Empty Handed by Check
Twenty-five clues contain a misprint in the definition. In clue order, corrections spell two instructions from one unclued entry to the other. Answers to 10 further clues must be thematically altered before entry per a third instruction. In the filled grid, solvers must highlight a target of this instruction (six cells). Numbers in brackets refer to unmodified answer lengths.
Quite a gentle puzzle this time round, which is a bit of a relief having spent considerable time wearing my admin hat fighting minor technical problems on the site. Mostly concerned with blog publication. Undaunted, I fought them on the beaches, I fought them on the landing grounds, I fought them in the fields and in the streets, I fought in the hills … OK, maybe I’m getting carried away. Or, perhaps, I should be carried away.
Erm… back to reality or, at least, the reality that is the world of The Inquisitor.
First thoughts: there are 25 misprints and 10 messed about clues. Hopefully there are only 35 clues to make things easier. Alas, there are 49 clues so a little bit of extra digging is required.
I started by identifying the clues whose answers weren’t going to fit and decided to leave them alone for the time being and concentrate on identifying the misprints. As always, some were fairly obvious where a word looked out of place but there were also quite a few sneaky little devils. Stiil, I think, in the end, I’ve identified them correctly.
I quite often ignore the puzzle’s title initially. Not deliberately but just because it often doesn’t make sense. However, in this case, I had a sneaking suspicion that it was to do with karate. As karate simply means empty hand.
Still, that knowledge didn’t really help until … the first shaded answer started to reveal itself as M _ _ A G _ and I suddenly thought back to the 1984 John G. Avildsen movie, The Karate Kid.
I actually watched the movie a few months ago just to refresh my memory. And I remembered that the martial arts instructor was called Mr Miyagi but since I didn’t actually know how to spell it, I consulted the IMDb.
The instructor is MIYAGI and the pupil is DANIEL, which fits in the other shaded entry.
The most famous quote from the movie is “wax on, wax off”, which comes from this snippet: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0087538/quotes/?item=qt0449953.
At this stage I wasn’t making too much sense of the misprints, especially since I thought PAW instead of PAD for 20a.
As for the thematic clues, I realised that we were doing “wax in, wax out” and it wasn’t too long before I’d identified most of them as per this table:
| Clue | Original | Entry | Wax | Link |
| 1a | WIN | WEAR THIN | EARTH | link |
| 6a | CLEAR OUT | CLOUT | EAR | link |
| 31a | ARIAN | PALMARIAN | PALM | link |
| 34a | ESSOYNE | ESNE | SOY | link |
| 41a | FREE | FREEBEES | BEES | link |
| 1d | CHAPEL | WHITECHAPEL | WHITE | link |
| 3d | REMONTANT | RET | MONTAN | link |
| 16d | BURN | CHINESE BURN | CHINESE | link |
| 23d | PEA GRAVEL | PEAL | GRAVE | link |
| 40d | SEALION | ION | SEAL | link |
Finally, to make sense of the misprinted letters, we have to look at this snippet of dialogue: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0087538/quotes/?item=qt0449969&ref_=ext_shr_lnk. Check seems to have used a bit of poetic licence here as Daniel’s tasks seem to include sanding the decks and not the floor. That aside, the misprints generated SAND THE FLOOR, PAINT THE FENCE and together with “Wash the car” means we have to highlight THE CAR in d3-i3.
So, that seems to be that. Job done. And ありがとうマスター to Check.
