Opsimath is making what seems like his annual summer appearance.
Preamble: The wordplay in each across clue leads to the answer plus an extra letter, providing – in clue order – a hint to the four individuals whose names should be highlighted in the grid, plus the title of the project in which they were involved together.
A very short rubric. And since the down clues are ordinary, I thought I’d make a start on those, with brief forays into the across clues if things looked promising.
I quickly solved half of the clues that started in the top row, which gave me a way in to many of the across clues for the top half. This created a positive feedback loop, and by the time I’d looked at each of the clues once there were only 4 or 5 across clues remaining unsolved, and about the same number of downs. The extra letters from the wordplay were spelling out male forenames – KIRK, LAURENCE, PETER – preceded by probably STANLEY. (I initially had LAN{K} for “thin” in 33a, and had to amend that to L{E}AN – LAURKNCE is not a boy’s name!)
The grid-fill was soon completed – there seemed to have been rather a lot of simple anagrams and hidden words, maybe a little over 1/3 of the clues. I had become quite excited when I looked at the final unsolved clue, 3d, because part of my address would fit. (Ridiculous really.) But the setter had chosen the only other entry in Chambers that fitted the pattern A_SAR_S. I couldn’t see a connection between the names – the only thing that came to mind was KIRK Douglas & Capt. KIRK, but the latter’s not a forename. The other names are fairly common but as we have to highlight the joint project I glance at the diagonals … and up pops SPARTACUS, which fits rather well with KIRK DOUGLAS. “I’m Spartacus!” “I’m Spartacus!” “I’m Spartacus!”
As I couldn’t recall any of the other members of the cast I lazily resorted to Google – with hindsight I would have enjoyed the puzzle more had I made the effort to search the grid for surnames to go with the other forenames … but I didn’t. KUBRICK and USTINOV were easy to find, then DOUGLAS diagonally down starting in the first column, and finally the almost symmetrically located OLIVIER diagonally down finishing in the last column.
Thanks Opsimath – gosh, that was short, maybe an hour and a half. Now what am I going to do for the rest of the heatwave?
| No. | Clue | Answer | X | Wordplay |
| Across | ||||
| 1 | Job in Open University for nerds (5) | OTAKU | S | TA{S}K (job) in OU (Open University) |
| 5 | Reliable chaps start to build bits of rubber? (6) | BRICKS | T | B(uild) {T}RICKS (bits of rubber?) |
| 11 | Bird tucked into mynah and urubu (6) | NHANDU | A | (my)N{A}H AND U(rubu) |
| 12 | Nepal dispatched Scot’s lawsuit (4) | PLEA | N | [{N}EPAL]* |
| 13 | Break down in bully’s leniency (4) | LYSE | L | (bul)LY’S {L}E(niency) |
| 14 | Tory sees rotten seafood (7) | OYSTERS | E | [TORY SE{E}S]* |
| 15 | Earth Day picture about height of the soil (7) | EDAPHIC | Y | E(artch) DA{Y} PIC(ture) around H(eight) |
| 18 | Rain? OK – tumbling buckets and buckets! (5) | NORIA | K | [RAIN O{K}]* |
| 20 | Wanting knight to keep back with sword showing gold-leaf effect (8) | FOLIATED | I | DETAIN< (keep) ¬ (k)N(ight) after FO{I}L (sword) |
| 21 | Red Cross car – nice one! – draped with two tendrils (5) | CIRRI | R | {R}C (Red Cross) RR (Rolls-Royce, car – nice one!) in II (two) |
| 23 | Governor from Vatican City with Hindu goddess (4) | VALI | K | V (Vatican City) {K}ALI (Hindu goddess) |
| 24 | Girl mistreated or slain (6) | ROSINA | L | [OR S{L}AIN]* |
| 26 | Primate joining odd parts of choral arietta (6) | COAITA | A | C(h)O(r)A(l) {A}(r)I(e)T(t)A |
| 28 | Paul beheaded one local lad (4) | ALUN | U | (P)A{U}L UN (one, dialect) |
| 30 | Old secret road leading listener north (5) | DEARN | R | {R}D (road) EAR (listener) N(orth) |
| 33 | Italian, perhaps, to mature after thin Shetland viol (8) | LANGUAGE | E | AGE (mature) after L{E}AN (thin) GU (Shetland viol) |
| 35 | Frolic and prance ridiculously (5) | CAPER | N | [PRA{N}CE]* |
| 36 | Orwell, perhaps key to unusual activity, starts railway (7) | ESTUARY | C | ES{C} (key) T(o) U(nusual) A(ctivity) RY (railway) |
| 39 | Sick eagle disturbed – that’s wrong (7) | ILLEGAL | E | ILL (sick) [EAGL{E}]* |
| 40 | Viper, one active in this continent (4) | ASIA | P | AS{P} (viper) I (one) A(ctive) |
| 41 | Regularly deleted lost fish (4) | EELS | E | (d)E(l)E(t){E}(d) L(o)S(t) |
| 42 | Ten gins befuddled junior officer (6) | ENSIGN | T | {T}EN [GINS]* |
| 43 | Gold set in US city (6) | AUSTIN | E | AU (gold) S{E}T IN |
| 44 | They ramble about parts of cricket matches (5) | OVERS | R | {R}OVERS (they ramble about) |
