“In each clue, half of one word must be removed before solving, always leaving a real word. The initial letters of the removed halves, in clue order, spell the beginning of a line referring to a BATTLE whose author fills the unclued entries, initially blank. One unclued entry must then be modified in accordance with the end of the line and the result shaded an appropriate colour. Chambers Dictionary (2016) is recommended; 4 down is in Collins Dictionary.”
An unusual treatment in this one: half-words to be removed from each clue. One could often make a good guess as to what had to be removed (or at least which word was affected), especially given that one was looking for an even number of letters.
There were also quite a number of ‘gimmes’ (e.g. 1 dn), so the grid fill was relatively painless.
Alas, that is where my troubles began.
The reference is clear enough. It’s TAYLOR SWIFT’s song ‘Red‘, from the album of the same name. It’s possible that the ‘removing halves’ is a reference to the fact that it’s a break-up song. The lyrics are “Fighting with him was like trying to solve a crossword / and realising there’s no right answer”. It’s obvious enough that the solver was initially to enter the name into the two unclued entries, but then what? My guess is that “there’s no right answer” means that one is to remove the word SWIFT, leaving the entry blank again. That feels strange – the solver has only just filled it in, and now they are to delete it?
I know that some have entered SHIFT into the right-hand space. Certainly, that seems closer to the preamble’s instruction to “modify” the entry (and to its reference to an “appropriate colour”), but what’s the relevance of red shift? Specifically, how does changing SWIFT to SHIFT relate to there not being any right answer? Red is an appropriate colour without that, as it’s the name of the song and the album. If it’s just the colour that is meant to lead us to SHIFT, that seems very tenuous indeed to this solver. It also means that there is a right answer!
Either way, one is to colour the cells of the right-hand unclued answer.
Please post a comment if the explanations are not clear.
| Notation | |
|---|---|
| Definition | word |
| Indicator | [word] |
| Anagram | WORD* |
| Reversal | <WORD |
| Homophone | “WORD” |
| Removed half-word | thefts |
| Across | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| F | 1 | LES (French the)fts [after] EC (city) BO (chap in New York) produces digressions (7) | ECBOLES |
| I | 8 | Part of squid is SENile [suppressing] APE (copy) (6, two words) | SEA PEN |
| G | 12 | X (By) guard HO (house), SAN (hospital) of African people (6) | XHOSAN |
| H | 13 | Court play GAME (contest), HamNET [coming first] (7, two words) | NET GAME |
| T | 14 | Teu T (ton) OAST (oven) is brown (5) | TOAST |
| I | 15 | Went around [putting ET (alien) in] Isen DOUR (grim) ED (edition) (8) | DETOURED |
| N | 16 | FUL |
FULCRA |
| G | 18 | Number put Goon in ADD (Carry) [On] END (finale) (6) | ADDEND |
| W | 19 | [Around] A (afternoon), THOR* [converted] religious bookworm (5) | TORAH |
| I | 23 | Bristle < {AT ES (French art)}ist [retrospective] (4) | SETA |
| T | 24 | {HIts PENALTIES AS}* [playing] in Barbados leg (13) | ELEPHANTIASIS |
| H | 27 | Smooth |
SAND |
| H | 31 | Secure Oldham vulture (5) | GRIPE |
| I | 32 | PC accessory in WEB (plot), C |
WEBCAM |
| M | 36 | Mentmore skilful, [arranged] REAL* B (book)[’s interior] (5) | ABLER |
| W | 37 | [Fancy] LEOTARD* waist[coats] I (one) specially made (8) | TAILORED |
| A | 38 | Crossandra [found in] |
IRATE |
| S | 39 | Sunset wooing, please (4) | SUIT |
| L | 40 | Y (Year)ling STRODE* [about] [before] ruin (7) | DESTROY |
| I | 41 | NA (North America) H ([beginning to] HELP) [mostly] ALS |
NAHALS |
| K | 42 | ASks THO (American if) R (Republican) E (HERO[’s second]) darling (7) | ASTHORE |
| Down | |||
| E | 1 | EXTRA | |
| T | 2 | Timeline D ([beginning to] DIVERGE) [after] [brief] CHOR |
CHORD |
| R | 3 | BOA (Snake) [on] RD (road) is reportable (5) | BOARD |
| Y | 4 | Australian < {E (earth) IS (occupies) SO (very good)} [back]yard (5) | OSSIE |
| I | 5 | LA (Louisiana) TIN (can)ine produces language (5) | LATIN |
| N | 6 | Overnice, END |
ENDED |
| G | 7 | Handle NEAT (rare garnet) [in] SH (silence) (6) | SNEATH |
| T | 8 | Tricostate SET (group) by FORTH (river) (8, two words) | SET FORTH |
| O | 9 | Foolish TOUR (journey) [entering] over DIE (pass) [when cycling] (7) | ETOURDI |
| S | 10 | Roasts PAR (young) starfish [with half of] CHES |
PARCHES |
| O | 11 | Retirees in E (European) MERI (club) [concealing] obIT (7) | EMERITI |
| L | 17 | A (American) < SAG (flag) left[over] in ranges (4) | AGAS |
| V | 20 | Type of carver SEAT* [remade] [before] [half-]TE |
ESTATE |
| E | 21 | Language used by emus GLEN* [translated] IS H (hard) (7) | ENGLISH |
| A | 22 | Medium’s object [is confusing] PASTOR* [about] P (page)ants (7) | APPORTS |
| C | 25 | Dance LAM (hit) can BAD (not sound) A (advanced) (7) | LAMBADA |
| R | 26 | Preparation for roadblocks: H (hydrant), AIR (gas) and OIL (grease) (7, two words) | HAIR OIL |
| O | 28 | RESEDA | |
| S | 29 | Best [topless] |
EXIST |
| S | 30 | Performer in AC (athletic club) [on] TOR (hill)side (5) | ACTOR |
| W | 32 | Fords in War< SAW [run backwards] [over] [half of] |
WADES |
| O | 33 | BETH (Hebrew character) [accepts] R (take)over place (5) | BERTH |
| R | 34 | Cigar [manufactured from] CORAL*roots (5) | CLARO |
| D | 35 | Get away from daME [restraining] YE (the old) Y (yen) (5, two words) | MY EYE |
Grid (after change):
I was hoping you would be able to explain how to make the final modification, but it seems you don’t have any more idea then I do! I agree that Red Shift seems very weak, unless there is more to this than has ben found so far.