| Across | added/removed | correction | Wordplay |
| 1 Persuade drunk to cancel round (3) | WEAR THIN WIN |
WIN[o] (drunk) minus O (round) | |
| 6 Organised closure at section going empty (8, 2 words) | CLEAR OUT CLOUT |
CLO][s]URE minus Section (anag: organised) |
|
| 10 Detecst westbound alien chasing odd bits of hoax (4) | HATE | S |
H[o]A[x] (odd bits)+ET (alien; rev: westbound) |
| 11 Upper class occupying Dublin’s high riases (8) | UNBUILDS | A |
U (upper class) inside DUBLIN’S (anag: high) |
| 13 Group without backing takes on separate House of Commons case (5) | THECA | TEA[m] (group; minus last letter) around HC (house of commons; separated) | |
| 15 Supremacist stashing gear for raidn (3) | MAC | N |
supreMACist (hidden: stashing) |
| 17 Old favourite recalled accepting medium rate (5) | TEMPO | Old+PET (favourite) around Medium rev: recalled | |
| 19 Ed’s laid back air with no hint of remorse (4) | ETHE | ETHE[r] (air) mius R[emorse] (hint of) | |
| 20 Contents of pand magistrate cooked lacks touch of garlic (9) | METATARSI | D |
MA[g]ISTRATES (minus G[arlic] (touch of); anag: cooked) |
| 22 Renegade space vehicle dropping this small arm? (9, 2 words) | CAP SLEEVE | SPACE VE[hic]LE minus HIC (this) anag: renegade | |
| 24 Out of date ptickled starters of fish are inducing nausea (4) | FAIN | T |
F[ish] A][re] I[nduced] C[oma] (starters) |
| 26 Angler’s rear end submerged in deep crheek (5) | BRASS | H |
[angle]R (rear end) inside BASS (deep) |
| 28 Wone in the end, losing both ties initially (4) | ALAS | E |
A[t]LAS[t] (in the end; minus both Ts) |
| 29 Agreed to keep Uni very quiet whenever institute redevelops to suit trendy types (9) | YUPPIFIES | YES (agreed) around Uni PP (very quiet) IF (whenever) Institute | |
| 31 Heretic scholar I antagonise somewhat (5) | ARIAN PALMARIAN |
scholAR IANticipate hidden: somewhat | |
| 34 Excuse heartless exes playing nosey (7) | ESSOYNE ESNE |
E[xe]S (heartless)+NOSEY (anag: playing) |
|
| 35 Lad sabotaged foundation of education on the sfly (5) | AD-LIB | F |
LAD (anag: sabotaged)+IB (International Baccalaureate: foundation) |
| 37 Former head of ethology shunned zloo (3) | LAT | L |
LAT[e] (former) minus E[thology] (head of) |
| 39 Old couple in Sicily controls central faormer tribe (5) | ICENI | O |
I think it’s II (Roman 2) around CENtral but I’m not sure why “old” is in the clue |
| 41 Frank’s at large (4) | FREE FREEBEES |
(double def) | |
| 42 AOblation of soldier for hire getting amputated (4) | OMER | O |
Of+MERCenary (soldier for hire) |
| 43 Easred seal open to alter results you’d taken at the outset (5) | OTARY | R |
O[pen] T[o] A[lter] R[esults] Y[ou’d] (first letters) |
| 44 Prevent downfall with pastor boarding headcase (8) | BRAINPAN | BAN (prevent) around RAIN (downfall) and Pastor | |
| Down | |||
| 1 Non-conformist to parrot lecturer pursuing China (6) | CHAPEL WHITECHAPEL |
CHina after APE (to parrot) | |
| 2 Check-up raised following afternoon scrap (4) | ATOM | Afternoon+MOT (check; rev: raised) | |
| 3 United lost in tricky tournament, due a comeback this season? (9) | REMONTANT RET |
TO[u]RNAMENT (minus United) anag: tricky) | |
| 4 Call for setters to stop trying obnoxious homophone opportunities primarily (4) | TOHO | T[rying] O[bnoxious] H[omophone] O[pportunities] (primarily) | |
| 5 Sopur judgement called out (6) | INCITE | P |
Sounds like INSIGHT, which, I think, loosely means “judgement” |
| 6 More than one vicar’s waide reach almost ruined with topless bust (7) | CURATES | A |
REACH+[b]UST (topless) anag: ruined |
| 7 Phallic imagery Heather avoids at first (5) | LINGA | LING (heather)+A[voids] (at first) | |
| 8 Blaind salamander eaten by patrolmen (3) | OLM | I |
patrOLMen (hidden: eaten by) |
| 9 Regularly outdo ablest maynors in Orkney (5) | UDALS | N |
[o]U[t]D[o] A[b]L[e]S[t] (regularly) |
| 12 Ideal time to brew ctask (6) | DETAIL | T |
IDEAL+Time (anag: to brew) |
| 14 Man that’s ctop in Dubai always arrests Maltese on vacation (5) | EMEER | T |
E’ER (always) around M[altes]E (on vacation) |
| 16 Sting returns to annoy North (4) | BURN CHINESE BURN |
RUB (annoy; rev: returns)+North | |
| 18 Emergency collection of songs lifted casth of Evita? (5) | PESOS | H |
SOS (emergency)+EP (record: Extended Play) |
| 21 Projections of Bonde films air occasionally in retro style (4) | RAMI | E |
[f]I[l]M[s] A[i]R (occasionally; rev: on retro stryle) |
| 23 Stones ring to secure grams before all-night party (9, 2 words) | PEA GRAVEL PEAL |
PEAL (ring) around Grams+RAVE (all-night party) (a bit odd that the eventual answer is implied in the original answer) |
|
| 24 EFluted fraction in fluid edematous discharge to begin with (5) | FIFED | F |
F[raction] I[n] F[luid] E[dematous] D[ischarge] |
| 25 39 rallied around Queen giving rise to Easte (6) | IRENIC | E |
ICENI (the solution to 39a)+R (queen) anag: rallied around It’s quite unusual to have cross-references in these barred/themed puzzles |
