What sort of MAJORITY is Ifor testing us with this week – is it a political majority – wafer-thin Brexitian or 80-strong Johnson-ian; a ‘coming of age’ majority; or a military major-ity, like Major Major in Catch-22?
The preamble states that:
“The MAJORITY of answers must be changed in a consistent way to new words before entry. The filled grid reflects a sentiment expressed in the opening and closing lines of a poem, whose title appears therein (29 cells in two groups) and must be highlighted. Chambers Dictionary (2016) is recommended.”
Well, a ‘majority of answers’ is more than half…which leaves almost as much leeway as ‘some answers’! The grid is an odd-shaped 14×10, which may have been driven by the thematic material being inserted, but still has a rotational symmetry, which must have made things harder.
In the absence of any obvious 29-character poem titles, I pressed on with some cold solving, flitting about rather than being systematic, and chanced upon 38A as looking like GEARLESS, but with only 7 spaces in the grid. EARLESS is a word, so could it be ‘just’ dropping the first letter? I then spotted 13A as most likely being VINDICATE, and again INDICATE is a real word.
When 17A (P)RESENTER and 9D (S)ETTLED also followed this pattern, it sealed the deal. The only question remaining was how many were in the minority? Oh, and what is that pesky poem?
My first ‘normal’ clue to fall was 15D HENRY, which triggered thoughts of Longfellow, and then 32A MILES, which led me to a few poets/writers with a combination of HENRY and MILES in their names…
After about an hour of solving, I had 3/4 of the grid filled with mostly headless answers, and those two names, but wasn’t quite there… and I certainly couldn’t see anything like a 29-character series of letters anywhere in the grid. It took a bit more determination, and some letter-crunching, to finally work out that the poem title was actually symbolically represented – it is Rudyard Kipling’s ‘IF’, which finally explained why all the other answers were ‘losing their heads’!
I’m sure many of you will have got there much quicker than me – an hour and a quarter in the end, in one session, which is rare for me with an EV.
It was only while tidying up the grid and starting on the blog that I realised that all the minority answers were male names – should have re-read the preamble! – so that they are all boys who – as long as they keep their heads while all around them are losing theirs – then, one day, my sons, you will become men (achieve your MAJORITY…)
I think this is the 8th Ifor EV I have blogged – stretching back to 2011 – and I have solved/attempted (and enjoyed) many others. I think it is fair to say that this was at the gentler end of the Ifor spectrum, but nonetheless an enjoyable puzzle with an interesting dénouement and a nice grid construction. I don’t think there is any particular Kipling anniversary, so maybe Ifor has a son or a relative who is approaching their majority?
Thanks to Ifor, and hopefully all is clear below.
| Across | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Clue No | Solution (if different) | Adjusted Entry | Clue (definition underlined) / Logic/Parsing |
|
| 1 | TAUTONYM | AUTONYM | Name of some species turned out many times originally / anag, i.e. turned, of OUT MANY + T (original letter of Times) |
|
| 6 | FACTURE | ACTURE | Workmanship’s something done after following practice beforehand / F (following) + ACT (something done) + URE (obsolete, i.e. beforehand, for practice) |
|
| 11 | TUDOR | Architectural style backed as returning emblem of authority / TU (ut, as, backed) + DOR (rod, emblem of authority, returning) |
||
| 13 | VINDICATE | INDICATE | Maintain divine act’s implausible / anag, i.e. implausible, of DIVINE ACT |
|
| 14 | STEN | TEN | Hastening bottles bound for Laphroaig / hidden word in, i.e. bottled by, ‘haSTENing’ |
|
| 16 | GRANT | Holy book, less hard to admit as true / GRANT( |
||
| 17 | PRESENTER | RESENTER | Shower peters out, filled by space before onset of rain / PRES__TE (anag, i.e. out, of PETERS) around EN (space, printing), before R (first letter, or onset, of Rain) |
|
| 18 | VEALE | EALE | Leave out concealment from previous lines / anag, i.e. out, of LEAVE |
|
| 20 | TANTI | ANTI | Worthwhile antique overshadowed by blatant imitation / hidden word in, i.e. overshadowed by, ‘blaTANT Imitation’ |
|
| 21 | SWALLOWER | WALLOWER | One foolishly believing sermon embracing life of vice / S_ER (sermon) around (embracing) WALLOW (life of vice) |
|
| 22 | FLEERINGS | LEERINGS | Mocks escape with cruel grins / FLEE (escape) + RINGS (anag, i.e. cruel, of GRINS) |
|
| 24 | BILL | Axe entertainment programme / double defn. a BILL can be a wooden-handled battle-axe; and a BILL can be a programme of entertainment |
||
| 26 | FORBY | ORBY | Near dead, seconds from effort to prevent abject hysteria / second letters from ‘eFfort tO pRevent aBject hYsteria’ |
|
