A Growing Population by Phi
A number of clues contain a one letter misprint in the definition part; in order the correct letters spell out a quotation from the central unclued down entry. The unclued perimeter, clockwise from 5, exemplifies the quotation, using six examples. The unchecked letters in the perimeter can be reformulated AS ONE GENTLE THEORY. The definition in 20 may be justified in Collins.
15a (an obvious anagram) was first to fall followed by 16d and 17d. Not long after, most of the bottom half was done. The top half, on the other hand, proved really tricky.
For the unclued answer, I had _ _ _ _ _ G _ A Y and BOXING DAY looked likely though why we’d have a Boxing Day puzzle in the middle of March, I don’t know. Maybe BREXIT DAY (perish the thought) but clearly not, since there’s a G. And, anyway, what would Phi (living in New Zealand) know about Brexit?? 😉 Maybe POLLING DAY? But maybe I should ignore it for a while and concentrate on the corrected letters.
So far I have only one-or-two corrected letters up front but the end is looking healthier – TO ANOTHER looks very likely. Up front it looks like there may be CAT and I know that Phi has done quite a few cat-themed puzzles in the past so it makes me wonder if another of his cats have died.
Now, I’m stuck and looking for inspiration anywhere I can. Time to revisit the unclued entry. Aha, it’s HEMINGWAY! A quick visit to the 30-year-old World Wide Web and searching for “HEMINGWAY TO ANOTHER” gave me too much fodder so I decided to add CAT and that led me to:
https://www.azquotes.com/quote/563538 ONE CAT JUST LEADS TO ANOTHER.
Now, of course, I was able to reverse engineer as necessary and complete the puzzle. With everything but the perimeter complete, I set about finding the cats, convinced that we were looking for the names of Ernest Hemingway’s cats (cos, there’s obviously PATCH in h1-l1) but I was unable to find any substantial evidence. Further research led me to Polydactyl Cats (also known as Hemingway Cats), which I had heard of but had pretty much forgotten about.
But that didn’t really lead me anywhere. Maybe I’m barking clawing up the wrong tree.
Then, out of nowhere, I saw that PANTHER could fit in h1-m2 and that was it. The last letter of PANTHER is also the first letter of RAGDOLL and so on. We’re just looking for “random” cats: PANTHER, RAGDOLL, LION, NORWEGIAN FOREST, TORTOISESHELL and LYNX.
It’s not the case in my household but I know of several people that just seem to “need” one more cat, so I guess that’s what the title refers to.
During my research, I found this picture of a ragdoll:
and it made me wonder if our cat, Pip, is a ragdoll:
Pip was a stray who followed someone home, about 4 years ago., when he was a kitten,
Anyway, enough of that, thanks a lot to Phi for a fairly gentle puzzle with just the right amount of dead ends – for me at least.
| Across |
|||
| Clue |
Entry |
Corrected letter |
Wordplay |
| 9 Half Halo distance to Sun, before function involving Earth is seen (7) |
AUREOLE | O |
AU (atomic unit: distance to the Sun)+ROLE (function) containing Earth |
| 10 Historic detail detain in comment about Tesla (4) |
STAY | N |
SAY (comment) containing Tesla |
| 11 Ruminant never cornered by drivers (4) |
ANOA | NO (never) inside AA (Automobile Association: drivers) | |
| 12 Sand Send down stair and cut off duplicated part of newel (9) |
RUSTICATE | E |
STAIR+CUT+nEwEl (duplicated letter) anag: off |
| 15 Needed shallow rocks to be rocky cocky (13) |
SWOLLEN-HEADED | C |
NEEDED SHALLOW (anag: rocks) |
| 18 What’s excellent about popular Scot? (4) |
IAIN | AI (A1: what’s excellent; rev: about)+IN (popular) | |
| 19 Border worker always interrupted by BBC bigwig (5) |
EDGER | E‘ER (always) containing DG (Director General: BBC bigwig) | |
| 20 About to extend payment for Aussie cur car (4) |
