This week finds Phi in a playful mood.
In some across clues the wordplay leads to the answer with an extra letter, in order spelling two surnames. Two others come from down clues where the wordplay indicates an incorrect letter compared to the correctly spelled grid entry: in clue order the correct letters give one surname and the incorrect letters another. The unclued entries are the forenames of the quartet, by which they are generally known (except for the one member who uses a nickname). One row of the grid provides a further hint. Solvers should highlight the fifth, and most famous, member of the group.
All of which sounds like rather a lot to remember, and I did catch myself trying to parse the down clues in the same way that we were required to the across, but as this week finds me on less than sparkling form, you may have approached the puzzle with a rather clearer head and your logical facilities intact.
On less sparkling form or not, early, pretty safe guesses at the unclued entries to the top of the grid of FRED and DAPHNE were sufficient to lead to the proverbial dropping of the penny. Is that a Scooby, Dooby Doo I hear?
Yes, it’s those MEDDLING KIDS. VELMA DINKLEY, DAPHNE BLAKE, FRED JONES, and NORVILLE ROGERS, rather better known as Shaggy. And of course SCOOBY bang in the middle as expected, all which were quickly filled in based on the little I had at this point.
Which made rather light work of much of the grid-fill and parsing of the same, marking this as being strictly Inquisitor-Lite as far as I was concerned. I do wonder, though, if the beleaguered solver expecting something more high-brow, such as is typically associated with Phi, or being inexplicably unfamiliar with today’s theme, may have struggled rather more. Or spent too long looking for an entirely different fab four.
The title? Scooby snacks, of course.
As if to confirm Phi’s outstanding good taste there’s no mention of that latter-day upstart Scrappy, putting the icing on what was a lovely little puzzle that surely will have raised a smile with even the most hardhearted or hungover solver.
| Clue | Answer | Extra Letter | Incorrect Letter | Corrected Letter | Wordplay | |
| ACROSS | ||||||
| 1 | Mining engineer daftly startled carrion eater (7) | MEATFLY | D | ME + an anagram of “daftly” | ||
| 10 | Paradise to end in a little space (4) | EDEN | I | E DIE N | ||
| 11 | Dean cites dodgy drinks (8, 2 words) | ICED TEAS | N | An anagram of “Dean cites” | ||
| 13 | Ancient coins in samples, bearing representation of former Queen (7) | TESTERS | TEST(ER)S | |||
| 15 | A boy from West Africa embracing a revolutionary priest (9, 2 words) | DALAI LAMA | A MALI LAD “embracing” A, all reversed | |||
| 17 | Skirts public recreation area before dawn (6) | PAREOS | K | PARK EOS (the goddess of dawn) | ||
| 19 | Rock group in Glastonbury feature? Ground shaking (6) | TREMOR | T(REM)OR. Ah, where would the crossword setter be without REM? | |||
| 21 | Area of Greece returned fruit (4) | NOME | L | LEMON reversed | ||
| 22 | I try to apprehend a classic villain (4) | IAGO | I(A)GO, who few of us would have heard of if it wasn’t for our favourite pastime | |||
| 24 | Craven shout – ‘That hurts!’ – proved false around lake (13) | YELLOWBELLIED | YELL OW BEL(L)IED | |||
| 25 | Detergents? Considers acquiring litre (4) | LYES | E | EY(L)ES | ||
| 26 | Quantity of Sun not good in Essex town (4) | RAYS | gRAYS, which few will have heard of, in this neck of the woods at least, without the G. | |||
| 28 | Lively Scots suppressing regressive trifle, following a wish (6) | VOTIVE | Y | VIVE “suppressing” TOY reversed. Think votive stand. | ||
| 30 | More nervous BBC boss, with passion, interrupting hesitant comment (6) | EDGIER | R | E(DG IRE)R | ||
| 31 | Add fragility to old version of libretto after the writer retired (9) | EMBRITTLE | O | ME reversed and an anagram of “libretto” | ||
| 36 | Pin down quiet accent as sort of medium (7) | PEPTONE | G | PEG P TONE | ||
| 37 | Average one lost to English interfering (8) | MEDDLING | MIDDLING, replace the first I with an E | |||
| 38 | Children who’d roll in small ditch (4) | KIDS | E | S DIKE all reversed | ||
| 39 | Turned up article about oil-rig pipe (6) | ARISEN | R | A (RISER) N – a riser is a vertical pipe in an oil rig. Never let it be said that Phi goes for the obvious definition. | ||
| 40 | My costume’s no end of trouble – consequence of fungus? (7) | MYCOSIS | S | MY COSSIeS without the E from “trouble” | ||
| DOWN | ||||||
| 1 | Satisfied operation on Royal regularly used anaesthetic (8) | METOPRYL | MET OP RoYaL being a less known anaesthetic | |||
| 2 | Swollen features unchanged – heads for doctor, evidently upset (6) | EDEMAS | SAME D E all reversed | |||
| 3 | Ancient character French are featuring in account (4) | AESC | A(ES)C | |||
| 4 | Money mountaineer finally invested in climbing project (5) | LIRAS | SA(R)IL reversed. To sail is indeed to project. Who knew? | |||
| 5 | Consideration of summer in Paris, having received agreement from Berlin (6) | DEBATE | J | B | D’E(JA)TE | |
