Hi everyone. I’d never solved a Harribobs puzzle before, but had heard the name and was expecting great things.
The preamble reads:
Across clues, down clues, and answers all have references to places visited on VACATION. The left-hand column and bottom row double up as map indexes. Solvers must outline the overall area, highlight six capitals, and list four more under the grid.
Filling the grid was pretty plain sailing. My only real hold-up was that it took a little time to find my last pair of answers, the intersecting CANIER and TENE. (Eten really is a giant I should remember by now!)
Then began the real voyage of discovery …
We’re used to items ON VACATION having had all their inner letters removed, so the idea of taking the first and last letters of clues and answers seemed like the obvious first option to try. The preamble tells us that the left-hand column and bottom row will serve as map indexes, so the question was, how exactly did things match up? I wondered for a while if any letters corresponded to their numerical values, but that approach didn’t add up. However, the index row and column each contain unique letters, and these letters are all among those found in the letter pairs generated by vacating clues and answers. A coincidence? Not likely!
Each pair of letters functions as a pair of coordinates, with rows before columns (unlike the usual order, but not hard to deduce). So for example, in the answer to 1a, DC indicates the square in the row given by D: row 1, and the column given by C: column 9.
I managed to go down a couple of dead ends, mainly by trying to take shortcuts. That’ll teach me! Across clues, down clues, and answers, mentioned separately in the preamble, need to be treated separately ON VACATION too — and in the case of the coordinates from the clues, the order in which they appear is significant. We discover:
ANSWERS: these give coordinates of our six capitals — capital letters, that is — to be highlighted in the grid, revealing our destination country: ITALIA
ACROSS CLUES: letters in the referenced squares spell out our further four capitals — of administrative regions of Italy — to be written beneath the grid: MILANO, TORINO, ROMA, and NAPOLI
DOWN CLUES: tracing, in order, a route through the squares indicated reveals a rough map of Italy, the overall area to be outlined.
Bellissimo! A very impressive construction indeed, and a pleasure to solve. Many thanks, Harribobs.
MILANO, TORINO, ROMA, NAPOLI
| Clue No | ANSWER | Clue with definition |
| Explanation | ||
| Across | ||
| 1a | DYSPNEIC | Republican with energy leaving presidency in chaos, breathing laboriously (8) |
| R (republican) + E (energy) removed from (leaving) P[r+e]SIDENCY anagrammed (in chaos) | ||
| 6a | SOWSE | Swine ultimately ate pickle long ago (5) |
| SOWS (swine) and the last letter of (ultimately) atE. Obsolete spelling of souse | ||
| 10a | REHOME | Give new residence to ambassador back in capital (6) |
| HE (His Excellency, ambassador) reversed (back) inside ROME (capital) | ||
| 11a | GROMETS | Obtains, having gypsy on the inside, rings of metal? (7) |
| GETS (obtains) containing (having … on the inside) ROM (gypsy) | ||
| 12a | ADULT | Commercial finally indecent (5) |
| AD (commercial) + ULT (finally) | ||
| 15a | SINIC | Person mistrustful, we hear, of those from East? (5) |
| Sounds like (we hear) CYNIC (person mistrustful) | ||
| 16a | SYEN | Small amount of money for graft of great writer (4) |
| S (small) + YEN (amount of money). Shakespearean spelling of scion | ||
| 18a | ECTOPIA | Displacement of parts — electronic surveillance group keeps best (7) |
| E (electronic) + CIA (surveillance group) contains (keeps) TOP (best) | ||
| 21a | IRADE | Outburst when leader of Tatars ignored Sultan’s edict (5) |
| [t]IRADE (outburst) when the first letter of (leader of) Tatars is removed (ignored) | ||
| 22a | PLETHORA | Abundance of petrol flowing around Hungary and Austria at last (8) |
| PETROL anagrammed (flowing) around H (Hungary) and the final letter of (… at last) AustriA | ||
| 24a | CANIER | Clipped dogs run after strip of elm; more like sticks of bamboo (6) |
| CANI[s] (genus of dogs) missing the end letter (clipped), then R (run) goes after the first bit of (strip of) Elm | ||
| 26a | EANING | Poet’s parturient, intending to skip start (6) |
| [m]EANING (intending) without the first letter (to skip start) | ||
| 28a | APLASTIC | Exotic capitals affected by imperfect development (8) |
| An anagram of (exotic) CAPITALS | ||
| 29a | OSCAR | Prodigious estate, say, of Papa’s antecedent (5) |
| OS (outsize, prodigious) + CAR (estate, say). NATO alphabet time | ||
| 30a | ACCRETE | Retrospective cases on island build up gradually (7) |
| Reversed (retrospective) CA (cases) next to (on) CRETE (island) | ||
| 34a | TROY | Old venture outside city of Paris (4) |
| O (old) with TRY (venture) around (outside) | ||
| 38a | IMPEL | Drive on the French motorway in wrong direction around Picardy initially (5) |
| LE (the, French) and MI (M1, motorway), all reversed (in wrong direction), around the first letter of (… initially) Picardy | ||
| 39a | PATSY | With 34 for a name, grower is fall guy (5) |