| Down | ||||
| 1 | Working lecturer with intention to pass on for investment (6) | ON-LEND | ON (working) L(ecturer) END (intention) | |
| 2 | Pet trifle with scoundrel (6, 2 words) | TOY DOG | TOY (trifle) DOG (scoundrel) | |
| 3 | A special air trooper’s glugging Sprite (7) | APSARAS | A S(pecial) in PARA’S (air trooper’s) | |
| 4 | No title of respect – that’s disgusting (4) | UH-UH | U (title of respect) HUH (that’s disgusting) | |
| 5 | Holiday island raises one party (4) | BALI | I (one) LAB(our) (party) all< | |
| 6 | Heavenly salad of icy dill (7) | IDYLLIC | [ICY DILL]* | |
| 7 | Point papers or spit here in saloon? (8) | CUSPIDOR | CUSP (point) ID (papers) OR | |
| 8 | Mixed precipitate of molten steel (5) | SLEET | [SLEET]* | |
| 9 | Not quite a brigadier, we hear, but one’s central to the matter (6) | KERNEL | homophone COLONEL (not quite a brigadier) | |
| 10 | Returning barmaid is able to provide bits of mushrooms (7) | BASIDIA | (barm)AID IS AB(le) all< | |
| 16 | Procession coroner leads to the East German embassy (7) | CORTÈGE | COR(oner) T(he) E(ast) G(erman) E(mbassy) | |
| 17 | Capital regalia perhaps (6) | HAVANA | double definition (cigars) | |
| 19 | Sweet coverings I see in grammar school (6) | ICINGS | I C (see) IN GS (grammar school) | |
| 22 | Gets stuck in with gins, duel prepared (8) | INDULGES | [GINS DUEL]* | |
| 24 | Everyone in awful ride revived (7) | RALLIED | ALL (everyone) in [RIDE]* | |
| 25 | Unyielding 80s rocker (7) | ADAMANT | ADAM ANT (80s rocker ) | |
| 27 | Stalemate when emperor meets naked lasses (7) | IMPASSE | IMP (emperor) (l)ASSE(s) | |
| 29 | Boy went ahead and doled out (6) | LADLED | LAD (boy) LED (went ahead) | |
| 31 | Stranger always undressed Piers (6) | EERIER | E’ER (always) (P)IER(s) | |
| 32 | Restrained promotions for wood spirits (6) | DRYADS | DRY (restrained) ADS (promotions) | |
| 34 | Drain set up in wall unit (5) | NULLA | (w)ALL UN(it) all< | |
| 37 | Tissue of lies king embraces (4) | SKIN | (lie)S KIN(g) | |
| 38 | African destination of sailor lifted out of Caribbean island (4) | TOGO | TOBAGO (Caribbean island) ¬ AB< (sailor) | |
I also found it a rapid solve. I do find the word key sends me off in the wrong direction, so thanks for the parsing of 36a. Thanks for the blog HG and the gentle workout Opsimath.
An enjoyable, fairly gentle solve. A good one for solvers new to barred grid puzzles?
A good booster for a rookie like me.
And a fine subject
Thanks all.
Opsimath is the setter I look forward to the most in the Inquisitor. Like a cruciverbal Santa Claus, he comes once a year and gives me a nice present..normally a jigsaw! This year was a gentle offering, perfect after some of the harder ones we’ve had recently. We all learned the ropes somewhere and I would happily recommend this puzzle to someone wanting to start learning how to do the Inquistor. Thanks to Opsimath and HolyGhost.
Yes, unlikely to lead to a 25+ thread controversy. Kubrick rather leapt out once Stanley was established, and Kirk suggested Spartacus. A google-free solve. Thanks to Opsimath and HG.
Enjoyable indeed and it felt like a much-needed break after the last few. The only one I struggled with was UH-UH, is that really a word? I guess so.
Also, did anyone notice all the surnames had 7 letters, thus allowing for a lovely bit of symmetry.
Arnold, Uh-uh is in Chambers, Collins and the Oxford Dictionary of English.
I enjoyed the puzzle while it lasted – and reminded myself that the simpler, more straightforward ones are welcome… occasionally.
HG, thanks for the blog.
Enjoyed here too, but nothing to add to the above. All thanks to Opsimath
and HolyGhost. The day after doing this one, I received a science fiction fanzine from the USA, titled Spartacus.
After a longish holiday break it was nice to come back to this puzzle, which I found not too taxing. (It seems I missed a couple of tough ones!) With a completed grid I still had three ‘extra’ letters to find, two of them obscuring the name K??K. I hadn’t spotted KUBRICK when filling in BRICKS, nor USTINOV when filling in AUSTIN, and to make matters worse I failed to see OLIVIER even when I looked for it (from LAURENCE – who else?). However, the STANLEY and KUBRICK connection then came quickly, and the rest was easy – even finding the names in the diagonals.
Altogether, a neatly executed theme on a subject I am not strong on, but with names as famous as these it was all entirely fair.
Thanks to Opsimath and HolyGhost.
We would agree with Jon_S that this was a great puzzle for beginners. We enjoyed solving it and thought the theme was well executed.
Thanks Opsimath and HolyGhost.