Hello all.
The preamble:
A WARNING from Gaston to solvers runs clockwise round the perimeter of the grid, starting at the top left cell, and gives an indication of how the definitions in 12 clues relate to their entries. Four further clues each contain a single superfluous word; these can be sequenced to give the deliverer of the WARNING on which Gaston’s is based. 21 further clues each contain a single misprinted letter which must be corrected before solving; read in clue order the correct letters spell out the venue where the WARNING was delivered. Unchecked letters in the perimeter might give MA’S IN A SIZE FIVE JUMPER. Chambers Dictionary (2016) is recommended. One answer is an abbreviation.
It looked like there would be plenty to sink my teeth into at the end, but nothing too daunting initially. A few extra words and some misprints, all nice standard stuff.
I filled the grid except 32a/d and then took stock of what I’d collected; I hadn’t quite sorted out all of the misprints at this stage, nor had I worked out what was going on with the 12 odd definitions. It was only now that I actually looked at the extra words, and these jumped straight out at me:
WINS TON CHURCH ILL
The corrections I had so far gave PLACE ??EBER STRASBOURG, and it wasn’t too hard to find that Winston Churchill had made a speech at:
PLACE KLÉBER, STRASBOURG
Somehow, however, in my early searches I utterly failed to find the relevant one and so struggled trying to construct the perimeter message. I saw that MESDAMES MESSIEURS fitted for the first part, which was enough to warn me that I might have to dust off the GCSE French. Or use an online translation tool, together with the information that MA’S IN A SIZE FIVE JUMPER … and so I laboriously ground out the warning:
MESDAMES MESSIEURS PRENEZ-GARDE JE VAIS PARLER FRANÇAIS
Or, in English:
LADIES GENTLEMEN BE CAREFUL I WILL SPEAK FRENCH
Naturally, on a subsequent search I found the speech very easily, and can’t work out what went wrong the first time! The Council of Europe website gives the background and includes this address given by Winston Churchill at Place Kléber, Strasbourg on 12 August 1949, complete with video and transcript.
Finally, in 12 clues* I could now see that the answer, while appearing to be an English word is actually a French word for the definition. So corner in French is coin, etc. I should really have got this from how = comment and sand = sable, but it’s easy to be wise after the fact.
Merci beaucoup Gaston!
| Clue No | ANSWER | Clue with definition underlined | |
| Explanation, with quoted indicators in italics and ANSWER letters in bold caps | |||
| Across | |||
| 8a | SWEY | Rejecting trees for child’s entertainment in Glasgow (4) | |
| In reverse (rejecting) YEWS (trees) | |||
| 12a | LOPE | Cut base and lea[d]<p> (4) | P |
| LOP (cut) + E (base) | |||
| 13a | SURA | Part of scripture from Indian city near[b]<l>y (4) | L |
| SURAt (Indian city) without the last letter (nearly) | |||
| 14a | AWFUL | Just heading off for b[e]<a>d (5) | A |
| lAWFUL (just) without the first letter (heading off) | |||
| 15a | ASSOC | Briefly connected cleric’s [b]<c>oat with no sides (5) | C |
| cASSOCk (cleric’s coat) without the outer letters (with no sides) | |||
| 16a | SEIZER | Emperor for the [w]<e>ar is one who takes hold of things (6) | E |
| CAESAR (Emperor), homophone (for the ear) | |||
| 17a | *COIN | Corner study Gaston’s sitting in (4) | |
| CON (study) with I (Gaston) inside (sitting in) | |||
| 18a | *COMMENT | How old French gentlemen should divide bit of cash? (7) | |
| O (old) and MM (French gentlemen) must go inside (divide) CENT (bit of cash) | |||
| 20a | *BRAS | Arm British prince (4) | |
| B (British) + RAS (prince) | |||
| 21a | ENDSHIP | Fa[c]<k>e shed in quiet old village (7) | K |
| An anagram of (fake) SHED IN + P (quiet) | |||
| 23a | ARLE | Give preliminary payment for [v]<l>ocal and unlimited conference with the enemy? (4) | L |
| Without the outer letters (unlimited) pARLEy (conference with the enemy) | |||
| 24a | *VENTS | Winds cancelling first of contests (5) | |
