This was a fun solve, with Pangakupu’s obligatory New Zealand contribution appearing in the final version – so obscure that it had to be googled to be believed.
It helped that the clues were in alphabetical order and the majority were easily solvable, my first being the ubiquitous AT SEA, which suffered further indignity by being incorporated into a clue … I would have preferred up the creek!
Then came the task of fitting the solutions into the grid, helped a tiny bit by the grid having three crossers of first letters but hindered by not knowing which clues had to be squeezed into shorter lights. A process of addition allowed the deduction that six solutions needed to be reduced from 7 letters to 6, and two 9-letter solutions needed to go into 8-letter slots. I could not for the life of me see the “instruction revealed” mentioned in the rubric. Then, when I realised I literally had to physically enter two letters into one light, I found the instruction spelt out in:
light 1 of 1 ac – PL
light 2 of 10ac – EA
light 8 of 12ac – SE
light 7 OF 13ac – ER
light 3 of 18ac – AS
light 6 of 22ac – ET
light 5 of 24ac – HE
light 4 of 27ac – SE
So, the instruction was PLEASE ERASE THESE – leaving eight new words but an incomplete grid. I was held up for a while, as were others, because it looked at first as though the two letters in 27ac should go into light 6 – so I was trying to make sense of PLEASE ERASE THE ED … but eventually saw the right light.
There were no instructions about whether to submit the original or the revised solutions. I compromised by submitting both versions under different email addresses – a belt-and-braces endeavour – but in retrospect I would have preferred to submit the whole original words with the deleted letters in brackets. There were a couple of C-words I only knew from Shakespeare, and 26 really needed a 23, but overall an enjoyable work-out.
Although the Guardian still hasn’t managed to make the Genius interactive, I was greatly helped by an interactive grid uploaded by a member of the forum at crosswordsolver.org/forum Definitions are in bold and underlined.
Tannoy etc. installed by expert at speed (5)
APACE (2 down)
PA (Public Address – of which the commonest trade name is Tannoy) inside (installed by) ACE (expert)
Shrewd regarding rotating sign (6)
ARCHER (16 across)
ARCH (shrewd) + ER (RE – regarding, reversed) – the mounted archer, or centaur, is the symbol of the sign of Sagittarius. (I spent forever trying to get ASTUTE to fit here.)
Confused American beginning to sing when tucking into meal (2,3)
AT SEA (21 down)
A (American) + S (beginning to sing) inside (tucking into) TEA (meal)
Person getting chill in clothing that’s ripped? (6)
BODICE (19 down)
BOD (person) + ICE (chill). A bodice is a period piece of female underclothing, known mostly nowadays in the term bodice-ripper to describe a kind of steamy historical fiction.
Shamelessness and passion, retaining last of female’s underwear (9)
BRASSIERE (13 across). Light 7 ER deleted to read BRASSIE (a number 2 wood golf club)
Another breast-covering: BRASS (shamelessness) + IRE (passion) around (retaining) E (last of female – doing double duty with UNDERWEAR)
Look over hilltops on further edge of lake (6)
BROWSE (8 down)
brows (HILLTOPS) + E (further edge of – last letter of) LAKE
Part of target certainly knocked over in shot? Mostly (5-3)
BULLS-EYE (19 across)
SEY – Yes (certainly) reversed (knocked over) in BULLE (bullet – mostly: missing last letter). The bulls-eye is the centre of a darts board or archery target.
Cotton company clothing literary heroine mostly (6)
CALICO (5 across)
CO (company) around (clothing) ALIC (Alice – Lewis Carroll heroine – another mostly for missing last letter).
Screech, seeing water swirling in protective covering (9)
CATERWAUL (5 down)
TERWA (anagram – swirling – of water) in CAUL – protective covering: the membrane that covers a foetus. What a caterwauling do you make here? – Maria in Twelfth Night to Sir Toby Belch et al
Vegetable: expedition must do without it (6)
CELERY (11 across)
Expedition – CELERITY – minus (without) IT.
Stop canoeists at sea (9)
CESSATION (17 down)
anagram (at sea) of CANOEISTS
Confrontations in which Sri Lanka gets sporting trophy (7)
CLASHES (24 across). LIGHT 5 HE deleted to leave CLASS
CL (the country code for Sri Lanka) + ASHES – the symbolic trophy of England-Australia cricket test matches.