| 29 | EIRENICON | IRENICON | Country introducing new image in peace proposal / EIRE (country, Gaelic for Ireland) before (introducing) N (new) + ICON (image) |
|
| 32 | MILES | Revolting slime at a great distance / anag, i.e. revolting, of SLIME |
||
| 33 | CROC | ROC | Small reptile caught turning corner / C (caught, cricket) + ROC (cor, or corner, turning) |
|
| 35 | PEATERIES | EATERIES | Fuel depots perhaps open late here? Big mess after everything’s stripped / if you strip the outer letters from ‘oPEn lATe hERe bIg mESs’ you get PEATERIES! |
|
| 36 | STEWED | TEWED | West End bar name confused casual drunk / anag, i.e. confused, of WEST E( |
|
| 37 | PESTERS | ESTERS | Troubles persist, ending in suicide for one unfortunate / anag, i.e. unfortunate, of PERS( |
|
| 38 | GEARLESS | EARLESS | Largesse failing without mechanism for engagement / anag, i.e. failing, of LARGESSE |
|
| Down | ||||
| Clue No | Solution (if different) | Adjusted Entry | Clue (definition underlined) / Logic/Parsing |
|
| 1 | GASTROLOGER | ASTROLOGER | Medical specialist runs into storage, uselessly holding record / GAST_O_ER (anag, i.e. uselessly, of STORAGE) around (separately) R – runs, cricket – and LOG – record |
|
| 2 | BUTE | UTE | Dope applied to help racehorses, except that stable’s closing / BUT (except) + E (closing letter of stablE) |
|
| 3 | STUNS | TUNS | Bruises from dangerous tricks after scratching lower back in accident / STUN( |
|
| 4 | ANOINT | NOINT | Completely beat struggling nation / anag, i.e. struggling, of NATION |
|
| 5 | SMITE | MITE | Batter sometimes stirred after spilling a good deal more / anag, i.e. stirred, of ( |
|
| 6 | MANTRA | ANTRA | Word repeated in madness is initially replaced by translator / MAN( |
|
| 7 | STIRE | TIRE | Suspect tries to be active earlier / anag, i.e. supect, of TRIES |
|
| 8 | PRANA | RANA | Life-force that’s strangely paranormal, not spoken about much at first / anag, i.e. strangely, of PARAN( |
|
| 9 | SETTLED | ETTLED | Lowered temperature in eldest vagrant / SET_LED (anag, i.e. vagrant, of ELDEST) around T (temperature) |
|
| 10 | PREFERENCES | REFERENCES | Priorities for a boxing referee seen fuddled outside clubs / P_ER (for a, each) around (boxing) REF (referee), plus EN_ES (anag, i.e. fuddled, of SEEN) around C (clubs) |
|
| 12 | PRATINGS | RATINGS | Boasts of grade in afterthought / P_S (post script, afterthought) around RATING (grade) |
|
| 15 | HENRY | Layer on top of relatively empty unit / HEN (layer, of eggs) + RY (R |
||
| 16 | GILBERT | Measure of force historically getting three times bigger, crushing national uprising / TREBLI( |
||
| 18 | AEOLIC | EOLIC | Ancient Greek dialect, completely hollow once Attic ideal dissipated / anag, i.e. dissipated, of the outer letters of OncE AttiC IdeaL (i.e. those words are hollowed out) |
|
| 19 | THERMAE | HERMAE | Hot baths are vacated after one side of thermostat’s bust / THERM( |
|
| 23 | OGIVES | GIVES | Windows admits having nothing to open / O (zero, nothing) before (opening) GIVES (admits) |
|
| 25 | SINTER | INTER | Insert wrong fuse, but without melting metal / anag, i.e. wrong, of INSERT |
|
| 27 | OBITS | BITS | Death registers over brief periods of time / O (over) + BITS (brief periods of time – ‘see you in a bit’) |
|
| 28 | YFERE | FERE | Wandering freely, abandoning line no longer together / anag, i.e. wandering, of FREE( |
|
| 30 | PRISE | RISE | Purchase value reported / homophone – PRISE (a tool giving purchase or leverage) sounds like PRIZE (to value something) |
|
| 31 | SCREE | CREE | Fell races finish in catastrophe, having no answer to fallen rocks / anag, i.e. fell, of R( |
|
| 34 | HODS | ODS | Scuttles, wearing shoes top to bottom / SHOD wearing shoes, taking the top letter to the bottom = HODS! |
|
I solved this, but can remember little about the grid fill itself except that it was pretty sharpish. The highlighting of the title at the end was pretty nifty and worth the solve alone, though I had to look up the lines of the poem. I had probably heard it before, but not really being my cup of tea it would have gone much the same way as other bits of ultimately useful information.
I’ll take your word for its being the eighth, but again my thanks for your typically thorough exposition. As you remark, I think this was towards the easier end of my output. One very minor change to the parsing: in the clue to THERMAE you’ve interpreted “bust” as a deletion indicator, which I imagine you’d agree would be dubious. In fact we have “either side of ThermostaT” for T followed by HERM = (nounal) bust.
I’ve read speculation elsewhere that the names were chosen to reflect themes elsewhere in the poem. Wishful thinking, I’m afraid – constructing a symmetric grid against the various restrictions left no room for manoeuvre. And while I have male offspring they attained their majorities rather too long ago for my liking!
Ifor
Ifor – thanks for popping in, and for the explanation on THERMAE – makes much more sense than my parsing! Looking forward to the ninth, and beyond…