A sizeable preamble to digest this week:
The four entries in the outside columns are new words derived from their clue answers (whose lengths are given) in a consistent way. Solvers must complete the top and bottom rows (initially left empty) to create new words from crossing entries, and highlight these cells plus 15 others in three groups, all thematically placed, in accordance with a request for freedom of the press made in two lines of verse in ODQ. Its subject (3, 8) as described in the verse’s title must be identified below the grid. Clues to the four seven letter entries each contain an extra word; these share a three letter synonym which relates to the poet’s name in the same way as the outside column entries do to their answers.
An alarming one too, it must be said, mainly because of my continuing refusal to purchase a copy of the ODQ for the sole purpose of solving a handful of Inquisitors a year. This has got me into trouble in the past.
On the other hand was the compensation of normal clues barring the clearly flagged ones with an extra word each, and mostly normal entries. By Inquisitor standards the grid-fill was therefore a fairly straightforward one, with the entries in the greyed columns to the left and right of the grid pretty clearly soundalikes.
The extra words from the seven letter entries were:
HORSE
IMPORTUNE
DINGY
PESTER
What 3-letter synonym do they have in common? Well, “dun”, it turns out, though some of the above came as a bit of a surprise. Note 3 letters – was I the only person to go off on a wild-goose chase based on “grey”? Thought so.
Things I didn’t know before this week.
- That John Donne’s surname is pronounced the same as “dun”.
- Any poems by the above.
If you were familiar with Donne’s work, or had access to the ODQ, I’m sure the endgame was the proverbial walk in the park. As it was here, several increasingly frustrating hours were then spent trawling the internet, and looking for real words which would complete the top and bottom rows.
Spoiler – they weren’t real words.
Key proved to be looking for one which had a subject which met the requirements of (3,8). Eventually I stumbled upon “To His Mistress Going to Bed”, in which the poet tries to persuade (press) his mistress into going to bed. In these parts we would say that Donne was evidently a bit of a lad. I suspect he definitely wouldn’t have got on well in the modern world, what with his “roving hands”.
Oh yes, those roving hands. That’s what fills the top and bottom rows, making real words in the all the crossing down answers, with guest appearances in the grid proper too. Anagrams of the same, you see.
Jot the name of the (I suspect long-suffering) subject below the grid, and we’re done. Huzzah, as I imagine Donne would probably have exclaimed on reaching his goal. And as perhaps Kenmac did too on finally getting Fifteensquared fixed.
| Clue | Answer | Entry, If Different | Extra Word | Wordplay | |
| ACROSS | |||||
| 4 | Settles in (to some extent) university seized by enmities (10) | HABITUATES | A BIT U “seized by” HATES | ||
| 12 | Batter opening before logjam is spotted blocking (5) | AMISS | Hidden in logjAM IS Spotted – Dennis Amiss, who was an opening batsman many moons ago | ||
| 13 | Smallest horse enjoying success over set jumps (7) | TINIEST | horse | IN IT (“enjoying success”) reversed before an anagram of SET | |
| 14 | Piles of building materials also unlimited when filling trenches (9) | SANDHEAPS | AND + wHEn inside SAPS (think sappers) | ||
| 16 | Worried suffragette shifting gears up mound (6) | TUFFET | An anagram of “suffragette” without the letters from “gears” | ||
| 18 | Put up with President forgetting name (4) | BIDE | BIDEn, his name probably being one of many things he forgets these days | ||
| 19 | Emotion not developing into moody music (3) | EMO | EMOtion without the letters from “into”. Both my daughters being into this sort of thing, I’m probably more familiar than many with the genre. I have also seen Paramore live. 😉 | ||
| 21 | More grave treasure vandalised (8) | AUSTERER | An anagram of “treasure” | ||
| 23 | Solid performance taking advantage in quiet spot (11, 2 words) | SOUND SHADOW | SOUND SH(AD)OW | ||
| 25 | Mobile’s isolation varying erratically but not completely (8) | RETIRACY | An anagram of “erratically” but not ALL | ||
