It seems we have a new setter here. We have something (or things) circling the perimeter and will find four words that will be removed from clues that will provide the unchecked letters. There are twenty-two of those so that final check will be quite a challenge. In addition there will be some kind of final thematic drawing of three items enclosing twenty-two other cells and twenty-nine clues that will have misprints whose corrected letters spell six words from a speech and its author. Yes, that leaves six clues where nothing will happen – that adds just a touch of difficulty to the solve, doesn’t it, as we’ll be looking for misprints INAPTLY, maybe in a clue like ‘Worked at inaptly being contrary (9)’ leading to ANTITYPAL.
Those four extra words, DECEMBER, HUNTER, PLOUGH and OR, were not too difficut to find. Nor was the proof that we can admit Degen to the elite Listener setters oenophiles, ‘Leguminous plant used in lager or stout (3)’, when we had removed that extra OR left us with ERS. Degen moved onto ‘Medium local single malt for some (3)’ giving us M + UN which actually gave us MUN, a local word for a man or malE, providing that E corrected misprint and not malt at all, but cheers, anyway, Degen.
BEVAN appeared fairly quickly from corrected misprints in five of the six final clues but what did he say? That took longer as some of the solutions in the upper half of the grid were unfamiliar words (NEMATIC/ AUTOPTIC?) that emerged from tough clues but a potential FISH and HADDOCK appeared in that perimeter and Google, of course, helped when THIS ISLAND IS MADE … seemed to be emerging from those corrected misprints. Google tells us ‘This island is made mainly of coal and surrounded by fish. Only an organizing genius could produce a shortage of coal and fish at the same time’. (speech at Blackpool, 24 May 1945) That explains the ‘Genius’ of the title (though we had wondered whether ‘fish’ was some sort of GENUS surrounding the I of Island).
The fish had to be found (hopefully there are no PORBEAGLES swimming round this island!) and slightly more difficult, the three thematic forms of coal ANTHRACITE, BITUMINOUS and LIGNITE creating ‘This island’ and giving a most pleasing final grid.
We enjoyed the inventive if sometimes tricky clueing (“you shouldn’t have” generating TA in 21a was a favourite), so thank you Degen, what a fine debut!
(This blog is provided by DASH (Chalicea and Vagans) as a joint continuation of those by the Vagans and the Numpties.)
I enjoyed this one and I’m in awe of a setter getting a recognisable map of GB into a 13×13 crossword as well as the surrounding coal and fishes. The grid fill must have been tough. I’d like to see the setter’s blog.
Superb final grid and a nicely balanced puzzle. I failed to identify all the fish due to time constraints but to me that bit was harder than finding the 3 types of coal.
Good fun, and gave me a chuckle when I found the quotation!
Seem to remember it took me longer than it should’ve to spot Bevan – think my subconscious was expecting a Y in there but that’s his first name…
And yes Tim C – excellent grid construction
Oh, and I fell for the “setter’s name in a clue” trick yet again -always seems to take me ages to spot these…
I thought this was a top class construction and puzzle. Chambers needed for an array of words new to me. I also enjoyed “You shouldn’t have”. Lovely PDM and endgame, beautifully encapsulating the quote. Bravo Degen! Many thanks to the Listener bloggers