Group not right about John’s bone (8)
CLAVICLE (25 across)
CICLE (CIRCLE – group without R – right) containing (about) LAV – short for lavatory, or john. The clavicle is the collar-bone.
Scornful response: “What’s attractive about nut cracking?” (9)
CONTUMELY (7 down)
COMELY – attractive, around (about) NTU – anagram (cracking) of NUT. Hamlet lists the proud man’s contumely as one of the whips and scorns of time.
Period of time encompassed by each orchestral piece by Chabrier (6)
ESPANA (26 across)
SPAN (period of time) inside (encompassed by) EA (each). Espana is a rhapsody written by Chabrier in 1883 after a visit to Spain.
I’m a fellow backing one telling tales about everyday life? (8)
FAMILIAR (9 across)
FAMI – reverse (backing) of I’M A F(ellow) + LIAR (one telling tales)
Country, transformed on inside, beginning to advance (9)
INDONESIA (15 down)
anagram (transformed) of ON INSIDE + A (beginning to ADVANCE)
Large curved structure in wood (5)
LARCH (6 down)
L (large) + ARCH (curved structure). Larch is a deciduous conifer – I used larice for flooring my Italian house in the 90’s
New look in top source of oil (7)
LINSEED (27 across). Light 4 SE erased to leave LINED
N (new) + SEE (look) in LID (top). Linseed oil is used to keep cricket bats from drying out.
Wangled into a bed and prevailed (8)
OBTAINED (20 across)
Anagram (wangled) of INTO A BED. Definition in the sense of being dominant or prevalent – a lower price than that obtaining elsewhere …
Person pierced by final smear (7)
PLASTER (1 across). Light 1 deleted to leave ASTER
PER (person) around (pierced by) LAST (final)
Trimmed feather limits a bird (5)
QUAIL (22 down)
QUIL (feather – QUILL – without last letter – trimmed) around (limits) A
Skill covering one in piano and string ensemble, often (7)
QUARTET (22 across)
ART (skill) instead of (covering) the I (one) in QUIET (piano)
Describing weather much seen when blocking bit of sun? (5)
RAINY (4 down)
IN (much seen – as in popular) inside (when blocking) RAY (bit of sun). The much seen does double duty (at the moment anyway) describing weather – but I think it rather a stretch to define “in”.
Nonsense and more nonsense about old things dug up in gardens (4,5)
ROOT BALLS (14 down)
ROT (nonsense) + BALLS (more nonsense) around (about) O (old)
Rushing drink – round to follow (7)
TEARING (10 across). Light 2 EA deleted leaving TRING – a town in Hertfordshire.
TEA (drink) followed by RING (round)
Scrabble piece around Germany has this? Yes and no (5)
TILDE (23 down)
TILE (Scrabble piece) around D (country code for Germany). A tilde is a wavy line over a letter in Spanish or Portuguese.
Drank to a sot getting drunk during online talks? (7)
TOASTED (18 across). Light 3 AS erased to leave TOTED (= carried)
Anagram (getting drunk) of A SOT inside (during) TED (series of online talks)
Challenge poet to turn over items on dressing-table (6-3)
TOILET-SET (3 Down)
TEST (challenge) ELIOT (poet) all reversed (to turn over)
Question regarding person’s employment around most of area in store (9)
WAREHOUSE (12 across). Light 8 SE deleted to leave WAREHOU – a Maori word for a marine fish of Australasian waters
WHO (question regarding person) + USE (employment) around ARE (most of AREA)
Thanks prospero. Glad to see I wasn’t alone scratching my “ed”. At first this looked quite daunting but (as you say) the clues were relatively gentle. The crossing Qs were my way into the grid fill.
Thanks to Pangakupu
Thanks, Prospero. My experience was similar to yours, also having PLEASE ERASE THE ED for a while. I also had a question mark against the clue for RAINY. And, like most non New Zealand solvers I expect, I had never heard of WAREHOU.
Thanks Prospero and Pangakupu.
I completed the jigsaw without much trouble.
I had entered LINSEED as LINSE E/D, which is perfectly legitimate allowing TILDE.
I got PLEASE ERASE THE ED.
I went crazy trying to figure out what that means. Not knowing WAREHOU is a word was not helpful.
