A strange preamble this week – subject, verb, objects to be found with the clued verbs being replaced by the objects and five unclued entries to be filled with the subjects. Sounds a little bit different
And it was, though all bar 10 clues were normal which enabled some sense to form. Eventually leading to:
-
- GEORGE bust balloon (1ac)
- ALGERNON fired gun (15ac)
- REBECCA slammed doors (20ac)
- HENRY KING chewed string (28ac)
- MATILDA told lies (31dn
All from Hilaire Belloc poems in the NE to SW diagonal
Thanks Gaston – also enjoyed reading the poems the SVOs were extracted from
Key: Underline – definition; Rev. reversed; * anagram; DD double definition
ACROSS
1 Exploded when rule’s broken outside (7)
bust (broken) around r (rule) = BURST = BALLOON
6 Chaps of that kind, not including acceptable, honest New Yorker, maybe (6)
men (chaps) + such (of that kind) = MENSCH
11 Top-liner reformed Force (8)
(top liner)* = INTERPOL
13 Gigantic plant not totally commonplace across North America (6)
banal (commonplace) – l around na (north america) = BANANA
14 City guy welcoming the local? (5)
man (guy) around il (local the) = MILAN
15 Discharged, but became stable without money (3)
firmed (became stable) – m (money) = FIRED = GUN
16 Flavour of fish seen around river (5)
sar (fish) around po (river) = SAPOR
17 Wine clubs later disbanded (6)
c (clubs) + (later)* = CLARET
18 Whale with revolutionary movement of water (6)
sei (whale) + che (revolutionary) = SEICHE
20 Criticised large quantities retreating small distance inside (5)
Rev deals (large quantities) around mm (small distance) = SLAMMED = DOORS
21 Suppress timeless furore (4)
stink (furore) – t (timeless) = SINK
22 Fabric to strengthen and use once (6)
arm (strengthen) + ure (use once) = ARMURE
23 Farewell note? It’s found on floor in Tokyo (6)
ta-ta (farewell) + mi (note) = TATAMI
25 Heartless lecher rejected rugs (4)
Rev satyr (lecher) – t (heartless) = RYAS
26 Ignoring graduate, mad fools! (5)
bananas (mad) – ba (graduate) = NANAS
27 Soldiers stopping to restore road (6)
re (soldiers) in stet (to restore) = STREET
28 Ground and cut canine first (6)
c(canine) + hewed (cut) = CHEWED = STRING
29 Releases hoops (5)
DD BAILS
33 Purchased good books (3)
g (good) + ot (books) = GOT
35 Exhausted capital with banks withdrawing (5, two words)
Tallinn (capital) – ebanks = ALL IN
36 Force a novel to be delivered to this address (6, two words)
(force a)* = CARE OF
37 Cold improved and died out (6)
c (cold) + eased (improved) = CEASED
38 Ordering police trap to secure gold (7)
sting (police trap) around or (gold) = SORTING
DOWN
1 Endless overindulgence creating unpleasant pile (4)
binge (overindulgence) – e = BING
2 Lean adult replaces units at top of one (7)
singular(one) – si (units) for a (adult) = ANGULAR
3 Diseased old rogue pale and sour (8)
(pale sour)* = LEAPROUS
4 Ordinary component that can create an illusion (5, two words)
o (ordinary) + part (component) = OP ART
5 Suffering an intense loss for unimportant matters (13)
(an intense loss)* = NON-ESSENTIALS
7 Measures around fifty – nine in London, perhaps (4)
ens(measures) around l (fifty) = ELMS
8 New maid’s snake (4)
n + aia (maid) = NAIA
9 Medicinal plants I kept in special phials (7)
i in (phials)* = SILPHIA
10 Welcome food, we hear (4)
Homonym of chow = CIAO
12 Lizards intertwine – incident on the way? (7)
lace (intertwine) + rta (incident on the way) = LACERTA
17 Mostly risky acquiring horse vehicle (9)
chancy (risky) – y around arab (horse) = CHARABANC
19 Chromosomes of 60% of good friends (6)
confidants(good friends) – conf (60%) = IDANTS
21 Dawn holding queue up for plant (8)
start (dawn) around Rev. row (queue) = STARWORT
24 Record fellow whale (7)
mono (record) + don (fellow) = MONODON
28 Fish Scots savour are consumed (5)
sar (scots savour) + go (are consumed) = SARGO
30 A small-sounding South African shrub (4)
a + low (homonym) = ALOE
31 In US, lured the French away and had an effect (4)
tolled (lured – US) – le (the French) = TOLD = LIES
32 Partners joining the old side channel in Newfoundland (4)
sn (partners) + ye (the old) = SNYE
34 Point in East Anglia (4)
hidden easT ANGlia = TANG
Those who were concerned about the possible demise of the EV Series may be amused by this:
http://bigdave44.com/2022/07/07/ev-1545/
Thanks, crypticsue, and Gaston – ‘hilaire-ous’!
Enjoyed this one, and thanks to twencelas for the blog…
Many thanks to crypticsue for the link. And to Gaston for the puzzle, and for the great verse with great news – in the short term anyway.
I buy the Telegraph in print form some Sundays, mainly for the puzzles, EV especially: very satisfying when the struggle is successful, as this time. As it happens, the first name I worked out was MATILDA, which at once led to a cul de sac: The 1960 Doris Day film Midnight Lace is based on a play by Janet Green, Matilda Shouted Fire, subject-verb-object. But that didn’t seem to work, and HENRY KING put me on to the right road. Thanks also to twencelas for the lucid blog and the tribute to Belloc.
Like quenbarrow, I found the right way via Henry King. I had HENRYKI?? and looked in
Wikipedia to see if there was a character rather than a real person with a name like that. I found Henry King, and luckily I then saw the letters HILAIR… in my grid, which was only one-third complete at that time.
It was an original and well-executed theme. My last two sentences to find were for George and Algernon, the ‘verb’ clues for those being my last two to solve.
Thanks to Gaston for the puzzle and to twencelas for the blog (which provided a couple of parsings for me). And thanks to Gaston also for that hilarious and timely poem posted on Big Dave’s site.
Great puzzle which introduced me to a work I didn’t know. I loved 14A
Thanks for that link to Gaston’s poem, crypticsue, that certainly raised the mood.
Thumbs up to twencelas and Gaston. Great stuff
A fun puzzle, which yielded reasonably swiftly to some internet research once I had “chewed string” and saw Algernon emerging. Still took some working out of the other verb/object pairs. Thanks to Gaston for an enjoyable solve and to twencelas for the review.
I really enjoyed this. It looked like it was going to be heavy going to start with but then the theme began to emerge and it transformed into a joyful romp the the end. Thanks to all.