
| 5 | TEED | Used up insect repellent – started game of golf (4) / DEET (insect repellent) used upwards gives TEED |
|
| 6 | AGNISES | Gives up and suffers having lost love (7) / AG( |
|
| x. | RAT | Unclued (3) / Thematic deduction |
|
| 8 | GLINTS | Student, trendy, overcome by drinks sparkles (6) / G_TS (G&Ts, gin and tonics, drinks) around L (learner, student) + IN (trendy) |
|
| x. | PUMPKIN | Unclued (7) / Thematic deduction |
|
| 11 | HOGNOSE | In country mound of earth detect snake (7) / HOG (dialect, i.e. in the country, for mound of earth) + NOSE (detect) |
|
| 14 | NAPOO | Good for nothing racing tip on obscure outsider for starters (5) / NAP (racing tip) + OO (starting letters of Obscure Outsider) |
|
| 16 | USELESS | Ineffectual to employ smaller quantities (7) / if one uses smaller quantities, one might USE LESS |
|
| x. | LIZARDS | Unclued (7) / Thematic deduction |
|
| 18 | DEO | Sides of ancient Roman theatre removed for divinity (3) / ( |
|
| 19 | EDEN | Prime minister’s garden? (4) / double defn. Anthony EDEN is a former British Prime Minster; and the Garden of EDEN is a mythical (and real?!) garden… |
|
| 23 | HOOCH | Highland dancer’s shout, ‘Strong liquor!’ (5) / double defn. a HOOCH can be a Higghland dancer’s shout/interjection; and HOOCH can be a strong liquor, especially if distilled illictly… |
|
| 25 | MAMS | Mothers Frenchman in his farm (4) / MA_S (south of France, farm) around M (Monsieur, Frenchman) |
|
| 26 | E-LA MI | Garbled e-mail note (5) / anag, i.e. garbled, of E-MAIL |
|
| 27 | GALOP | Lively dance, left over, interrupting interval (5) / GA_P (interval) interrupted by L (left) + O (over) |
|
| x. | RAGS | Unclued (4) / Thematic deduction |
|
| 30 | TORR | Hill almost entirely ripped apart by bulldozer ultimately (4) / TOR(E) (almost entirely ripped apart) + R (ultimate letter of bulldozeR) |
|
| 31 | COL | In short, senior officer’s depression (3) / double def, COL can be short for Colonel, or senior officer; and a COL can be a depression or pass in a mountain range |
|
| 32 | ORA | Boundless deep orangepink mouths (3) / ( |
|
| 33 | HOS | Note about calls for attention (3) / SOH – note, in sol-fa notation, about |
|
| 34 | NAP | Steal Aussie bedroll (3) / double defn. – to NAP can be to steal, pilfer; and a NAP can be an Australian’s bedroll |
|
Yes, my apologies for the SORGHOS bungle. The clue was honed down at the last minute as it was clunky and over-generous and I checked the final proof in rather a rush (on the way to two metres of snow in the Alps) and missed the fact that we had removed the definition. Many thanks, as always mc-rapper. I’ll have to see if I can produce a fiendishly tough Harribobs-style one for you.