Both allowing ambiguity in LINSEED entry, and expecting an obscure foreign word as grid entry make this borderline unfair.
Please, let me lick my wounds.
Thanks for the detailed blog, Prospero. I used the crossing Qs as a way in to the grid fill. Like you I was held up when considering how 27 contributed to the instruction. Agree the repetition of “at sea” was unfortunate.
I did enter the full solutions with the subtractions in brackets as my entry… I like to think this was acceptable.
I’m pleased you and others found the interactive grid useful. I’ll see if I can do something similar tomorrow.
Jay (aka Jono)
… I meant also to say thanks to Pangakupu, great fun.
I found the preamble quite unambiguous, for once. The submitted solution must be those words left after following the instruction, ie the shorter words.
Enjoyed this, thanks.
As James @6 says, once we’d worked out what the coded message was, the instructions seemed clear.
We actually had PLEASE ERASIHESE at first – we couldn’t parse 22a and thought it might be QUALITY (=skill?), but had QUARTET as an alternative.
Definitely harder than usual for a jigsaw, as we had to solve very nearly all the clues before we could start filling in the grid owing to the uncertainty as to the word lengths. Got there in the end though!
I loved this! The clues were very gentle for a Genius but there was sufficient head scratching to work out the answer to the puzzle. I sent this one in for the first time ever but had to make my own version of the answers e.g. (PL)ASTER as I couldn’t find a grid to fill in. Do you just put the answers on the list provided or was there something I couldn’t find or should you post it?
I’m another one who puzzled what PLEASE ERASE THE ED was supposed to mean until the penny finally dropped. 🙂
I’m not sure I agree that “there were no instructions about whether to submit the original or the revised solutions” prospero. I took “”Solvers must follow the instruction revealed to ensure the submitted solution….” to mean that the submitted words are those with the erased double letters, i.e. ASTER not PLASTER. That way cells have either zero or one letters which are both “no more than one letter per cell”.
almw3@8 – yes, you just fill in the answers in the online form and press submit, with your email.
Apparently answers are reviewed by a person, so it shouldn’t matter if you answer in upper- or lower-case, with or without gaps between multi-word answers, and so on.
In this case, I agree with others that ASTER was required, but I guess (PL)ASTER would be accepted.
An excellent puzzle, with clear (and faultless) instructions (and I see James @6 made a similar observation) .
I had an enjoyable first session with this, solving 24 of the 30 clues. I felt I needed as many as that to get started with the jigsaw because of the additional complexity arising from the ‘more than one letter per cell’ instruction, affecting two of the 9-letter answers and all six of the 7-letter ones. After trying unsuccessfully to place one or more of my ‘long’ (9-letter) answers, I then sought to find a home for QUAIL. There was only one place where it would go, and that in turn led me to solve QUARTET (a tricky and very good clue that nearly led me to QUINTET!). (And I see Jay @4 made a similar start.) That SE corner held my first two pairs of cellmates: the ET of QUARTET and the SE of LINSEED. From there it was possible to populate the NE of the grid and thence, eventually, to completion. I was astonished, by the way, that WAREHOU was actually a word – I had to look it up.
I loved the self-referential instruction that was revealed by reading the pairs of letters in grid order. (It was very reminiscent of a similar instruction in a Sunday puzzle elsewhere by this setter several months ago, in which a pattern of cells contained the instruction SHADE THESE AREAS).
Many thanks to Pangakupu and Prospero.
It took several visits over several days but I finally wrestled this one to the ground in time to submit my entry.
Unlike lots of people who first got the double cells to spell PLEASE ERASE THE ED, I actually got the right letter pairing in LINSEED but managed to initially read it as PLEASE ERASE THE SE and so briefly considered blanking out a whole quadrant of the grid until the penny dropped 🙂
Lots of fun and very satisfying to complete — thanks both.
Great puzzle, thanks Pangakupu. And thanks for the detailed blog Prospero.
Like others, I solved 26 of the reasonably friendly clues before starting to enter them using Q as the first port of call. I did put brassiere where bullseye should go but soon realised my mistake. Realising that it was “these” to erase not the “ed” took rather longer!
Good fun, Paul
Just discovered that I won the £100 prize for this one after checking through some old emails. Which just goes to show how easy it must have been