Here is the Eclogue duo for the third time in 2022.
Preamble: Clues are presented in normal order. Corrected letters of misprints in the definitions of all clues provide possible creators of a famous single unclued entry. Solvers must enter bars (which have rotational symmetry about 180°) but not numbers, moving one vertical bar in the completed grid to uncover a problem, and then draw three straight lines, a string of 21 contiguous cells, to indicate the name and profile of the unclued entry.
«gripe»
“Corrected letters”: if a clue contains fox and that has to be corrected to box then in my view the corrected letter is f, not b. Others may well have a different opinion. Previous puzzles this year (I checked) say either “corrections”/”correct letters” or “misprints”, thus avoiding ambiguity.
«/gripe»
I didn’t start until quite late on New Year’s Day, when the guests had gone and the kitchen was tidy. And then a very runny nose plus the occasional violent sneeze didn’t help to speed things along. But the clues seemed quite amenable, and I solved the first two acrosses and two or three intersecting downs straightaway. I’d created a 13×13 grid in a spreadsheet for the answers which created unnecessary ambiguity until I realised about halfway though that the printed grid was in fact 12×12 – entering what I had became much quicker after that.
The letters that I’d selected from the misprints weren’t making any sense, so instead of looking at the incorrect letters I thought I’d try looking at the correct ones – that certainly looked more hopeful, even though the ‘possible creators’ seemed to be Italian.
Before too much longer, and well before the box of tissues had run out, I had the grid filled and the bars duly entered, the unclued entry being CAMPANILE. Well, in my book ITALIAN + CAMPANILE = PISA, and so it proved to be, with its famous LEANING TOWER, with the possible creators GUGLIELMO (and) BONANNO PISANO or could be DIOTISALVI.
Nearly time to call it a day but just a few minutes to identify the vertical bar to be moved: the bottom line of the grid as initially entered read LAN|DUNSTABLE and that had to be changed to read LAND|UNSTABLE, the cause of the tilt.
Next morning, started the grid-search for TOWER & PISA and soon found WER-OFP-ISA in three chunks at a gradient of 3-in-1; shifting my gaze 3 cells to the left (and reading up & to the right) we see THE-LEA-NIN in another three chunks; and to cap it off there are the remaining 3 cells GTO. Just need to draw the lines, and job done.
Thanks Eclogue – a pleasant enough diversion without hitting the highs of your Silvester, #1523 from 5 years ago.
| • | Clue ✓[✗] | ✓ | Answer | Wordplay |
| Across | ||||
| • | To g[t]arnish space on ring is hard (9) | G | EMBELLISH | EM (space) BELL (ring) IS H(ard) |
| • | Pou[r]ch in Special Area of Conservation (3) | U | SAC | SAC (Special Area of Conservation) |
| • | G[T]rinder to worry over cog (9, two words) | G | WANG TOOTH | GNAW< (worry) TOOTH (cog) |
| • | Hol[m]mes, perhaps, uncertain on name (6) | L | EAMONN | [ON NAME]* {ref: E.Holmes, NI broadcaster} |
| • | Busy maybe ti[e]lling one-time outlaw Orkney to offer shelter (5) | I | AWORK | (outl)AW ORK(ney) |
| • | Greek we[r]ights having origins in Mykonos naval air station (4) | E | MNAS | M(ykonos) N(aval) A(ir) S(tation) |
| • | Ol[d]d cynic’s getting intoxicated doing ice (8) | L | DIOGENIC | [DOING ICE]* |
| • | For instance, lim[k]e information about soldiers (5) | M | GREEN | GEN (information) around RE (soldiers) |
| • | Indicator of po[r]ints in notation to enter before it (5) | O | PRESA | PRE (before) SA (sex appeal, it) |
| • | A tribute to Ms B[L]oyd, a song indeed! (5) | B | LAYLA | LAY (song) AY (indeed) {ref: Pattie Boyd} |
| • | Soaps up muscle in gro[a]in area (5) | O | PSOAS | [SOAPS]* |
| • | With Meuse in spate, they run[t] quickly (5) | N | EMEUS | [MEUSE]* |
| • | Ra[e]p that’s falsified is well elevated (5) | A | FIT-UP | FIT (well) UP (elevated) |
| • | Universal algae covers American shallon[t] (5) | N | SALAL | (univer)SAL AL(gae) |
| • | NZ bird avoiding axes gets more pron[s]e (5) | N | APTER | APTERYX (NZ bird) ¬ XY (axes) |
| • | O[E]xide battery I charged up (8) | O | YTTERBIA | [BATTERY I]* |
| • | Scottish p[t]ort over prohibition (4) | P | OBAN | O(ver) BAN (prohibition) |
| • | Si[o]nic combat, with university mostly closed (5) | I | WUSHU | W(ith) U(niversity) SHU(t) (closed) |
| • | Spirits found in cops[i]es, say, predominantly quiet? Aye (6) | S | SILENI | SILEN(t) (quiet) I (aye) |
| • | Poor retainers who inhabit desert area[g], perhaps (9) | A | ERITREANS | [RETAINERS]* |
| • | Lin[k]es connecting computers primarily late at night (3) | N | LAN | L(ate) A(t) N(ight) |
| • | Perhaps, to[a]wnies live here having horse at its quarters (9) | O | DUNSTABLE | DUN (horse) STABLE (… its quarters) |
| Down | ||||
| • | Itinerant males espy unifying fo[a]rce of imagination (9) | O | ESEMPLASY | [MALES ESPY]* |
| • | African healer[d] group in Morocco (6) | R | MGANGA | GANG (group) in MA (Morocco) |
| • | Robemaker covers chanc[n]el in large church (4) | C | BEMA | (ro)BEMA(ker) |
| • | Departs obstructing narrow passage in stretch of French sho[i]re (5) | O | LANDE | D(eparts) in LANE (narrow passage) |
| • | Developing big operation initially – is this used in Nigerian discu[i]ssion? (4) | U | IGBO | [BIG]* O(peration) |
| • | Give guns up for mal[c]e (4) | L | STAG | GATS< (guns) |
