I thought that we hadn’t seen Charybdis for quite a while, but in fact he was here last September.
Preamble: Twenty-one clues contain an extra word. When made runny, their initial letters spell the title of an artwork. Four unclued grid entries must be deduced and then adjusted so that asterisked cells give a jumble of the artist’s surname. Solvers must then highlight a four-word depiction of the artwork’s foreground (19 cells, two doing double duty), and a further 4 cells providing compound interest for the artist’s uncle.
Hmm! A 12×14 grid, very asymmetrical, and 4 unclued entries with adjustments to be made. Must be quite some highlighting to come.
I felt that solving progress was neither fast nor slow – a little under half on the first time through. The rest mostly gave themselves up, with a bit of poking and prodding to convince myself that my answers were correct, such as 12a SECO, 14d LASE, and last of all 38a DOATED (DO-A-TED) – a touch mischievous?
Despite having located only 20 of the 21 extra words, I moved on to the unclued entries. MASCARPONE, ST.AGUR, plus RICOTTA interlinked with FETA weren’t all that hard to figure out, especially in light of the title Made Runny, giving us a clear indication of EDAM – a further cheese. I started on anagrams of those unclued cheeses, but gave up because it seemed like I was going nowhere … possibly because of the linked change to FETA & RICOTTA, which maybe I overlooked. Then I considered an anagram of the initial letters of the unclued words, but this seemed hopeless as there were nowhere near enough vowels. I scoured the clues for my missing extra word, then spent some time googling ‘artist + melted cheese’ but all I came up with was Camembert and Dalí’s Persistence of Memory, and a handful of others, all clearly wrong. Go to bed.
Whilst lying in bed the following morning, I had an idea. NOT extra words, first letters, then runny; BUT extra words, runny, then first letters. Checked the first few clues for anagrams of their extra words and things looked extremely hopeful! Got up, and before long I had A DREAM OF TOASTED CHEESE, a painting by Beatrix POTTER for her uncle, Henry Roscoe, to use on the front cover of a text-book on inorganic chemistry. (Replacing the four cheeses with their anagrams, we still had all real words – bravo Charybdis.) All that was left to do was to highlight the Bunsen burner plus stand, colour the flame, and wrap the mouse round the bottom. A brief pause (to sit back & admire, then reconsider the rubric … compound interest …), and, finally, find the ammonia (NH₃).
A really nice touch to have the ammonia above the burner. “Phew what a scorcher!” Thanks Charybdis, must be a contender for POTY.
| No. | Clue [extra word] | ‘Runny’ | Answer | Wordplay |
| Across | ||||
| 1 | Reported split in patriotic Greek [dances] (6) | Ascend | KLEPHT | homophone CLEFT (split) |
| 5 | ‘Superhuman’ Baron giving misleading impression runs away (6) | BIONIC | B(aron) IRONIC (giving misleading impression) ¬ R(uns) | |
| 9 | Tender in some places inside [issued] boneshaker (4) | Disuse | NESH | (bo)NESH(aker) |
| 10 | North America garners help for big birds (7) | NHANDUS | N(orth) US (America) around HANDS (help) | |
| 11 | East German force in command creating rigid structures (7) | OSSIFIC | OSSI (East German) F(orce) IN (in command) | |
| 12 | [Lures] further apart fish in water on vacation (5) | Rules | WIDER | IDE (fish) in W(ate)R |
| 13 | Creator of Matilda to ring only [gamine] child (6) | Enigma | BELLOC | BELL (ring) OC (only child) |
| 15 | Don’s dry place for silver with no date for removal (4) | SECO | SECOND (place for silver) ¬ ND (no date) | |
| 16 | Tenor [recital] to anoint work (4) | Article | TOIL | T(enor) OIL (anoint) |
| 17 | Losing heart cursed bowler might bear this [remark] (6) | Marker | HATFUL | HAT(e)FUL (cursed) |
| 20 | Bleep out [utopian] stateside cadet (5) | Opuntia | PLEBE | [BLEEP]* |
| 22 | Jag touring Cuba is a copy (6) | ECTYPE | E-TYPE (Jag{uar}) around C(uba) | |