REGO | A |
RE (about)+GO (extend) |
| 21 Tropical plane plant certainly given to Rwandan Airlines initially (4) |
OKRA | T |
OK (certainly)+R[wandan] A[irlines] (initially) |
| 25 Bidding system from hereabouts, mostly rejected (4) |
ACOL | LOCA[l] (hereabouts; mostly) | |
| 27 Crustaceans – European with excited, surprised response, seen with one in America (9) |
EUPHAUSIA | EUropean+PAH (surprised response; anag: excited)+USA (America) containing I (one) | |
| 28 Old logs jogs, note, among middle of fresh (4) |
RENS | J |
[f]RES[h] (middle of) containing Note |
| 31 Scots always right to be coarse course in Scotland (3) (reference to Ayr racecourse, I imagine) |
AYR | U |
AY (always; Scots)+Right |
| 33 Article that’s stumped leader of Italy is something first twigged swigged by Italians (4) |
ASTI | S |
A (article)+STumped+I[taly] (leader of) |
| 35 Pledge no opening for expressing reluctance (4) |
OATH | [l]OATH (expressing reluctance; no opening) | |
| 36 Cheers accepted by man, one providing Indian music (5) |
SITAR | SIR (man) containing TA (cheers) | |
| 37 Scar Scat resulting from endless use of guns (4) |
SHOO | T |
SHOO[t] (use of guns; endless) |
| 38 Priam here mangled lines from Greek prayer player (9) |
EPIRRHEMA | L |
PRIAM HERE (anag: mangled) |
| Down | |||
| 1 Picked up a soaking in pool – watch (a slip) (8) (slip refers to the fact that it’s a mistaken form of LYKEWAKE) |
LATEWAKE | A WET (a soaking; rev: picked up) inside LAKE (pool) | |
| 2 Origin of incredible tall tale bird soaring (4) |
LIAR | E |
RAIL (bird; rev: soaring) |
| 3 Upturn in shock bets bats (4) | NUTS | A |
STUN (shock; rev: upturn) |
| 4 Rule Rude by Communist brought about a source of tension (6) |
X-RATED | D |
X (by)+RED (communist) containing A+T[ension] (source of) |
| 5 Shakespearean thrust I received after tipple (6) |
POTCHE | POT (tipple)+CHE (I) | |
| 6 One has terms for all floating sea material found on beach (4) |
ALGA | A (one)+[al]L [floatin]G [se]A (terms for) | |
| 7 Long Song time taken over article for Paris Match (4) |
TUNE | S |
Time+UNE (article in Paris [Match]) Paris Match is a French publication |
| 8 Who goes abroad carrying nothing? Dime Time to be spent here in Vegas (8) |
HOOSEGOW | T |
WHO GOES (anag: abroad) containing O (nothing) |
| 13 Bountiful Nature infested by bane bone (4) |
ULNA | O |
[bountif]UL NA[ture] (hidden: infested) |
| 14 Top of Tasmanian expanse (not bottom of it) reveals fern (4) |
TARA | T[asmanian] (top of)+AR[e]A (expanse) minus [ex[ans]E (bottom of it) | |
| 16 Sour Soar apple, cored and pulped (4) |
LEAP | A |
AP[p]LE (cored; anag: pulped) |
| 17 Love? Good for love – it’s lots of work (4) |
ERGS | ER[o]S (love) Good replaces O (love) | |
| 22 Runs to record one paying rest rent (6) |
RENTER | N |
Runs+ENTER (to record) |
| 23 Clydesdale dung – shock – found in tin (6) |
SHAIRN | HAIR (shock) inside SN (tin) | |
| 24 Indian clay pit pot has half-ruined rocks (6) (I found it in Oxford, not Chambers) |
SURAHI | O |
HAS+RUI[ned] (half) anag: rocks |
| 26 Squash plane plant? Smash a wing to start with (6) |
CASHAW | T |
CASH (smash)+A+W[ing] (to start with) |
| 29 Smoots smooth in printing-house as ever (4) |
EASE | H |
[hous]E AS E[ver] (hidden: in) |
| 30 Like a sieve? Not entirely (4, 2 words) |
AS IF | A+SIF[t] (sieve; not entirely) | |
| 32 Dungs Dunes from rears of impala and deer, say (4) |
AREG | E |
[impal]A+[dee]R (rears of)+EG (say) |
| 34 Found Round out, misbehaving with Queen (4) |
TOUR | R |
OUT (anag: misbehaving)+R (queen) |
I thought this was an exemplary Inquisitor puzzle. It was possible to discover the theme without having to solve all the clues, and the thematic material, once found, assisted with completion of the grid. I appreciated the setter’s good judgement in giving us the 17 unchecked letters that appear in the perimeter.
