This week’s Inquisitor is set by Hedge-sparrow, a fairly prolific setter of barred crosswords in various publications.
There was quite a detailed preamble. It told us that "Clockwise from the asterisked cell [Note: the asterisk is in the bottom lefthand silvered cell], silver cells give the final two lines – except the last word – of a poem written by a friend of 6/5. In 26 clues, wordplay contains an extra letter to be removed before solving: these spell out part of the friend’s response to the puzzle’s title, but missing a thematic word. All other clues contain one or (in two cases) two consecutive extra words, to be removed before solving, whose first and last letters spell a thematic character.
Solvers must replace one entry in the grid with the poem’s final word (which really describes all that has gone before) to reveal both the missing thematic word and an inspirational character; and highlight (in an appropriate colour) the name of 6’s friend (four cells).
Unchecked cells in the silver ring, including those crossed by 5 and 6, could give HINT: THE SHAM RAB! Letters in circled cells can be arranged to give the surname of a relevant author. All final entries are real words or phrases; 34 is confirmed by Collins"
I reckoned there were 8 items to find and / or highlight and I had to make a note of them all to ensure I covered everything in the blog.
1 Final two lines of a poem in the silvered cells which omit the final word of the poem
2 Friends response to "What does it mean?" from extra letters
3 Character at 6/5
4 Name of a thematic character from first and last letters of extra words
5 Thematic word found by changing a word in the grid to the final word of the poem
6 Name of inspirational character as a by-product of the change at 5
7 Name of an author from an anagram of the circled cells; and
8 Name of friend of the person identified at 3 above.
Of course, before we can find anything we have to solve a good number of the clues.
As the solve progressed, I couldn’t make much sense of the silver cells and I was struggling as bit with the two messages from the letters.
It was the author in the circled letters that gave the biggest nudge in the right direction when COOLIDGE seemed to be the likely name from the letters I was building up. A bit of research revealed Susan COOLIDGE (born Sarah Chauncey Woolsey [1835-1906], an American author who write the ‘What KATY did’ series of children’s books)
Also, the letters forming the response to the question were beginning to make some sense with I SURE I DON’T KNOW becoming very likely as the beginning of the response. The lines of the poem in the silvered cells remained intransigent although it looked as if the last two words both had to end in ITHER which meant I couldn’t get THE everywhere else that looked possible.
Armed with this knowledge and some help from the letters derived from the first and last letters of extra words, I did a bit more research and eventually came across the poem written by ROSE, KATY‘s friend in What KATY did AT SCHOOL.
ROSE‘s poem ends with the fairly unlikely lines:
AH, ME, THE BAIRNIES LEFT AHIND,
THE SHITHER, HITHER, which formed the silver ring, and BLITHER which was the word to be entered into the grid as an alternative to an existing entry. BLITHER is another word for BLETHER [garrulous nonsense) which seems a fair description of the poem. I assumed BLITHER would be a Scots word, but Chambers standard dictionary doesn’t categorise it as such and it is not in my Chambers Scottish Dictionary, 1911 edition.
The fourteen unchecked letters in the silver ring message are shown in blue in the line below. A quick check will show that they can indeed be anagrammed to form HINT:THE SHAM RAB!
AH, ME, THE BAIRNIES LEFT AHIND, THE SHITHER, HITHER
Only now writing the blog do I realise that the HINT portrays ROSE as THE SHAM RABbie Burns [see below], giving yet another clever part of the thematic material in the whole puzzle.
The response to the question "What does it mean?" is I’M SURE I DON’T KNOW, IT’S SCOTCH I TELL YOU where SCOTCH is the missing thematic word to be created in the grid by changing another entry for BLITHER.
The next stage was to identify where BLITHER could go in the puzzle such that it revealed the thematic word SCOTCH. This was probably the easiest part of the puzzle as SCORCH at 7 down was just one letter away from SCOTCH.
To get SCOTCH we have to replace TWIRLED with BLITHER at 13 across. By doing this we still have real words at 14 down (HORAL) and 6 down (FEERS). Entries at 2 down and 4 down are unchanged as TWIRLED and BLITHER have identical letters 3 and 6. At 12 down we now have [Robert] BURNS, Scottish poet who was the inspiration for ROSE‘s poem. ROSE herself can be seen in the final four letters of row 9.