| 28 | Following this kiss can make you go mad (3) | LIP | LIP with an F at the front would make you… flip | ||
| 30 | Previously award degree inside out (4) | ARET | RATE, inside out | ||
| 32 | Shipwrecked seamen almost gaining port of Tangier raised land in Spain (6) | MESETA | An anagram of SEAMEn with the first letter (port, left) of Tangier | ||
| 34 | Queen that’s late visiting small museum has emptied galleries outside (9) | VERANDAHS | ER inside V AND A (the Victoria and Albert Museum) + HaS | ||
| 35 | Importune wretched inmates in old-fashioned language (7) | SAMNITE | Importune | An anagram of “inmates” | |
| 36 | Retrospective part of joint composition (5) | NONET | A reveral of TENON | ||
| 37 | Sanctimonious book pursuing right to criticise accepted theory of development (10) | EPIGENESIS | E PI GENESIS | ||
| DOWN | |||||
| 1 | Elder watches son getting up earlier – in the middle of the day! (5) | WAIST | WASTE | WAITS, with the S moving, to give a synonym for “middle of the day” I bet you didn’t know either | |
| 2 | Religious officers represented Muslim after acting for learner (6) | IMAUMS | Take “Muslim”, change the L to an A, and anagram the lot | ||
| 3 | Like a duck, maybe eating nothing if not fed in the right order (9) | FINFOOTED | An anagram of “if not fed”, “eating” O | ||
| 5 | Fool concealing the beheaded poet’s dead body (5) | ASHES | AS(tHE)S | ||
| 6 | Decay in fruit able to run together when peeled (4) | BLET | Hidden in aBLE To | ||
| 7 | Palms seen raised in funeral custom (4) | ITAS | SATI reversed | ||
| 8 | Tunes to be broadcast not yet firmed up (5) | UNSET | An anagram of TUNES | ||
| 9 | What sleepers might blow up in plots, chasing dingy publicity (7) | AIRBEDS | dingy | AIR BEDS | |
| 10 | Some content to question psychological training (3) | EST | Hidden inside quESTion | ||
| 11 | Fell trees after initially seeking quantities of timber (6) | STERES | STEERS | S + an anagram of “trees” | |
| 15 | Beginners tackling slope? Probably not them (9) | TIROLEANS | TIRO(LEAN)S | ||
| 17 | Pale grey pitch undermining India’s tail (4) | ASHY | A SHY | ||
| 20 | Pester bureaucrat on the spot over grand furnishing (7) | SUITING | Pester | SUIT (a bureaucrat) + IN G | |
| 21 | 29 days abroad spread around prisons (4) | ADAR | Hidden in spreAD ARound | ||
| 22 | Petitions God right away, spilling heart in afterthought (5) | PRAYS | PRAISE | P(R AwaY)S | |
| 24 | Humiliate as a result of error, being exhausted (6) | WITHER | WITH (“as a result of”) EroR | ||
| 26 | Stake higher than rail, releasing line (5) | REVIE | REVIlE without the L | ||
| 27 | Oil plant number is up a bit in West African country (5) | BENNI | BENIN, moving the last N | ||
| 29 | Walked slowly in a church, in case of raised doorstep (5) | PACED | PASTE | A CE hidden in the first and last letters reversed of DoorsteP | |
| 31 | Former rank’s half of African’s charm (4) | GREE | Either half of GREEgree | ||
| 32 | Spoils iron for alchemist (4) | MARS | A double definition | ||
| 33 | Steal horse tipped to win (3) | NAP | And another double definition to finish |
I enjoyed the crossword very much, as I found it to be quite challenging even with so few clue manipulations (just four, in indicated clues). I got the idea behind the four shaded entries while working on PRAYS and PACED at about the same time, but at that stage I had no idea what to put in the top and bottom mini-rows. The four ‘synonyms’ yielded the word ‘dun’, and that brought me to the best part of the endgame. I read the whole of John Donne’s entry in my ODQ without spotting anything and had to re-read it more carefully to find ‘To His Mistress …’ and the bit about ‘roving hands’. An original concept indeed. The contents of the two mini-rows then gave themselves up, along with the other three locations. Very neat.
Jon, I’m so sorry that you had that double handicap of not having the ODQ and not knowing the ‘dun’ pronunciation of the poet’s name! I was lucky with both – especially the former: I won the ODQ as a crossword prize a couple of years ago, when I was allowed to choose a volume of equal value to the Chambers Dictionary (2016) that I already had.
Thanks to Ifor, and to Jon_S for his interesting blog.