| 26 Group touring east side of Tewkesbury alongside Avnon (7, 3 words) | BY AND BY | N |
BAND (group)+BY (alongside) containing [Tewkesbur]Y (east side) |
| 27 Chip from Celtic pass nearly rebounds (5) | SPALE | [e]LAPSE (pass; nearly; rev: rebounds) | |
| 30 Joiner’s projection involves civil engineer (6) | PIECER | PIER (projection) around CE (Civil Engineer | |
| 32 Recipe inspired by snack served up separately (5) | APART | TAPA (snack; rev: turned up) around Recipe | |
| 33 Creator exchanges one thousand for second astronomical device (5) | MASER | MA[k]ER (creator) with K (one thousand) replaced by Second | |
| 35 DCon titanium after tank’s losing armour (4) | ANTI | C |
[t]AN[k] (losing outer letters: armour)+TItanium |
| 36 Escape from New York third in Empire’s bash (4) | LAMP | LAM (escape; especially in America)+[em]P[ire] (third letter | |
| 38 Treke through remote Asia (3) | TEA | E |
remoTE Asia (hidden: through) |
| 40 Aliens at sea to abduct ordinary swimmer (7, 2 words) | SEALION ION |
ALIENS (anag: at sea) around Ordinary | |
1a is an ADD not a REMOVE
A fun puzzle overall (especially as I’m partial to the Theme), made easier by being given answer lengths.
The only minor quibble might be the final highlighting – I thought “THE CAR” was a bit underwhelming and possibly a case of the final instruction making the puzzle worse not better.
But otherwise lovely – thank you both.
Very much enjoyed after the initial phase of total bafflement: all thanks to Check and kenmac. I didn’t know the film at all but Googling for SAND THE FLOOR PAINT THE FENCE told me all I needed. IQ so often opens unexpected doors to new realms….
I don’t often fret about crossword aesthetics, being pathetically grateful if I can finish them at all, but I too thought that a different wordplay for 23d might have been neater than inserting the G+RAVE which is then thematically removed.
Another great crossword – a shame about the theme!
The first two ‘instructions’ were easy to get, and of course they enabled me to complete the silvered entries. The ten thematic clues were all solvable, and the ‘thematically altered’ answers were practically forced, but I never understood, found or worked out the ‘third instruction’ and had no idea what the ‘target’ looked like. I remember very little from the film, but, having seen Ken’s full explanation, I now remember ‘wax on, wax off’, but I would never have picked out THE CAR as significant.
I nevertheless appreciated the clues very much. I think it is becoming normal now for me to leave the theme unfinished!
Thanks to Check anyway, and to kenmac for the excellent blog.
I’ve just realised I didn’t include the grid. I’ll sort that soon.
As with DL@2, I knew nothing of the film or the catch phrase, and now feel I’ve broadened my mind a bit (which is a pseudo-justification for enjoyable time-wasting solving this sort of crossword. It all seemed fair enough to me (ie I solved it all, unlike quite a few recently), though I’d agree that an Ultimate Answer consisting of The Car feels rather flat. I’m impressed by kenmac’s knowledge of the meaning of “karate” – a reference I never saw – so thanks to him and to Check.
Arnold @1 oops. I’ll sort it when I get to a real computer. Too tricky to do on my phone
9.99/10 for me on this one, despite not knowing (or caring) anything about the theme. I found the grid fill a bit of a slog but nevertheless enjoyable and learnt the names of a few waxes. My slip was 33D; I took creator as the definition and thought of replacing the S in in SAKER with M, which is also a thousand. But why is Saker an astronomical device? An internet search found Leila Saker, an astronomer at Cordoba University in Argentina who studied distant objects with a new spectroscopic device, which I guessed was named after her. Oh well!
Thanks to Check for expanding my knowledge and to Kenmac for the blog and for explaining the title.
Is it just me or did Miyagi sound a tad like Spike Milligan?
I thoroughly enjoyed this one the penny dropped as it’s a favourite film from my formative years 🙂 though it did take me some time (and a third-party hint) to get THE CAR, which seemed to be an unnecessary add-on just to give the solver something to highlight.
Many thanks both!
Copsar @8. …..or as he once referred to himself, Spike Milligna, a well-known typing error. Looks like you may have found another one!
I was only vaguely aware of the film and only got it from the two instructions, which led me via the web to the two unclued entries. I flailed about for a while and hit upon THE CAR (after dismissing TEA PIE in the middle of the central column) then recalled something about waxing from my earlier search for the two instructions. Finally, I twigged the reasoning behind the thematic alterations. So after the grid-fill it was all rather backwards. Hope I’m not at the start of a bad solving run … Thanks anyway.