I hope this last blog (for me) of 2024 finds you in GOOD HEALTH…
The preamble states that:
“Answers to seven down and seven across clues have an extra letter given by wordplay, which should be inserted in the top row. Letters from down clues go to the top of the column of the entry, and those from across clues go where they fit to reveal a phenomenon (three words). Corrections to misprints in the wordplay part of all other clues spell a product and an instruction that produces a precursor and helps reveal two hidden thematic words that intersect it (23 cells in total, to be highlighted), one being an example of GOOD HEALTH. The final grid contains all real words and phrases, and Chambers Dictionary (2016) is recommended.”
Pretty complex, and requiring a couple of re-reads! Every clue affected, either by an extra letter or a misprint, and a blank row to fill in before some instructions and hidden words.
I dived into some solving, which was made harder by effectively having to consider each clue twice, with one eye on a possible extra letter, and one on a possible misprint! Progress was made, but slowly. I annotated corrections next to their clues with circles, and any extra letters with diamonds around them, and the extra letters from Down clues could also go straight into the top row.
Unfortunately I mis-parsed 2D at first, with the extra letter as the T from MEAT, so the top row seemed to start ?T??… with …EL… in the middle and …RE at the end, and I spent a while trying to find variations of ST ELMO’S FIRE as the phenomenon.
I was steered back onto the right path by the corrections looking like they started with USQUEBAUGH, or whiskey, which helped with the ‘GOOD HEALTH’ of the title – are we heading for a toast of some sort?
And I gradually wheedled out the rest of the instruction – EDIT EIGHTH ROW’S ENTRIES – and the top row – THE ANGELS’ SHARE.
So the top row represents the whiskey lost to the angels, or more scientifically due to evaporation, during the distillation process. And BEDLAM ELYTRA in the eighth row resolves to MALTED BARLEY, the precursor to said distillation, neatly leaving real words in all cases – and revealing the two thematic words: SINGLE (malt) and SLAINTE – ‘good health’!
(NB. I have noticed I missed a bar in the grid, at the end of STENOTYPE – sorry, but I don’t have the bandwidth to re-do the animation!)
What is not to like about an EV involving alcohol? I certainly needed a dram of whiskey at the end of it! I thought this was pretty difficult to crack, although I didn’t help myself with that mis-parsing of 2D and a few slip-ups elsewhere. There weren’t (m)any obscure words – CHANTEY was new to me, as was ASCITICAL.
My thanks and a healthy ‘Cheers!’ to Karla for this mind-stretching challenge, and I trust all is clear below.
[And I’ll wish you all a Merry Festive/holiday period, of whatever denomination you choose to give credence to, and all the best for the New Cruciverbal Year…]
| Across | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Clue No | Correction
/ Extra letter |
Solution / Entry | Clue (definition underlined, misprint in bold)
Logic/Parsing (extra letter in bold/correction in bold) |
|
| 1 | U | MELA | Festival relative staffed with the Spanish (4)
M_A (mother, relative) around (stuffed by) EL (the, Spanish) |
|
| 5 | S | CARCASSSES | Wheels caught cloth frameworks (9)
CAR (wheels) + C (caught, cricket notation) + ASSES (clots) |
|
| 13 | Q | IN A WAY | Tattoo mark king suits at a distance, to some extent (6, three words)
IN(K) (tattoo mark, without K – king quits) + A_WAY (at a distance) |
|
| 14 | A | ILIAC | Two nursing note exposed back of wide bone (5)
I_I (II, two, in Roman numerals) around (nursing) L(A) (note, in sol-fa notation), plus (B)AC(K) (back, exposed, or with outer letters removed) |
|
| 16 | U | ASCITICAL | Air staff decisive with absence of Ron that’s related to dropsy (9)
A (Air Staff) + C( |
|
| 17 | S | IMITABLE | Email bits in pieces readily copied (8)
anag, i.e. in pieces, of EMAIL BIT(S) |
|
| 18 | E | MIASM | Vapours returned and emptied schoolroom (5)
MIA (end, returned) + SM (emptied SchoolrooM) |
|
| 19 | B | NODULE | Noodle hacked by the Parisian lump (6)
NODU (udon, or noodle, backed) + LE (the, in French, so Parisian) |
|
| 21 | A | TANNED | Perth yob chasing Bert Brown (6)
TAN (beat) plus (chased by) NED (hooligan or yob, chiefly Scottish, so from Perth) |
|
| 23 | G | ALGA | Local lass close to eating a seaweed (4)
(G)AL (dialect, or local, for girl, or lass) + G (end of, or close to, eatinG) + A |
|
| 24 | U | KNIFED | Stuck knight on island with OS investigator (6)
KN (king’s knight, chess notation) + I (island) + FED (federal agent, US investigator) |
|
| 26 | E | THAR | Goat tense in front of buck? (4)
T (tense) + HAR(E) (buck, male hare) [the thar, or serow, a Himalayan goat like an antelope – not to be confused with tahr, or tehr, a beardless Himalayan goat!] |
|
| 29 | G | BEDLAM / MALTED | Erin limiting Deputy Lieutenant’s chaos (6)
