Chalicea is back – she of the (usually) easy clues and occasionally tricky endgame.
Preamble: The definitions in more than half of the clues contain a misprinted letter. Corrections in clue order identify a person who studied 4 and created 9. Solvers must highlight the person’s name and 3 dn.
A quick look at 3d – pretty obviously SCIENCE. So I had a look at the clues for the intersecting across entries and apart from 3a they all worked out straightaway: 10a ORCHID, 13a DEEM, 18a RECANTS, 21a BY-ENDS. Then came 2d ARMED EYE, followed by 23a LEAZE. As soon as I saw that Z the unclued 4d fell out: CHIMPANZEES, and I made a note to myself: Jane Goodall.
Things proceeded quite smartly after that, no particularly troublesome clues although I did find 6d a little odd: the wordplay led to the simple plural of the answer, then we had to remove the terminal S. (But I have seen it before.) It was only when I was about three-quarters the way through that I noticed the corrections occurred in every other regular clue. Generous.
The grid was completed when I landed on ROOTS & SHOOTS for 9d, a non-profit enterprise founded by JANE GOODALL, who can be seen along the SW-NE diagonal. I highlighted that, and 3d SCIENCE … but that didn’t feel right. Why were we being told to highlight the answer to a regular clue? I checked with my crossword buddy who pointed me in the direction of the other diagonal, where we see PRIMATOLOGY which is “her science”. (Note to self: if still puzzled when you think you’ve finished, go back and re-read the rubric.) And it was her mentor Louis Leakey’s quote that led to her becoming known as The Woman who Redefined Man, the title of her biography.
Chalicea, the setter whose clues redefined the answers. Thanks, a welcome reminder of a wonderful female scientist who died last October.
| No. | Clue ✓[✗] | ✓ | Answer | Wordplay |
| Across | ||||
| 3 | Repeatedly remove sign of hesitation in one who rescues those drifting into w[m]oods in Perth (10, 2 words) | W | SCRUB RIDER | SCRUB (remove) RID (remove) ER (sign of hesitation) |
| 10 | Mythical monster kept secret plant (6) | ORCHID | ORC (mythical monster) HID (kept secret) | |
| 11 | First rate hoax; old martial arts fo[i]rm (6) | O | AIKIDO | A1 (first rate) KID (hoax) O(ld) |
| 12 | Clumsily move line left over in embroidery stitch (8) | BARGELLO | BARGE (clumsily move) L(ine) L(eft) O(ver) | |
| 13 | Chickadee, maybe, hides to estim[v]ate (4) | M | DEEM | (chicka)DEE M(aybe) |
| 14 | Returning flier allowed very small quantity of liquid (7) | DRIBLET | BIRD< (flier) LET (allowed) | |
| 16 | Medieval da[i]ggers see canal diverted (8) | A | ANELACES | [SEE CANAL]* |
| 18 | Revokes earlier declaration concerning Conservative workers (7) | RECANTS | RE (concerning) C(onservative) ANTS (workers) | |
| 20 | Short n[k]ip, play ended early (4) | N | DRAM | DRAM(a) (play) |
| 21 | Subsidiary aims to purchase remnants, we’re told (6) | BY-ENDS | homophone BUY (purchase) ENDS (remnants) | |
| 22 | W[R]inged predators identified in another nest (5) | W | ERNES | (anoth)ER NES(t) |
| 23 | Idle picking up weeds, essentially, in local pasture (5) | LEAZE | LAZE (idle) around (we)E(ds) | |
| 25 | Some of woolliest boarders’ h[t]ops (6) | H | OLLIES | (wo)OLLIES(t) |
| 26 | Upper-class Turkish male tracks unknown Turkic language (5) | UZBEG | U (upper-class) BEG (Turkish male) after Z (unknown) | |
| 29 | Tropical bird circling or type of roo[c] relative (7) | O | POTOROO | POTOO (tropical bird) around OR |
| 30 | Violent behaviour in ragtag group (5) | AGGRO | (ragt)AG GRO(up) | |
| 34 | R[D]eceivers being other ranks on board steamship (7) | R | SENSORS | ENS (being) OR (other ranks) in SS (steamship) |
| 35 | Burst of activity involving sloth’s bleating (6) | BAAING | BANG (burst of activity) around AI (sloth) | |
| 36 | Lectures about first of agonising divorces (these husbands e[a]ffected) (6) | E | TALAKS | TALKS (lectures) around A(gonising) |
| 37 | Ludicrous actor thrown out of comical ejector seat as butt of Laurence’s joke (6) | JESTEE | [EJECTOR SEAT]* ¬ [ACTOR]* | |
| 38 | Mod[l]e unusually messy, at heart dotty (6) | D | SYSTEM | [MESSY (do)T(ty)]* |
| Down | ||||
