As solvers, we are all striving to reach THE CORRECT SOLUTION – some just for the satisfaction, others for the chance to win the Holy Grail of the EV – a ‘fine Telegraph fountain pen’!
The first thing that struck me was that there were no gimmicky devices with the clues – no misprints/extra letters/omitted letters/extra words giving messages or hints… And, as a blogger with a deadline, I was pleased to see that the perimeter and middle row were unclued – leaving fewer clues than normal to have to parse!
And as for those clues, there seemed to be a lot of brevity going on – five three-word clues, I think, I was almost blinded by the amount of white space on the page.
Anyway – a couple of scans of the clues, and on with the solving – which proceeded at a decent pace, although a few relatively new/obscure (to me) entries needed checking for confirmation – KIKUYU, SKLATE, CRINOSE, HARIM, HAKIM, LIART, OXSLIP, to mention a few.
The central row proved a bit chewy, with only six crossers from clued entries, and it took a bit of perimeter staring before I finally twigged what was going on – with what looked like ‘M_S_A_D’ down the right side (MUSTARD?) and ‘KIT_HE_’ up the left (KITCHEN) – it took the ‘SPA_NE_’ (SPANNER?) across the bottom to make me realise we were in Cluedo territory. So Gaston’s perimetral accusation is: ‘I SUSPECT COLONEL MUSTARD WITH THE SPANNER IN THE KITCHEN’, but according to the preamble he is not ‘IN ON THE SECRET’, and is ‘completely incorrect’.
Foolishly, I had so far neglected to check the diagonals – first rule of EV club is that you don’t talk about EV club; second rule is that you always check the diagonals for thematic material!
And there she was, guilty and red-handed, waiting for me – ‘(Miss) SCARLET (in the) HALL (with the) CANDLESTICK’ shows that I am in on the secret:
Whilst this was a relatively gentle EV solve, in my opinion – my solving notes say ‘nothing to scare the horses here‘ – there was still quite a lot going on. There was quite a high proportion of thematic material woven in, and some clever linking of adjacent cross-referencing clues – HARIM/HAKIM with very similar parsing, and SMOOCH/REEL as two dance references. Not to mention those relatively new/obscure to me words that I already mentioned!
Once I thought I had cracked it, I did have a quick cross-check of the thematic ‘unches’ (unchecked cells) with the given phrase, just to be sure.
To sum up – an enjoyable solve, for which my thanks to Gaston, and I hope all is clear above and below.
| Across | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Clue No | Solution | Clue (definition underlined)
Logic/Parsing |
||
| 8 | KIKUYU | Rejected all of disgusting material I found in our nation’s grass (6) /
UYUKIK (U_K – our nation, i.e. the Sunday Telegraph’s – around YUK – disgusting material, plus I ) – all rejected to give KIKUYU! [KIKUYU being a type of African grass, also grown in Australia and South America] |
||
| 9 | REBUS | Puzzle about vehicle (5) /
RE (about, regarding) + BUS (vehicle) |
||
| 11 | EL CID | Earl meets sane but not acceptable hero (5, two words) /
E (earl) + L( |
||
| 13 | EROTICAL | Ludwig’s work including time left to be amorous occasionally (8) /
ERO_ICA (one of Ludwig van Beethoven’s works) around (including) T (time) + L (left) [EROTICAL being a rare, i.e. occasional, form of EROTIC, or amorous] |
||
| 15 | HARIM | Sacred place that man imprisons a king … (5) /
H_IM (that man) around (imprisoning) A + R (rex, king) [HARIM being a variation of HAREM – usually the women’s quarters in a Muslim house, but also just ‘any Muslim sacred place’] |
||
| 16 | HAKIM | … exactly the same for doctor! (5) /
H_IM (that man) around (imprisoning) A + K (king, chess notation) [HAKIM being a Muslim physician] |
||
| 17 | TATE | Scots pinch gallery? (4) /
double defn. a TATE can be a small portion, or a pinch, in Scotland; and the TATE Gallery is an old cruciverbal staple |
||
| 19 | TENGE | Often gets sliced Asian bread (5) /
if you ‘slice’ two letters off each end of ‘( [TENGE being a monetary unit – i.e. bread – of Kazakhstan and/or Turkmenistan – central Asian republics] |
||
| 20 | LOTAHS | Biblical character has smashed pots (6) /
LOT (biblical character) + AHS (anag, i.e. smashed, of HAS) |
||
| 21 | IN ON THE SECRET | See preamble (13, four words) /
thematic deduction |
||
| 24 | KISMET | Almost embrace, having fulfilled destiny (6) /