That still left me with the character from the poem derived from the first and last letters of one or two words omitted from 11 clues (13 words in all) giving the 26 letter character. I had most of the letters but I was a bit unsure of whether we took the first and last letters of each of the consecutive omitted words in two clues or whether we took just the first letter of the first word and last letter of the second letter. I could see the first option was going to give me WEE CRIM … and that helped with some of the internet research which revealed WEE CRIMSON-TIPPET WILLIE WINK who is referenced in the first line of the poem.
The full poem is found in the book What KATY did AT SCHOOL, as shown in the extract that follows:
———————
ROSE stood up with great gravity. "My piece is an affecting one. I didn’t mean it, but it came so. We cannot always be cheerful." Here she heaved a sigh and began.
A SCOTCH POEM.
WEE CRIMSON-TIPPET WILLIE WINK
Sair, sair thy mither sabs her lane,
Her een, her mou, are wat;
Her cauld kail hae the corbies ta’en,
And grievously she grat.
Ah, me, the suthering of the wind!
Ah, me, the waesome mither!
AH, ME, THE BAIRNIES LEFT AHIND,
THE SHITHER, HITHER, BLITHER!
"What does it mean?" cried the girls, as ROSE folded up the paper and sat down.
"Mean?" said ROSE, "I’M SURE I DON’T KNOW. IT’S SCOTCH I TELL YOU. It’s the kind of thing that people read, and then they say, ‘One of the loveliest gems that BURNS ever wrote!’ I thought I’d see if I couldn’t do one too. Anybody can, I find: it’s not at all difficult."
———————
At this point I thought I had solved everything but I still couldn’t sort out 6 down / 5 down properly. It was clear that KATY was the entry at 6 down but at 5 down I had ATS_R_OL which didn’t make any sense. Eventually, the penny dropped and I realised it has be AT SCHOOL which meant that my original entry RAKE at 15 across was wrong. A bit more thought and the word HADE was discovered as fitting the definition ‘angle from the vertical’.
In the midst of all the thematic material involved it is easy to forget about the clues. I thought these were very fair. As is often the case, hindsight is a wonderful thing such that when writing the blog using the correctly adjusted clues, the wordplay was very clear.
It was a challenge dealing with two different adjustments for the clues without knowing which clue was of which type. Sometimes the extra words were fairly obvious, e.g.MAGICIAN’S OBSIDIAN and WAZIRI (the EIGHT was less obvious in that clue). There are TIBESTI Mountains in northern Chad, so TIBESTI wasn’t immediately obvious as an extra word.
I have tried to explain all the clue adjustments as clearly as I can in the detailed table below, but there is so much going on that it is possible that I have missed something.
The animated grid below loops through the various stages of the solving, amending and highlighting process.
The title is self-explanatory as shown in the extract from What KATY did AT SCHOOL above.
Thanks to Hedge-sparrow for a challenging but very satisfying puzzle. I wonder how far into the construction process hedge-sparrow got before choosing to use two consecutive extra words in two of the clues.
