One of the most complex preambles I can recall reading. Across clues have no numbers and are missing a letter in their wordplay. The missing letters spell out where one might find pine box. The downs have an additional letter and provide the unchecked letters for the perimeter and then two unclued entries – hinted at by the message from the downs. The first unclued also includes his honour and the second is what was created. Or something like that!
Took some breaking down, as I certainly felt the preamble was little help in explaining the steps of the endgame.
The across answers spelled out TRUST WEBSITE LOGO and the down answers HE HAS NO BIRCH WOOD NEARER.
Not a massive amount of help – a google search yielded a Ken Watkins OBE who founded the Woodland trust based on guessing the possible name in the first of the unclued across answers, with the Woodland Trust being the second.
The perimeter comprised native species of trees LIME; GUELDER ROSE; HAWTHORN; ASH; OAK; DOGWOOD; YEW and BUCKTHORN – clockwise from the top row using the extra letters in the down wordplay to fill the blanks.
The final piece being to draw the Woodland Trust logo of two leaves in the centre square. 2022 is 50 years since the trust was formed,
Not knowing anything about the subject matter probably didn’t help my enjoyment of the puzzle, the endgame took a while to fathom. I certainly learned about the existence of the woodland trust. The clues were nice and challenging too.
Thanks Vismut for a complex workout.
Key: * anagram; underline definition; Rev. Reverse; DD double definition;
First column Extra/ missing letters and across numbers
| ACROSS | |
| T | * Lock stops train leaving (5) |
| 14 | Restrains(stops) – train = TRESS |
| R | * With narrow beams set in hallway edges (5) |
| 11 | Hidden hallwAY EDges = RAYED |
| U | * New power say to collect from Rotary perhaps (5) |
| 21 | N(new) + p (power) + eg (say) = UNPEG |
| S | * Scottish hack reviewed vulgar rubbish (4) |
| 12 | Rev. hag (Scottish hack) = GASH |
| T | * Silicon filling to comply with condition of spare tyres (7) |
| 8 | Si (Silicon) in obey (comply with) = OBESITY |
| W | * No good records for old hills (4) |
| 34 | Logs(records) – g (good) = LOWS |
| E | * One who doesn’t miss anything of Will’s line in frothy ales, essentially merry (7) |
| 36 | l in (ales)* + r (essentially merry) = ALL-SEER |
| B | * Water colourist and artist in retrospective beginning to draw large, hairy dog (6) |
| 29 | RI (Water colourist – Royal institute of in Chambers) + Rev. Ra (artist) + d (beginning to draw) = BRIARD |
| S | * Wine younger in the year of Hegira (5) |
| 31 | Yr(younger) + ah (in the year of Hegira) = SYRAH |
| I | * Fighter pilots coming back ok (4) |
| 19 | Rev raf (pilots) = FAIR |
| T | * Excluding odd bits, favour somersaulting routine (4) |
| 25 | Rev. fAvOuR = ROTA |
| E | * Bachelor abandoning bare anonymous Spanish hamlet (5) |
| 23 | Bald(bare) – b (bachelor) + a (anonymous) = ALDEA |
| L | * Bags of bottled-up yams initially (6) |
| 16 | Pent (bottled-up) + y (yams initially) = PLENTY |
| O | * Special German style of dish (7) |
| 13 | (german)* = MARENGO |
| G | * Standard measure starts to assess unusual gadgets everywhere (5) |
| 35 | Auge (starts to assess unusual gadgets everywhere) = GAUGE |
| O | * Scottish shout Low Latin in the old church (7) |
| 32 | Ye (the old) + ch (church) around ll (low latin) YELLOCH |
| DOWN | |
| H | 1 Support previously gracious superstar (6) |
| Leg (support) + hend (previously gracious) = LEGEND | |
| E | 2 Fail to notice slack rule’s ignored (4) |
| Remiss (slack) – r (rule) = MISS | |
| H | 3 Yarn has grand maiden lacking name (4) |
| G (grand) + nymph – n(name) = GYMP | |
| A | 4 Poison comes from this plant of the air, Ionantha primarily (5) |
| Aural (of the air) + I (Ionantha primarily) = URALI | |
| S | 5 Left agreed base solution (3) |
| L (left) + yes (agreed) = LYE | |
| N | 6 Looking like wolf? Don’t dine out (7) |
| (don’t dine)* = DENTOID | |
| O | 7 Reference book on extremes of geology with sharp outline (4) |
| OED (Reference book) + gy (outskirts of geology) = EDGY | |
| B | 9 Drove over highland mountain lane (6) |
| Bore (drove) + ben (highland mountain) = BOREEN | |
| I | 10 Because Shakespearean occasionally lifts heart (4) |
| lIfTs HeArT = THAT | |
| R | 15 First time out, stupid tweeters forgetting English for Australian all right (5) |
| (weeters – e)* = SWEET | |
| C | 17 Nancy’s child cycling bog hasn’t sufficient power (6) |
