Another blast from the past – last seen Charybdis here in June 12017. Another short preamble …
Preamble: Six clue answers must be amended before entry in the grid, with removed letters being recycled appropriately to appear on cell boundaries within the six unclued grid entries (though to iatrogenic effect in the case of 8dn).
Check Chambers: iatrogenic (adj) induced unintentionally in a patient by the treatment.
My spare time for solving is little – at the time of writing, I still haven’t started the recent puzzle from Ifor, the one from Phi sits infinished, and last week’s by P I N K is barely begun!
I got off to another pretty good start with this puzzle, 9a INLAND and 10a ICHOR going straight in, but then I was brought up short by 13a IRATE – only 4 cells for the entry. It was then I that realised that the lengths given in the clues were for the answers, not for the entries, so it was now very easy to identify which were the six clues whose answers had to be amended and by how many letters. Fairly soon the grid was about half full (owing more to the generous clueing than to any skill at solving) and it was time to start tackling the entries in the silvered cells, specifically the long one across the middle.
XEROPHTHALMIA looked to be a good bet, but it had to lose both A‘s, and these could come from 8d AGOUTA. When I say “lose”, the entry is XEROPHTH|LMI| but the two occurrences of A have to be squeezed in, straddling cell boundaries. And what is XEROPHTHALMIA? Well, a condition that arises owing to vitamin A deficiency. Lower right, the silvered entry had to come from GOITRE missing the O or I – but since that condition usually stems from Iodine deficiency, the entry is GO|TRE with the I squeezed in, and that itself comes from the aforementioned 13a IRATE.
And so it went on. I stumbled over a few of the clues, and was a bit blocked at times before lurching forward, but sometimes knowing that a remaining answer had to lose an O led to 26a BOARD for example, or knowing that one of the silvered entries had to have two B‘s squeezed in gave me |ERI|ERI.
Anyway, the full list of conditions and deficiencies that can lead to them is:
NYCT|LOPI|, vitamin A
XEROPHTH|LMI|, vitamin A
GO|TRE, Iodine
S|URVY, vitamin C
HYP|XIA, Oxygen
|ERI–|ERI, vitamin B1
And the iatrogenic effect in the case of 8dn … removing the A‘s from AGOUTA leaves GOUT, a very painful condition (I hear) caused by an excess of uric acid in the blood.
Thanks Charybdis – very neat, and thankfully not too taxing (just like my previous blog): I still have an awful lot else going on with work right now.
| Across | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| No. | Clue | Answer | Wordplay |
| 1 | For would-be joiner, bar that might finish the frame (9) | BLACKBALL | BLACK BALL (final pot in 147 break, snooker) |
| 6 | Mean to confirm how old you are? (7) | AVERAGE | AVER (confirm) AGE (how old) |
| 9 | Country with capital removed some distance from the sea (6) | INLAND | FINLAND (country) ¬ F |
| 10 | God’s Blood! Current housework’s endless (5) | ICHOR | I (current) CHOR(e) (housework) |
| 12 | Having jumped out of skin, most frightful rot (6) | CARIES | (s)CARIES(t) (most frightful) |
| 13 | Ranting filibuster’s a bit off from the outset (5) | IRATE | PIRATE (filibuster) ¬ P |
| 14 | Maintenance for higher part of castle? (6) | UPKEEP | UP KEEP (higher part of castle?) |
| 19 | On the rocks, in alarm over wild rite you take flight from it (11, 2 words) | AIR TERMINAL | [IN ALARM]* around [RITE]* |
| 24 | Exotic bird – touch hard to replace one? On the contrary (6) | TOUCAN | TOUCH with H(ard) replaced by AN (one) |
| 26 | Swine director’s heading this? (5) | BOARD | BOAR (swine) D(irector) {“director” doing double duty} |
| 29 | Redress coming from sunroom right away for a spot of tea (8) | SOLATIUM | SOLARIUM (sunroom) ¬ R(ight) but T(ea) instead |
| 31 | Before it bites a dog might get tied up (5) | SNARL | double definition |
| 32 | Measure of speed briefly touring Ireland in cycle race (6) | KEIREN | KN(ot) (measure of speed) around EIRE (Ireland) |
| 33 | A slice of lemon as espoused for spirits (7) | MONASES | (le)MON AS ES(poused) |
| Down | |||
| No. | Clue | Answer | Wordplay |
| 1 | Antelopes concealed by short branch in wood (6) | LIGNUM | GNU (antelopes) in LIM(b) (branch) |
| 2 | Moving right to left, barmy chatterboxes (8) | CLACKERS | CRACKERS (barmy) with R(ight) becoming L(eft) |
| 3 | Maybe boy racer making a trek to top of road? (6) | KARTER | [A TREK]* R(oad) |
| 4 | Bell-tower’s not affected imbecile (5) | ANILE | CAMPANILE (bell-tower) ¬ CAMP (affected) |
| 5 | Part of mouth stopping hint of sibilance results in this? (4) | LISP | LIP (part of mouth) around S(ibilance) |
| 6 | Take Five with repeat in it for jazz musician? (6) | VIBIST | V (five) + BIS (repeat) in IT |
| 7 | He’s restrained by the God of sun and moon (4) | RHEA | HE in RA (sun-god) |
| 8 | Insectivore in the past seen over most of Beehive state (6) | AGOUTA | AGO (in the past seen) UTA(h) (Beehive state) |
| 11 | Henry’s left place of prayer to get a head covering (5) | CURCH | CHURCH (place of prayer) ¬ H(enry) |
| 15 | Resistance unit regularly seen in Gotham (3) | OHM | (G)O(t)H(a)M |
| 16 | Masses of ice more delicate in good spot of sunshine (8) | GLACIERS | LACIER (more delicate) in G(ood) S(unshine) |
| 17 | Mutual cycling in reverse – this can be seen in München (6) | UMLAUT | MUTUAL → TUALMU then < |
| 18 | Make enquiries if parking by railway (3) | PRY | P(arking) RY (railway) |
| 19 | Jack with Liz by prior appointment? (6) | ABBESS | AB (seaman, Jack) BESS (Elizabeth, Liz) |
| 20 | Royal family’s eminence restraining upper-class duke (5) | TUDOR | TOR (eminence) around U(pper-class) D(uke) |
| 21 | Lie and say moving will be without problems (6) | EASILY | [LIE + SAY]* |
