Hi everyone. Well, this was a very different experience to the last Vismut puzzle I solved. Based on that I had been expecting a bit of a struggle, but this one yielded readily with just enough resistance to still be fun. Perfect for helping to keep the January blahs at bay. Thanks Vismut!
[UPDATE: for an interview with the setter for Derek Harrison’s Crossword Centre see here. Thanks to ub@1 for the link.]
The preamble reads:
In JANUARY REDUCTIONS, six down clues include an extra word to be lost before solving. The position of each word in its clue indexes the letter to be chosen from the answer and these can be resolved into something generally gained over Christmas. The extra words are the specific measures to be taken in 12 answers so that 32 cells are empty; these must be shaded to make it clearer what you may now be on. Numbers in brackets refer to the cells available for each answer and include any empty cells. Chambers Dictionary (2016) is recommended.
Of the 20 or so EVs I’ve tackled, this one was a first in that from the preamble I could glean a good idea of the endgame. What is generally gained over Christmas and is six letters? Surely WEIGHT. So I expect we will be losing some of that, and I’ll eat my low calorie hat* if the shaded cells don’t spell out DIET. Or is it all a cunning misdirection that has me meowing up the wrong tree? There’s only one way to find out, and it’s via some clues …
Yes, those letters indexed by the extra words do indeed make WEIGHT, and those specific measures – STONE, CARAT, POUND, TON, GRAM and OUNCE – revealed themselves one by one in the answers. (Ok, technically the gram is a measure of mass, but we’re all in the same gravitational field here so I’m not going to be heavy on the setter.)
It did take me a little while to work out that in some cases (when in unchecked cells) the excess weight to be removed was bulging out of the space available, so that was a nice extra bit to work out – and a work out is of course an excellent complement to a DIET.
| Clue No | ANS[W]ER | Clue with definition underlined | |
| Explanation, with quoted indicators in italics and letters appearing in the ANSWER capitalised and emboldened | |||
| Across | |||
| 1a | PIS[TON] | Shoot’s end taken off by new ram (4) | |
| PISTO[l] (shoot) with its last letter removed (end taken off) next to (by) N (new) | |||
| 5a | DOLPHIN | Variety of old pea picked up; shelled shiny one’s found in a pod (7) | |
| An anagram of (variety of) OLD followed by P (pea picked up – homophone) and all but the outer letters of (shelled) sHINy | |||
| 10a | ANTI-TANK | Resisting something used in assault against bronze knight (8) | |
| ANTI (against) + TAN (bronze) + K (knight) | |||
| 12a | OBO | Vessel’s machine missing its frame (3) | |
| [r]OBO[t] (machine) without its outer letters (missing its frame) | |||
| 13a | CUPULES | Rods holding line up from behind mast covers possibly (7) | |
| CUES (rods) containing (holding) L (line) + UP reversed (from behind) | |||
| 14a | TENANTS | Australian not content in camp section for residents (7) | |
| A[ustralia]N without the inner letters (not content) goes in TENTS (camp section) | |||
| 15a | INPUT | Scottish contribution starts from inside next parliament under Tories (5) | |
| Initials of (starts from) Inside Next Parliament Under Tories | |||
| 16a | ACE[TON]E | Serve time on Eastern compound (5) | |
| ACE (serve) + T (time) + ON (from the clue) + E (Eastern) | |||
| 18a | IDEM | The same Roman imprisoned by horrid emperor (4) | |
| Inside (imprisoned by) horrID EMperor | |||
| 20a | LEVERED | Forced tailless young animal back in field (7) | |
| LEVERE[t] (young animal) without the last letter (tailless …) + the last letter of (back in) fielD | |||
| 22a | CAMARON | Crustacean caught a brownish crimson duck out (7) | |
| C (caught) + A + MARO[o]N (brownish crimson) with O (duck) removed (out) | |||
| 27a | BAC[CARAT] | Taxi brought back short nurse to card game (4) | |
| CAB (taxi) reversed (brought back) + all but the last letter of (short) CAR[e] (nurse) + AT (to) | |||
| 28a | AC[T ON] | No earls in 16 to exert influence over (5, two words) | |
| AC[e]TON[e] (16, the answer to 16a) without any Es (no earls in …) | |||
| 29a | URNAL | Like holder of Ashes, one away from place to go (5) | |
| I (one) removed from (away from) UR[i]NAL (place to go) | |||
| 30a | FURIOUS | Covering debts in a rage (7) | |
| FUR (covering) + IOUS (debts) | |||
| 31a | FOUR-[POUND]ER | Reported leading subordinate holding Jerry’s gun (7) | |
| A homophone of (reported) FORE (leading) and UNDER (subordinate) containing (holding) PO (jerry, chamberpot) | |||
| 32a | MEU | Mouse occasionally wobbled plant (3) | |
| Alternate letters of (… occasionally) MoUsE anagrammed (wobbled) | |||
| 33a | PRETENCE | Weird creep taking in unfinished dress for masquerade (8) | |
| An anagram of (weird) CREEP containing (taking in) all but the last letter of (unfinished) TEN[t] (dress) | |||
| 34a | SES[TON]S | Sent SOS at sea for tiny ones adrift (7) | |
| An anagram of (… at sea) SENT SOS | |||
| 35a | EDEN | Base office in garden (4) | |
| E (base) + DEN (office) | |||
| Down | |||