Well, that was a lot of fun. Yes, the red herring of the DINGY HORSE set me thinking for a while about Gray and his Elegy, but the other spare words eventually led to Donne — after which I fairly quickly guessed To His Mistress and that Freedom of the Press would be a metaphor for Donne-ish rumpy-pumpy. After a careful read-through of the poem (well two or three actually), at first looking for words starting W because it was “so obviously” REVIEW at 26D, light dawned. Oh dearie me. And the five anagrams are positioned to match the actual lines:
Licence my roving hands, and let them go,
Before, behind, between, above, below.
All thanks to Ifor and Jon_S!
A DNF recorded here I’m afraid, mostly due to lack of available time, but there was some lovely clueing in there once again. I got nowhere near the endgame, but now that I see the symmetrical placing of the ‘HANDS’ anagrams then I have to admire the grid construction.
I’m with you, Jon_S : I won’t buy the ODQ just to help with IQ themes (I’d have no other use for it; frankly I’m not sure why exactly it’s even published) – so unfortunately those IQ’s that relate to the ODQ tend to pass me by, even though we have search engines to aid us.
@3 I have a 1970s ODQ from my book club days but it wasn’t any help — when I looked up “To His Mistress” it wasn’t there in the alphabetical sequence. Only much later did I realize that the thing had been filed under “Elegies”, given in numerical order with this one mistitled “Going to Bed” rather than “To His Mistress going to bed”. Bah, humbug. Fortunately we have the Everyman collection of Donne….
I was baffled by the endgame, including the four outside down words. DNF.
The preamble could legitimately have said ‘don’t bother with this if you don’t have the ODQ’. I rather wish it had.
On a technical level (grid & clue construction, endgame), I thought this was an excellent puzzle even though I also struggled for a while thinking the lower/upper cells needed to be real words.
However, and call me excessively woke, I found the topic area (in effect, a lecherous man trying to convince his mistress to take her clothes off) distasteful, even more so as I ended up with the man’s hands all over my crossword!
I think if you get to Donne, the poem is reasonably well known, though not like Marvell’s To His Coy Mistress. But I was nowhere near Donne (I was stuck on Knagg, who doesn’t exist), and nowhere near the top and bottom rows, so I quit early. Thanks to Ifor and Jon_S.
One other question, was there any pattern in / reason for the choice of the specific homophones? Or were they purely there to facilitate the Horse (etc) > Dun > Donne translation?
arnold @ 7 : She was his mistress; I think we may assume that she was happy to disrobe for him. That said, I also felt this to be an odd theme for an IQ. It felt contrary to the previous edict from ‘admin’ (end of year if I remember correctly) as to what IQ setters should consider to be acceptable subject matter.
I enjoyed this, though found it pretty tough. Some lovely clues, I did like 15D.
Like Neil at 8 I was initially looking for Nagg or Knagg before the penny dropped. After that plain sailing as I have a pdf of the ODQ which you can find online with a bit of searching. I do own one but it’s quicker on the laptop …
Thanks to blogger and setter for the fun and education.
I enjoyed this, partly because it gave me a reason to dig out my copy of the ODQ. This was purchased before the turn of the century when I first started doing Inquisitors in the Independent, and the Internet wasn’t the marvellous resource it is today. Quotations from the ODQ often seemed to provide the themes for the crosswords in those days and, in partial answer to Me_sat_here_at_home @3, is one of those books you can open at any page and always find something enlightening or pleasurable – often both. Or perhaps I should just get out more.
Thanks to Ifor and Jon_S
Only one issue with this crossword for me. I can’t see the relevance of the word ‘kiss’ in 28A. I’ve been trying to parse it all week.
Other than that, nice choice of subject matter. I’ve been thinking for a while that a lot of these crosswords could do with some sexing up.
Suzy@13 – To lip is to kiss, as definition. Adding an F to the front would make you FLIP, ie go mad.
Thanks Jon_S. I see it now, with ‘this kiss’ becoming ‘lip’. It always throws me if the definition isn’t at the start or end of the clue, like with those compound anagram clues. They always throw me with the ‘this’ element, too!
