All Shook Up by Henri – Nottingham S&B puzzle – 7 June 2025

Henri (aka Rob T) has kindly provided a puzzle for the enjoyment of attendees at the 2025 Nottingham S&B, although unfortunately he couldn’t be there himself, to receive the bouquets (or brickbats?!) from said attendees. For those who weren’t at the event, there is a copy <here> for you to download and solve before reading the blog, if you so wish…

A brief preamble states that:

“Every grid entry is an ANAGRAM of its clue’s answer. Numbers in regular brackets refer to grid entries; if the original answer is a different number of words to the grid entry, this is {noted per clue like so}.”

Sounds simple enough! Although it does mean there will be a lot of cold-solving at first, until a few crossing words are found – either likely anagrams to give actual crossers, or where crossing words only share a couple of letters, reducing the permutations for the crossing cells.

(I’m sure I must have seen/solved similar ‘all-anagrammed’ puzzles before, but not too often, and not in recent memory. I’m sure there will be people with better/longer memories than me who might point out a few in the comments below… Also the bloggers were given advance sight of the S&B puzzles – I haven’t written all this up on the train back from Nottingham, apart from adding a few finishing touches!)

This turned out to be a puzzle of four quarters (with a few stragglers) for your correspondent. In the bottom-right corner PURIST changing to a (4,2) had to be STIR UP, and USED CAR as a (7) was most likely CRUSADE, meaning GRUNTS would probably be STRUNG…and so on, until I had most of that quadrant except 31A.

After a bit of a break, I came back to this and hit a vein of form in the top right, with TSARINAS -> ARTISANS as the way in, and ROBINIA -> NAIROBI raising an appreciative eyebrow. Again, this quadrant filled up mostly, apart from 12A.

Then the top left – CHIT -> ITCH led to PACIEST -> ASEPTIC, and the two nine-letters starting with E – EVALUATED and EGOMANIAC.

There followed another break, as the bottom left proved a bit chewier, and other blogging and prize puzzle submissions took priority.

I got hung up on ROMANCE -> CAMERON, which meant LADEN might be LANED, but those led to a few dead ends and it took ENCLAVE -> VALENCE and INFLATOR -> FLATIRON to put me straight with MENORCA and ELAND.

In amongst the corners, the 10s and 4s across the middle rows provided the glue to pull things together, and I eventually got the stragglers – DEPOSITOR -> DROOPIEST and COSINESS -> CESSIONS, with the latter needing a look-up to check it was a real word!

And there we have it – the original answers are ALL SHOOK UP to give the final grid:

 

A couple of nice touches, in that the E of CURÉ is also accented in ÉCRU, at least in the French version, and the palindromic TOOT anagrams to another palindrome in OTTO (although I did initially pencil in PEEP as a palindromic blast on a horn…).

It’s a bouquet from me – although it turned out to be harder than I initially expected – and my thanks to Henri for an interesting and enjoyable challenge.

(In my opinion this wouldn’t have been out of place as a Grauniad Genius, or could maybe have found a slot in one of the various crossword magazines, either of which outcome might have earned Henri a fee, so I think it is worth once again expressing gratitude to him for submitting it to the S&B, which only pays out in kudos  – and maybe beers, for those setters who do attend!) 

 