| 26 | Two wild woody plants, one polled, with many palms? (8) | BRIAREAN | BRIAR (wild rosebush) (g)EAN (wild cherry) | |
| 27 | Gong for example – it leaves the soul with a luminance (6) | SPIRAL | SPIRIT (soul) ¬ IT A L(uminance) | |
| 29 | Irish lad’s pass with first in maths (4) | COLM | COL (pass) M(aths) | |
| 32 | Granted [brief] time in jail to be halved (4) | Fibre | SENT | SENT(ence) (time in jail) |
| 33 | [Roisterer] struck head in confined places – d’oh!! (4) | Terrorise | OOPS | (c)OOPS (confined places) |
| 34 | See rouge [voile] spread and posy dancer (6) | Olive | VOGUER | V (vide, see) [ROGUE]* |
| 35 | Once more for the poet a great deal from rep (4) | AGEN | AGENT (rep) ¬ T(ons) (a geat deal); or simply AGEN(t) (rep) |
|
| 36 | Make good break – snooker club initially deducted from points total (7) | RESTORE | REST (break) SCORE (points total) ¬ S(nooker)+C(lub) | |
| 37 | It could be Auden [mania] wasn’t in the end very moving (6) | Anima | WYSTAN | [WASN’T (ver)Y]* |
| 38 | Give online talk that’s loved fondly? (6) | DOATED | DO A TED (give online talk), ref: Technology, Entertainment, Design talks |
|
| Down | ||||
| 1 | Raising of that old defeat is difficult (6) | KNOTTY | YT (that, obs) TONK (defeat) all< | |
| 2 | The French cry over an island [coastline] (6) | Sectional | LESBOS | LES (the, Fr) SOB< (cry) |
| 3 | Annually request to grab [night] kip in a kilt (9) | Thing | PHILLABEG | PA (per annum, annually) BEG (request) around HILL (kip) |
| 4 | Clear the last of this old [regime] compound (5) | Émigré | THIOL | THI(s) OL(d) |
| 5 | Taxi pulled up with each drunk group revelling in wine? (7) | BACCHAE | CAB< (taxi) [EACH]* | |
| 6 | Lyric poet [vetoed] ‘substandard’ section of lampooner? (5) | Devote | ODIST | PARODIST (lampooner) ¬ PAR (‘substandard’) |
| 7 | [Speech] somewhat redundant turning up without clothes (4) | Cheeps | NUDE | (r)EDUN(dant) rev. |
| 8 | Consular agent’s function in King’s name perhaps? (6) | CAROLE | CA (consular agent) ROLE (function), ref: Carole K., American singer-songwriter |
|
| 12 | NE river and [thin] dam across it? (4) | Hint | WEAR | double definition |
| 14 | Told to take it easy and get DVDs working? (4) | LASE | homophone LAZE (take it easy) | |
| 18 | Lobbies for Yes, seeing right [seedily] shifting rightwards (6) | Eyelid | FOYERS | FOR YES with R moved later |
| 19 | Dead hunted animal found by rook and groom? (7) | CURRIER | CURRIE (hunted animal, obs) R(ook) | |
| 20 | The old Easter crush outside of clubs (5) | PASCH | PASH (crush) around C(lubs) | |
| 21 | Floors covering large area is what window-shoppers like (8) | ÉTALAGES | ÉTAGES (floors) around L(arge)+A(rea) | |
| 23 | Clean sweep over unlined edges in cloaks (7) | CAPOTES | CAPOT (clean sweep) E(dge)S | |
| 24 | Listened after mobilising called up [ingenus] (8) | Ensuing | ENLISTED | [LISTENED]* |
| 25 | Essential metaphysics has no name for a sensory organ specialism (7) | OTOLOGY | ONTOLOGY (essential metaphysics) ¬ N(ame) | |
| 26 | Rustic straw, half a sheaf (3) | BUN | BUN(dle) (sheaf) | |
| 28 | Maman shields papa under American electrical [waste] unit (6) | Sweat | AMPERE | MÈRE (maman) around P(apa) after A(merican) |
| 30 | Maybe Dracula’s heading off after [hearty] maiden to carry out (5) | Earthy | MOUNT | (c)OUNT (maybe Dracula) after M(aiden) |
| 31 | Wanting a meal, empty but not ill (5) | UNFED | UNILLFED (empty) ¬ ILL | |
| 32 | Ganesh raised limitless army of Indians (4) | SENA | (G)ANES(h) rev. | |
Brilliant if slightly bonkers puzzle and an impressively obscure theme. Plus all the extra words only had a single anagram, or close to. They must have taken a while to identify!
I made good progress with the exception of taking forever to find a cheese starting with “Stag”, though I almost gave up looking for the ‘compound interest’ – (“one step too far, dear setter”, he grumbled) – found it just in time, and brilliant it was.
And I never noticed Made Runny = Edam, love it that quite often you think you’ve solved a puzzle but yet another layer is revealed.
