Check seems to be under some pressure. Hope the strains of the festive season aren’t getting to them.
1ac is normal, but Check was coerced into adding some additional difficulty to the puzzle with the removal of a letter from 16 across clues and the introduction of an extra letter into 20 down clues. In clue order the subtracted/added letters spell the start of a literary quote.
For the five other (normal) clues, Check was cajoled into asking the solver to thematically modify answers before entry; numbers in brackets refer to space available.
In the completed grid, the author and title of a relevant work must replace two entries, creating new words; the quote’s speaker must be highlighted in two straight lines.
It was the week before Christmas, and your blogger was quite happily ensconced in front of the television, taking in a trio of joyfully cheesy festive movies. Chips had been consumed, coffee drunk. The ghost of the hangover past was fading, that of the one yet to come waiting upstairs with all the stockpiled goodies.
Would an equally festive Inquisitor accompany the day? We had clues with a letter snuck in, others which were missing one. Apart from the first, normal clue answers would have to be adjusted before entry. The answer length thingy in the preamble said we were going to shorten them.
And thus it would be, a series of names being omitted.
ALAN
LES
LEO
DAVE
RIO
Were they all boy’s names? Well, yes. While my first thought was the Rio who danced on the sand in the Duran Duran song, there is of course a rather famous footballer with the same name, though I’m not sure if he likes to dance on the sand too.
Look, there’s SANTA in the top row, and DECORATION in the bottom. Was Check feeling equally festive?
Well, no, because the extra / removed letters told us: “IF THERE IS ANYTHING DISAGREEABLE GOING ON, men are always sure to get out of it”. It’s a line by MARY MUSGROVE from JANE AUSTEN’s PERSUASION.
And so I felt a little bit sad, because I like the decorations, and SANTA. Perhaps we’ll get something suitably festive next week.
Golden Gun? Not the anticipated man with a powerful weapon we might have been led to expect, of course, but AU STEN.
| Clue | Answer | Grid Entry (if different) | Letter Subtracted/ Added | Wordplay | |
| Across | |||||
| 1 | Nick’s progressing new rider contracts for delivery-man (10, 2 words) | SANTA CLAUS | SATAN, moving the N forward + CLAUSe | ||
| 10 | Lead character in book primarily cons local blokes with ring (5) | BILBO | I | B + first letters from “icons local blokes” + O for “ring” | |
| 12 | American teen of note, relative of fiery Italian? (6) | ETNEAN | F | An anagram (off) of A (American) + TEEN, followed by N for note | |
| 13 | Cliché ad captures fussy buyer’s focus (8) | BANALITY | T | BIT (tad) about ANAL plus the Y from buyer | |
| 14 | Dec’s mate involved in main tips from Ladbrokes plugs (4) | SEALANTS | SETS | SEA L ANT S, which the reader should note takes a considerable time to get off your hands, being water resistant, as I found out today. Should you find yourself in a similar predicament, washing up liquid does the trick in the absence of white spirit | |
| 15 | Drunkard reflects after ire fails to open port (8) | ENTREPOT | H | rENT (hire) + TOPER reversed | |
| 16 | Support for plans to cut back beer drinkers (6) | TARMAC | E | To + CAMRA reversed to give something planes might sit on | |
| 21 | Gene regularly expressed hesitation pursuing society that’s prepared for telling the truth! (5) | SERUM | R | S + even letters from gEnRe + UM | |
| 22 | Ant lines close to social group (4) | ARYL | E | A (ante) + RY + L | |
| 24 | Stiff about state protecting director (3) | CADAVER | CAR | CA + AVER about D | |
| 25 | Occasionally permit men entry to your sister’s house (3) | PRIORY | PRY | Odd letters from PeRmIt + OR + Y | |
| 26 | Groove kept by lass performing (4) | SIPE | I | Hidden in lasSI PErforming | |
| 27 | Forecaster on ITV broadcast yields leaks to begin with (5) | SIBYL | S | S (son) + initial letters from Itv Broadcast Yields Leaks | |
| 31 | Endless void in Snowdonian flower’s extinction (6) | DEMISE | A | The river DEE about MISs (avoid). though these days we refer to the rather more local Eryri and Yr Wyddfa rather than the upstart English Snowdonia and Snowdon | |
| 32 | Weapon’s bad cut harbours decay (8) | GARROTTE | N | GAR(ROT)TEr (garter being our band) | |
| 36 | Spread of fish cooled without shell (4) | OLEO | Y | An anagram (fishy) of cOOLEd | |