Across
Clue No	Solution / Entry	Clue (definition underlined) Logic/parsing
1A	COME AGAIN / EGOMANIAC	What profit after business has money to repay regularly? {2 words} (9) CO (company, business) + M (economics, money, as in M0, M1) + E A (regular letters from ‘rEpAy’) + GAIN (profit)
6A	TUNAS / AUNTS	Sending back South America’s obsessive swimmers (5) SA (South America) + NUT (obsessive), all sent back to give TUNAS [Chambers gives ‘tuna’ and ‘tunas’ as plurals of ‘tuna’]
9A	PACIEST / ASEPTIC	Most rapid agreement about that is suspicious at first (7) PAC_T (agreement) around IE (id est, that is) + S (first letter of Suspicious)
10A	NITRATE / NATTIER	Gordon ultimately furious about introduction of table salt (7) N (ultimate letter of gordoN) + I_RATE (furious) around T (first letter, or introduction, of Table)
11A	HOUNDS / UNSHOD	Harasses more than one setter? (6) double defn – to HOUND is to harrass; and a setter, or dog, is a HOUND
12A	COSINESS / CESSIONS	Drop of sherry after functions providing comfort (8) COSINES (mathematical trigonometric functions) + S (first letter of, or a drop of, Sherry) [loi]
14A	STOW / TOWS	Place in sun to start to warm (4) S (sun) + TO + W (start to Warm)
15A	CONTINGENT / CONTENTING	Group of people in Africa, perhaps outside government (10) CONTIN_ENT (Africa, for example) around (outside of) G (government)
19A	REDEVELOPS / DEVELOPERS	Before cuts, socialist First Lady carries out urban regeneration (10) RED (socialist, left-leaning) + EVE (biblical first lady) + LOPS (cuts)
21A	CURÉ / ÉCRU	Parisian priest‘s dry food (4) double defn. (ignoring accent) – a CURÉ is a French priest; and to CURE can be to dry food [both CURÉ and ÉCRU have an accented E!]
24A	TOTALLED / ALLOTED	Kicked around thanks to Roller essentially being written off (8) TO_ED (kicked) around TA (thanks to) + LL (essence, or middle, of roLLer)
26A	GRUNTS / STRUNG	German manages to entertain first of the low-ranking soldiers (6) G (German) + RUN_S (manages) around (entertaining) T (first of The)
28A	ROMANCE / MENORCA	King’s church touring Arab nation is kind of novel (7) R (rex, king) + CE (Church of England) around (touring) OMAN (Arab nation)
29A	RETRACE / TERRACE	Go back over vintage style shortly before expert (7) RETR(O) (vintage style, short of one letter) + ACE (expert)
30A	RENTS / STERN	Lets rip at son (5) RENT (tear, rip) + S (son)
31A	DEPOSITOR / DROOPIEST	Bank customer’s departure, on vacation? Assume otherwise (9) DE (DeparturE, vacated, or middle letters removed) + POSIT (assume, logically/philosophically) + OR (otherwise)
Down
Clue No	Solution / Entry	Clue (definition underlined) Logic/parsing
1D	VALUE DATE / EVALUATED	Victor, having beer around university, departs – worried when financial obligations are due {2 words} (9) V (victor, phonetic alphabet) + AL_E (beer) around U (university), plus D (departs) + ATE (worried)
2D	AVOWERS / OVERSAW	They declare that hurts in States (7) AV_ERS (states, verbally) around OW (that hurt!)
3D	ATONIC / ACTION	From Genoa to Nice with no accent (6) hidden word in, i.e. from, ‘genoA TO NICe’
4D	CHIT / ITCH	Note from cleaners originally on strike (4) C (initial letter of Cleaners) + HIT (strike)
5D	OCEAN / CANOE	Main article supporting old church (5) O (old) + CE (Church of England, again) + AN (indefinite article)
6D	TSARINAS / ARTISANS	Tenor and soprano’s songs about northern empresses (8) T (tenor) + S (soprano) + ARI_AS (songs) around N (northern)
7D	ROBINIA / NAIROBI	Plant held back by chain I borrowed (7) reversed hidden word in, i.e. held back by, ‘chAIN I BORrowed’
8D	RISES / SIRES	Comes up with rubbish at first, is extremely egregious (5) R (Rubbish, at first) + IS + ES (extreme letters of EgregiouS)
13D	PROM / ROMP	Dance for money (4) PRO (for, in favour of) + M (money, economics, again)
16D	ROTE / TORE	For the time being, exposed repetition (4) (P)RO TE(M) – for the time being, exposed, with outer letters removed
17D	GESTURING / GRUNGIEST	Acknowledges Turin grudgingly to some extent, waving? (9) hidden word in, i.e. to some extent, ‘acknowledGES TURIN Grudgingly’
18D	INFLATOR / FLATIRON	Bike pump in apartment owner left empty (8) IN + FLAT (apartment) + OR (OwneR, emptied of middle letters)
20D	ENCLAVE / VALENCE	In Spain once, wanting nothing, welcoming somewhere to go in protected zone (7) E (Espana, Spain) + (O)NC_E (once, without, or wanting, O – zero, nothing) around (welcoming) LAV (lavatory, somewhere to ‘go’!)
22D	USED CAR / CRUSADE	Employer taking daughter about in secondhand vehicle {2 words} (7) USE_R (employer) around (taking) D (daughter) + CA (circa, about)
23D	PURIST / STIR UP	Pedant quietly starts to understand, ‘right’ is sometimes tactless {1 word} (4,2) P (piano, music, quietly) + URIST (first letters of, or starts to, ‘Understand Right Is Sometimes Tactless’
24D	MACES / ACMES	A second supporting member of clubs (5) M (member of, as in MP, Member of Parliament) above, or supported by, in a Down clue, ACE (A, symbol in cards) + S (second)
25D	LADEN / ELAND	Young man, nurse, is loaded (5) LAD (young man) + EN (Enrolled Nurse)
27D	TOOT / OTTO	Whichever way you look at it – it’s a blast! (4) CD? TOOT (blast) is a palindrome, so is TOOT whichever way you look at it! [As is OTTO!]