| 1d | PASTAS | Tucked into tapas, tasteless dishes (6) | |
| Hidden in (tucked into) taPAS TASteless | |||
| 2d | INSECTA | [Stone] flies, maybe short canister’s broken (7) | I |
| Without the last letter (short), CANISTE[r] is anagrammed (broken) | |||
| 3d | [STONE]R | Person on the grass often sat down near, oddly (6) | |
| Regular letters in (.. oddly) SaT dOwN nEaR | |||
| 4d | A[TON]ES | Pays for abridged senator’s novel (6) | |
| All but the last letter of (abridged) SENATO[r] is anagrammed (‘s novel) | |||
| 5d | DACTYLO[GRAM] | Maigret’s loyal DC worked, regardless of terrible lies, to get fingerprint (8) | |
| MA[i]GR[e]T’[s] [l]OYAL DC anagrammed (worked) without (regardless of) an anagram of (terrible) LIES | |||
| 6d | ONUS | Extra’s Born Free responsibility (4) | |
| [b]ONUS (extra) is free of B (born) | |||
| 7d | [POUND]ER | Think about university grinder (7) | |
| PONDER (think) around (about) U (university) | |||
| 8d | HELPER | Assistant took unfinished half of drink (6) | |
| HEL[d] (took) without the last letter (unfinished) + half of PER[nod] (drink) | |||
| 9d | NESTED | Parisian is wearing one [carat] diamonds, not ring robbed from bird’s home (6) | E |
| EST (Parisian is) inside (wearing) [o]NE (from the clue) + D (diamonds) without (not) O (ring) | |||
| 11d | GEUM | [Pound] good 32 nuts in plant (4) | G |
| G (good) + MEU (32a) anagrammed (nuts) | |||
| 17d | DENTURES | Characters dropping a [ton] of, in France, the foremost plates (8) | T |
| N[a]TURES (characters) omitting (dropping) A, with DE (of, in France) at the front (the foremost) | |||
| 19d | NA[CARAT] | Sodium and calcium turned sailor bright orange-red (7) | |
| NA and CA and the reversal of (turned) TAR (sailor) | |||
| 21d | EN[OUNCE] | Utter part of speech in Eastern church (7) | |
| NOUN (part of speech) in E (Eastern) plus CE (church) | |||
| 22d | CHUFFS | More than one local clown makes a sound like a train (6) | |
| The plural of (more than one) CHUFF (local clown) | |||
| 23d | MANULS | Handbooks without an answer for cats (6) | |
| MANU[a]LS (handbooks) without A (answer) | |||
| 24d | WARMTH | Gulf reviewed gathering last of [gram] flour, on the reduced heat (6) | H |
| MAW (gulf) reversed (reviewed) containing (gathering) the late letter of (last of) flourR, preceding (on, in a down answer) TH[e] without the last letter (reduced) | |||
| 25d | STOUND | Team’s leader blocks excellent Scottish attack (6) | |
| Team’s first letter (leader) goes inside (blocks) SOUND (excellent) | |||
| 26d | UNSEEN | Veiled sister cycled around Ely perhaps (6) | |
| NUN (sister) with the letters cycled goes around SEE (Ely perhaps) | |||
| 27d | BROW | Bachelor runs over [ounce] on end of snow ridge (4) | W |
| B (Bachelor) + R (runs) + O (over), preceding (on, in a down answer) the last letter of (end of) snoW | |||
| 30d | FERN | River concealed by bog plant (4) | |
| R (river) inside (concealed by) FEN (bog) | |||
*not true – the hat is made of cake, and if I diet I’m leaving it until at least March!
Kitty, thanks for the blog (and to Vismut for a nice theme for the new year). I remember you blogged the Norma the racehorse EV and wondered if you saw this Q&A with the setter, who did the November puzzle on this site. To get near the right spot, search “horses.” Cheers! https://crosswordcentre.wordpress.com/
Thanks ub, interesting interview. I’ll add the link to the blog intro.
There is a funny bit of a connection for me between these two Vismut puzzles, as through my job I do know a bit about the diet of horses. It’s testament to how good I am about not thinking about work when at home that this only just occurred to me! If Vismut’s next puzzle is entitled “magic herbs” or “exploding horses” that would really spook me …
Ok Kitty I’m being a bit slow, why “magic herbs” or “exploding horses”?
A fun puzzle, thoroughly enjoyed. I don’t often have the chance to solve the EV, but glad I picked up on this one.
Vismut@3
Oops – I was a bit cheeky with that comment and wondered if anyone would bite, but feel bad now!
There’s no reason at all that those things would mean anything to you. You’re certainly not slow. (Not like I was with EV1404.)
They are just examples of things which share the same connection in my little head to horses and diets. I’ve found myself in the world of veterinary medicines, and “magic herbs” refers to the (illegal) marketing of supplements as medicines. As for “exploding horses”, I’ll just link to the last time I mentioned it on a crossword blog where I expounded a little more: here.
ahh… I thought it might be that, but that was Billy the racehorse, not Vismut the trotter. 🙂
ps Kitty, in one of my other puzzles, Wan mentioned I needed some more grid work. I suspect you may understand that that made me think I ought to go out to the school and go over some jumps 🙂 and probably without a horse!
🙂
Very nice puzzle. As Kitty says, it was clear from the outset what the theme was, but no less enjoyable for it.
Re@7, just to be clear, I was referring to what I personally like in a puzzle, and not what Vismut needs to do; she is an exciting new setter who certainly needn’t take any notice of my likes and dislikes.