Hello everyone. Don’t panic! This was an EV with a theme so perfect for me that I really shouldn’t have fallen flat on my face …
The preamble reads:
Two separate chains of cells (a total of 28 cells) must be highlighted in the completed grid; these spell out the basis for the first QUESTION. With the addition of a suitably positioned extra cell (also to be highlighted) these 29 cells then ask a further QUESTION, the ANSWER to which is the same as to the first. Solvers must erase one checked letter in the completed grid (still leaving real words) in order to reveal both the ANSWER and the first QUESTION’s origin.
Well, I filled the grid without pain, I can say that. That feels a long time ago now, having returned several times to stare and mutter at this teasing lattice of letters, hunting for questions and an answer and finding only dead ends. Gazing at the grid yielded nothing, and the only questions I had were: what are these questions? Where do I start? I tried everything I could think of, including going painstakingly through the checked letters to find those that could be removed leaving real words. Maybe that way I could find an answer, and maybe that answer might reveal possible questions. The really annoying thing? The question required was the first thing that popped into my head when I first read the preamble, but not once did I think after solving the clues to actually look for that particular one.
In the end I asked a friend for a hint to get me started. If anyone reading happens to be in the same situation, with a completed grid but nothing else, let me tell you now that the first chain starts in row 2, column 5, heading left, enumerated (4,3,8,3), while the final word of the question (10) starts in column 9, row 8, heading right. Shade those chains and then look at the central cell.
Questions, and answer, below.
| Clue No | ANSWER | Clue with Definition |
| Explanation | ||
| Across | ||
| 1a | FLOTAGE | Given time, loud crowd will provide buoyancy (7) |
| With AGE appended (given time), F (loud) + LOT (crowd) | ||
| 6a | SMAIKS | Brushes back around a collection of Glaswegian rascals (6) |
| SKIMS (brushes) reversed (back) around A (from the clue). A smaik is a Scottish word for a rascal | ||
| 10a | REFILLS | Zebra with troubles getting more to drink (7) |
| A zebra is US slang for a referee (with a striped shirt). So it’s REF (zebra) with ILLS (troubles) | ||
| 11a | AS NEW | A couple of partnerships are in good condition (5, two words) |
| A (from the clue) and a couple of partnerships in bridge: SN and EW | ||
| 12a | ETHAL | Most of whipped up lather that’s found in detergents (5) |
| Most of an anagram of (whipped up) LATHEr. Another name for cetyl alcohol, a chemical that is used in detergents | ||
| 14a | DIPLOE | Duck down, reportedly, is spongy tissue (6) |
| DIP (duck) + LOE which sounds like (… reportedly) LOW (down). Spongy tissue in the skull | ||
| 15a | THONG | Slender girl initially with nothing to replace one article of clothing (5) |
| TH[i]N (slender) + the first letter of (… initially) Girl, with O (nothing) to replace I (one) | ||
| 16a | CNEMIAL | Michael loses heart and suffers damage around north of the shin (7) |
| MIC[h]AEL loses its middle letter (heart) and is anagrammed (suffers damage), all going around N (north) | ||
| 18a | REUNIONS | Manage to conserve energy with institute on special gatherings (8) |
| RUN (manage) containing (to conserve) E (energy), plus (with) I (institute) + ON (from the clue) +S (special) | ||
| 20a | ANNAL | Obstinate to have new entry in year’s chronicle (5) |
| ANAL (obstinate) with the insertion of (to have … entry) N (new) | ||
| 21a | EDNA | Nut about to take daughter’s name (4) |
| EN (printer’s nut) and A (about, abbreviation) containing (to take) D (daughter) | ||
| 23a | VLEIS | Dreadfully evil Southern swamps (5) |
