16 Words by Nathan Panning
16 words have infiltrated some of the clues and must be removed before solving; their first letters spell out two names known for mentioning 16 on stage. The first of these names suggests a substitution that must be made to a number of other clues before solving. Two letters in the final grid must be changed and a quote from the second highlighted (6 words, 23 letters contained in 3 horizontal lines, including 16). 4ac is in the SOED.
The solving process started off quite slowly. I decide to try to concentrate on the words intersecting with 16a since all its letters are checked.
Eventually, of course, 16a weaselled its way through as WEASEL.
I found a few of the extra words difficult to find and there were the inevitable misfires along the way. And were we looking for two eight-letter words or seven and nine or five and eleven etc. I eventually tracked down the two words though the first one was mighty tricky. I did wonder if one was hiding in the acrosses and the other hidden in the downs, which actually turned out to be the case and when I saw HAM emerging I wondered if HAMLET might be putting in an appearance so I decided to take a chance and search for “hamlet weasel” and voila, I found this: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/11651-do-you-see-yonder-cloud-that-s-almost-in-shape-of, in which Hamlet himself says “Methinks it is like a weasel”. More on that later.
By this time I still had no idea who the other geezer was going to be. I had something like HOEGGA on the go so I wondered if we might be looking for an ancient Greek I’d never heard of. Eventually I had generated 12 extra words in the across clues and playing around with various combinations I came up with HEGELOCHUS, who, according to his Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hegelochus_(actor), made a big blunder on stage. Instead of saying, “after the storm I see again a calm sea”, he said, “after the storm I see again a weasel”. I think it’s lost a bit in the translation but it’s all explained on the Wikipedia page.
So a (unknown) number of clues have a word that can mean “calm” which has to be replaced by “weasel”. I think I have identified them below.
The last thing to do is find Hamlet’s quote. And by changing INOSITES to INKSITIS, we find “Methinks it is” (line 1), “like” (line 2) and “a weasel” in line 4.
Many thanks to Nathan Panning.
| Across | Entry | Extra | Wordplay |
| 1 Police hunt hard drug (4) | METH | HUNT |
MET (police)+Hard |
| 4 Biomolecules once transported ions across location (8) | INOSITES | SITE (location) inside IONS (anag: transported) | |
| 9 Festival that’s all-inclusive? Not half (4) | HOLI | HOLI[stic] (all-inclusive; minus second half) | |
| 10 “Slice of cake to eat” sells sugary stuff (6) | KETOSE | EAT | caKE TO SElls (hidden: slice of) |
| 11 Bring action against tenor getting fat (4) | SUET | SUE (bring action)+Tenor | |
| 13 Chelsea’s opening goal, with passion and a brilliant finish (4) | CIRÉ | GOAL |
C[helsea] (opening)+IRE (passion) |
| 14 Rattle principally was livid about instrument being sharp (3) | AWL | W[as] L[ivid] A[bout] (principally; anag: rattled) | |
| 16 See preamble (6) | WEASEL | ||
| 18 Greek infantryman charged vehicle section (6) | EVZONE | EV (charged vehicle)+ZONE (section) | |
| 19 Effervescent energy drink (6) | SPIRIT | EFFERVESCENT | (double def) |
| 22 Cob nut? (4) | LOAF | (double def) | |
| 23 She wrote On Revolution and re the origin of totalitarianism (6) | ARENDT | AND RE (anag: on revolution)+T[otalitarianism] (origin) “on revolution” is doing double-duty Hannah Arendt wrote On Revolution |
|
| 24 Unwilling to get into church habit (6) | CLOTHE | LOTH (unwilling) inside CE (church) | |
| 26 Top class maybe bristle (4) | SETA | SET A could be described as “top class” | |
| 27 Line through valleys where river flows rapidly (6) | DALLES | DALES (valleys) around Line | |
| 29 Winds, gentle, moving energy to east Sweden (6) 29 Winds, weasel, moving energy to east Sweden (6) |
SNAKES | SNEAK (weasel) with Energy moving east+Sweden | |
| 32 Mother and child love fruit (6) | DAMSON | LOVE |
DAM (mother)+SON (child) |
| 35 Vote for parts of Yellow Alliance ahead of Liberals (3) | YEA | A weird clue. Both yeLLow and aLLiance contain double L. Letters ahead of LL are YE and A | |
| 36 Loose article dropped by fan, concerning English outfielders (4) | FREE | OUTFIELDERS |
F[an] (minus AN: article)+RE (concerning)+English |
| 37 Withdrawing curette, afflict group of neural cells (4) | GLIA | CURETTE |
AIL (afflict)+Group of (as in G5, G7, etc) rev: withdrawing |
| 38 Nut bread we heaped on the counter (6) | CASHEW | HEAPED |
CASH (bread)+WE (rev: on the counter) |
| 39 Report: all the card players … (4) | NEWS | Bridge players are referred to as: North, East, West and South | |
| 40 … bellowed as Uncle Neddy wavered, exchanging spades for hearts (8) | HEE-HAWED | UNCLE |
[s]EE-[s]AWED (wavered) with Spades changed to Hearts |
| 41 New England-style feast putting out lamb sandwiches and pudding (4) | CAKE | SANDWICHES |
C[lamb]AKE (New England style feast) minus LAMB |
| Down | |||
| 1 Need Spanish fighter to leave corps for possible 1 Need Spanish fighter to leave corps for possible weasel (8) |
MUSTELID | MUST (need)+EL [c]ID (Spanish fighter; minus Corps) | |
| 2 2 Weasel voice quartet, arranged to avoid extremes for tenor (10) |
