Somehow, a few weeks ago, I’d picked up on the fact that a puzzle from Phi would be my next one to blog.
Preamble: Five across clues and five down clues each contain wordplay referencing an additional letter that is not entered in the grid. Each set of five supplies a word whose relationship to the phrase in the highlighted diagonal indicates how the respective Across and Down unclued entries (all real words), are to be derived.
Got off to cracking start with this one, with much of the top right corner filled in quite quickly, including the unclued AGLEE. Went back to the top left and solved quite a lot of that, giving me DRIBS on the diagonal, and so pencilled in AND DRABS to complete it, seeing as that phrase fitted with the title. A good chunk of the bottom half didn’t take a whole lot longer, and when I slotted in YEAST I rumbled what was going on.
YEAST is an anagram of YEATS, and so AGLEE comes from EAGLE – the unclued across entries are thus anagrams of BIRDS (itself an anagram of “DRIBS“), and similarly the unclued down entries are anagrams of poets, or BARDS (the latter being an anagram of “DRABS“). A quick check of the redundant letters in the wordplay of 6 or so clues I’d identified confirmed that I was on the right track.
CLEAR and CLARE, plus LOUSE and OUSEL tidied up the bottom left quadrant, neatly bracketed by SKATE/KEATS (“Cemetry Gates” (sic), anyone?), and ANTRIM/MARTIN. I still had a couple of holes – rows 1 & 2 intersected with columns 6 & 7, and the right edge intersected with a smattering of rows.
(Ed: As I’ve said before, I do wish that unclued entries would be numbered, to make it easier to refer to them.)
Anyway, I finally finished off the top bits with TOILE/ELIOT, and a while later I was OK with TRAILING/RINGTAIL – that more commonly refers to a lemur or a cat, but in this case it must be the hen harrier. GREET/EGRET and PINES/SNIPE soon followed to complete the bottom right, but I hadn’t yet resolved 28a & 30a (EXPERT and INTO) or 26d (AXED) so still had a couple of poets to go.
I admit to using a pattern-match in an e-dictionary to dig out STOITERS/ROSSETTI (Dante Gabriel or his younger sister Christina, take your pick), and had been thinking about FORTS/FROST for some time before corroboration came from the final two across answers (EXPERT and INTO). And when I finally saw the wordplay for AXED I was done.
On the easy side, I’d say, but with some fiddly unscrambling of the odd BIRD/BARD. Thanks to Phi … see you in another 10 or 11 weeks (probably).
| Across | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| No. | Clue | Answer | Extra letter |
Wordplay |
| 1 | Provide backing for e-company and axe for social media work (5) | DOOCE | DO (provide) E-CO< (e-company) | |
| 10 | Plant initially plucked from a spring (4) | ALOE | A LOPE (spring) − P(lucked) | |
| 11 | Waterweed in ditch blocking running water locally (6) | ELODEA | LODE (ditch) in EA (running water, dialect) | |
| 12 | Uranium in great quantities not half affecting waste water (4) | URIC | U(ranium) RIC(hes) (great quantities) | |
| 13 | Once ready to buy llamas during odd parts of trip (4) | INTI | IN (during) T(r)I(p) | |
| 14 | Turned on by heartless male (the usual thing) (4) | NORM | ON< R(o)M (man) | |
| 15 | Scots always blocking honour, possibly (5) | MAYBE | AY (always, Scot) in MBE (honour) | |
| 18 | Rate male singers ahead of soprano (6) | ASSESS | B | BASSES (male singers) S(oprano) |
| 21 | Those who lead kitchen workers (5) | CHEFS | I | CHIEFS (kitchen workers) |
| 23 | Celtic name one encountered in English University, note (4) | EUAN | A (one) in E(nglish) U(niversity) N(ote) | |
| 25 | Exotic trees, type regressing behind tangled liana (8) | AILANTOS | R | SORT< (type) after [LIANA]* |
| 28 | No longer being cheeky in the buff? (6) | EXPERT | EX (no longer) PERT (cheeky) | |
| 29 | Unexpected climber, with broken toe, found in track (8, 2 words) | TREE TOAD | [TOE]* in TREAD (track) | |
| 30 | Keen on force to get love (4) | INTO | D | DINT (force) O (love) |
| 31 | Regarding US tree disease, study Kentucky (5) | CONKY | CON (study) KY (Kentucky) | |
| 32 | Star Wars, in failing to sparkle, slipped back and performed badly (6) | MISDID | SDI (Star Wars) in DIM< (failing to sparkle) | |
| 39/40 | Regression of employment leading to loud noise by each group of countries (4,4) | EURO AREA | S | USE< (employment) ROAR (loud noise) EA(ch) |
| 41 | Beer given to King for dinner in Inverness (4) | KALE | K(ing) ALE (beer) | |
| 42 | Roughly separate us, going either side of Loch in hail (6) | AVULSE | US around L(och) in AVE (hail) | |
| 43 | South American people losing power, following Spain in this case (4) | ÉTUI | TUPI (S American people) − P(ower) after E (Spain) | |
| 44 | Do roofing repair, say, forcing one out to find new home (8) | RESETTLE | RESET TILE (do roofing repair, say) − I (one) | |
| Down | No. | Clue | Answer | Extra letter |
Wordplay |
| 1 | Foolish to scoff about rocker’s latest source of rhythm (8) | DRUMBEAT | DUMB (foolish) EAT (scoff) around (rocke)R | |
