Hello all. I hope that you and your loved ones are keeping safe and sane and are able to enjoy the Easter weekend. Thanks for this enjoyable puzzle go to Skylark, a new setter. I can find two previous Skylark puzzles, both Inquisitors, but I think this is her first EV. Welcome, Skylark, and do fly back soon!
The preamble reads:
In VOW, an extra letter must be removed from 34 clues before solving; in clue order, these state what a writer asserted could be summed up in three words, which should be highlighted in the completed grid, as should the author’s name. Chambers Dictionary (2016) is recommended.
A nice unscary preamble (appreciated in these scary times), and not much postambling for me to add (also appreciated as, although confined to barracks, I’ve been busy with work). My progress was never very rapid, but nor did I ever get completely stuck. With a few left, mainly in the NE, I gave in to temptation and deviated from my favoured practice of saving the reveal until the very end. And so I read: “a brides tt tu towards her … thed” – from which it wasn’t hard to guess the rest. Sure enough:
A BRIDE’S ATTITUDE TOWARDS HER BETROTHED
A quick internet check revealed that it was FRANK MUIR who said, “A bride’s attitude towards her betrothed can be summed up in three words: AISLE, ALTER, HYMN” – all sitting in the grid, merrily hidden in plain sight.
I was amused to find that Aisle Altar Hymn is the name of at least one bridal shop. As a realist, I’d lean more towards the Christmas party approach: YULE DO. Anyway, without further ado:
| Clue No | ANSWER | Clue with definition underlined | |
| Explanation, with quoted indicators in italics and letters appearing in the ANSWER capitalised and emboldened | |||
| Across | |||
| 1a | CHERRY PICKERS | Cranes spr[a]y railing badly, missing vague signal between inspectors (13, two words) | A |
| An anagram of (… badly) [s]PRY R[a]I[l][i][n][g], missing an anagram of (vague) SIGNAL, between CHECKERS (inspectors) | |||
| 11a | CATENA | Maybe, Manx channel backed dropping [B]lake’s series (6) | B |
| CAT (maybe Manx), then [l]ANE (channel) reversed (backed) without (dropping) L (lake) | |||
| 12a | TRIE | B[r]and accepts Queen venture, according to Ed (4) | R |
| TIE (band) accepts R (Queen). Ed is Edmund Spenser | |||
| 13a | RICING | Making strands of food ru[i]n cake decoration (6) | I |
| R (run) + ICING (cake decoration) | |||
| 15a | FRAN | Girl’s agitate[d] about recipe (4) | D |
| FAN (agitate) around (about) R (recipe) | |||
| 16a | MUIR-POOT | Poor [e]mu, it’s mistaken for Scottish bird (8) | E |
| POOR MU IT is anagrammed (mistaken) | |||
| 17a | MOOPS | Nothing intercepts [s]wipes for Jock’s nibbles (5) | S |
| O (nothing) goes into (intercepts) MOPS (wipes). Jock is a Scotsman | |||
| 19a | ERASE | Cancel date – earl grabs Louis[a]’s behind (5) | A |
| ERA (date) + E (earl) contains (grabs) LouiS’s last letter (behind) | |||
| 21a | WHAISLE | Wheeze in Orkney within wha[t] isles? (7) | T |
| The answer is found within WHA ISLEs | |||
| 24a | GIBRALTARIANS | Crocodile mostly consuming fig-bird regularly, [t]aha’s head, and linnet’s wings discontented nervous islanders (13) | T |
| All but the last letter of (…mostly) GARIA[l] (crocodile) around (consuming) fIgBiRd regularly, Aha’s first letter (head) and LinneT’s outer letters (wings), followed by NervouS without the inner letters (dis-contented) | |||
| 26a | HYMNIST | Composer mixed heady martin[i]s, a dear drunk getting withdrawn (7) | I |
| An anagram of (mixed) H[e][a][d]Y M[a][r]TINS, with an anagram of (… drunk) A DEAR removed (getting withdrawn) | |||
| 28a | SIENA | Will’s descendant beginning to [t]ape Italian city (5) | T |
| SIEN (Will’s descendent, Shakespearean variant of scion) + the first letter of (beginning to) Ape | |||
| 29a | GASES | Glaswegian goes ca[u]sing subject primarily for gossips (5) | U |
| GAES (Glaswegian goes) surrounding (casing) the first letter of (… primarily) Subject | |||
| 31a | BANDROLS | Strip parts, removing English streamers (8) | |
| BAND (strip) + ROL[e]S (parts), removing E (English) | |||
| 34a | FARE | Manage[d] secluded base (4) | D |
| FAR (secluded) + E (base) | |||
| 36a | TOMBIC | About grave ton[e], bishop interrupting amusing entertainer without introduction (6) | E |
| T (ton), then B (bishop) inserted into (interrupting) cOMIC (amusing entertainer) without the first letter (without introduction) B | |||
| 37a | GAVE | Government by leaderless party s[t]ank (4) | T |
| G (government) by rAVE (party) without its first letter (leaderless …) | |||
| 38a | ORNERY | Fret losing wife touring Durham and thereabouts; in Chicago, it’s normal (6) | |
| [w]ORRY (fret) without (losing) W (wife) around (touring) NE (Durham and thereabouts) | |||
