I hope that many EV solvers were INSPIRED to attempt this puzzle from Skylark…
The (fairly convoluted!) preamble states that:
“A misprint in the wordplay part of 19 clues must be corrected before solving. Corrections in clue order hint at A, who appears in the initial grid. In one important aspect A was INSPIRED by B, who should replace A in the grid. An extra letter must be removed from each remaining clue before solving; in clue order these describe B and hint at what should be highlighted, involving 19 cells. Chambers Dictionary (2016) is recommended; 11 is in Collins.”
Got that? Clear as mud! It took a couple of re-reads to get my head around things…
Nothing to do but get on with solving and look out for those pesky misprints/extra letters. Each clue had to be looked at through two prisms – is there something that looks like a misprint? Or is there something that looks like an extra letter? Sometimes it might look like either could apply!
1A looked a bit too complicated, but 10A looked like a hidden word, with ‘comprehends’ as the indicator – and with a four-letter bird and EME involved, it probably had to be EMEU, in which case Brent could be a misprint of urent (which I wasn’t too familiar with, but a quick check confirmed it as a real word!) One misprint down, 18 more to go…
At 24A, a five-letter musical is often EVITA, and VITA could be vital, or essential, short. In which case the E must come from vide(o), with O as the extra letter.
And so on and so forth…with several picking-ups and putting-downs over the next few days, until gradually the grid began to fill, although trying to make head-or-tail out of the mixture of extra letters and misprints seemed some way off. I had been writing them next to their clues, with a circle round one type and a square round the other, but as my working copy became more and more scribbled on, it became harder and harder to distinguish the annotations, and I probably fitted a few round pegs into square holes, and vice versa!
It took a combination of a more methodical approach to the letters, and a bit of grid-staring, before some pennies began to drop. One set of letters seemed to start ‘MERRY O?? SO…’ and, after a lot of searching of diagonals I saw, there in plain sight in the centre column: ‘KING COLE’… Now, any fule nose that OLD KING COLE was a MERRY OLD SOUL. But instead, we seemed to have NAT KING COLE…which eventually made sense of the other letters: ‘UNFORGETTABLE’ SINGER.
A little e-research revealed that an early incarnation of his band was the ‘King Cole Swingsters’, ‘inspired’ by the ‘Old King Cole’ nursery rhyme, before they became the ‘King Cole Trio’.
So A must be NAT KING COLE, changing to B as OLD KING COLE, with VINA -> VIOL, DEAF -> DELF, and RETREAT -> RETREAD.
So far so good, but ‘close but no ceegar’ yet… The final set of letters turned out to be ‘TRIO HE WANTS’, referring to B. Continuing the rhyme, he ‘called for his FIDDLERS three‘.
I saw (Niccolo) PAGANINI almost immediately once I realised we were talking fiddlers, but I then spent an inordinate amount of time scouring the grid and cross-referencing lists of famous violinists – Stefan Grapelli?…Yehudi Menuhin? Maybe there was a violinist called MINGOZA (row 11) or DELFFRANC (row 4)? But nothing seemed to work.
Until at some point, when re-checking the Chambers definition of FIDDLE, I saw ‘to trifle with’. So 6D TRIFLER could be a ‘fiddler’ – and in the same section, was the fiddler CRAB, part of 9D:
Phew! To paraphrase Yogi Bear…this was ‘tougher than the average Skylark, boo-boo‘.
There were quite a few obscure/new (to me) words – SUBER, ACMITE, FANE, RUNNET, VINA to mention a few. I once went on a hose-riding holiday in Spain and the establishment was called ‘Epona‘, so it was interesting to learn that 35 EPONA was the Roman goddess protecting horses and other equids. And the general solving experience was fairly tough given the two devices we were having to consider.
But it was worth the hard work and the challenge to come to a satisfying conclusion, and to learn a few things about Nat King Cole and some famous violinists along the way!
My thanks, as ever, to Skylark, and I hope all is clear below – although my annotations and bolding/bracketing/underlining had my head spinning, so apologies for any errors or omissions…
| Across | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Clue No | Misprint/
Removed letter |
Solution / Entry | Clue (definition underlined, misprint/removed letter bold)
Logic/Parsing (misprint/removed letter bold in (b)rackets) |
|
| 1 | M | CONSERVATOIRE | Musical school master, initially repelling fracas inside, to keep safe (13)
CONSERV_E (keep safe) around A ((M)Aster, initially) + TOIR (riot, fracas, repelled) |
|
| 10 | U | EMEU | Bird theme Brent comprehends (4)
hidden word in, i.e. comprehended, or surrounded by, ‘thEME (B)Urent) |
|
| 11 | E | MICROLUX | Blend, accepting cute colour, scrubbing old measure of illuminance (8)
MI_X (blend) around (accepting) CROLU (subtractive anagram, i.e. cut(e), or drunk, of COL( |
|
| 12 | N | NUBBIN | Chuck, reject underdeveloped ear of corn in Iowa (6)