| We are removing (cancelling) the initial latter of (first of) eVENTS (contests) | |||
| 26a | *FOUR | Wasted pound in meal for oven (4) | |
| L (pound) is removed from (wasted … in) F[l]OUR (meal) | |||
| 27a | RE-ERECT | Once more give power to Right instead of Left and build [church] again (7) | |
| RE-E[l]ECT (once more give power to) with R (Right) instead of L (Left) | |||
| 29a | RHUM | Nautical lin[k]<e> cut short for Scottish island (4) | E |
| RHUMb (nautical line) without the last letter (cut short) | |||
| 31a | MORELIA | Further trouble around Mexican city (7) | |
| MORE (further) + AIL (trouble) backwards (around) | |||
| 32a | *REIN | In this respect he is missing kidney (4) | |
| [he]REIN (in this respect); HE is missing | |||
| 33a | RAVAGE | King [wins] showing no sign of hesitation in mean destruction (6) | |
| R (king) + no ER (sign of hesitation) in AV[er]AGE (mean) | |||
| 35a | *SABLE | Spades fit for sand (5) | |
| S (spades) + ABLE (fit) | |||
| 37a | RESET | [F]<b>reak bringing in Earl to receive stolen goods in Ayr (5) | B |
| REST (break) bringing in E (Earl) | |||
| 38a | SUNN | Plant is stunning when removing [o]<e>ven parts (4) | E |
| StUnNinNg when taking out even letters (removing even parts) | |||
| 39a | *LENT | Slow stretch of water off the South Coast? Not so! (4) | |
| [so]LENT (stretch of water off the South Coast) without (not) SO | |||
| 40a | GRIG | [B]<r>ib from grand outfit (4) | R |
| G (grand) + RIG (outfit) | |||
| Down | |||
| 1d | EWES | Partners of Ram[a]<s> – both partners and opponents! (4) | S |
| EW (partners) and ES (opposites) | |||
| 2d | *SENSIBLE | Easily upset from blessing translated using English rather than German (8) | |
| An anagram of (… translated) BLESSIN[g] with E instead of G (using English rather than German) | |||
| 3d | DYSON | Prying daughter raised [ton] for inventor (5) | |
| NOSY (prying) and D (daughter) reversed (raised) | |||
| 4d | MARMOSE | Monkey releasing [w]<t>ail seeing opossum (7) | T |
| MARMOSEt (monkey) releasing its last letter (tail) | |||
| 5d | SPAS | Steamship housing fo[o]<r>t treatment places (4) | R |
| SS (steamship) containing (housing) PA (fort) | |||
| 6d | ELFINS | [Ill] children giving rise to slight cold avoiding fellow (6) | |
| In reverse (giving rise to) SNI[f]FLE (slight cold) without (avoiding) F (fellow) | |||
| 7d | SPLENIUS | Worrying pulses in neck muscle (8) | |
| An anagram of (worrying) PULSES IN | |||
| 9d | YUCCA | You empty a small amount of liquid over plant (5) | |
| YoU without the middle letter (empty) + A CC (a small amount of liquid) reversed (over) | |||
| 10d | GARMENTLESS | B[o]<a>re lent me grass slips (11) | A |
| LENT ME GRASS is anagrammed (slips) | |||
| 11d | TWEEDS | Maybe [q]<s>uits quaint outskirts of Dallas (6) | S |
| TWEE (quaint) + the outer letters (outskirts) of DallaS | |||
| 19d | GREY AREA | Dra[w]<b> region in which there are no clear-cut distinctions (8, two words) | B |
| GREY (drab) + AREA (region) | |||
| 22d | HOME BIRD | One st[e]<o>pping inside’s drunk hot bromide (8, two words) | O |
| An anagram of (drunk) H (hot) BROMIDE | |||
| 24d | *VERGER | Run after to tend orchard (6) | |
| R (run) after VERGE (to tend) | |||
| 25d | *TRIBUNE | Adjust outside support for grandstand (7) | |
| TUNE (adjust) outside RIB (support) | |||
| 28d | ROASTS | So[a]<u>rs around like cooks (6) | U |
| ROTS (sours) around SO (like) | |||
| 30d | HASN’T | Is without covering round tin (5) | |
| HAT (covering) round SN (tin) | |||
| 32d | *RANGE | Tidy parent avoiding reshuffle (5) | |
| REAR (parent) is not in (avoiding) [rear]RANGE (reshuffle) | |||
| 34d | ETNA | It sits on sauce[s]<r> of burning alcohol, ethyl and sodium! (4) | R |
| ET (ethyl) + NA (sodium) | |||
| 36d | LAIR | Liberal son[s]<g> retreat (4) | G |
| L (Liberal) + AIR (song) | |||
A very satisfying puzzle. Agreed, CHURCH WINS TON ILL did ‘jump out’ as an entry point, but there was plenty of work to do before and after. Thanks to Gaston, and to Kitty for the neat colour-coded analysis
I didn’t get round to this in time, but am now gutted as it looks amazing! Thanks for the analysis