Amoeba – “Routine Work” – puzzle for S&B York 2023

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A themed puzzle by Amoeba – a PDF can be downloaded from here.

The instructions tell us: Five pairs of solutions have no definition. The remaining clues each contain a redundant word. When
re-ordered, the first letters of these words create a sixth pair, and a work associated with a seventh.

I was lucky to guess the theme early on, first from BARKER and then HERRING, and this helped a lot with the solving, as finding one of the pair led to looking at a limited set of clues to find the other. In the order of their first appearance in the clues, the pairs, which are all comedy double acts, are:

Stewart LEE and Richard HERRING
Eric MORECAMBE and Morecambe WISE
Tommy CANNON and Bobby BALL
Stan LAUREL and Oliver HARDY
Ronnie BARKER and Ronnie CORBETT (aka the Two Ronnies)

The sixth pair is Stephen FRY and Hugh LAURIE, with the “work” being CHUCKLEVISION, associated with the Chuckle Brothers, aka Paul and (the late) Barry Elliott.

In the explanations below, the redundant words are in [square brackets], and thematic names are in RED.

Thanks to Amoeba for the entertainment.

 
Across
1 HARE KRISHNA Some [evangelical] Hindus hear a shrink’s converted (4,7)
(HEAR A SHRINK)*
7 CAB Strike-breaker and powerful [Labour] politicians share taxi (3)
CAB is the intersection of sCAB (strike-breaker) and CABinet (powerful politicians)
9 APNEA A [kindly] nurse returns amid old man Trump’s nightly breathing trouble (5)
A + reverse of EN (Enrolled Nurse) in PA (father, old man)
10 CONTAINER Perhaps box against [ungainly] sailor over in Spain (9)
CON (against) + TAR “over” IN E
11 ATHLETICS Maybe running his cattle around [Uruguay] (9)
(HIS CATTLE)*
12 GROPE Search for tailless [river] fish down under (5)
A tailless GROPEr – a fish also called the Grouper: Groper is an Australian spelling
13 HERRING Husband making a mistake (7)
H + ERRING
15 WISE Group of ladies trimmed it (4)
WI (Women’s Institute) + SE[x] (it)
18 BALL Undergraduate students? (4)
BA (hmm: an undergraduate may become a BA, but isn’t one yet..) + L L (learners, students)
20 CHAPATI Catch a patisserie hiding [fresh] bread (7)
Hidden in catCH A PATIsserie
23 APING Copying Australian brute eating [roasted] dingo’s heart (5)
A + [di]N[go] in PIG (brute)
24 MORECAMBE Second note about honour (9)
MO (a second) + RE (note) + CA (about) + MBE (honour)
26 RECURSIVE [Outrageous], like 26a? (9)
Clueing 26a as 26a would be a recursive clue
27 HARDY Cleaner starts late, deeply disheartened (5)
[c]HAR (cleaner) + D[eepl]Y
28 LEE Several boats with neither port nor starboard? (3)
FLEET less its left and right extremities
29 LIGHT‑HEADED Dizzy [strawberry] blonde? (5-6)
Double definition
Down
1 HEADACHE Ambassador twice catches a rat the wrong way, causing a [vermin] problem (8)
A + reverse of CAD in HE HE
2 RANCHERS Cowboys [eventually] managed half-hearted thanks (8)
RAN (managed) + CHE[e]RS
3 KNAVE Cheat‘s slick con ultimately [not] welcome (5)
Last letters of slicK coN + AVE (welcome)
4 ITCHING Keen to complain [about] billions lost in government (7)
BITCH less B + IN G
5 HANDSAW [Lumber] worker’s advanced bearing tool (7)
HAND’S + A + W (compass bearing)
6 ANALGESIA Lack of pain as angel treated [your] injured arm at first (9)
(AS ANGEL)* + first letters of Injured Arm
7 CANNON Princess briefly captured by prisoner (6)
ANN[e] in CON
8 BARKER King’s invested in wearing fewer clothes (6)
K in BARER
14 INAUGURAL Popular soothsayer left, following a [comely] maiden (9)
IN + AUGUR (a soothsayer) + A + L
16 HAMMERED [Irishman] driven home drunk (8)
Double definition
17 WIDE-EYED Naive and weedy, I’d start to exercise [caution] when changing (4-4)
Anagram of WEEDY I’D E[xercise]
19 LEMMING Cliff-jumper supposedly left [haggard] artist with more money and a bit of gold (7)
L + [Tracey] EMIN with an extra M + G[old]
20 CORBETT Essential to keep stark-naked rambler dry (7)
Middle letter of ramBler (i.e. a stark-naked version of the word) in CORE + TT (teetotal, dry)
21 LAUREL All in a flap about banker in the Dales (6)
URE (river or “banker” in the Yorkshire Dales) in ALL*
22 MISCUE M and Q reportedly cover up one spy’s first [important] error (6)
I S[py] in M + CUE (homophone of Q)
25 COHOE At sea, [Inuits] choose to release small salmon (5)
Anagram of CHOOSE less S

4 comments on “Amoeba – “Routine Work” – puzzle for S&B York 2023”

  1. BALL:
    If we read ‘undergraduate students?’ as ‘BA students (LL)’ it seems to make sense.

    Thanks, Andrew for the blog.

  2. I needed the blog for help with parsing CAB and also APING as I was taking Dingo’s heart to be ING and couldn’t work out where the P came from, duh. I cottoned on to the pairs fairly early on which helped. Thanks Amoeba and Andrew.

  4. An impressive themed puzzle, with so much thematic material incorporated in the grid and a set of well-engineered clues.

    I didn’t know LEE or HERRING, but my last pair had to be that. Among all those letters I had to play with at the end, I unfortunately failed to spot the pair FRY and LAURIE (with whom I am very familiar), probably because they were too well screened by the other 13 letters! I would never have got CHUCKLEVISION.

    I had to think twice about BALL, but I ended up seeing it in the way intended.

    Thanks Amoeba and Andrew.

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