Serpent: no bars, no numbers just like the previous one I blogged last month, but otherwise normal (no corrections/drop-outs, no thematic way to enter answers).
Preamble: Clues are presented in the usual order; the clues for two thematic entries consist of wordplay only. One thematic entry is not in Chambers but can be verified by Wikipedia. The completed grid has 180-degree symmetry. Solvers must shade the thematic entries and the 27 cells satisfying the conditions required by those entries, and then delete the contents of the remaining (unshaded) cells.
I noted that there was an odd number of Down clues to be solved so one of them had to have the middle letter of its answer right in the centre of the 11×13 grid; and there was just one 9-letter Down entry so that had to be it. I got off to a pretty good start on the first evening, but didn’t get back to the puzzle until later the following day – Midsummer’s Day – because a few of us met near Christmas Common (about half-way between Oxford & London) for a socially-distanced walk + picnic – one of us was swooped on by a kite that plucked the sandwich from her hand! When I got home I returned to that clue, 10d, for a serious attack. (In the table explaining the clues, I’ve simply numbered them sequentially for ease of reference.) And out popped OUT WITH IT, which enabled me to locate the previously solved 14a DEMEANING (one of the two 9-letter Across entries). Then given the symmetry, I had more letters for 5a which came out as EQUATIONS.
I’d cold solved quite a few in the lower half and, with DEMEANING in, I could make a start on entering some of the down answers into the grid, which of course created a feedback loop to the across answers, and so it carried on. Before too long I had enough letters in the bottom row to realise it was RORSCHACH TEST, of symmetric INK-BLOT fame. 
The upper half was proving to be more resistant, but I chipped away and with 4 clues left to solve (3a L_A_, 8d P_O_, 6d RETARD – but what was the wordplay?, and the very stubborn 1d KALE – but what was the definition?) I managed to figure out the top row: KLECKSOGRAPHY.
With all clues now solved (fellow blogger kenmac later explained the definition for 1d as US slang for dollar bills), it was time to turn to the endgame.
First up: highlight all the occurrences of I-N-K … nothing doing, too many cells & not symmetric.
Next: highlight all symmetric upper-case letters (A, H, I, M, etc) … much worse, way too many cells highlighted.
Third idea: look for cells whose mirror images contain the same letter … bingo! much better; but wait a minute, the preamble says 27 cells and I have 35. Hmm.
Much earlier I’d noted AMIR & AMIE at the bottom of columns 3 and 11, and now EYOT & PYOT leap out from the top of those columns. I reasoned that the commonality between columns 3 and 11 was engineered (and with the central column gave the 27 additional cells), whereas the other mirrored cells were accidentals. So I deleted the remaining (unshaded) cells, which left me with III, neatly reflecting the title of the puzzle. (Albeit not exactly an ink-blot.)
Thanks Serpent – the puzzle wasn’t that tough as it turned out, but the endgame took me a while (with half-day breaks away from the puzzle doing other stuff between trying out various ideas). Cheers to all. LIVERPOOL win Premier League
| Across | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| No. | Clue | Answer | Wordplay |
| 1 | Special lock and key developed to secure plot (13) | KLECKSOGRAPHY | [S(pecial) LOCK KEY]* around GRAPH (plot) |
| 2 | A single person dispatching last letters from crazy region (6) | ANYONE | ZANY (crazy) ZONE (region) ¬ Z,Z (last letters) |
| 3 | Old dog can start to learn to roll over (4) | LYAM | MAY (can) L(earn) all< |
| 4 | Liberal is primarily supported by “big beast” (4) | LION | L(iberal) I(s) ON (supported) |
| 5 | Question about acceleration resolved with these? (9) | EQUATIONS | [QUESTION A(cceleration)]* |
| 6 | University dons recalled occult knowledge for religious writing (5) | SUTRA | U(niversity) in ARTS< (occult knowledge) |
| 7 | Draw robust conclusions from Israeli politician changing position (6) | INHALE | HALE (robust) after (Israel)I (politicia)N |
| 8 | Praise good argument about keeping quiet (7) | WORSHIP | PI (good) ROW (argument) both< around SH (quiet) |
| 9 | The little that remains after withdrawing objections (4) | STUB | BUTS< (objections) |
| 10 | Colour supplement backed religious establishment (4) | PUCE | UP< (supplement) CE (religious establishment) |
| 11 | Serpent has tough clothes to survive (7, 2 words) | LIVE OUT | I’VE (Serpent has) in LOUT (tough) |
| 12 | Send back can artist left grubby? (6) | LARVAL | LAV (can) RA (artist) L(eft) all< |
| 13 | European prejudice about heroin from the East (5) | SAHIB | BIAS (prejudice) around H(eroin) all< |