| 22 | Coypu fur’s almost nourishing after putting it on elsewhere (6) | NUTRIA | NUTRITIONA(l) (nourishing) ¬ IT ¬ ON |
| 23 | Makes feeble UN instructions releasing date (6) | UNMANS | UN MANDATES (instructions) ¬ DATE |
| 25 | Middle of straw hat (new) is made of straw (5) | OATEN | (b)OATE(r) (straw hat) N(ew) |
| 27 | Japanese people infiltrating Britain unannounced (4) | AINU | (Brit)AIN U(nannounced) |
| 28 | Bring up and back (4) | REAR | double definition |
| 30 | Dead letters travel over before morning (4) | OGAM | GO< (travel) AM (morning) |
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Thanks for the very comprehensive blog, HG, especially the grid which would be well beyond my skills to construct. The instructions didn’t make it clear that the six answers to be amended resulted in real words, although that soon became apparent. I understand why Charybdis (last appearance in 1017??) deployed the cell boundary device, but to my mind it was a bit unsatisfactory. I agree that the clueing was generous (I particularly enjoyed ABBESS) and the concept seemed original.
A pretty quick solve here, and an enjoyable one too. Though it must be said that haven’t we got enough lurgies around at the moment without the Inquisitor introducing us to some new ones. 🙂
This was an enjoyable and unusual puzzle. Solving the clues was mostly straightforward, helped by the fact that there were only six special ones. I applaud the setter for giving enumerations for the solutions, not the entries. I collected seven of the nine letters from the special clues. leaving two (in the top right corner) to be resolved in the endgame. I liked the fact that removing the letters from the solutions left real words.
The endgame took as long as the build-up to it. SCURVY was the first and easiest of the thematic items to resolve. GOITRE was next, but with a query over whether an O or an I should be added to it. BERIBERI took longer than it should have, that place being such an obvious receptacle for the two Bs. (And that resolved the dilemma in the top right.) The remaining three were much harder because I clearly didn’t know them and they were hard to guess, except that the A was crying out to be inserted in the string PHTHLM. HYPOXIA was the last.
Thanks to Charbdis for an original and interesting puzzle. And thanks to HolyGhost for the thorough blog and especially for pointing out the relevance of the special letters, which I was shamefully blind to while solving despite knowing most of the relevant facts.
Another highly enjoyable solve. Being given the answer lengths to the special entries was an enormous help. I started thinking one entry might be ENDOPTHTMALMIA, but when SCURVY and GOITRE became apparent, I saw the link with deficiencies. Some reverse engineering filled in the rest and then a quick finish.
This IQ marks a personal milestone as in 2019, I solved 6 puzzles…this is the sixth one so far this year. Maybe Nimrod is giving us gentler puzzles or maybe I’m starting to get the hang of these things now?
A very enjoyable puzzle as they always are from Charybdis. They seem to have been a bit thin on the ground of late, or perhaps I just keep missing them. Either way I hope to see a few more soon. (Might be the first time I have needed the dictionary to understand the preamble ?)
Ylo @4
Congratulations on hitting your personal milestone. To answer your question: if our editor really is easing up this year I should be worried because my own performances are decidedly patchy compared to last year. I think it more likely you are getting the hang of these puzzles!
Like you HolyGhost INLAND and ICHOR went in quickly but it took a while before we sorted out what was going on. BERI-BERI took far too long to sort out. Have no idea why as by that time we had sorted out the theme.
Another enjoyable solve – not too taxing.
Thanks HolyGhost and Charybdis.
I thoroughly enjoyed this puzzle and what is a new device to me; cell boundary letters. Has it been used before? Very creative I thought and not a lot different than two letters in a cell with the advantage, for grid construction, that it doesn’t impact on the crossing answers. Like some others I missed the significance of how the added letters related to the illness. No penalty for it just a loss of satisfaction in retrospect. Nice to see a return of Charybdis following Ferret’s recent re-emergence.
Very neat — much enjoyed. I too must confess to embarrassingly slowness in seeing the significance of the particular letter that moved. For a while I was hung up on the idea of the unclued things being treatments (as per title) rather than conditions, a delusion based on wishful thinking that SUR?Y might become SURGERY. Obviously this was before it became clear that only one distinct letter was involved in each transfer.
A fine puzzle, but I was, and still am, disconcerted by the fact that a deficiency disease is created in the puzzle by the provision of e.g. (vitamin) C inserted into SURVY, when in life scurvy is created by its absence.
Percival @10
You make a good point relating to the real-life facts behind the theme. The way I explained or justified the manipulation of the theme words to myself was to let them represent both the disease and the sufferer – by artistic licence, if you will. First, the deficiency is shown (precisely) by the deficient theme words; then (by the ‘Treatment’) the deficiency is made good and the theme words are spelled correctly. When I finally realised what was going on I thought it was very neatly done.
Having the full letter counts of the six words gave me a good start.
I think the right music to accompany the puzzle would’ve been The Bends.(Radiohead)
VERY belated thanks for a great blog and all the kind comments.