BE_AM (grin) around (limiting) DL (Deputy Lieutenant) |
|
| 32 | H | ELYTRA / BARLEY | Spot tear across sides of lacy wings (6)
E_TRA (anag, i.e. shot, of TEAR) around (across) LY (sides, or outer letters, of LacY) |
|
| 34 | T | SPEAK | Talk softly within small wood (5)
S (small) (T)_EAK (wood) around P (piano, music, softly) |
|
| 36 | E | DISAPPLY | Invalidate papers backing daft parson given fold (8)
DI (id, identity papers, backing) + SAP (daft person) + PLY (fold) |
|
| 37 | D | STENOTYPE | Court recorder‘s gun over by motel (9)
STEN (gun) + O (over, cricket notation) + TYPE (model) [phonetic shorthand typewriter, used by clerks in court to record proceedings] |
|
| 38 | S | POSER | “Gang beside river”: tricky clue? (5)
POS(S)E (gang) + R (river) |
|
| 39 | I | RENEGE | Welder perhaps regressing among class that’s Welsh (6)
R_E (Religious Education, school class/subject) around ENEG (Gene, for example Gene Wilder, regressing) [misleading capitalisation, welsh – to renege on an obligation] |
|
| 40 | T | HASSIDISM | How tsars essentially dismiss reforming Jewish doctrine (9)
H (hot) + A (essence, or centre, of tsArs) + SSIDISM (anag, i.e. reforming, of DISMISS) |
|
| 41 | A | ADEN | Port city rule changed for director in stadium (4)
A( |
|
| Down | ||||
| Clue No | Correction
/ Extra letter |
Solution / Entry | Clue (definition underlined, misprint in bold)
Logic/Parsing (extra letter in bold/correction in bold) |
|
| 1 | E | MINICAB / MINICAM | Cummings maybe leaving party with shaman’s ride? (7)
( |
|
| 2 | H | ENAMEL | Paint erected shelter protecting new meat (6)
E_EL (lee, shelter, erected) around (protecting) N (new) + (H)AM (meat) |
|
| 3 | I | LASING | Large salver spanning sink briefly used as a light amplifier? (6)
L (large) + A_G (argentum, silver) around (spanning) SIN( |
|
| 4 | G | NAIAD | Maybe Euboea and Diana marbled (5)
anag, i.e. garbled, of DIANA [Wikipedia – Euboea, one of the Argive naiad daughters of the river-god Asterion] |
|
| 6 | H | ARILLI | Heavyweight clamp holds borer that’s unsheathed seed coverings (6)
A_LI (Muhammad Ali, heavyweight champ) around (holding) (D)RIL(L) (borer, unsheathed, with outer letters removed) |
|
| 7 | L | RACE | Clear muddy drive quickly? (4)
anag, i.e. muddy, of C(L)EAR |
|
| 8 | T | CHANTEY / CHANTER | Jack’s song from sea books the old recalled (7)
CHA (tea) + NT (New Testament, books) + EY (ye, archaic, or old, for ‘the’, recalled) [variation of the more familiar ‘shanty’] |
|
| 9 | H | AIL | Article followed infidel’s indisposition (3)
A (indefinite article) + IL (InfideL, hollowed out) |
|
| 10 | H | SLAIN | Some beef about boy almost killed for Byron (5)
S(H)_IN (some beef) around LA( [Chambers has slay/slain as lierary/archaic, hence ‘for Byron’] |
|
| 11 | R | EATS | Puts away chain after cycling (4)
(S)EAT (chair) cycling the first letter to last = EATS |
|
| 12 | E | SCAM | Clubs in the aforesaid swindle (4)
S_AM(E) (the aforesaid) around C (clubs, cards) |
|
| 15 | O | IRAN | Same revolutionary in arid country (4)
reversed hidden word, i.e. ‘some of’ and ‘revolutionary’, in ‘iN ARId’ |
|
| 20 | W | UNMATED / UNDATED | Single nude asked to adorn rug (7)
UN_ED (anag, i.e. askew, of NUDE) around (adorning) MAT (rug) |
|
| 22 | S | DRAYMEN | Waggoners climbing 3 feet with whips (7)
DRAY (yard, three feet, climbing) + MEN (ships) |
|
| 25 | E | FLINTS / FAINTS | Minerals in loft at home inside pink papers (6)
F_TS (Financial Times, the pink paper, plural) around L (left) + IN (at home) |
|
| 27 | N | HAPPED / HYPPED | Content editor hasn’t yet chanced (6)
HAPP( |
|
| 28 | R | ALLEGE | Regale lecturer about quote in discussion (6)
anag, i.e. about, of (R)EGALE + L (lecturer) |
|
| 30 | T | DEES / LEES | Dane sent up clock and letters (4)
D (date) + EES (see, or clock, sent up) [the letter D (dee), plural)] |
|
| 31 | R | LACES / TACES | Intermingles phos with lime primarily (5)
L (Lime, primarily) + ACES (pros, experts) |
|
| 33 | I | TATER / LATER | Vegetable sample wanting shelling (5)
TA( |
|
| 34 | E | SOPH | Vary two-thirds of doctorate for LA student (4)
SO (very) + PH( [American, hence Los Angeles – sophomore, or second-year student] |
|
| 35 | S | PROA | Old man marking twisted gold vessel (4)
P_A (pa, father, old man) around (masking) RO (or, heraldic for gold, twisted round) |
|
| 36 | E | DELI | Store that is at end of key (4)
DEL (delete key, on computer keyboards) + I(E) (id est, that is) |
|
| 37 | N | SRI | Registered nurse with international title in India (3)
SR(N) (State Registered Nurse) + I (India, I, phonetic alphabet) |
|
thanks K and Mc! The parsing for 1d escaped me — didn’t know about Dominic Cummings (shame on me?), couldn’t get ee cummings out of my mind (the misprint was clear).
Incidentally, ASCITE cropped up in a recent Listener (ref 16d ascitical) which I sort of remembered while solving
SLAINTE is clearly one of the two hidden thematic words. However a case could easily be made for either SINGLE or FAINTS being the other. A minor blemish in a tricky and enjoyable puzzle.