Lets hope that when the solution is published something will reveal itself, and thanks for a valiant effort on the blog.
The device used here for extracting a letter from every clue was an unusual one, and for me it seemed to have the effect of making the process of unravelling each clue while solving it less time-consuming than with the more usual ‘single letter manipulation’. I enjoyed solving these clues, and I found that I had collected all the letters while I still had several clues to solve.
I saw SWIFT before TAYLOR and thought that this was going to be a British/Irish literary theme, but neither Jonathan nor Dean could occupy a six-letter entry. But TAYLOR came easily enough, requiring me to check YENGLISH, which was new to me.
I completed all of this except the endgame. I had no idea what was meant by the last instruction, although it was obvious the colour had to be Red. I’m looking forward to seeing the explanation!
Thanks to Stick Insect and Mister Sting.
I had a fairly similar experience to the above (and the blogger) – an interesting device to find the letters; a fairly ‘swift’ grid-fill; an update to my antediluvian pop knowledge (a popular beat combo, m’lud’); and then some confusion as to how to finish it off.
I didn’t think of SHIFT, so I just removed the recently added SWIFT and coloured those cells ‘Red’ – time will tell!
Thanks to Stick Insect for the challenge, and Mister Sting for the blog…
Another one stumped by the end game..one of the few EV of recent times I’ve not submitted. It was a good experience to come across a new word manipulation woth the halves.
Looking forward to the solution reveal as I’ve no idea. Red shift does seem a little tenuous. Bet we are missing something obvious….
Hi all. Thanks for the feedback and sorry for the obvious annoyance of the endgame. Removing SWIFT and colouring the space red was the intended solution. Clearly that was underwhelming and something cleverer was expected, so thanks for the implied compliment and apologies that I couldn’t live up to those expectations! I hadn’t even thought of the (red) shift possibility I’m afraid. I’ll aim to do better next time.
I decided that the instructions couldn’t mean anything else so I went with deleting SWIFT and colouring those squares RED.
I’m relieved to see that was correct as I’d had a DNF on atomic numbers endgame the previous week.
Before I reached that conclusion, I spotted “RED” centred towards in the bottom of the grid and wondered if I could/should colour that instead.
Fortunately, there is another RED elsewhere in the grid and that made it seem less likely.
I did like the cluing device. I haven’t seen it before, but I would expect it will come round again.
At the end of the line in the song it refers to blue. So perhaps it should be shift, coloured blue, i.e. blue shift for things moving apart?
The question is are you a fan, Stick Insect? Your public needs to know!
No, is the short answer. All is revealed on the blog now available at The Big Dave site
My first thought was that Taylor Swift was very modern for an EV :).
I enjoyed this puzzle and it’s always good to see a new gimmick in the clues. Thanks Stick Insect
This is how I justified changing SWIFT to SHIFT – by doing so there is no ‘right’ (correct) answer on the ‘right’ side of the grid. I think that’s a fairly literal interpretation of the lyric and is in keeping with the general mood of frustration expressed in the song (or how crossword solvers feel when they’re knowingly putting the wrong answer into a grid). Furthermore, the ‘modification’ leads to an ‘appropriate colour’ for the highlighting with the ‘red shift’ idea.
Simply erasing the entry on the right and colouring it red was the first thing I thought of – it’s a very obvious solution and only the wording of the preamble discouraged me from doing just that – but it isn’t a very satisfying finish to an otherwise enjoyable puzzle (I particularly liked the half-word novelty in the clues).
Still, it could have been much worse, if I’d seen the possible blue shift Phil (@7) spotted I’d have been tempted even further down the wrong road.
I enjoyed the puzzle but could not finish it. I have never heard of Taylor Swift. Thanks to Stick Insect and Mister Sting.
Have just posted on Bigdave44 my defence of removing the R (right) from Taylor and colouring one square red. Get I wasn’t the only one!!
Sorry Bet not get. In haste as usual!