| • | Units held by old fool not incurring d[r]elay (7) | D | SOONEST | ONES (units) in SOT (fool, obs) |
| • | Sinuous kraits that could be ab[m]used? (6) | B | AT-RISK | [KRAITS]* |
| • | Putin generating power in store[m], say (5) | E | INPUT | [PUTIN]* |
| • | See preamble (9) | CAMPANILE | ||
| • | Diminutive, lad[z]y Lord Mayor found in local channel (4) | D | ELMA | LM (Lord Mayor) in EA (local channel) |
| • | Italian’s very small frui[s]t (5) | I | ASSAI | double definition |
| • | Soften by so[h]aking betrayer who has head and both feet removed (4) | O | RAIT | (t)RAIT(or) (betrayer) |
| • | Former leader of the east[y], Boris cracked in style (7) | T | YELTSIN | [IN STYLE] |
| • | You are texting facts about plant that could make you si[u]ck (6) | I | DATURA | UR (you are) in DATA (facts) |
| • | One of many Ions[a] divers unfairly dismissive of female one (6) | S | URANYL | [UNFAIRLY]* ¬ F(emale) ¬ I (one) |
| • | International pursues father’s wa[i]sh (5) | A | PAINT | INT(ernational) after PA (father) |
| • | Napier’s owl[n] expression of hesitation backing game (4) | L | RURU | UR< (expression of hesitation) RU (game) |
| • | V[T]ichy’s well comfortable in Edinburgh (4) | V | BIEN | BIEN (well, Fr) |
| • | Auntie’s ali[m]as, going to and fro (4) | I | BEEB | palindrome |
A relatively gentle puzzle I thought – with the message from the replacement letters clearly identifying the theme. All present and correct here, my first finish for several weeks. We were treated to the use of both ytterbia and uranyl within the same grid … so this chemist was bound to be happy.
It’s certainly a lot easier to find hidden words when you have a good idea of the shape they’re going to make… Like Me@1, my first full finish for a while, so thanks to Eclogue (and HG) – and I did enjoy Lan / Dunstable at the bottom.
A very enjoyable outing thank you, though I agree with “Gripe” and had extracted both letters until I could be sure which one it would be – which was almost at the end given that neither combination seemed to make a lot of sense for a while.
I wasn’t sure how to draw the three lines given that it’s a 4-letter width at the bottom but only a 3-letter width at the top (and I wanted them to be parallel), but your solution is of course the right one, going as it does through every one of the letters.
Overall much fun and a nice endgame, so thank you both.
Solved sporadically here across bits of the New Year, this still fell together rather nicely and with only unforced errors on my part. Perhaps it was pitched at solvers feeling battered and bruised, not just from festive excess, but the previous week’s Christmas Inquisitor (where I for one failed miserably).
My first thought regarding the profile was Pinocchio, but I should have learnt by now not to try and second-guess the theme in an Inquisitor. Enough crossing letters gave the unclued entry without too much ado, though my GK wasn’t up to getting the required object from that and the corrected letters without help from Google.
All good fun, though, so thanks to all.
Hope you’ve recovered from the sniffles, btw, of which there is still a lot about!
I enjoyed finding the grid structure as I solved the clues but was mystified by the correct(ed) letters which did not seem to spell anything I recognised. Then I came to a grinding halt in the NE corner with two clues: I eventually spotted AWORK which I could not confirm in Chambers but decided it had to be right. Then, what was the answer to ATRIS- ? The straight anagram of KRAITS gave AT RISK but two words was not specified. So I “corrected” KRAITS to TRAITS, leading me to ATRIST – hmm, another one not in the dictionary. By the time the penny had dropped, regarding the adjectival AT-RISK, I decided I had spent long enough and so DNF. Most frustrating as, had I written out the corrections in a horizontal line in the hope of perhaps finding some anagrams, I am sure I would have spotted the Italian flavour and, with a quick search, completed the end game.
By the way, I thought LAYLA was a bit mean, easy for my generation but how many younger solvers would be aware of its origins?
Many thanks to the Eclogue duo for a good idea, well executed. I am sorry I did not complete it. And, of course, thanks to HG
A DNF from me. I made good progress with a good number of the clues and bars, but (as per the “gripe”) got deeply confused about which the “corrected letters” were and hadn’t solved quite enough clues to make either set of letters into anything useful. (The fact that the correct set gave unfamiliar Italian names didn’t help!). I also have a day-job which kind of gets in the way…
But I enjoyed what I did and it’s always helpful to see a full explanation here — it enables me to appreciate the beauty of each creation more fully. So thank you, HG, and thank you, Eclogue.
Coming in late: much enjoyed and many thanks to Eclogue and HolyGhost. I took ages to get going on this but eventually set up a spreadsheet with 1A and 1D and was relieved to find it fairly easy going. A nice moment of realization that a jagged-looking profile (going by the outlines of the 3-cell-high building blocks) nevertheless defined the required straight lines.
It would have saved a certain amount of hardly necessary drudgework if solvers had been required “to enter only one bar, moved from its proper position to reveal a problem”. Or something like that.