| No |
Clue Amended Clue |
Words and Letters |
Entry |
| Across | |||
| 1 |
Topes rum hoisted by drunkard, as it were (9, 3 words) Topes rum hosted by drunkard, as it were (9, 3 words) SO TO SPEAK (if one may use that expression; as it were) Anagram of (rum) TOPES contained in (hosted by) SOAK (drunkard) SO (TO SPE*) AK |
I | |
| 9 |
In Paris, but heading west for old country workplace (4) In Paris, but heading west for old country (4) SIAM (historic name for Thailand; old country) MAIS (French [in Paris] for ‘but’) reversed (heading west) SIAM< |
WORKPLACE WE |
|
| 10 |
Mascot, possibly, chasing darn flipping dog (6) Ascot, possibly, chasing darn flipping dog (6) WESTIE (West Highland White Terrier; breed of dog) SEW (darn) reversed (flipping) + TIE (an Ascot is a type of necktie) WES< TIE |
M | |
| 11 |
Eccentric wise men polled former war minister (7) Wise men polled former war minister (7) MAGINOT (reference Andre MAGINOT [1877-1932], French Minister for War in the late 1920s and early 1930s) MAGI (any of the Three Wise Men) + NOT (with close cut hair; polled) MAGI NOT |
ECCENTRIC E C |
|
| 12 |
Rabbi spun and wove lined fabric (using rule for the first line) (7) Spun and wove lined fabric (using rule for the first line) (7) TWIRLED (spun) TWILLED (woven lined fabric) with R (rule) replacing (for) the first L (line) TWIRLED |
RABBI RI |
|
| 15 |
Angle from vertical section cut from shell (4) Angle from vertical section cut from hell (4) HADE (The angle between the plane of a fault etc and a vertical plane) HADES (hell) excluding (cut from) S (section) HADE |
S | |
| 17 |
Again employ American to infiltrate Scouts’ enclosure (5) Again employ American to infiltrate Scots’ enclosure (5) REUSE (employ again) US (United States; American) contained in (to infiltrate) REE (Scottish word for an enclosure especially a roofed walled yard) RE (US) E |
U | |
| 19 |
Catches Conservative peer in old Sierra (4) Catches Conservative pee in old Sierra (4) COPS (captures; catches) C (Conservative) + (P [pee] contained in [in] [O {old} + S {Sierra is the international radio communication code for the letter S}]) C O (P) S |
R | |
| 20 |
Exposes bases being removed from contests (4) Exposes bass being removed from contests (4) OUTS (makes public information about a person that the person him/herself probably doesn’t want published; exposes) BOUTS (contests) excluding (being removed from) B (bass [singer]) OUTS |
E | |
| 23 |
Magician’s obsidian vessel for heating neat bubbly (4) Vessel for heating neat bubbly (4) ETNA (vessel for heating liquids in a saucer of burning alcohol) Anagram of (bubbly) NEAT ETNA* |
MAGICIAN’S OBSIDIAN MSON |
|
| 24 |
Honey pots Ian’s opening for tea? (4) Honey pots an’s opening for tea? (4) MEAL (tea is an example of a meal) MEL (honey) contains (pots) A (first letter of [opening for] AN) ME (A) L |
I | |
| 25 |
Repugnant assumed name not liked by nurse (5) Repugnant assumed name not like by nurse (5) ALIEN (offensive or repugnant) ALIAS (assumed name) excluding (not) AS (like) + EN (enrolled nurse) ALI EN |
D | |
| 26 |
Sitting casually, she soon drifts (4) Sitting casually, she son drifts (4) SESH (informal term for a session) Anagram of (drifts) SHE and S (son) SESH* |
O | |
| 27 |
Academy looking over Nell Grove’s composition (7) Academy looking over ell Grove’s composition (7) ALLEGRO (brisk piece of music; composition) A (academy) + ELL reversed (over) + GRO (grove) A LLE< GRO |
N | |
| 30 |
Leading edge of Tibesti Mountains shifting east a quarter or more (7) Leading edge of Mountains shifting east a quarter or more (7) EIGHTHS (a fraction, two of which equal a quarter, adding any additional one will be more than a quarter) HEIGHTS with the first letter [leading edge] H moving to the right [east] to form EIGHTHS EIGHTHS |
TIBESTI TI |
|
| 32 |
Chat, shedding a sad tear in Ed’s horse-drawn vehicle (6) Chat, shedding a sad ear in Ed’s horse-drawn vehicle (6) CHARET (Edmund Spenser’s term for a chariot [Ed’s horse-drawn vehicle) CHAT containing (shedding [?]) an anagram of [sad] EAR CH (ARE*) T |
T | |
| 33 |