EQUIVOCATE | VOICE QUA[rt]ET (minus TenoR; anag: arranged) | |
| 3 Weirdly hate Titanic being honoured (4) | THEA | HONOURED |
HATE (anag: weirdly) |
| 4 India blasted ten-mile anticline to get ore (8) | ILMENITE | ANTICLINE |
India+TEN-MILE (anag: blasted) |
| 5 Pleasant afternoon going round a council venue (6) | NICAEA | NICE (pleasant) around Afternoon+A | |
| 6 Dry sherry regularly put out by European (4) | SERE | S[h]E[r]R[y] (regularly)+European | |
| 7 Oscar’s wearing little jumper (4) | TOAD | TAD (little) around Oscar (do toads jump) |
|
| 8 Serene expression hides good fortune, for some (4) 8 Weasel expression hides good fortune, for some (4) |
SELE | weaSEL Expression (hidden: hides) | |
| 10 X describes this machine – Musk’s ultimate spaceship! (4) | KISS | MACHINE |
[mus]K (ultimate)+ISS) (spaceship) International Space Station |
| 12 Double first from Trinity beginning to write of times long ago (7) | TWOFOLD | T[rinity] (first letter)+W[rite]+Of+OLD | |
| 15 Inverness’s unruffled striker divides Highland town (10) 15 Inverness’s weasel striker divides Highland town (10) |
WHITTERICK | HITTER (striker) inside WICK (Highland town) | |
| 17 Cool cat did a musical performance under a waterfall (7) 17 Weasel cat did a musical performance under a waterfall (7) |
LINSANG | LIN (waterfall)+SANG (did a musical performance) | |
| 20 Performer doing all the talking one day flagged (8) | PENNONED | PENN (performer doing all the talking)+ONE+Day Penn & Teller world famous magicians Teller (no first name) does not speak professionally and Penn Jillette does all the talking |
|
| 21 Is this drinks maker configured for a demitasse? (8) | TEASMADE | DEM[i]TAS[s]E (minus IS; anag: configured) | |
| 25 Ascetic Jew reduced loan, avoiding banks (6) | ESSENE | LOAN |
[l]ESSENE[d] (avoiding banks) |
| 28 Small gull – it could be called ‘halcyon coot’ (4) 28 Small gull – it could be called ‘weasel coot’ (4) |
SMEW | Small MEW (gull) | |
| 30 Way chestnut tree emerges (4) | WYCH | EMERGES |
WY (way as in street names)+CHestnut |
| 31 Calm at heart, relax (4) 31 Weasel at heart, relax (4) |
EASE | [w]EASE[l] (at heart) |
|
| 33 Quarter finals of FIFA tournament star Kane and Saka (4) | AREA | TOURNAMENT |
[fif]A [sta]R [kan]E [sak]A (last letters) |
| 34 Princess’s quiet shipping we disturbed (4) 34 Princess’s weasel shipping we disturbed (4) |
ELSA | [we]ASEL (minus WE; anag: disturbed) |
7d TOAD: Ken, you are right to query this; Chambers is explicit that toads walk or crawl instead of jumping like a frog.
And I think you need to strike through ‘peace’ & ‘composed’ in clues for 1d & 2d and substitute ‘weasel’.
All that aside, I quite enjoyed this. Thanks.
Much enjoyed after an initial period of deep bafflement — lots of thanks to Nathan Panning and kenmac. I remembered HAMLET’s weasel line but HEGELOCHUS was a hilarious revelation. So was the Penn & Teller clue, almost the last to fall here.
@1
Now the sad truth. I accidentally erased my whole blog yesterday around 1pm and had to do the whole thing again. I knew I’d end up missing something. I’ll fix it later.
A tough nut to crack seeing as we needed to solve a lot of clues to get to HEGELOCHUS, before we could replace words in other clues. I wasn’t sure for a while whether “16 words have infiltrated…” meant sixteen words or weasel words, but it turned out to be the former, which was helpful.
Overall a fun challenge so thank you both, including Ken for helping me understand 28a – I’d never heard of a weasel coot and it seems a strange thing to picture!
Much though I respect the authority of Chambers on cruciverbal matters, toads do jump, though perhaps hop would be a more accurate term; unlike frogs they use all four legs in the process, and frequently waddle (an encounter with a weasel might provoke such hopping). I took a while to work out what was going on here, but solved and parsed everything except the Penn and Teller reference, for which thanks to Ken. No visible reference to Pop Goes the Weasel, or to the Wind in the Willows, which are probably the best-known weasel references. An enjoyably off-the-wall puzzle; thanks to Nathan Penning.
A challenging puzzle with an original and well-executed theme. WEASEL appeared early on, but it led nowhere until I managed to fill the grid and get all the letters of HEGELOCHUS. It took more time to fully understand and parse all the Down clues, laden as they were with six extra words and ‘a number’ (six) of disguised references to ‘weasel’, and finally to find the quote from HAMLET.
I liked the innocent use of ’16’ to mean both ’16’ and ‘WEASEL’ in the preamble.
Thanks to Nathan Panning and kenmac.
Striking subjects, tricky and enjoyable journey, an endgame that didn’t require too much staring at squares: I thought this was very good; thanks to Nathan Panning and kenmac
Thanks for the kind comments everyone – I knew I had to share the Hegelochus story as soon as I heard it, and I’m glad that you enjoyed finding it out.
Thanks to kenmac for a very nice blog (especially given you had to do it twice!) and thanks to Hannah Arendt for picking book titles that fit wordplay so nicely.
Richard
(Nathan Panning / Lionheart)
A lot going on here, and a very satisfying route to Hamlet and his cloud, and of course poor old Hegelochus, who it was good to meet for the first time. 10/10 this week after a lot of hard thinking – thanks to Nathan for making it tough but fair.