And we’re off, with a stonker of a puzzle from new setter Bell (well, a new partnership anyway) – this is the work of top practitioners, presumably communicating by Bell Codes. And yes, it does have a railway theme, even if your blogger only spotted it at the end.
The preamble was concise but packed with instructions, so needed careful study. Five clues were going to be fully normal, and together anagram to a “thematic slogan (3,2,3,2,6)” to write below the grid. Of the rest, 18 have a word in the clue affected by one of three gimmicks (6 of each) to be applied before solving, and 21 have the same gimmicks applied to the answer before entry (7 of each). All splendidly organised!
A search for a suitable slogan straight off proved fruitless and we could see nothing to give the game away, so it was on to the solving. The presence of two setters was just discernible in the clues, with a few very straightforward ones like
31d “Wear out old apparel (4) [TIRE: double definition]”
4a “Awareness programme is French (3): [EST; double definition]
8a “Aunt residing in Santiago (3) [TIA: hidden]
and rather more fiendish ones leading us even deeper into Chambers like
28d “Ten baths in a new socio-economic classification (5)” [(A N round COR)], where we remembered HOMER but not COR as the equivalent of 10 baths, and had never heard of ACORN as “a classification of residential neighbourhoods” – and of course the entry NARCO was an anagram so the crossing letters were no use at all.
The multiplicity of possible gimmicks, though, made all the clues pretty tough going, and produced a good coherent set in which the setters’ contributions were well blended. The Clue of the Week prize goes to 25a “Potter at Balmoral created a kerfuffle to some extent (6)”. Mrs Bradford identified the potter as a DAKER, hidden in the clues, but who would have thought that DUYKER was its homonym.
Eventually, the grid was full, and it was clear that the 3 gimmicks were
- adding a C to a word
- replacing a word by a homophone
- replacing a word by an anagram
So where did that leave us as to the theme? The five extra words gave us the letters
TIA EST TIRE YES DSO
SEE was almost certainly going to be one of the words, and IT was looking promising, and after a sufficiency of the Wine Society’s very drinkable French Pinot Noir the letters swirled into shape as SEE IT. SAY IT. SORTED – the British Transport slogan for its security campaign. a challenge for anyone outside the UK but perhaps the justification for another glass (and Bell joins our Oenophile Club with the dangerously appropriate “Division in church is involved in drink” as well as a spot of Vermouth). And now at last the title made sense, turning into CALL FOR CARE when the three gimmicks were applied to it.
All in all a super puzzle which rang our bell, and will we hope be the harbinger of many more.
I was absent from the UK for many years, which years encompassed this advertising slogan. So I had never heard it before! But I managed to get as far as SEE IT SAY IT, and then google did the rest. A nice challenge!