We see that this is KevGar’s eleventh Listener crossword. KevGar have been producing them since 2012.
We find fifty clues divided into ten sets of five with, in any order in each set, three normal clues, the answer to one of which will be entered jumbled, one clue with a letter misprinted in the definition and one with a letter omitted from the definition. The corrected and omitted letters will tell us what we must highlight. We are warned that five cells will each contain three letters. Misprints, omitted letters, jumbles and cells with three letters – quite a challenge!
With Fives as the title and ANNELIDS as the answer to the first clue, ‘Queen covers words (8)’ (we spot our first misprint – worMs) do we get a hint that we are going to find those childhood favourites The Famous Five to highlight. ‘Sent for car, risky covering kilometres (6)’ gives us DICEY over K, DICKEY, and another misprint seAt. ‘Girl forgetting name of type of calendar (5)’ gives us JULIA with N appearing in the jumbled PARENT below, and ORANGE and ORGEAT give us GEORGE. But where is TIMMY the dog? Ah! LIGETI gives us TI and we know we have to put three letters in that central cell so he could go there. But ‘Fives’ plural! Could there be another five?
Solving proceeds slowly since those jumbles mean that we can’t simply enter the answers we spot and many of KevGar’s well-crafted clues are pretty subtle but we soon work out that BORDERLINE has to have its first three letters in one cell, and ODIN follows – BORODIN. STRAVINSKY (Composer of tune involving five hit high (8) STRAIN around V + SKY) puts the SKY symmetrically opposite that BOR and soon we have RIMSKY KORSAKOV on our bottom row. Are we finding five RUSSIAN composers too? Time for co-solver Google and he tells me that the MIGHTY FIVE include BALAKIREV and CUI. ‘SCRIBAL’ will give us that BAL for Balakirev and MUSSORGSKY appears diagonally sharing the SKY with Stravinsky and Rimsky Korsakov, but CUI? He would have to go into that central cell. Dilemma: which five to highlight: famous or mighty?
I found the extra letters the toughest part of this solve but finally they gave MIGHTY MORE THAN FAMOUS so there we have it. We enter CUI and the mighty five – taking care not to include Stravinsky who didn’t make the cut.
KevGar long ago demonstrated their Oenophile qualities and there is no shortage of proof here: LIGETI – He compiled notes on staff jolly with last drop of ale on Treasure Island Initially (6)’ ‘Drink round then Go Off in a Caravan (6)’ ‘Drink nuts Are Together Again but not solvent again (6)’ (Ah yes, I forgot to mention all those italicised entries Have a Mystery to Solve, Go to Smuggler’s Top, Go Down to the Sea, etc. prompting us to The Famous Five). KevGar were thoroughly OILED (7d) Cheers! and thanks for such a rich and challenging compilation.