| 2 | More than half Arbroath turned up? That’s odd for them (4) | ORRA | B | ARBRO(ath)< |
| 3 | Indian people are unknown and harsh, abandoning number in upset (5) | ORIYA | A(re) Y (unknown) IRON (harsh) − N(umber) all< | |
| 4 | Other French are adopting league supported by English (4) | ELSE | ES (are, Fr) around L(eague) E(nglish) | |
| 5 | Opening letters will propose it (4) | RENT | double definition | |
| 6 | Old coward (though not very old) affecting Troy (5) | ILIAC | VILIACO (coward, obs) − V(ery) O(ld) | |
| 7 | See chestnut, perhaps, or pine (4) | LONG | A | LO (see) NAG (horse, chestnut, perhaps) |
| 8 | Marriage line, line appropriate for adored one (4) | IDOL | I DO (marriage line) L(ine) | |
| 9 | Good to have lady friends in Paris, though one’s denied athletic activities (5) | GAMES | G(ood) AMIES (female friends, Fr) − I (one) | |
| 16 | Amount of land that is enclosing small lake? (4) | ISLE | IE (that is) around S(mall) L(ake) | |
| 17 | Soldiers mostly stunned after climbing mountain (5) | MUNRO | OR (other ranks, soldiers) NUM(b) (stunned) all< | |
| 19 | Sketch part of hovercraft (4) | SKIT | R | SKIRT (part of hovercraft) |
| 20 | What God abhors I advanced, turning up in Biblical location (5) | SINAI | SIN (what God abhors) I A(dvanced) both< | |
| 22 | Imposing historic figure worried to see America withdrawing (4) | ETEN | EATEN (worried) − A(merica) | |
| 24 | Imposing religious figure worried to see European withdrawing (4) | ATEN | EATEN (worried) − E(uropean) | |
| 26 | Got rid of article, packed, emitting bad smell (4) | AXED | A (article) BOXED (packed) − BO (body odour, bad smell) | |
| 27 | Jotting mostly taken the wrong way round – fool of a poet (4) | MOME | MEMO (jotting) with 3 letters reversed | |
| 33 | Directly supported by navy, no longer hidden (5) | DEARN | D | DEAD (directly) RN (navy) |
| 34 | Bears eliminating first singular creature (now extinct) (4) | URUS | URSUS (bears) − first S(ingular) | |
| 35 | Exclusive section of club should be above this (4) | SOLE | double definition | |
| 36 | Part of boat looking oily when upturned (4) | KEEL | S | SLEEK< (oily) |
| 37 | Look on stupidly before being bitten by dog that turns up (4) | GAUP | A (ante, before) in PUG< (dog) | |
| 38 | Feel beach is interrupted by river (4) | ELBE | (fe)EL BE(ach) | |
|
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I didn’t finish this one:-( the NE corner eluded me as I had CONE For 7d.
I justified it as C=see + ONE=chestnut. As in have you heard the one about … ? Oh, not that old chestnut!
Ah well, can’t win ’em all.
Thanks to H___G____ for the blog and, of course, Phi for the puzzle.
This was never thought of as anything other than a jeu d’esprit. The setter’s blog is at:
http://phionline.net.nz/setters-blogs/inquisitor-1504-small-amounts/
What a joy to have a proper puzzle — blissfully free of “redundant letters spelling an instruction how to modify grid entries.”
This had the Progressive Discovery Moments that we all love … enabling us to build a satisfactory solution by stages, rather than solving most clues and still being totally baffled.
I got ANTRIM = MARTIN early on, before DRIBS and DRABS appeared, and then I realised what we were looking for. BARDS of course has overtones of Shakespeare and playwrights, but I soon realised that poets were also contenders.
I too, like Kenmac, had CONE for ages as 7d and was highly relieved to get RINGTAIL/TRAILING as my very last bird anag. and thus twig LONG ( Sorry if it’s off thread, but I tried to email you, Kenmac on a Latin matter, and it boomeranged … can you email me your new address ?)
Early on, I wondered whether the respective BIRDS and BARDS would be herded on to opposite sides of the diagonal, but soon realised that they weren’t.
More jeux d’esprit like this please, Phi. Your clue for RENT went straight on to my all-time favourites list.
And thanks, HG, as always for blog.
Much relieved that I wasn’t the only one to have CONE pencilled in at 7D for rather too long a while. The diagonal came easily enough, birds and bards soon followed, and ANTRIM for MARTIN was by then fairly obvious. The poet at bottom right was my toughest challenge – with S, T and O in hand, it was “obviously” an anagram of TENNYSON, an assumption leading to a world of pain. I’d never heard of STOITER and was happily surprised when working backward from the belated thought ROSSETTI generated something findable in Chambers.
Grateful thanks as usual to Phi and HG.
Very enjoyable puzzle which I found at the easier end of Phi’s scale. I do love a diagonal.
I never did get Rossetti / stoiters, but it’s a nice puzzle. The DRI of dribs came rather quickly, and not too many phrases start that way. Somehow birds and bards leaps out from there, but there was still plenty to do.
Thanks to Phi and HolyGhost.
A complete finish for me this week which came as a relief after several consecutive failures. I had to use a word-finder for the last few birds/bards. Thanks to all.