| 14 | Lowering in status of French import (9) | DEMEANING | DE (of, Fr) MEANING (import) |
| 15 | Expel child with term starting (4) | EMIT | MITE (child) with last letter first |
| 16 | Partner to bear it and run into trap (4) | GRIN | R(un) in GIN (trap) |
| 17 | Captive showing a lot of guts (6) | INSIDE | INSIDE(s) (guts) |
| 18 | Head of religious school sacked cheats involved in corruption (13, 2 words) | RORSCHACH TEST | R(eligious) SCH(ool) [CHEATS]* in ROT (corruption) |
| Down | No. | Clue | Answer | Wordplay |
| 1 | Leak implicated dead presidents? (4) | KALE | [LEAK]* |
| 2 | Books providing the basis for every other character in Levy’s A Small Island (4) | EYOT | OT (Old Testament, books) after (L)E(v)Y |
| 3 | Chat about Football Association stopping return of British clubs (6) | CONFAB | ON (about) FA (Football Association) in B(ritish) C(lubs) both< |
| 4 | Obtain this follow-up in a way that’s questionable (6) | SEQUEL | [QUESTIONABLE ¬ OBTAIN]* |
| 5 | Tackle revolutionary newspaper featuring naked men (4) | GEAR | RAG< (newspaper) (m)E(n) |
| 6 | Dismantled soakaway could cause delay (6) | RETARD | RET (soak) A RD (road, way) |
| 7 | What may conceal the identity of mounted assailant? (5) | ALIAS | (as)SAILA(nt)< |
| 8 | Scottish Pied Piper’s beginning to play up (4) | PYOT | P(iper) TOY< (play) |
| 9 | Disadvantage with blocking welcome curb on spending (8) | HANDICAP | AND (with) in HI (welcome) CAP (curb on spending) |
| 10 | Tell me what’s unfashionable/fashionable (9, 3 words) | OUT WITH IT | OUT (unfashionable) WITH IT (fashionable) |
| 11 | Another leading character in inglorious novel? (8) | ANTI-HERO | [ANOTHER I(nglorious)]* &lit |
| 12 | German car manufacturer encapsulated in propeller (4) | OPEL | (pr)OPEl(ler) |
| 13 | Isolated body in the main lives life free of uncertainty (4) | ISLE | IS (lives) LIFE ¬ IF (uncertainty) |
| 14 | Fragmentary work of great prophet (6) | MOSAIC | double definition |
| 15 | Rabid anticlericalism wants unorthodox materials for “re-education session” (6) | CLINIC | [ANTICLERICALISM ¬ MATERIALS]* |
| 16 | He could make case for pious rite (6) | PRIEST | [P(iou)S RITE]* |
| 17 | Square numbers divisible by two? (5) | EVENS | double definition |
| 18 | High rank of friend in French Resistance (4) | AMIR | AMI (friend, Fr) R(esistance) |
| 19 | Circulated letters of prince depicting symbol of life (4) | ANKH | KHAN (prince) with letters cycled |
| 20 | Mistress upset old lady and wife regularly (4) | AMIE | MA< (old lady) (w)I(f)E |
| 21 | Retain original version of test (4) | STET | [TEST]* |
|
|
|||
These blank grid things always alarm me a little, but the grid-fill for this one proved to be on the gentle side. I’m impressed you managed to work out where the one down had to go – my comprehension of grid symmetry really isn’t up to the job! 🙂 Working out which bits to leave shaded at the close took a while longer, with one false start (the centre cell, plus ones symmetrically placed to the left and right), before I realised that if I was going to select the centre cell, the whole centre column should be shaded, and… Bingo. Quite audacious of Serpent I thought to give us the eventual full grid in the puzzle title!
I have a pleasant memory of Mirror Image II from a year ago with its interesting theme and blank grid, and I enjoyed this puzzle too.
I first tried to cold-solve clues from the beginning, but as I didn’t get very far I tried another tack, which was to target the top left and bottom right corners and try to pencil in some answers. I managed to get INSIDE, STET and PRIEST in one corner and EYOT, CONFAB and ANYONE in the other.
As you also found, HG, the bottom half yielded more easily than the top, and in due course the pattern of letters in the bottom row shouted RORSCHACH TEST. In the top half a likely ‘-OGRAPHY’ in the top row enabled me to guess and find KLECKSOGRAPHY. My source for that strange-looking word explained that Klecks are inkspots – a clear connection with Rorschach.
The instruction ‘… satisfying the conditions required …’ made sense when I read the Wikipedia article on the Rorschach Test. The grid already had 180-degree symmetry, but I saw that three evenly-spaced columns in particular, and no others, were in mirror symmetry, and they covered 27 cells. The ‘III’ was a revelation!
HG, a couple of points about the symmetry: (1) only those three columns (27 cells) are in symmetry with the placement of the bars even without the letters; (2) with the letters, again only those three columns count: the Es, Ls and Ns are not in mirror-symmetry.
An original and clever design, which I enjoyed working out and continued to appreciate when I looked back over the puzzle.
Many thanks to Serpent and HolyGhost.