For me, the theme revealed itself via TORTOISESHELL in the perimeter and a guess at HEMINGWAY down the middle. With a guess at CAT (from CA?) in the quotation, I was able to search for and find the complete quotation, thus giving me my two missing words ONE and LEADS.
In AUREOLE, AU is the Astronomical Unit. I parsed EUPHAUSIA differently: E (European) + UP (excited) + HA (surprised response) + USIA as blogged.
The clues were excellent, and the grid, unusually, had a pleasing symmetry by reflection rather than rotation.
Many thanks to Phi and kenmac.
Thanks for the blog. This wasn’t an outrageously complex puzzle, so the write-up is also quite concise. It’s at:
http://phionline.net.nz/setters-blogs/inquisitor-1587-a-growing-population/
I thought this was another fairly gentle, enjoyable offering. I guessed HEMINGWAY, eventually spotted the quote, after which everything fell into place quite nicely.
Was I the only solver to end up entering the cats in reverse order?
Highly Enjoyable! My story is identical to the others – Hemingway, quote, tortoiseshell, grid filled!
Very much my kind of puzzle this, not least because of the confluence of PANTHER and RAGDOLL! Put me down as another who guessed Hemingway early and filled TORTOISESHELL in first; I think in actuality the rest went in clockwise from there, with the lack of space after TORTOISESHELL making it clear the kitties would overlap almost immediately. Glad to hear that your cats are all in fine fettle, Phi – I had to explain to my poor mum what I meant when, upon determining the theme, I muttered something to the (somewhat crass) effect of “oh gosh, I hope this isn’t another dead cat puzzle”!
I was doing well until the end game. I had Hemingway and LYNX, but had stupidly entered RUNE (R for taken + UNE – means a mystic song!) instead of TUNE for 7D and spent an inordinate time searching for words beginning PA?RH, The correction gave the obvious PANTHER and LION and a trawl through quotes by Hemingway involving cats yielded the full quotation. I had never heard of a RAG-DOLL cat nor a NORWEGIAN FOREST which reminded me of a certain blue parrot! Thanks to setter and blogger.
Very nice puzzle. Strangely, unlike others, tortoiseshell was my last one in – I saw Norwegian Forest first, which I knew because I had discovered (possibly through a previous IQ?) that my own mongrel adopted-stray bears a remarkable resemblance to one, so a particular delight.
Hadn’t managed to figure out the wordplay for 14d TARA, so thanks Ken.
Really enjoyed this puzzle, not too abstruse, but still took some time to master. And it was nice to learn about the cats!
Very enjoyable. I started on the bottom of the grid and stumbled across the theme accidentally by seeing a possible NORWEGIAN across the bottom. Decided immediately this was a Beatles puzzle and went searching for some detail on Norwegian Wood, stumbled across Norwegian Forest, discovered it was a cat and worked backwards from there. Thanks to all and thanks to your cat for posing for us.
Yes, Norwegian was also my first find, and I naturally went to the Beatles (are Norwegians OK about that?)
Stupidly, I had 4D as ‘Grated’ (rule could be government; it’s not great, but it does make sense), and never really thought what kind of cat a Lyng might be.
Thanks to Phi for a fun solve (I didn’t know the Hemingway quote), and to kenmac for explaining a few parsings.