Wonderful stuff! Toasted cheese, I mean, but the puzzle was excellent too. All thanks to Charybdis and HolyGhost.
I somehow noticed the STAND, BUNSEN and FLAME (if one letter changed) and was quite pleased with myself to spot — eventually — NH3, which removed the lure of the tempting HAND that might be holding something over the burner. Didn’t expect much joy from the runny words, but as noted by arnold (@1) there was a pleasant lack of ambiguity in the anagrams and the key phrase was immediately visible despite a few missing letters. Then a search for the painting itself, showing where to locate the curly MOUSE, and a final wrestle with cheesy anagrams. Bravo, Charybdis!
It didn’t occur to me to highlight in multiple appropriate colours, though, and if that proves to be a requirement I will have MISERABLY FAILED after all.
I followed HolyGhost’s journey as far as sorting out the clues and the cheeses, noticing the bunsen stand, but not the incomplete flame; trying to anagrammatise a lot of unhelpful initial letters from extra words; sending google down various blind alleys about cheese in art; and then giving up and retiring to bed. Unfortunately inspiration did not then descend and the puzzle stayed where it was. Would it have made it too easy if the instructions had been just a little clearer on how we had to use the extra words, or had indicated that the rearranged cheeses would leave real words in the grid? I don’t mind failing to solve a set of extra anagrams; it’s a bit frustrating to be left unclear that this was the task ! But previous commenters managed it, so it’s probably irritation on my part at not being imaginative enough….It did look a very impressive solution, and a nice picture though. Thanks to HolyGhost in particular for all the enlightenment.
The picture is of a mouse with a red book so I was surprised to see the ‘stand’ featured but not the book!
Sagittarius @3, with hindsight I can totally see how ” When made runny, their initial letters ” is ambiguous – is it the words or the initial letters you make runny?
I defaulted to words (the “right answer”) but can totally see how you read it as letters and got stuck – just a bit of luck, I suppose.
I was lucky too; for some reason it never occurred to me to do anything other than find anagrams of the extra words and go from there. Very grateful there were so few options. I also, looking for the book, failed to see the stand (or the ammonia – I was looking for a different compound, having gone down a different mousehole). All the same, a real pleasure; thanks to Charybdis and HG.
This makes it two puzzles on the trot with what I thought at the time were unclear instructions. Just like the previous puzzle, though, solving the clues and filling the grid was a very satisfying endeavour, and I enjoyed very much the original ‘trick’ of extracting the first letter of the anagram of the surplus word in 21 of the clues. The artwork revealed by those letters was one I have never seen or heard of before, and it was interesting to read up about Beatrix, her uncle and the painting itself.
It was just a bit of a shame that I did not fully understand the thematic instructions, which I accept were clear enough. The four anagrams were amazing!
Thanks to Charybdis and HolyGhost.
Just wanting to add my praise for an excellent puzzle. So much of HolyGhost’s blog rang true, except that I probably took way longer to complete it. NH3 was the last bit to go in, and then I noticed that the formula for ammonia is there in the illustration.
Thank you both Charybdis and HolyGhost for this. It was memorable.
Thanks for the excellent blog and all the interesting and kind comments.
The Beatrix Potter picture appeared in my Facebook feed a while back and looked like a suitably obscure yet charming theme for a XW – especially for a cheese enthusiast!
I don’t think I’ll be repeating this particular ‘extra letter’ gimmick any time soon though. I was surprised how hard it was to find words that (mostly) had just one anagram beginning with a predetermined letter and with the extra word fitting reasonably unobtrusively into the clue’s surface reading.
Great puzzle – thoroughly enjoyed everything. Mind you, we spent ages looking for a ‘book’ before we noticed STAND.
Thanks to S&B.
David Langford @2: the multi-coloured highlighting (and the wavy font for the NH₃ – Blackadder ITC for what it’s worth) was a homage to Charybdis’s puzzle, and certainly not a requirement!
HolyGhost@11: … and your lettering for NH3 was a very nice touch too. 🙂
And Cillagoose@4 and Bertandjoyce@10: I’d already got an ‘SE’ doubling up as bunSEn and mouSE. To have also somehow superimposed the little book on top of that would have been a neat trick! But if I could have I would have! 😀
Slightly late to this but what a magnificent puzzle. The endgame took me longer than the grid fill as I was one of those who tried to jumble the initials of the extra words and the lack of vowels was driving me crazy until the penny dropped. Then the rest came nice and quickly. The NH3 part was the icing on the (cheese)cake! And now I’m hungry 🙂
Big thanks to Charybdis and HolyGhost.