| Enf (cycling bog) + can’t (hasn’t sufficient power) = ENFANT | |
| H | 18 Adjutant’s party raised short cheer in the van (6) |
| Rev. rah (short cheer) + gala (party) = ARGALA | |
| W | 20 Acting lieutenant initially cautious on a wing (5) |
| Al (Acting lieutenant initially) + wary (cautious) = ALARY | |
| O | 22 A pool row disrupted support act (7, two words) |
| (a pool row)* = POOR LAW | |
| O | 24 Brewed one’s tea with sword-shaped leaves for botanist (6) |
| (ones tea)* = ENSATE | |
| D | 26 Pockets turned up on fancy dress (6) |
| Rev. up + (dress)* = PURSES | |
| N | 27 Fantastic dancer bowed (5) |
| (dancer)* = ARCED | |
| E | 28 Little valley river outside of Liverpool (4) |
| Dee (river) + ll (outside of Liverpool) = DELL | |
| A | 29 First two letters I enclose from the past (4) |
| a b (first two letters) + ego (I) = BEGO | |
| R | 30 Henry’s grabbed by sinister tree (4) |
| H (Henry) in Dark (sinister) = DHAK | |
| E | 31 Bottom of single-seater bike (4) |
| Sole (bottom) + o (of) = SOLO | |
| R | 33 First sign of local carpet worm (3) |
| l (first sign of local) + rug (carpet) = LUG |
I needed to enter all the trees before I could see ‘ER’ and parse the last two clues. I thought the last word would be NEARBY. I also thought it would have been almost too much to accomplish if all the trees were pines, and when I looked up BUCKTHORN I realised they were not. I have enjoyed Vismut’s puzzles in various venues and think she is one of the best setters around even though her puzzles started appearing not all that long ago. Thanks also to twenclas. I tried to remember if I had similar trouble with the preamble; if I did it would not be the first time.
I certainly didn’t experience the difficulties Twencelas describes with the preamble of this lovely puzzle. There’s a lot going on thematically, and the preamble sets out – perfectly clearly in my view – what solvers need to do to complete the grid. Creating a thematic message using the unchecked perimeter letters is a very nice touch. I thoroughly enjoyed it: as with Ub, Vismut is one of my favourite setters, and this is a fine example of her work.
A challenging puzzle with an interesting theme, which I got into with WOODLAND TRUST. I noted the anniversary, along with the name Kenneth Watkins, which was new to me.
It was quite slow going at first, and I found the Across clues harder than the Downs, purely because the wordplay was incomplete and the solutions could not be entered for a while. Approaching halfway, I began to find that the Acrosses and Downs were helping each other, and I could appreciate the clues more. I particularly liked the well-chosen, inventive definitions of the sort that I associate (rightly or wrongly) with this setter. Examples are: ‘support act’ (POOR LAW), ‘one who doesn’t miss anything’ (ALL-SEER) and ‘condition of spare tyres’ (OBESITY).
In 18d ARGALA, I thought ‘short cheer’ should be just ‘cheer’ (for RAH).
The last part of the endgame was great fun, and I enjoyed finding and filling in the eight trees and matching all the unchecked letters. The anagram formed from these unchecked letters was a nice touch. I did my best with the depiction in the centre square – an unusually demanding requirement!
Thanks to Vismut and twencelas.
A neat bit of construction – the down clues message was nicely done, in particular – and an interesting theme. Held myself up sorting the perimeter by being convinced I was looking for sites of the trust’s woods but eventually the penny dropped. Thanks to Vismut for the entertainment and to twencelas for the review.
and the title is revealed to be PINE, BOX – 2 more trees.
I tried drawing the logo in the centre of the grid using 2 pencils with different shades of green.
That was hopeless, so I pasted a clip from the Woodland Trust website into the PDF before I sent it in.
I was in the dark for a long time in the solve. But eventually I could see the trees for the wood, or something.
Like ub and Bob Minor, Vismut has become a “cannot miss” setter for me, as her puzzles are always very inventive and tend to include a large measure of humour. Shame about the need to do arty things like drawing that are most definitely NOT my forte! A theme close to my heart, but I did not know the history until this puzzle appeared, so enjoyed finding that out as well as solving the puzzle.
Many thanks to everyone for your encouraging comments on my puzzle and to Twencelas for your blog. I am very sad you don’t know anything about trees, but hopefully now you see some value to them. 🙂