Remarkable kid acting on Sherrin’s West End stage (4) Remarkable id acting on Sherrin’s West End stage (4) DAIS (platform; stage) Anagram of (remarkable) ID and A (acting) + S (first letter of [west end of] SHERRIN) DAI* S |
K | |
| 34 |
Declare as miscreant one climbing ladder to mount psyop attack (9) Declare as miscreant one climbing ladder to mount attack (9) ESCALADER (person climbing a ladder to mount an attack) Anagram of (miscreant) DECLARE AS ESCALADER* |
PYSOP PP |
|
| Down | |||
| 1 |
Catch Yank heading north across Norway (4) Catch Yak heading north across Norway (4) SNAG (catch) GAS (chatter; yak) reversed (heading north; down entry) containing (across) N (International Vehicle Registration for Norway) S (N) AG< |
N | |
| 2 |
Poet’s float held in bank is not so big (7) Poet’s flat held in bank is not so big (7) TEENIER (smaller; not so big) E’EN (poetic form of EVEN [flat]) contained in (in) TIER (bank of rows) T (EEN) IER |
O | |
| 3 |
Strike law set in stone (4) Strike la set in stone (4) SLAT (to strike) LA contained in (set in) ST (stone) S (LA) T |
W | |
| 4 |
Tyrant bird’s perforce exhausted carrying eight Waziri sheep (5) Tyrant bird’s perforce exhausted carrying sheep (5) PEWEE (a tyrant bird of North America) PE (letters remaining in PERFORCE when the central letters ERFORC are removed [exhausted]) containing (carrying) EWE (female sheep) P (EWE) E |
EIGHT WAZIRI ET WI |
|
| 6/5 | See preamble (12, 3 words) | ||
| 7 |
Drive very fast getting hard little muggers, perhaps, to Turin (6) Drive very fast getting hard little muggers, perhaps, to turn (6) SCORCH (informal term meaning to drive very quickly) (H [hard, as in the description of pencil lead] + CROCS [abbreviation for {little} CROCodiles {muggers are Indian CROCodiles}]) all reversed (to turn) (SCORC H)< |
I | |
| 8 |
Levites admitting God provides nourishment (5) Levies admitting God provides nourishment (5) FEEDS (provides nourishment) FEES (levies) containing (admitting) D (Deus; God) FEE (D) S |
T | |
| 9 |
Brightest class butters up liberal teacher, initially (8) Brightest class butters up teacher, initially (8) SMARTEST (cleverest; brightest) (SET [class] + RAMS [sheep that butt; butters]) all reversed (up; down entry) + T (first letter of [initially] TEACHER) (SMAR TES)< T |
LIBERAL LL |
|
| 12 |
Being afraid of immature local free-range hens on headland (8) Being afraid of local free-range hens on headland (8) NESHNESS (dialect [local] word for being afraid) Anagram of (free-range) HENS + NESS (headland) NESH* NESS |
IMMATURE IE |
|
| 13 |
Goes nuts, cracking up over last part of EastEnders (5) Goes nuts, cracking up over last part of EastEnder (5) TURNS (goes, as in it’s your go in a game) Anagram of (cracking) NUTS reversed (up; down entry) containing (over) R (final letter [last part of] EASTENDER) TU (R) NS* |
S | |
| 14 |
Lecturer leading examination of facial area of WWI flier? (5) Lecturer leading examination of facial area of flier? (5) LORAL (side of the head between the eye and bill of a bird; facial area of a flier) L (lecturer) + ORAL (type of examination) L ORAL |
WWI WI |
|
| 16 |
Sound studio wanting silence following fourth instalment of serial (5) Sound studio wanting silence following fourth instalment of seral (5) AUDIO (sound) A (fourth letter of [fourth instalment of] SERAL) + STUDIO excluding (wanting) ‘ST (interjection meaning hush) A UDIO |
I | |
| 18 |
Taking tea inside, carves up marine gastropods (8, 2 words) Taking ea inside, carves up marine gastropods (8, 2 words) SEA HARES (marine gastropods) SHARES (carves up) containing (takes inside) EA S (EA) HARES |
T | |
| 21 |
Christmas delivery vehicle missing Eton in cunning deception (6) Christmas delivery vehicle missing ton in cunning deception (6) SLEIGH (Santa delivers presents in a SLEIGH; Christmas delivery vehicle) SLEIGHT (deception) excluding (missing) T (ton) SLEIGH |
E | |
| 22 |
Rabbie’s dish, twice shortened with lard, is lean (7) Rabbie’s dish, twice shortened with ard, is lean (7) HAGGARD (lean) HAGGIS (Scottish [Rabbie Burns] meat dish) excluding the final two letters (twice shortened) IS + ARD HAGG ARD |
L | |
| 24 |
Going up ledge carrying an Athenian weight (5) Going up edge carrying an Athenian weight (5) MANEH (a Greek weight) HEM (edge) reversed (going up; down entry) containing (carrying) AN M (AN) EH< |