| 6 | Flying mad, I fly upwards, making high-level figures in the main (8) | ADMIRALS | O | L | Anagram of “mad I” + a reversal of SOAR | |
| 7 | What Aphrodite has as foremost goddess (4) | HERA | HER A. Groans. | |||
| 8 | New bloke elevated historical distraint (4) | NAAM | N | A | N + MAN reversed | |
| 9 | European poet’s burning glacial feature (5) | ESKAR | E | K | E + SEAR (our poetic word of the day for “burning”) | |
| 12 | Story book excluded from index (4) | TALE | TAbLE without the B | |||
| 14 | Explains about carbon elements supporting immunity (6) | T-CELLS | T(C)ELLS | |||
| 16 | Criticise business degree held by model (7) | LAMBAST | LA(MBA)ST | |||
| 18 | Give in, releasing last of accommodation for lease again (5) | RELET | RELEnT without the N | |||
| 20 | Setter’s upset about attitude shown by lassie (5) | MAIRI | IM reversed about AIR | |||
| 22 | No opening for trial involving Liberal Government – no longer dishonest? (6) | ILL-GOT | pIL(LG)OT without the P | |||
| 23 | Scrapped old roses with no scent in Denver (8) | ODORLESS | An anagram of “old roses” | |||
| 26 | Keep control, accepting cheers (6) | RETAIN | RE(TA)IN | |||
| 27 | What’s to improve one, involving a bit of henna? (6) | MEHNDI | ME(H)ND I, being those henna designers you see on hands, etc. | |||
| 29 | A lot of upset I had getting flowering plant (4) | IRID | IRe without the E + ID reversed | |||
| 30 | Mournful poem beginning to seem long, heartless (5) | ELEGY | S | E | S LEgGY, heartless | |
| 32 | Lake no longer fresh: indicator has surface tension failing (4) | MEER | MEtER (indicator) without the T for surface tension. Readers of my previous blog for Cranberry will know why I smiled wryly on parsing this one . | |||
| 33 | India supporting proposal to produce its cigarette (4) | BIDI | BID I | |||
| 34 | Impressive game’s last shot (4) | EPIC | E PIC (snapshot) | |||
| 35 | Calls lift that doesn’t stop? (4) | HOIS | HOISt without the final letter |
Much enjoyed; little to add; all thanks to Phi and Jon_S. To be honest I couldn’t remember the surnames of any of those meddling kids, and only Velma and “Shaggy” for forenames, but the happy emergence of Scooby in the diagonal duly ripped off the horror mask to reveal Phi grinning at me.
I was struggling with the names – until I remembered to re-read the rubric, and the invaluable hint about ‘meddling kids’ sent me straight to childhood memories. Thumbs up from me, and thanks to Phi and Jon_S.
Another enjoyable puzzle with clues well up to Inquisitor standard. I particularly liked the device used in some of the Down clues, which yielded both an incorrect and a correct letter.
For the endgame I had the surnames Rogers, Jones and Blake (plus another one looking like Din…y) and the forenames Fred and Daphne (but not enough of the other two except a possible GEMMA). Knowing nothing of the theme except the name Scooby-Doo (which I didn’t see in the grid at that time), I needed an online search to match up two surnames with the two forenames, whereupon the theme became abundantly clear. It was satisfying then to look up what I didn’t know and complete everything in the grid.
Thanks to Phi and Jon_S.
Very gentle but excellent fun – who doesn’t love a bit of Scooby-Doo?
I guess the only ‘issue’ with these sorts of puzzles is that once you get the theme off one or two of the entries, the rest becomes very straightforward. But I’m not complaining.
PS: Loved the fact that Blake and Jones were clued together, as they sometimes appear together (usually singing) in the Scooby Doo movies as “Blake and Jones”.
Thanks Jon. You wondered whether anyone had spent time looking for a different group…. well, after spotting FRED and DIN… appearing as the first surname then of course the group was going to be the presenters of How (or How 2, for my generation). I didn’t know the names of any of the original hosts (and wanted to delay googling as long as possible), maybe the nickname referred to Gaz ‘Top’ Jones? It was only when I noticed SCOOBY in the diagonal that the penny dropped.
Thanks Phi.
Hmm Endgame=answer.
Not the Fab Four, then, so I had to solve the whole puzzle before googling to find the endgame. I knew of the theme but knew nothing about it. Anyway, all done, except I forgot to check the relevance of the title, but I doubt I’d have got that either.
OK, so I’m not keeping up with you…but there’s a setter’s blog now up at: http://phionline.net.nz/setters-blogs/inquisitor-1794-snack-time/
Never saw Scooby-Doo (it aired on British TV the year I started university), though I was aware that the eponymous cartoon character was a big dog. And so the names of all the people were new to me; I thank Jon_S for enlightening me how “One row of the grid provides a further hint.”
Thanks to him & the setter, for what was, for me, a not terribly interesting puzzle.
A very gentle offering this week … which tends to be the way from Phi from my own experience, but fine fodder for the ‘Inquisitor beginner’. All aboard the ‘Mystery Machine’ … once I saw VELMA this was only going one way. A light and very entertaining puzzle – all present and correctly parsed here.