Your Move by Ploy
To solve each across clue, remove a letter from a word and rearrange its remaining letters; removed letters give a tag line missing its last word. Some words in clues have been affected like this last word, and must be corrected to enable solving. Four extra words in down clues can give a thematic phrase. The completed grid illustrates an encounter between two fictional characters (5 cells each). One of them is shown in two successive positions, but must be removed from both. His inevitable reappearance must be shown by changing three adjacent letters in a grid entry defining the process he’s undergone. At all times, all grid entries (ignoring spaces) are real words. The name of the work of fiction (9 letters) must be written below the grid.
Phew! I hesitate to use the word struggle but this was certainly no walk in the park.
I started by trying to solve some across clues and I got absolutely nowhere. Then (and I don’t know why it took me so long) I started on the down clues. The down clues were much more forgiving. I didn’t get them all by any means but it gave me quite a few crossers to allow me to take a punt at some of the acrosses. Having said that, I still found a lot of the wordplay to be tricky.
Eventually I had a full grid apart from the first letter of 20a. After consultations I settled on the answer below. I believe it to be correct but I still can’t fully justify it to myself.
Anyway, on to the rest of the puzzle. The extra letters generated by the across clues spell out WHERE NOTHING CAN POSSIBLY GO. A cursory internet search showed me that the final word must be WRONG. A further search for the whole phrase led me down a rabbit hole. It seems that in The Simpsons, there is an episode (series 6 episode 4) titled Itchy & Scratchy Land. In that episode, as they approach the park, the helicopter pilot says:
“We are now approaching our final destination, Itchy and Scratchy Land. The amusement park of the future where nothing can ‘possa-bly] go wrong. Uh, possibly go wrong. That’s the first thing that’s ever gone wrong.”
I don’t know a tremendous amount about The Simpsons but I am aware of Itchy & Scratchy so I thought that I needed to find them in the grid.
Well, I was wrong. For a start, although Itchy is 5 letters, Scratchy certainly isn’t. Then, when I looked at the synopsis on IMDb, I read this, “A family vacation to Itchy & Scratchy Land turns disastrous when the robots malfunction and turn on the tourists.” That made me think of a movie I’ve seen a few times, now what was it called? Aha! It’s Westworld. Another trip to IMDb revealed that our phrase was used as the tagline for that film. And you can hear it sp-sp-spoken in the trailer: https://www.imdb.com/video/vi2605037593/?playlistId=tt0070909. In cae you’ve never seen it I won’t spoil it but suffice to say, things do go horribly worng!
The misspelling of the last word explains why there are some misprints and I didn’t realise until writing this that they are all 5-letters long and have their second and third letters swapped. It’s quite late on Monday night so I’m not going to be able to weed them all out but I have managed to identify some of them bleow.
On to the end game, I stared at the grid for ages and all it did was stare back. I had to call in elmac, who’s no longer elmac since she became an O’Donoghue earlier this year. She managed to find two occurrences of ROBOT in the bottom right of the grid. After that I found REFIT at the top of the grid. So it seems we have to remove two ROBOTs and replace another one after a REFIT.
Finally, we have to write WESTWORLD (9 letters) below the grid.
In the table, I’ve presented the across clues twice to show the word that needs to be altered.
Finally, I never really got a handle on the four extra words in the down clues. I’ve tried to identify them but I’ve found five and they don’t make any sense to me. I’m sure that you’ll be able to help me out in with your comments.
A bit of a struggle but I got most of the way through. Many thanks to Ploy for the workout. Phew, again!