L | |
| 28 |
Fatty neck ligament holds up fibrous band beneath dog’s tongue (5) Fatty ligament holds up fibrous band beneath dog’s tongue (5) LYTTA (fibrous band on the undersurface of the tongue of carnivorous animals, especially dogs) LYTTA reversed (up; down entry) hidden word (holds) in FATTY LIGAMENT LYTTA< |
NECK NK |
|
| 29 |
Ready cooked fish (4) Read cooked fish (4) DARE (alternative name for dace; fish) Anagram of (cooked) READ DARE* |
Y | |
| 30 |
Fib about possessing video nasty (4) Fib about possessing vide nasty (4) EVIL (nasty) LIE (fib) reversed (about) containing (possessing) V (vide) E (V) IL |
O | |
| 31 |
Cut taut end of halter holding head of Himalayan mountain goat (4) Cut tat end of halter holding head of Himalayan mountain goat (4) TAHR ([Himalayan] mountain goat) (TAT excluding the final letter [cut] T + R [last letter of {end of} HALTER]) containing (holding) H (first letter of [head of] HIMALAYAN) TA (H) R |
U |
An obscure piece with many instructions but I finally sussed COOLIDGE(I only knew of the president and Rita the singer) but phoned a friend who said google Coolidge author which I did.
Otherwise I’d have been stuck on the 6,5 Special (a distant memory)-no wonder it beat all word searches-then I found the Burns spoof(there were two hints of this in the clues)
To finish, I took the “poem” into my GP who is a bonnie lass from Auld Reeky and she read it
Great fun.
But did the Steely Dan album “Katy Lied” relate to it?
A possible candidate for “most obscure theme of the year”, using as it did a poem on a single page of a book – ?
Luckily I managed to get quite most of the extra words leading me to a snippet of “crimson willie wink”, which produced a single entry in Google of a scanned copy of the poem in question. This led not only to the full character but all the remaining denouements became reasonably straightforward and rather enjoyable to slot into place.
I particularly enjoyed the mental picture of a bird carrying eight Waziri sheep.
Like arnold@2, it was a word search of Wee Crimson Tippet Willie Wink that unlocked this very substantial and enjoyable puzzle (I was too stuck on logocide to see Coolidge). The theme was all news to me. Thanks to Hedge-Sparrow and duncanshiell.
One small amendment is needed for 32A’s parsing, I think – the spare T comes from Chat rather than Tear so it is Ch (Cha shedding a) then TEAR* (sad=anagram of tear) to give CHARET.
I also struggled to make sense of the letters from the extra words (not least because initially I had 2 words from psyop attack rather than just psyop) but the spare letters & Google led me to the poem and everything fell into place.
Thanks to blogger & setter.
shikasta @ 4
Thanks – looking at the clue again, I see how your solution works and is almost certainly what Hedge-sparrow intended but I think taking the T from TEAR still works if I had handled ‘shedding’ and ‘in’ properly.
I should have written :
CHAT excluding (shedding) A containing (in) an anagram of (sad) EAR to give
CH (ARE*) T
duncanshiell @5
Yes – I can see how that works – though it’s not as elegant – I agree with you that Hedge-sparrow probably intended it as I saw it.
Lots in the preamble, but it all fell together very nicely. The grid fill wasn’t too trying (for an Inquisitor) – thankfully, because I needed the author’s name to make sense of the endgame. I asked my wife and daughters if they were aware of the book in question. They were astonished I hadn’t heard of it, so perhaps not so obscure.
@4, 5 & 6: I think all single-letter removals leave real words, so the T goes from CHAT. (On a train with puzzle at home so can’t check.)
Thanks to all.
Enjoyably silly and made me laugh. HINT: THE SHAM RAB was wonderful. Thanks all round!
I read What Katy Did at an earlyish age but whether or not I went on to what she Did Next, I’m pretty sure I never got to At School. Which after many Coolidge-related thoughts I ended up consulting at Project Gutenberg.
Crikey – so much thematic material involved here, and yet the theme was very tricky to find. Like others above, it was Coolidge that proved the way in for me.
Thanks Hedge-Sparrow