KIS( |
||
| 27 | OMASA | Stomachs ordinary dough (5) /
O (ordinary) + MASA (dough, Mexican cooking) |
||
| 32 | EXOD | Inconclusive farce is short book (4) /
EXOD( |
||
| 33 | HEPAR | Try gathering positive old compounds (5) /
HE_AR (try) around (gathering) P (positive) |
||
| 35 | SNOOD | Fellows accepting old backing band (5) /
DO_NS (fellows, academically) around (accepting) O (old) – all backing to give SNOOD |
||
| 36 | TELESALE | Retrospectively allowed lease to be rewritten for this type of deal (8) /
TEL (let, allowed, retrospectively) + ESALE (anag, i.e. rewritten, of LEASE) |
||
| 37 | MIAOW | Tom’s cry turning object that hurt (5) /
MIA (aim, or object, overturned) + OW (that hurt!) |
||
| 38 | LIART | Going west, follow dapple-grey from Perth (5) /
TRAIL (follow) reversed (going west) gives LIART (Scottish, i.e. from Perth, for dapple-grey) |
||
| 39 | INK-SAC | Nicks a torn bag belonging to cuttlefish (6) /
anag, i.e. torn, of NICKS A |
||
| Down | ||||
| Clue No | Solution | Clue (definition underlined, superfluous nouns in bold)
Logic/Parsing (omitted letters shown as _) |
||
| 1 | SKLATE | Glide round lake, dull grey in Glasgow (6) /
SK_ATE (glide) around L (lake) [more Scottish grey-ness!…] |
||
| 2 | SKIING | Not turning up, five missing sport (6) /
SKI( |
||
| 3 | EYEWASH | Heard Gaston lived with Henry? What rubbish! (7) /
EYE (homophone, i.e. heard, EYE usually sounds like I – Gaston, your setter) + WAS (lived) + H (henry, SI unit of inductance, or English king abbreviation) |
||
| 4 | CURATE | Scoundrel irritated cleric (6) /
CUR (scoundrel) + ATE (irritated) |
||
| 5 | TROWEL | Pull up the French herb occasionally – with this? (6) /
LE (the, French) + WORT (rare, i.e. occasionally, for herb) all pulled up = TROWEL! |
||
| 6 | OBIAS | Ancient charms with zero influence (5) /
O (zero) + BIAS (influence) |
||
| 7 | LUCK | Endlessly courageous lady, perhaps? (4) /
( |
||
| 10 | SAIC | Agency’s north-bound vessel (4) /
CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) + S (contractive ‘s), all reversed, or north-bound, for a Down clue, giving SAIC (a Mediterranean vessel, like a ketch) |
||
| 12 | CRINOSE | Hairy finding US city in distress (7) /
CRI_SE (emotional distress) around NO (New Orleans, US city) |
||
| 14 | THROE | Suffering other pain (5) /
anag, i.e. suffering, of OTHER |
||
| 18 | PARAZOA | Sponges are supporting standard type of dye (7) /
PAR (standard) + AZO (type of dye), on, or supported by, A (are, metric land measure) |
||
| 22 | TEHRS | Broken hearts, having lost a lot of goats (5) /
anag, i.e. broken, of HE( |
||
| 23 | SLOVENS | Europeans disregarding second base, being careless types (7) /
SLOVEN( |
||
| 25 | TERATA | Abominations when animal is found in drink (6) /
TE_A (drink) around RAT (animal) |
||
| 26 | OXSLIP | Bill’s hybrid animal let loose (6) /
OX (animal) + SLIP (let loose) [Shakespearean – i.e. Bill’s – variation on oxlip – hybrid plant] |
||
| 28 | MINISH | Make small old cars hot (6) /
MINIS (cars) + H (hot) |
||
| 29 | SMOOCH | Elegant contralto replacing tenor for intimate dance … (6) /
SMOO( |
||
| 30 | REEL | … slyly look up another one (4) /
LEER (sly look) up, gives REEL (another type of dance!) |
||
| 31 | PAEAN | English, not German, irreligious song of praise (5) /
PA( |
||
| 34 | PLIE | Worked steadily, cutting out daughter’s ballet move (4) /
PLIE( |
||
A fun puzzle. I had to get virtually every answer into the grid before I spotted where the perimeter message was heading, at which point everything fell into place. Thanks to Gaston for the entertainment and to mc-rapper for the review and nice animation.
I endorse all of that, except that in my case it was examination of the diagonal and CANDLESTICK that revealed the theme. I wonder how many combinations Gaston experimented with before finding those that cross-checked so neatly? Enjoyable entertainment, and I always look forward to MCR’s thoughts and animations – thanks to both.
I still.have a set, complete with (real) lead piping. Not, I’d imagine, to be found in contemporary versions.
Thanks, Stick Insect and Ifor. (We have a little-used ‘travel Cluedo’ set, so I might try to persuade the family to take it with us when we go away over Easter. The teenage kids might be a bit too ‘cool’ for Cluedo though…)
There is a setter’s blog over on the BD website where Gaston gives a bit of insight into his love for Cluedo!