| 37 | Diggers chat, informally bending rule on breaks (8) | GAULTERS | T | GAS about an anagram of rule + T (ton). A gaulter being a person who digs gault, which seems to be some sort of clay | |
| 38 | The Spanish sort occasion for cardinal (6) | ELEVEN | H | EL + EVENt short | |
| 39 | Sauce pan gets pinch of oregano (5) | PESTO | I | PEST (pain) + O | |
| 40 | A co-editor fabricated award (10) | DECORATION | N | An anagram of AN CO-EDITOR | |
| Down | |||||
| 1 | Special forces aground, Belgium initially offers tactical footwear (6) | SABOTS | G | SAS around B O T | |
| 2 | Syrian drags old Yemenis about (4) | ABAS | D | SABA reversed to give some Syrian rags | |
| 3 | Face of Easyjet online turns catty! (4) | LEONINE | NINE | An anagram of E + ONLINE | |
| 4 | Clever board sacks chief of iTunes (4) | ABLE | I | tABLE without the T from tunes | |
| 5 | Literary shire arranged in rows to repel onset of invasion (8) | LETTERED | S | LET (hire) + TiERED | |
| 6 | Pray stitches from recurrent wounds empower student nurses upwards at first (5) | UNSEW | A | Pry stitches from the first letters reversed of Wounds Empower Student Nurses Upwards | |
| 7 | Grace almost flips following Sun leaks (5) | SEEPS | G | S + a reversal of SPEEd (race), a problem we no longer have following the aforementioned sealant incident | |
| 8 | Stray out with Australian wild animals (8) | TATOUAYS | R | An anagram of STAY OUT and A | |
| 9 | Eat strikebreakers up in phase of worker’s development (6) | INSTAR | E | IN (at) + those dirty RATS reversed | |
| 11 | Cute fabric raised problem for old test material (6) | LACMUS | E | LACe cut + SUM reversed. I bet LITMUS was your first thought too | |
| 17 | Yale’s confused about dean returning by plane? (8) | AERIALLY | A | An anagram of YALE about a reversal of LAIR (den) | |
| 18 | In The Thick of It, help beats head of Ministry (4) | AMID | B | AID eats the head of Ministry | |
| 19 | Man in charge cooked plain taco (8) | CAPITANO | L | An anagram of PAIN TACO | |
| 20 | Break down sites in speech (4) | LYSE | E | Sits, lies, sounds like LYSE | |
| 23 | Incomprehensible inventions secure Cambridge uni lecturer term of funds (6) | LIMITLESS | LIMITS | LI(MIT L)ES S | |
| 25 | Jumped up old English duke supports Portugal stockpiling gold (6) | POGOED | G | PG (Portugal) + O E D keeps O for old | |
| 28 | Moore’s counterpart at the risk of censure (6) | LESSON | O | More’s counterpart is LESS ON, which if you squint equals “at the risk of censure”. Sort of. I think. | |
| 29 | Turin to hinder Catholic deserting last of devout faith (5) | CREED | I | A reversal of DEtER + C (Catholic) minus the T from devouT | |
| 30 | Runt half-heartedly planted olives here? (5) | GROVE | N | GRoOVE (rut) | |
| 33 | Eagle out of place in historic Italian city (4) | ELEA | G | An anagram of EALE | |
| 34 | First pairs of yeomen toiled for brute in the Highlands (4) | YETI | O | YEomen TIled | |
| 35 | Glasgow’s Jobcentre taken in between odious occupational openings (4) | BROO | N | R (take) in first letters from Between Odious Occupational |
That seemed festive fun enough to me, and I like Jane Austen, so no caveats here. A very merry Boxing Day to Check and Jon_S!
A certain sense of deja vu attended the realization that men had to be removed, just like the children taken by the Pied Piper two weeks ago: the first I spotted then was LEO in TELEOST, and the first this time was LEO in LEONINE.
Looking back, I see this is my third Check puzzle in this series. Like the first two, this one was quite tough. What caused the most headscratching, and took the most time, was solving the Across clues with their missing letters. I enjoyed the Downs more, with their extra letters.
The best part of the puzzle came when the grid was nearly full but without any of the five ‘other normal’ clues solved. I found where the quote came from, and its sequel gave me the hint I needed to solve those five clues with the men’s names in their answers but not in their entries. I enjoyed seeing my own name (ALAN) in the clue to (SEALANTS) – it was my last clue to solve! The symmetrical replacements of SANTA CLAUS and DECORATION with JANE AUSTEN and PERSUASION were very neat.
Thanks to Check and Jon_S.
Thanks Check and Jon_S.
LESSON (I suggest…)
More’s counterpart=LESS
At the risk of=ON (Chambers preposition entry no.22 in my mobile app).
Def: Censure (Chambers noun A severe reproof; transitive verb to rebuke)
Quite neat, the Christmasy then non-Christmasy theme, with Santa leaving and taking the decorations.
Thanks Check and Jon_S – I guess that the lack of comments is because others are all playing with their new toys or watching old films on TV.