| 1 | Colour of Scotland’s poll upset revolutionary Tory perhaps (10, 2 words) | POWDER BLUE | POW (poll, head, Scot) RED< (revolutionary) BLUE (Tory perhaps) | |
| 2 | What helps one to se[t] each remedy when suffering (8, 2 words) | E | ARMED EYE | [EA(ch) REMEDY]* |
| 3 | Discipline extremely sadistic misbehaving niece (7) | SCIENCE | S(adisti)C [NIECE]* | |
| 4 | See preamble | CHIMPANZEES | — | |
| 5 | F[L]ine strip of material, twisted braid oddly bent (7) | F | RIBBAND | [BRAID B(e)N(t)]* |
| 6 | Movable bridge with rails cut short (5) | BARRE | BARRE(s) (rails) | |
| 7 | Set up one liberal super gi[r]ant (astronomical!) (5) | I | RIGIL | RIG (set up) I L(iberal) |
| 8 | Aussie fool, one in kind of pickle? (4) | DILL | double definition | |
| 9 | See preamble | ROOTS & SHOOTS | — | |
| 15 | Impoverished Spanish-speaking man[y]or perhaps excluding Brazil’s chief port (6) | N | BARRIO | BAR (excluding) RIO (Brazil’s chief port) |
| 17 | One giving severe beating turning up in arena carry-on (5) | CANER | (a)RENA C(arry-on) rev. | |
| 19 | Habitual drunkards consuming doctored oils; they play alone[g] (8) | E | SOLOISTS | SOTS (habitual drunkards) around [OILS]* |
| 20 | Haphazard later day stream of low-energy electrons (8, 2 words) | DELTA RAY | [LATER DAY]* | |
| 24 | Family head[r]s a snub lifted involving origin of ancestors (6) | D | ABUNAS | A SNUB< around A(ncestors) |
| 27 | Hybrid relaxes having shed two sections in stages of development (5) | ZOEAE | ZO (hybrid) EASES (relaxes) ¬ S×2 (two sections) | |
| 28 | M[L]oan no longer valid, finished around end of December (5)] | M | GRONE | GONE (finished) around (Decembe)R |
| 29 | Quiet desire to remove impurities (5) | PURGE | P (quiet) URGE (desire) | |
| 31 | Ta[y]kes form grand fellas from time to time (4) | A | GELS | G(rand) (f)E(l)L(a)S |
| 32 | Biting fly’s sting recalled (4) | GNAT | TANG< (sting) | |
| 33 | In Orkney, han[r]d grykes without banks (4) | N | RYKE | (g)RYKE(s) |
Much enjoyed; many thanks to Chalicea and HG. Wandering around the clues in my usual unsystematic way, I saw RIM and OLOGY on one diagonal and became fixated on CRIMINOLOGY, but the emergence of CHIMPANZEE set me right. As also noted in the blog, the homage to Jane Goodall was greatly appreciated.
My route was pretty much like HG’s except I did not have a mate to give me a nudge about the significance of 3d! I made a good start on this one, solving about a third of the clues fairly quickly. I had, I think, 2 or 3 letters in 4d and then I got 23a, giving the Z. This was the PDM as I guessed it had to be CHIMPANZEE. I am old enough to remember Jane Goodall and was aware of her recent demise. I saw the J on 37a and then enough letters in the diagonal to confirm my suspicions. I filled in the missing letters in her name which was a big help in completing the grid. The last few entries were a bit of a struggle as the answers were unfamiliar to me – Scrub Rider, Barre, By-ends, … I thought the definition for Barre was cleverly misleading. All I needed then was to confirm online my guess for 9d. Or so I thought! Knowing the setter’s customs, I should at least have checked the leading diagonal.
An enjoyable puzzle with a good mix of easier and harder clues.
Thanks to Chalicea and HG
This delightful puzzle took me less time to solve than most Inquisitor puzzles recently and I was consequently able to finish it (almost!). When I had gathered the first 10 or so corrected letters from the misprinted clues I was pleased to see that they came from every alternate clue. There is of course no requirement or expectation that any pattern will appear, but I for one appreciate this kind of thing when it does. I was not familiar with the subject of the theme, but I found it by searching on CHIMPANZEES and ROOTS. It was no surprise to find the scientist’s name in a diagonal. I didn’t twig what was going on with SCIENCE and forgot to go back to the puzzle to rethink it. (My loss – the hint was there.)
Thanks to Chalicea and HolyGhost.
I was slightly held up by deciding that the misprint for 3a was R giving MooRs – not unreasonable, I thought – and spent some time wondering what the Romans had ever done for us.