B
| Across | Extra |
Entry |
Wordplay |
||
| 1 Crumbs! Scots supply privateers’ whips (7) 1 Crumbs! Scots supply privateers’ ship (7) |
W |
CORSAIR | COR (crumbs)+SAIR (supply: Scottish) | ||
| 6 Hilt, outwardly suitable, mentioned before (6) 6 Til, outwardly suitable, mentioned before (6) |
H |
SESAME | S[uitabl]E (outwardly)+SAME (mentioned before) | ||
| 10 Teasel, for instance, as goes around North Island (4) 10 Tesla, for instance, as goes around North Island (4) |
E |
UNIT | UT (as) around North Island | ||
| 11 Expert fit to embrace Pedro on vacation (5) 11 Expert fit to embrace dope on vacation (5) |
R |
ADEPT | APT (fit) around D[op]E | ||
| 13 Remote, needless expedition (4) 13 Remote, endless expedition (4) |
E |
AFAR | [s]AFAR[i] (endless) | ||
| 14 Clarinet repulsed Eva, a young ewe (for some prats) (6) 14 Article repulsed Eva, a young ewe (for some prats) (6) |
N |
THEAVE | THE (article)+AVE (rev: repulsed) | ||
| 16 N. African sargos dominant in group, reportedly (4) 16 N. African grass dominant in group, reportedly (4) |
O |
ALFA | Sounds like ALPHA (dominant in group) | ||
| 18 Clergymen shunning independent, gated monasteries (8) 18 Clergymen shunning independent, aged monasteries (8) |
T |
MINSTERS | MIN[i]STERS (clergymen) minus Independent | ||
| 19 Defenders polish cave toads (9) 19 Defenders spoil cave toads (9) |
H |
ADVOCATES | CAVE TOADS (anag: spoil) | ||
| 20 Quietly mimic Moravian priest in Greek airship (4) 20 Quietly mimic Moravian priest in Greek parish (4) |
I |
PAPE | P (quietly)+APE (mimic) | ||
| 22 Boil fluid in pruned tree with nether broad branches (7) 22 Boil fluid in pruned tree with three broad branches (7) |
N |
TRILOBE | TRE[e] (pruned) around BOIL (anag: fluid) | ||
| 25 Deep fired, snags crusts – weird! (5) 25 Deep fried, sans crusts – weird! (5) |
G |
EERIE | [d]EE[p]+[f]RIE[d] (sans crusts; without outsides) | ||
| 27 Ignoring nut, curiously extensive chaste secret (7) 27 Ignoring nut, curiously extensive chaste trees (7) |
C |
VITEXES | EXT[en]SIVE minus EN (nut) anag: curiously | ||
| 28 Lowly worker and others forgetting alien (3) 28 Lowly worker and others forgetting line (3) |
A |
ETA | ET A[l] (and others) minus Line | ||
| 30 Satin in Glasgow seat’s surrounding martens (4) 30 Stain in Glasgow seat’s surrounding master (4) |
N |
SMIT | SIT (sit) around Master | ||
| 32 Some children terrifying one who slept out (6) 32 Some children terrifying one who lets out (6) |
P |
RENTER | childREN TERrifying (hidden: some) | ||
| 34 Either pot prepared shoddier mineral (9) 34 Either pot prepared reddish mineral (9) |
O |
TEPHORITE | EITHER POT (anag: prepared) | ||
| 35 Substantive number solve one regionally (4) 35 Substantive number love one regionally (4) |
S |
NOUN | Number+O (love)+UN (one regionally) I’m not 100% sure of this one as I can’t really make substantive mean noun |
||
| 37 Brad’s to agree about dashes (5) 37 Bard’s to agree about shade (5) |
S |
ATONE | About+TONE (shade) | ||
| 39 Angriest B movie’s expressing victory – a specialism of 30ac? (5) 39 Strange B movie’s expressing victory – a specialism of 30ac? (5) |
I |
BIOME | B MO[v]IE (minus Victory; anag: strange) | ||
| 41 Barely supports for ruffs: rees about to flutter over (8) 41 Early supports for ruffs: rees about to flutter over (8) |
B |
REBATOES | REES around BAT (to flutter)+Over | ||
| 42 Rail staff to have stipend of yore beside former coins (5) 42 Rail staff to have stipend of yore beside former coins (5) |
L |
ANNAS | ANN (old stipend)+AS (air staff) | ||
| 43 Fighting with Oscar as army’s delayer, failing from loss of nerve (8) 43 Fighting with Oscar as army’s leader, failing from loss of nerve (8) |
Y |
BOTTLING | B[a]TTLING (fighting) with Oscar replacing Army (leader) | ||
| 44 Bus shelters restyled, binning the targeted carpet (8) 44 Bus shelters restyled, binning the treated carpet (8) |
G |
BRUSSELS | BUS S[he]L[t]ERS (minus letters of THE) anag: restyled | ||
| 45 Short Gael who made copies in prose, or in music? (5) 45 Short Gael who made epics in prose, or in music? (5) |
O |
OSSIA | OSSIA[n] (Gael; short) | ||
| Down | |||||
| 1 Irish barman getting your Tango in at a reduced price (7) | CUT-RATE | CURATE (Irish barman) containing Tango | |||
| 2 What is thong part of? Dearie me! (4) | RIEM | deaRI EMe (hidden: part of) | |||
| 3 Starch grain found in carbs is wasted with that lot (9) | STATOLITH | IS THAT LOT (anag: wasted) | |||
| 4 The same Ms Moore, perhaps, cycling (4) | IDEM | DEMI Moore with last letter cycled to front | |||
| 5 Equip afresh, and make good time after fire put out (5) | REFIT | FIRE (anag: put out)+Time | |||
| 6 Insurgent seizes pair of horses (4) | SPAN | NAPS (seizes; rev: insurgent) | |||
| 7 Layer of earth’s surface regularly straddled (3) | SAL | S[tr]A[dd]L[ed] (regularly) | |||