| Wit T (Troy, answer to 34a) in place of (for) N (a name), PAnSY (grower) | ||
| 40a | NIELLOS | Decorated metal objects with alloys, essentially, inlaid in elaborate lines (7) |
| Middle letters of (… essentially) alLOys inside (inlaid in) an anagram of (elaborate) LINES | ||
| 41a | SONATA | Instrumental piece at Academy touches disciple (6) |
| AT (from the clue) and A (academy) goes next to (touches) SON (disciple) | ||
| 42a | GAWSY | Aberdeen’s jolly joker returns to Seychelles (5) |
| WAG (joker) is reversed (returns) on its way to SY (Seychelles). Scottish word for jolly | ||
| 43a | PLECTRON | With piano teacher, take on help for guitarist (8) |
| With P (piano), we have LECT (lecturer, teacher), R (recipe, take), and ON (from the clue) | ||
| Down | ||
| 1d | DRAT | Dutch queen has a temperature. Curses! (4) |
| A charade of D (Dutch), R (Regina, queen), A (from the clue), and T (temperature) | ||
| 2d | SHUL | Dowdyish Ulsterwoman’s inside synagogue (4) |
| Some of dowdyiSH ULsterwoman‘s inside letters | ||
| 3d | POLIO | Rare infection I caught in Spanish dance (5) |
| I inside (caught in) POLO (Spanish dance) | ||
| 4d | EERY | After vacation, Eugene Roddenberry’s unnatural (4) |
| With the central letters removed (after vacation), EugenE RoddenberrY | ||
| 5d | CRANIA | These nutcases delivered by top drugs agent after reviewal? (6) |
| AI (A1, top) + NARC (drugs agent) on reversal (after reviewal) | ||
| 6d | SO-SO | Entreaty for help gets nothing. Is that acceptable? (4) |
| SOS (entreaty for help) + O (nothing) | ||
| 7d | OMICRON | Character in Iliad, ruinously moronic (7) |
| An anagram of (ruinously) MORONIC | ||
| 8d | WENS | Old letters and recent returned by soprano (4) |
| NEW (recent) reversed (returned) next to (by) S (soprano) | ||
| 9d | ESCHEW | Women attending school in Eastern Spain shun … (6) |
| W (women) following (attending) SCH (school) inside E (Eastern) and E (Spain) | ||
| 13d | DÉCLASSÉ | … inferior English lesson held by heads of drama and education (8) |
| E (English) CLASS (lesson) contained within (held by) the first letters of (heads of) Drama and Education | ||
| 14d | TEAR APART | What’s to criticise? Mate possibly has to knock work of Picasso? (9, two words) |
| TEA (mate possibly; mate or maté is also known as Paraguay tea) goes next to (has) RAP (to knock) and ART (work of Picasso?) | ||
| 17d | ADENITIS | Nodal inflammation accepted by surgeon briefly suppressing ego (8) |
| A (accepted) next to (by) most of (… briefly) DENTISt (surgeon) containing (suppressing) I (ego) | ||
| 19d | TENE | Giant, cycling, in grief earlier (4) |
| ETEN (giant), upon cycling of the letters. Archaic word for grief | ||
| 20d | PHEER | Grotesque preacher leaves battered car for old consort (5) |
| An anagram of (grotesque) PRE[ac]HE[r] goes without (leaves) an anagram of (battered) CAR | ||
| 21d | ISAAC | Grandfather of Benjamin is acting in outskirts of Aurillac (5) |
| IS (as written), A (acting), and the outer letters of (outskirts of) AurillaC | ||
| 23d | WITE | No longer blame West Indies team’s opening pair (4) |
| WI (West Indies) plus TEam’s first two letters (‘s opening pair) | ||
| 25d | ISABELS | Wishy-washy yellow greys of third man in remote post (7) |
| ABEL (third biblical man) in ISS (remote post, International Space Station) | ||
| 27d | SOWING | Outside broadcast is, in short, overdue (6) |
| IS contracted to ‘S (… in short) plus OWING (overdue) | ||
| 28d | ASTOOP | Previously doubled up regarding surgery (6) |
| AS TO (regarding) + OP (surgery | ||
| 31d | RIANT | Escorting rabbi on vacation, soldier makes merry (5) |
| Next to (escorting) R[abbi]I without inner letters (on vacation) is ANT (soldier) | ||
| 32d | SPEW | Trotskyites finally winning seat bring up results (4) |
| The last letter of (… finally) TrotskyiteS gaining (winning) PEW (seat) | ||
| 33d | ALLY | Team up, everybody, with year below (4) |
| ALL (everybody) followed by (with … below) Y (year) | ||
| 35d | OOSE | Earl, next to old sailor, has nap in Alloa (4) |
| E (Earl) by (next to) O (old) + OS (sailor, Ordinary Seaman). In Alloa indicates a Scots word | ||
| 36d | STAR | A-lister in a rush for Morag (4) |
| Two definitions. Star is a Scottish word (for Morag) for star grass | ||
| 37d | CYAN | Democracy, anyway, protects one inclining towards Greens (4) |
| DemocraCY, ANyway contains (protects) our final answer | ||
Another great Harribobs puzzle. His star is certainly shining brightly at the moment with last year’s inquisitor puzzle of the year (and the year before that I believe)
I suspected we were in for a tough and inventive endgame with the gridfill being pretty straightforward. Once I’d worked out it was Y axis first, rather than X, the different mappings started to unravel. Capital cities came first, then the map which was a super touch. Great fun watching it gradually take shape. It took quite a while before the six letters revealed themselves. Marvellous, just how does he do it ?
Thank you Kitty for the blog and of course to Harribobs for another corker.
This was my favourite ever crossword. Many thanks to Kitty and Harribobs. If anyone has any more of his puzzles, please send them in my direction.