I enjoyed solving the grid, with Ifor’s usual mix of a few easy clues to get me started coupled with some ingenious more demanding ones. I spotted the homophone gimmick fairly early on. Having identified the redundant “pester” and “horse”, I thought of NAG as the keyword, but this did not tally with “importune” and “dingy”. After some research, I found DUN, which, of course, led me straight to John D.
So far, so good! I read though the 2½ pages of his works in ODQ several times but my simple brain did not spot any link to the puzzle’s title, even though I guessed it was cryptic.
Thanks to Ifor for the first part but I found your endgame too subtle. And thanks to Jon S for his eventual success despite not having ODQ.
Despite the traditional ODQ reference in the instructions, I think this was another errand for Squire Google. Once you had Donne/dun, Ifor had it pretty well narrowed down – there was only one title in any list I could find beginning “To” with a (3,8) phrase to follow. In fact I think the “To” alone narrowed it down to 2 poems. It did take time to work out which of the 48 lines we needed, especially as one of them is very famous (“O my America! My new-found-land…”) and another seemed to have great thematic/cruciverbal potential (“Before, behind, between, above, below”). I got stuck and frustrated and started wondering if I had the whole theme wrong before spotting the hands.
I happened to be listening to the In Our Time on Donne last night and this poem gets discussed. Sensitive/decent souls will be pleased to hear that it ends with the narrator, not his mistress, naked (and somewhat humiliated), partly undercutting the pervasive sense of scopophilia. (JD is also careful to request “licence” – consent -from the “mistress”, who may or may not be his wife. Well he was the (future) Dean of St Paul’s!)
Fortunately I had 4th edition of ODQ and spotted DUN but i still had to phone a friend for a nudge.
I think I have a collection of Donne somewhere but that would have made it harder
Very cunning not to mention sensual
We got as far as Donne, having beaten our heads against ‘Knagg’ for a while, but in my Wordsworth Poetry Library edition of the Works of Donne, the poem (Elegy XIX) is entitled ‘Going to bed’ which rather stymied our search for the title (3,8).
Glad to come here and see that we weren’t the only solvers to try and find something in the works of the poet Kimberley Knagg.
We also found another wrong tree to bark up. We were quite pleased to continue the homophone theme by spotting that the top and bottom rows could be completed by WALES and SIKHS, and were definitely expecting the “freedom of the press” to concern libertarian spelling.
So it was something of a surprise to come here and find that we were nowhere close. Thanks to Ifor for the entertainment and to Jon_S for the elucidation.
As always, my thanks to Jon for the thorough and accurate exposition, and to everyone who shared their solving experience. A few thoughts:
The editor has previously indicated that he will exercise judgement about the suitability of themes. He and his team raised no concerns when the puzzle was submitted, and I for one am happy to go along with his thinking and decisions in future.
“In ODQ” these days serves mainly to assure solvers that the information they need is sufficiently mainstream to appear in a standard reference. As has been noted, alternative ways in exist. Regrettably – as I know from previous experience – Donne’s works are not always definitively catalogued.
Arnold@9: once I’d placed the roving hands satisfactorily I found that there was still some flexibility in the grid, which allowed me the homophone approach rather than the more usual extra letter / misprint-type gimmick. At that point it was a matter of finding what would fit rather than anything more subtle.
Thank you, Herb @17 for pointing out to me what should have been blindingly obvious! At the start, I glanced briefly at the lines below the grid but then fixated on the preamble, the clues and the grid itself. When it came to the end game, I completely missed the crucial “To” !!! This, as Ifor undoubtedly intended, narrows down the ODQ search to just 4 entries, of which one is clearly the culprit. Had I been awake, I am certain that I would have spotted this and completed the puzzle.
So apologies to Ifor for my lukewarm comments @16. Now I see that this was a very neat and amusing endgame.
A relatively easy grid-fill, but the endgame took me ages – only after I finished did I kick myself for not paying more attention to the “To”, just like Dave W @22. So, not a hugely enjoyable experience for me – more my fault than the puzzle’s I think.
Thanks to Jon_S & Ifor.
Thanks for that, HG@23. It makes me feel a lot better!
An enjoyable puzzle although the anagrams of HANDS defeated us.
We also spent a while up an Esperanto cul-de-sac as we had the four words as SET, OLD-FASHIONED, DINGY and OVER and thought the common synonym to be OLD leading us to Willuam Auld. Again not having ODQ stymied us.