| 8 Unlimited blunders happen to scare Elizabethan (7) | AFFEARE | [g]AFFE[s] (blunders)+ARE (happen) | |||
| 9 Tried plough to grab bone with notches as if bitten (5) | EROSE | ERE (plough) around OS (bone) | |||
| 12 Drinking with cups overlapping plates (6) | TASSES | (double def) | |||
| 15 Unsound theory embodying Dutch city weather phenomenon (11) | HYDROMETEOR | THEORY (anag: unsound) around Dutch+ROME (city) | |||
| 17 Tax scrapped progressive instalments from six acutely poor debtors (4) | SCOT | S[ix] [a]C[utely] [po]O[r] [deb]T[ors] (progressive letters) | |||
| 21 Remove stone from hard condensed substance (4) | PITH | PIT (remove stone)+Hard | |||
| 23 For Ed, plunder precious metal turning up in black barrels (5) | BEROB | Black Barrels containing ORE (precious metal; rev: turning up) | |||
| 24 Puncture is following desperate descent, losing face (8) | CENTESIS | [d]ESCENT (losing face; anag: desperate)+IS | |||
| 26 Late papers given drink names in error, but not before noon (8) | EVENINGS | GIVEN N[am]ES minus AM (before noon) anag: in error | |||
| 29 Am I sane playing fugue, for example? (7) | AMNESIA | AM I SANE (anag: playing) | |||
| 30 Renegades, rising above castle, rush for Largs (5) | STARR | RATS (renegades; rev: rising)+Rook (castle) | |||
| 31 No more awards are given to foremost in traditional theatre studies (6) | ARETTS | ARE+T[raditional] T[heatre] S[tudies] | |||
| 33 Stale vinegar is ingested by fish on left (6) | EISELL | EEL (fish)+Left around IS | |||
| 36 Indian trees delaying first of the local camels (5) | OONTS | TOONS (Indian trees) with T[he] (first of) moving later in the word | |||
| 38 Temple used at fixed intervals in funeral homes (4) | NAOS | [fu]N[er]A[l h]O[me]S (at fixed intervals) | |||
| 40 Sloppy theomaniac pounds prayer wall (4) | MANI | theoMANIac (hidden: pounds) |
Definitely not a walk in the park, but I did get there in the end without digressing to The Simpsons. All thanks to Ploy and kenmac.
“Sloppy with your drink” is a line from the film: a bar scene with the robot gunslinger trying (as per programming) to pick a fight leading to a shoot-out. I had a lot of trouble with that and picked at least two wrong “surplus words” before Sloppy provided the cue.
PS: The preamble asks for two characters. The initial upright ROBOT is confronting an upright HUMAN in the last-but-one column.
I expected that the Across clues, with their unusual word manipulations, would be relatively difficult to solve, but as it turned out that wasn’t the case. I thoroughly enjoyed filling the grid, working mostly from the top down, and picking up all the letters of the tag line.
I found and removed the ROBOT from both its locations, but unfortunately I did see the possibility of REFIT making ROBOT. I got YOUR WITH DRINK SLOPPY but did not recognise any ‘thematic phrase’ there. I too found The Simpsons first but realised much later that it had to be Westworld. I did not have the time to find the ‘other character’ and must now thank David @2 for that answer!
It is normal for me to leave a Ploy puzzle almost but not quite complete: my only success was my first one, back in 2018 (which was one of the best puzzles that year!).
Thanks anyway to Ploy, and to kenmac for the blog. (I think you have 20a exactly right.)
Thanks David – I had failed to find the second character, having been searching fruitlessly for ‘Peter’, so glad to have had that resolved!
Cheers to Ploy, I enjoyed the challenge of unjumbling the words in across clues.
NOUN
Chambers mobile app:
substantive
noun (grammar)
A noun or noun-like item
I quite enjoyed the gridfill after the initial trepidation at having to part-anagram; it didn’t turn out as tricky as I feared. Although having anagrams and ‘treated words’ and extra words at the same time was somewhat of an ask!
Westworld revealed itself eventually from the extra letters, it appears I was also lucky not to be diverted via the Simpsons. I did eventually find Sloppy With Your Drink, but like others I had a number of different extra words first (including GOOD in 5d, I now assume the definition is actually ‘Equip afresh and make good’ otherwise I still don’t know why ‘good’ is there).
Then while I figured out the endgame, I didn’t particularly enjoy it.. While there are clearly robot-human encounters in the film, their placement in the grid seemed a little random, and I couldn’t understand why the Robot was moving but the Human stood still.
Also, here is my list of ‘treated’ words, which includes a few more than shown above:
14a PRATS > PARTS
25a FIRED > FRIED
30a SATIN > STAIN
37a BRAD’S > BARD’S
3d CARBS > CRABS
9d TRIED > TIRED
Thank you both.
Oh and I agree that 20a is correct, but the definition is stretching credulity a little.
