Dave Hennings’ crossword database tells us that this will be Vismut’s seventh Listener crossword. We see her compilations regularly in the IQ and EV series and in the Magpie.
We see that we are going to identify a single symbol that could represent part of the answer in seven clues. The wordplay will omit that part. ‘In six other clues’ entries the symbol must replace a thematic item in the answer’ – so we will be looking for a theme that will be shared by items in six clues. Extra words will appear in seven down clues: their first and third letters respectively will give us two words from a quotation, ‘the first missing the symbol’. We have to highlight the quotation’s author and ‘depict his end’ in the end game. Does this explain the title ‘Way to Go’ – eaten by a shark or maybe run over by a train? Nothing to do but solve.
Ah, there is one thing to do – confirm that Vismut retains her Listener setter oenophile status. Of course she does, ‘See nuts included in possible whisky party, good for best mate? (10, two words)’ An entertaining and relatively gentle Vismut clue as are so many in this compilation. We use SEE* in MALT DO + G(ood) and get MALTESE DOG. He’s surprisingly included in Chambers as ‘a very small spaniel with silky hair’. We raise glasses of malt. Cheers, Vismut!
One of the trickier of this set of excellent clues was 33a ‘Make good page on detail out of books (6)’. Generous crossing showed it had to be RECOUP but it took a while to parse that as RECOUNT (detail) – NT (out of books) + P. An amusing highlight was 17d ‘Potential soldiers going for a dip? (5)’ for TOAST which felt positively Araucarian with the “cryptic definition” taking the place of any other wordplay as far as we could see, but it might divide opinion.
There’s a speedy penny-drop moment when ‘Race winners have the shortest ones (5)’ TIMES – a clue with no wordplay at all, and ‘Gulf so far south (5)’ ABYSS, with wordplay for the AS S, suggest that X is that symbol. KISSable, sTENographer, looTEN, CHIrp and sCHIsts soon produce five more answers with X missing.
The second p.d.m. takes longer. Clues produce SHEET anchors, BEADledom (where the ?LEDOM fits into the grid), FORKEDnesses, red RIBBON, violin SPIDER and aryBALLoses (An ‘ancient Greek globular oil-flask with a neck’ Chambers says! A new one on me!) One half of the Dash blogging team was suffering with a cold and rather dim, and got stumped at this point and needed the quotation to see the link. Luckily it wasn’t too hard once the extra letters were read lefts first and rights second giving TAATION and TYRANNY from THERMOSTAT, AUTOMATICALLY, AUCTIONEER, TIJUANA, ITALIAN, ON and NOISY. That useful co-solver Google tells us that it was one James OTIS Jr. (not the lift man) who said “TaXation without representation is TYRANNY”. There he is, standing in a DOORWAY being struck by lightning – so all that is left to do is join those symbols and draw the doorway and highlight poor OTIS. What a ‘Way to Go’. Thank you Vismut.
The Xs are highlighted here but, of course, we were not required to do that.