| An anagram of (dreadfully) EVIL followed by S (Southern) | ||
| 24a | ODSO | No medal? Well I never! (4) |
| O (0, no) + DSO (Distinguished Service Order, medal). An obsolete expression of surprise | ||
| 26a | PRE-EXISTS | Quietly drive back to welcome returning big shot and comes first (9) |
| P (quietly, music), then STEER (drive) reversed (back) containing (to welcome) the reversal of (returning) SIX (big shot) | ||
| 27a | DAES | On reflection, main day for Scottish acts (4) |
| The reversal of (on reflection) SEA (main) together with D (day). Scottish form of does (acts) | ||
| 28a | ROUGE | Debauched character drinks good wine (5) |
| ROUE (debauched character) contains (drinks) G (good) | ||
| 30a | VERY | Truth lacks it, absolutely (4) |
| VER[it]Y — truth lacks IT (from the clue) | ||
| 31a | PSOAS | By the way, French secret army provides muscle (5) |
| PS (by the way) + OAS (Organisation Armée Secrète, short-lived right-wing French dissident paramilitary organization during the Algerian War). A muscle of the loins and pelvis | ||
| 32a | TRANSACT | Deal with old pamphlet that contains brief reply (8) |
| TRACT (pamphlet) that contains ANS (answer, abbreviated: brief reply). To deal with is an archaic meaning of transact | ||
| 34a | EPOPEES | Meet Alexander, perhaps – about his poems? (7) |
| SEE (meet) POPE (Alexander Pope, perhaps) reversed (about) | ||
| 36a | TACHO | Clasp ordinary, common recorder (5) |
| TACH (a clasp) + O (ordinary). Informal abbreviated form of a tachograph or tachometer | ||
| 38a | OILLET | Grease obstruction, finding ancient metal ring (6) |
| OIL (grease) + LET (obstruction by the net in tennis etc.). An obsolete form of eyelet | ||
| 39a | INION | Privy to receiving single lump on back of head … (5) |
| IN ON (privy to) containing (receiving) I (one, single). A protuberance on the lower rear part of the skull | ||
| 40a | ANEAR | … approach another part of it (5) |
| AN EAR (another part of it, it being the head referred to in the previous clue) | ||
| 41a | CONNOTE | Suggest study observation (7) |
| CON (study) + NOTE (observation) | ||
| 42a | MADAMS | Graduate stops precocious young girls (6) |
| MA (graduate) + DAMS (stops) | ||
| 43a | INGESTS | Takes in popular leg-pulls, we hear (7) |
| IN (popular) + GESTS, sounds like JESTS (leg-pulls, we hear) | ||
| Down | Down | |
| 2d | LETHE | River girl putting foot on head? (5) |
| ETHEL (girl) with the last letter moved to the top (putting foot on head) | ||
| 3d | TIAN | No centre in satellite dish (4) |
| The middle letter removed from (no centre in) TI[t]AN, Saturn’s largest moon (satellite) | ||
| 4d | ALL-GIVERS | Villagers somehow those worshipped by John? (9) |
| An anagram (… somehow) of VILLAGERS | ||
| 5d | GLYCOL | Not posh, unattractive officer compound (6) |
| Without U (not posh), [u]GLY + COL (colonel, officer) | ||
| 6d | SIDES | Second XV teams? (5) |
| S (second) and IDES (XV, in ancient Rome, the fifteenth day of March, May, July or October) | ||
| 7d | MAIN | Damage from machine-gun not unknown (4) |
| MA[x]IM (machine gun), missing (not) X (mathematical unknown) | ||
| 8d | INLAND SEA | The Caspian, for example, with strange alien sand? (9, two words) |
| An anagram of (strange) ALIEN SAND | ||
| 9d | SWELL | Great surge? (5) |
| A double definition | ||
| 10d | RETREAD | Learn again about time concerning very experienced American soldier (7) |
| REREAD (learn again) around (about) T (time). US slang: a person who is called back or returns to service, especially military service | ||
| 13d | ANNEXURES | Things added when girl takes on former old practices (9) |
| ANN (girl) goes next to (takes on) EX (old) URES (uses or practices, obsolete) | ||
| 17d | LASER | Dud has advanced rather than ordinary printer, perhaps (5) |
| LoSER (dud) has A (advanced) instead of (rather than) O (ordinary) | ||