Chambers has one definition of Pope as “A parish priest in the Greek Orthodox Church”
And a definition of Pape as “A scots for of pope”
So technically that works but I doubt that any Scot has ever used Pape to refer to a Greek Orthodox priest (as opposed to the main man)…
I was looking for Peter too Kippax, but the only contiguous one I could find was S-Shaped in the bottom left. Thanks to David for showing us the *HUMAN*.
10a I had the definition as ‘Tesla’ (unit of magnetic flux density) rather than ‘Least’.
All in all, a very enjoyable puzzle, and an opportunity to discover a Kipling poem I had never before encountered: ‘Oonst’
Rich T
That comment takes the biscuit. I was never happy with “least”. I’ll change it.
Thanks Kenmac – I love doing the Inquisitor – it keeps me occupied in the *gentleman’s reading room’. And ty for supplying the solutions. (I was missing ‘Vitexes’ from the final grid; who on earth has ever heard of such a word?? Not me obviously)
Finally – (I can’t see whether it’s posted above) – in the preamble it mentions ‘…the process he has undergone.’ I took it to mean the letters exchanged from 5d ‘Refit’ to form ‘Robot’ – namely, E-F-I.
*movie spoiler alert*
The best I could come up with was the abbreviation for ‘Electronic Fuel Injection’. Anyone got any other ideas for this?
The previous 5 IQ have been have all been DFNs for me, ranging from not completing the grid to ditto the endgame (I did “finish” Chalicea’s except that, like the Archer, I had not done what was intended).
Although, as observed, this one was a toughie, I did fully complete it, doing everything needed to have qualified for a prize in the pre-lockdown days. The incomplete tag line was fairly common and it had taken me quite a while to home in on Westworld. I had enjoyed the film on the small screen ages ago but all I could remember was Yul Brynner as the man in black.
There remained, however, some details which needed investigation. It took more research to find the the nine utterences he made which explained the extra words in the down clues and the title. Then even longer to find the book cover with the WORNG last word. All finally made clear.
So, thanks to Ploy for a complex but ultimately satisfying puzzle, which broke my duck, and to Ken for a valiant job.
Rich @11, I thought the process he had undergone was simply a ‘Refit’ hence that was the entry to change. No further significance of EFI in my opinion.
Late to the party, and pretty much everything has been said. I solved all of this, slightly to my surprise, and enjoyed finding out about Westworld and seeing Yul Brynner reprising his Magnificent Seven role in a totally new context. I agree with Arnold’s list of the “wrong” 5 letter words, though hadn’t linked these to the robot’s utterances. Rich T@11: I don’t think you need to worry about EFI. I read the preamble as saying that three letters must be changed within a grid entry, and that this grid entry defines the process the Robot has undergone; that process is a REFIT (so that it can re-emerge and perform again the next morning). Thanks to Ken and Ploy.
[Apologies for the clumsy phrase “I did see” in my comment @3. That sentence was obviously meant to end with “… I did not see the possibilty of REFIT making ROBOT.” (After all, I am human, not a robot.)]
thanks KM and Ploy! quite a workout but DNF as well. Saw HUMAN and removed ROBOTs but couldn’t figure out how to leave real words at all phases (TEPHR?)
Ilan @16, the intro says “ignoring spaces”, so I think that means that the real word in question is TEPHRITE.
Arnold @6, we were surprised to see carbs –> crabs in your list?
This quite brilliant puzzle made me yet again to be aware of misdirection. The preamble refers to a “work of fiction” which made me think of a novel, rather than a film, so it took quite a long time for me to find Westworld. And then to untangle “Your with drink sloppy”, thanks to Google. I was especially impressed by the way the incorrect words exactly matched “worng”. Lots of thanks to both Ploy and Kenmac.
DavidO @17, my Chambers App defines STATOLITH as “a starch grain in a statocyst” and then STATOCYST as “an organ of equilibrial sense in crustaceans and other invertebrates, containing statoliths”. So a reference to CRABS seemed to make more sense than one to CARBS – the starch grain I assume is a ‘carb’ but not found inside one.
How a crab can contain a starch grain slightly boggles my mind but that’s another story. I was never very good at biology.
thanks dave #17 — [note to self: must read instructions]
Plenty to enjoy here, and some super new vocabulary. Found the tagline, the quote, the robots (including the refit) and two rather tortured PETERs, but missed the HUMAN Also a bit sloppy with my solving in the bottom right corner, so a generous 8/10 this week. Thanks Ploy. PS, thanks Ken.
I messed up the bottom right corner as I had ENIDS, rather than ANNAS. Taking the L out of Rail to get the L for “possibly” led me to “air staff”. The Red Arrows have a unit called Enid, ENI seemed a possible former stipend and Ds old pennies. I mean, is it beyond the bounds of possibility that the air staff could be “ENIDS”? OK, 7/10.