| 39a | SHABBY-GENTEEL | All fur coat and no knickers worn by slippery one suppressing m[o]an (13) | O |
| SHABBY (worn) by EEL (slippery one) around (suppressing) GENT (man) | |||
| Down | |||
| 1d | CURFEW | It’s time to get back down train, according to Spooner (6) | |
| FUR (down) QUEUE (train) according to Spooner | |||
| 2d | HEIRSHIP | Ignoring fellows, wildly [w]hip sheriff, a right held by an atheling historically (8) | W |
| Without (ignoring) F F (fellows), an anagram of (wildly) HIP SHERI[ff] | |||
| 3d | ESCAPABLE | European mammal l[a]id inside, not doomed (9) | A |
| E (European) + SABLE (mammal) with CAP (lid) inside | |||
| 4d | RANK | Range[r] raced knight (4) | R |
| RAN (raced) + K (knight) | |||
| 5d | PEP UP | Invigorate young beast being fed energy pow[d]er (5, two words) | D |
| PUP (young beast) containing (being fed) E (energy) and P (power) | |||
| 6d | INTIS | [S]old Latin coins in dumps with no parking (5) | S |
| IN (from the clue) + TI[p]S (dumps) with no P (parking) | |||
| 7d | CADRES | Core groups of people c[h]art einsteinium around Germany (6) | H |
| CAR (cart) and ES (einsteinium) around D (Germany) | |||
| 8d | ERGO | Covering stag[e] finally, raise Nordic cash therefore (4) | E |
| Covering the last letter of (… finally) staG, reverse (raise) ORE (Nordic cash, öre or øre) | |||
| 9d | RID | 25% off travel cleanse[r] (3) | R |
| 25% off RIDe (travel) | |||
| 10d | SETTERS | Sibyls [b]eating race dogs (7) | B |
| SEERS (Sibyls) containing (eating) TT race | |||
| 14d | SPRAINS | Wrenches ultimately tor[e] area between wheels (7) | E |
| The last letter of (ultimately) toR and A (area) between SPINS (wheels) | |||
| 17d | MIRANDA | Old gues[t]s upset around border regarding US rights of those arrested (7) | T |
| AIM (old guess) reversed (upset) around RAND (border) | |||
| 18d | OLLA | Circle lifting every jar (4) | |
| O (circle) + the reversal of (lifting) ALL (every) | |||
| 20d | AVAILABLE | Expert welcoming t[r]ip in the past with afternoon free (9) | R |
| ABLE (expert) containing (welcoming) VAIL (tip in the past) with A (afternoon) | |||
| 22d | RAYS | Streams fights – but not at first (4) | |
| fRAYS (fights) but without the first letter (but not at first) | |||
| 23d | ENSHRINE | Cherish Parisian in top of [o]range, beam outside (8) | O |
| EN (Parisian in), then the first letter of (top of) Range with SHINE (beam) outside | |||
| 24d | GASBAGS | Chatterboxes, a vacuous snob aboard pun[t] with soprano (7) | T |
| A and the outer letters only of (vacuous) SnoB inside (aboard) GAG (pun), next to (with) S (soprano) | |||
| 25d | EARBOB | Notice lodging house contains old jewellery (6) | |
| EAR (notice), then B [&] B (lodging house) contains O (old) | |||
| 27d | THECAL | Thailand settle tackling college about a case (6) | |
| T (Thailand) + HEAL (settle) containing (tackling) C (college) | |||
| 29d | GOARY | Bard’s bloody stab, alas, catching rector (5) | |
| GO (stab) + AY (alas) containing (catching) R (rector) | |||
| 30d | ALANG | [H]are’s on Jock’s lengthy grass (5) | H |
| A (are) is on LANG (Jock’s lengthy) | |||
| 32d | NOVA | Not[e] Virginia’s a star (4) | E |
| NO (not) + VA (Virginia) | |||
| 33d | TORN | [D]ragged huge weight round river (4) | D |
| TON (huge weight) round R (river) | |||
| 35d | PAH | Husband supporting parent’s settlement in New Zealand (3) | |
| H (husband) after (supporting, in a down answer) PA (parent) | |||
The main challenge of this one was that the majority of the clues were special ones – but not all of them, so I had to treat each new clue as one of either kind.
What was most pleasing was getting all the extra letters from 17 of the 19 across clues, subject only to correcting my own careless typo against 11a (CATENA), where I wrote L instead of B. I found it a tad harder to extract the letters from the Down clues, but I had enough to make TO into TOWARDS, giving me the precise quote up to that point.
I haven’t come across that quote before, but I did know Frank Muir. As you say, Kitty, that name and the three other thematic items from the quote were all in plain sight in the grid.
I admired the gridfill, with three full-length answers incorporated as well as the thematic items. And the clues were excellent.
Thanks to Skylark and Kitty.
A fine EV debut, as expected from Skylark’s Inquisitor puzzles. Reasonably straightforward with an amusing endgame. More like this please. 🙂
Congratulations on a splendid EV ,a good level of difficulty, a few hours work and an achievable end game .
One question , never having been there ,is Gibraltar an island ?
(hope that doesn’t sound pedantic ,it’s not intended to be !! )
Thanks for your comment, Jon. I was surprised that nobody else questioned the notion of Gibraltar being as island, as I’m pretty sure that it isn’t.