| 19d | UNPEOPLED | Without servants, opened up after refurbishment to accommodate novice (9) |
| OPENED UP having been anagrammed (after refurbishment) is to contain (to accommodate) L (learner, novice) | ||
| 20d | ASSENTING | A trap without inside compliance (9) |
| A STING (a trap) with SEN (sen., abbreviation for senza: without in music) inside | ||
| 22d | DNASE | Enzyme created by rising Eastern grit (5) |
| The reversal of (rising) E (Eastern) SAND (grit) | ||
| 25d | OXYTONE | Stress created by topless sexually attractive character (7) |
| [f]OXY (sexually attractive) without the first letter (topless), plus TONE (character). A word with the stress on the final syllable | ||
| 29d | GASTON | Talk to bridge player? Me? (6) |
| A charade of GAS (talk), TO (from the clue), and N (North, one of the players in bridge) | ||
| 31d | PRO-AM | Barge about old mixed competition (5) |
| PRAM (barge) around (about) O (old) | ||
| 32d | TETES | Notes soprano’s headdresses (5) |
| TE and TE (two copies of a note) + S (soprano). Tête is an obsolete word for a headdress | ||
| 33d | CHOTT | Switzerland goes too far in producing dried up watercourse (5) |
| CH (Switzerland, IVR) and OTT (over the top). Alternative spelling of shott | ||
| 35d | PERM | Hairstyle for each Frenchman (4) |
| PER (for each) + M (Monsieur, Frenchman) | ||
| 37d | ANNE | Occasionally, pawns need queen (4) |
| Regular letters of (occasionally) pAwNs NeEd |
The ANSWER to the ultimate QUESTION of
LIFE THE UNIVERSE AND EVERYTHING (and, shaded, 6 x 7) is
42
Deleting the letter from cell 42 leaves the first question’s origin: Douglas Adams, in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.
Some fans might feel a twinge of disappointment that the shading doesn’t reveal 6 x 9. Why? Because in The Restaurant at the End of The Universe, Arthur Dent attempts to find the question via some Scrabble tiles, which reveal the sentence “What do you get if you multiply six by nine?”
“Six by nine. Forty two.”
“That’s it. That’s all there is.”
“I always thought something was fundamentally wrong with the universe”
It only remains for me to add my gratitude to Gaston — So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish!
Kitty, after much grid-staring I had the same experience as you did. So I feel your pain. I did see LIFE and EVERYTHING and started removing the few checked letters that left real words so also saw ADAMS. Had I googled the three together it looks like I might have stumbled on the theme. Otherwise it felt like this was up there with last year’s HAPPY FAMILIES card game EV in which you just had to guess what the setter might be thinking. Except that one at least had a single column down the middle that might have been a guide had I used it the right way. So I don’t know if this was a fair endgame, but .. it doesn’t have to be! Thanks for the blog and to Gaston for the challenge.
Thanks ub. I’m sure I’ll fail on other endgames – it’s just this is one I really really really should have seen. Argh!
It was the Happy Families puzzle last year that was my blog failure so I totally sympathise with you, Kitty. Luckily, here I stumbled across (!) EVERYTHING after about 20 minutes and the rest fell into place. I suspect that Gaston’s intended method was to see that erasing the bottom left corner cell revealed 42 and ADAMS.
Good blog, nonetheless, Kitty. Always nice to have an H2G2 puzzle.
I, too, shared in the pain.
The grid was fine but where to start? I wasn’t clear on was was meant by the origin but painstakingly found all the cells leading to real words with a letter removed. I, too, thought of 42 as the answer but didn’t connect Adams. Initially, was looking at Adam and the first question in the garden of Eden.
Eventually, the penny dropped and very satisfying it was. Definitely, one of the tougher EVs.