NUB (lump, chu(c)nk) + BIN (reject) |
|
| 13 | R | SILENE | Mum giving up timer for eastern plant (6)
SILEN( |
|
| 15 | R | DEAF / DELF | Inattentive adult cuts rate back (4)
F_ED ((r)ate) around (cut by) A (adult) gives FAED, all back to give DEAF |
|
| 17 | F | FRANC | European currency is fine, glowed Conservative (5)
F (fine) + RAN ((g)flowed) + C (Conservative) |
|
| 18 | Y | RETREAT / RETREAD | Mostly testy again, worry to retire (7)
RETR( |
|
| 21 | O | EARPICKS | Each pest entering stacks wax cleaners (8)
EA (each) + R_ICKS (hay stacks) around (entered by) P (pes(t)o) |
|
| 24 | O | EVITA | Musical video‘s ending shortly, essential (5)
E (end letter of vidE(O)) + VITA( |
|
| 25 | L | DARI | Grass starts to describe larks robbing individual (4)
initial letters, or starts, of ‘Describe (L)Arks Robbing Individual’ |
|
| 27 | D | RAMP | Wild garlic, raged (4)
double defn. – RAMP is a variation of ramson, or wild garlic; and to RAMP can be to rage(d) |
|
| 29 | R | PAGAN | Heathen‘s brought back sodium bleach (5)
NA (chemical symbol, sodium – originally Natrium) + GAP (b(l)reach – NAGAP, brought back to give PAGAN |
|
| 31 | S | INIMICAL | Hostile recalling small scar, I almost bawl (8)
INIM (mini, small (s)car, recalled) + I + CAL( |
|
| 33 | O | GALLATE | During festivity, Oliver at first unloaded table salt (7)
GAL_A (festivity) around L ((O)Liver, at first), plus TE (TablE, unloaded of its middle letters) |
|
| 35 | G | EPONA | Celtic goddess‘s power splitting vast axe before (5)
E_ON (vast a(x)ge) around (split by) P (power), plus A (ante, before) |
|
| 36 | U | ECCE | In ancient Rome, behold causes of erratic change (4)
outer letters, or ca(u)ses of ErratiC ChangE |
|
| 40 | L | AIMING | Malle’s avoiding disabling directing (6)
( |
|
| 41 | A | ZARAPE | Aragon blocks correct English riding blanket (6)
Z_AP (computing, correct a fault) around (blocked by) AR (ar(a)gon) + E (English) |
|
| 42 | E | DREVILLS | Ed’s foul people move in centre, stopping bores (8)
DR_ILLS (bores) around EV (centere of ‘m(O)EVe’ |
|
| 43 | N | INNS | Ant notices on vacation small hotels (4)
IN (a(n)t) + NS (NoticeS, vacated of its inner letters) |
|
| 44 | T | SENSELESSNESS | Defects covering novel lenses, singular foolishness (13)
SENSE_S (de(t)ects) around (covering) LESSNE (anag, i.e. novel, of LENSES), plus S (singular) |
|
| Across | ||||
| Clue No | Misprint/
Removed letter |
Solution / Entry | Clue (definition underlined, misprint/removed letter bold)
Logic/Parsing (misprint/removed letter bold in (b)rackets) |
|
| 1 | D | CENTRE SPREADS | Working Spencers traded nude photos in magazines? (13, two words)
anag, i.e. working, of SPENCERS TRADE(D) |
|
| 2 | T | NEBS | Morag’s bills just beneath overturned boxes (4)
hidden word in, i.e. overturned and boxed by, ‘juS(T) BENeath’ |
|
| 3 | R | SUBER | Puzzler‘s picked up cork (5)
REBUS (puzzle(r)) picked up to give SUBER |
|
| 4 | T | ELIDE | Suppress pop in borders of Europe (5)
E_E (bordering letters of EuropE) around LID ((p)top) |
|
| 5 | A | VINA / VIOL | Way to take heed of notable Indian string instrument (4)
VI_A (Latin, way/road) around (taking) N (he(e)ad or first letter of of Notable) |
|
| 6 | I | TRIFLER | Dessert ruins layabout (7)
TRIFLE (dessert) + R (ru(i)ns |
|
| 7 | B | ILEAC | Holly abruptly accepted carton, regarding part of the intestine (5)
ILE( |
|
| 8 | L | RUNNET | Free to capture means of curdling milk locally (6)
RUN (f(r)lee) + NET (capture) |
|
| 9 | O | EXECRABLENESS | Executive adept hiding front of orange cape’s detestability (13)
EXEC (executive) + ABLE (adept) around (hiding) R (front of (O)Range), plus NESS (headland, cape) |
|
| 14 | E | LEAD | Livid as heard heavy metal (4)
homophone, i.e. as heard – LED, as in liv(i)ed a life, can sound like LEAD, as in heavy metal |
|
| 16 | S | FASCIA | Briefly speedy American spied car’s instrument board (6)
FAS( |
|
| 19 | H | ACMITE | One chasing US University for compound (6)
AC_E (one) around (c(h)asing) MIT (Massachussetts Institute of Technology, US university) |
|
| 20 | I | AVAIL | Endlessly save pawn to be of use (5)
( |
|
| 22 | E | PRAY | Beg sire finally to invest in wages (4)
P_AY (wages) around (invested by) R (siR(E), finally) |
|
| 23 | N | KIN | Snubbed mature relatives (3)
KIN( |
|
| 26 | W | INSANIE | Will’s madness is cuckoo, breaking winches above earth (7)
INS ((w)inches) + ANI (cuckoo) + E (earth) |
|
| 28 | A | PATH | Tap Henry away (4)
PAT (tap) + H (Henry, SI unit) giving PATH,or (a)way |
|
| 30 | N | ASPIRE | Eagerly desire Persian dancing (6)
anag, i.e. dancing, of PERSIA(N) |
|
| 32 | G | WOMEN | Sian supporting Welsh girlfriends (5)
W (Welsh), on top of, or supported by, for a Down clue, OMEN (si(a)gn) |
|
| 34 | E | LEAPS | Jumps fast within circuits (5)
L_APS (circuits) around (f)east |
|
| 37 | T | COLE | Pass last of buffet‘s cabbage (4)
COL (pass) + E (last of buffE(t) |
|
| 38 | R | GRIN | Band in trap smile (4)
G_IN (trap) around R ((b)rand) |
|
| 39 | S | FANE | Devotee with top of Everton is sold flag (4)
FAN (devotee) + E (top letter of Everton) = FANE, archaic, or (s)old, flag/weathercock |
|