I had a terrible time trying to solve klecksography which delayed me for a long time as I couldn’t find it anywhere, and I had never heard of the word. I eventually located it in an image by following the Wiki link to Justinus Kerner.
Further to the symmetry point, OUT WITH IT and YOTHUVAMI contain only symmetrical letters, so the middle part of the final grid is OK as an inkblot image.
Despite the III reference, I was hoping for something a bit more graphic as the inkblot!
Quite fun, though not one of Serpent’s greatest hits, I think.
I had a fellow solver work out the likely grid shape by which time I’d cold solved about half the clues so i was able to progress further with word searches and get top and bottom row.
However i was reckoning on some fancy artwork instead of looking for the obvious ie mirror image. I normally fail at this last point so many thanks for blog HolyGhost and of course the ever entertaining Serpent.
I found the grid-fill enormously satisfying – I think the pleasure comes from the suddenness with which the task lurches from being impossible to really not so hard. The clues were very fair.
However, rudimentary attempts to discover the unChambered graph ran into the sand and I left the field of play.
Thanks to Serpent and HolyGhost, and to AlanB for the further enlightenment.
My first attempt at shading the letters was similar to yours, HG.
I noticed that the letters in column 3 & 11 were exactly the same. I didn’t notice, at the time, that those particular letters were, themselves, symmetrical. I then had seven more letters to find but, initially, couldn’t work out how we could have an odd number. Then I realised that there was only one W in the grid. Ah, sneaky Serpent, I thought, it’s a double-U!
I then spent ages squinting at the grid to try to find the classic Rorschach butterfly.
I revisited the whole thing a couple of days later and it was only then that I realised that the middle column contained only symmetrical letters.
My grid layouts are on Google Docs, here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1iYAN8m1j52lSzraYY7iVII8VtrtUqGl_1P_teeg-qX8/edit
Thanks to S-er and B-er.
kenmac @6
The middle column indeed had to have letters that were themselves in symmetry. What I wanted to see (but it’s a pipe-dream) was, say, a letter E in column 3 and a mirror reversal of an E in column 11. There are no two letters in our alphabet that are reflections of each other in that plane. If only the Russian ‘reversed R’ or ‘reversed N’ could have been used in one of those two columns!
Apart from INHALE, which had to be right (but I couldn’t understand the bit about “changing position”), filling the grid was not too difficult, but I had to search Wikipedia to find KLECKSOGRAPHY. I then noticed that columns 3 and 11 were identical, and given that we were looking for 27 cells it seemed pretty obvious that the middle column must also be highlighted; if only because it would then resemble an inkblot. I had expected from the previous puzzles in this series that we would end up with a famous painting. I never noticed that all the letters in the three columns were themselves symmetrical: very clever.
bridgesong @8
I too wondered about ‘changing position’, and I think it’s just that if you follow the charade in the clue the IN would go at the end, so you have to change its position.
I was another who didn’t notice that the letters in those three columns were symmetric, so thank you to those who pointed this out.
But Alan B @3 isn’t quite right about the placement of the bars in those columns being symmetric: true enough if you consider only horizontal bars but not so if you include vertical ones as well. (The W and T in OUT WITH IT spoil things – as I realised when I was part way through redoing the final grid just now.)
HG @10
I agree concerning those two vertical bars. I was in fact considering only the horizontal bars, hoping those two rogues would be considered as belonging to the neighbouring columns!
Very annoyed that we didn’t spot the significance of the letters in the middle column.
Thanks to Serpent and HolyGhost.
I really enjoyed this. I was overthinking the final bit to highlight (the middle column) but there was something quite satisfying about the gridfill. As usual, the thing that elevates Serpent’s puzzles is the superb quality of the clueing combined with ingenious grid design
A really enjoyable this solve apart from the torment of KLECKSOGRAPHY, much like Hi@3. I managed to get the grid fill going from the bottom right corner. Luckily the last few down clues were readily solved. I’ll also remembere HG’s advice on odd numbers for any future carte blanche grids.
Many thanks to HolyGhost for the excellent blog and to everyone who has taken the time to comment.
I, too, would have liked the final grid to resemble one of the classic Rorschach inkblots, but it proved impossible to find a grid-fill with a sufficiently high number of cells containing letters with vertical symmetry. It wasn’t that easy to get one representing III, having decided to include KLECKSOGRAPHY and RORSCHACH TEST and maintain 180-degree symmetry for the initial grid.
Hi! Please can someone explain how “kale” relates to “implicated dead presidents”? I enjoyed this puzzle, and completed it, apart from missing the full implications of the mirror image – I still felt a buzz having got that far – thanks to Serpent and to bloggers here.
Amateur @16: “implicated” indicates anagram of “leak”; KALE is US slang for money, and, as I say in the blog, fellow blogger kenmac explained to me that “dead presidents” is US slang for dollar bills.
Many thanks for your explanation, Holy Ghost – much appreciated. I missed the dead presidents explanation in the blog, sorry :-(. And many apologies for my delayed thanks!