Succinct rubric: When the clue answers have been entered there will be some vacant cells. Solvers must complete the grid to show five thematic names. Numbers in brackets give the lengths of final grid entries which are all real words, names or phrases.
The bottom half of this one yielded pretty quickly, apart from the unclued theme words. The gaps appeared in two lines, one in column 5 and one in row 9. There were a number of unchecked letters adjacent to one another in both these locations, so I left them blank, hoping to fill them in using the rubric “all real words” tip. In column 5 the words containing blanks were BLUR?, ANT?RA, STAY?, TORS? and ?EER, so we had [B/T]AS[E/I/K/O][12 possibles] plus letters at either end which might form part of the name. Row 9 seemed to contain CHARLES (C?A??E?), so I spent some time thinking that the Establishment of the title might be the Royal Family, but the solving of 32D DANE scuppered that idea.
There were similar, symmetrically placed, blocks of unchecked lights at row 4 and column 8 in the top half of the grid, so, after gaining a foothold in the top half with MANATEE, TATER, ADO and NODAL I decided to leave these lines blank. This meant that I entered ADO? and NOD?AL (wrong!) and TAT?ER (right!), so I expected 1A to be AN????T????S. No suitable candidates for pump parts appeared.
Miserable failure to find suitable candidates for 9A (DO????) and 13A (OD??) led me to believe that I had misplaced 1D and 2D, and similarly 3D (AGON) when I got it. I moved them down a row, and was able to find 9A ANABAS and 13A DOGE. It looked as though 1A was mostly empty and started [F/D]A[D/W]. It might there fore be FAW???T???[R/M]S.
It suddenly jumped out at me: FAWLTY TOWERS. We were looking for the four names of the main protagonists. So no Googling this week. I located BASIL, POLLY, MANUEL (Is no rat, is special kind of GHamster) and SYBIL almost immediately.
But what about 1A. Inspiration struck. A “pump” could be a type of shoe, so a pump might have a TOE – which could be parsed suitably. A few more clues to parse fully and that was it.
One of the gentler Schadenfreude offerings, solved before Sunday breakfast. Fun though and brought back memories. It’s still difficult to believe that there were only 12 episodes of Fawlty Towers.
The clues included some Schadenfreude regulars – SA = “it” = “the other”. There were several uses of the phonetic alphabet (Echo, Yankee, November – I’m good at these now, having done my VHF radio qualification) and two adjacent clues (5 & 6 down) using ATE = consumed.
In the grid the highlighting is for clarity, not required by the rubric.
Across |
|||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| No. | Clue (definition) | Answer | Xtra | Grid | Wordplay |
| 1 | A pump has one of these near base section (12) | TOES | F…R | FAWLTY TOWERS | A pump is a type of shoe: TO (near) + E (base) + S (section) |
| 9 | A projection like a perch (6) | ANABAS | A + NAB (projection) + AS (like) | ||
| 11 | Isaac’s binding a king with misshapen head (6) | AKEDAH | A + K (king) + [HEAD]* | ||
| 13 | Inferior English magistrate (4) | DOGE | DOG (inferior) + E (English) | ||
| 14 | Underpaid worker set on retiring (4) | RAT | S | RATS | TAR (set on) reversed |
| 16 | Lost ploughs are seen by driver turning south (5) | ARDS | Y | YARDS | A (are) + DR (driver) reversed + S (south) |
| 17 | He worried about the end of rare aquatic mammal (7) | MANATEE | MAN (he) + ATE (worried) round (rar)E | ||
| 18 | Most unlikely escape failure (5) | LAST | B | BLAST | Double definition, most unlikely & escape failure |
| 20 | Bass trumpet fuzziness (5) | BLUR | B | BLURB | B (bass) + LUR (trumpet) |
| 22 | Perch in the vacant poet’s path (6) | TRODE | I | TRIODE | ROD (pole or perch) in T(h)E (the vacant) |
| 23 | Cave with area for earth cavities (6) | ANTRA | A | ANTARA | ANTRE is a cave with A (area) for E (earth) |
| 26 | 75% of information about an organic compound (5) | DOPA | L | L-DOPA | DOP(e) (information) + A (about) |
| 28 | Stop support (5) | STAY | S | STAYS | Double definition |
| 30 | Record company in recession? Spain and Germany reached an agreement (7) | ACCEDED | DECCA (record company) reversed + E (Spain) + D (Germany) | ||
| 33 | Stardom developed short of mad dizzy heights (5) | TORS | I | TORSI | STARDOM minus MAD = [STRO]* |
| 36 | Queen suppressing echo on record (short form) (4) | E’ER | L | LEER | EVER = on record: ER (queen) round E (echo) |
| 37 | Very backward Yankee suffering from a skin disease? (4) | YAWY | WAY (very) reversed + Y (Yankee). Yankee also indicates that way = very is an Americanism | ||
| 38 | Grease once seen broadcast in the morning (6) | ENSEAM | [SEEN]* + AM (morning) | ||
| 39 | A submarine perhaps is near foundering (6) | SARNIE | [IS NEAR]* | ||
| 40 | Generates another explanation concerning printer set up (12) | REINTERPRETS | RE (concerning) + [PRINTER SET]* | ||
Down |
|||||
| No. | Clue (definition) | Answer | Xtra | Grid | Wordplay |
| 1 | One and the same trouble (4) | ADO | F | FADO | A (one) + DO (ditto – the same) |
| 2 | Not one puree is lumpy (6) | NODAL | A | ANODAL | NO (not one) + DAL (puree) |
| 3 | A struggle since November (5) | AGON | W | WAGON | AGO (since) + N (November) |
| 4 | Some powerless craft (5) | ART | T+O | TAROT | PART (some) minus P (power) |
| 5 | Vegetable consumed in Turkey (6) | TATER | L | TATLER | ATE (consumed) in TR (Turkey) |
| 6 | Climbing consumed Honshu’s menial worker (4) | ETA | W | WETA | ATE (consumed) reversed |
| 7 | First-rate surgeon provides assistance (5) | AIDS | R | AIDS | AI (first-rate) + DS (surgeon) |
| 8 | Art society has translated a holy scripture (7) | SHASTRA | [ART S HAS]* | ||
| 10 | It allowed protection for the head (5) | SALET | SA (Sex Appeal – “it”) + LET (allowed) | ||
| 12 | Idiot eats mostly uncooked fish (6) | DORADO | DODO (idiot) round RA(w) (uncooked mostly) | ||
| 15 | Vulgar uninitiated dilettante (5) | ARTY | P | PARTY | (t)ARTY (vulgar uninitiated) |
| 19 | Earth at the bottom of crumbling old ditch (5) | LODE | N | LODEN | [OLD]* + E (earth) |
| 20 | American tenor that’s wearing bronze tight-fitting upper garment (7) | BUSTIER | US (American) + T (tenor) + IE (that’s) in BR (bronze) | ||
| 21 | One local copper guarding room helps to remove the mail? (6) | UNARMS | UN (one local) + AS (Roman copper coin) round RM (room) | ||
| 24 | Stalk bearing flowers – rush is obscuring half of them (6) | RACEME | RACE (rush) round (th)EM | ||
| 25 | Senior finance minister protected by bank experts (5) | ACES | M | ACMES | ÅS (bank or esker) round CE (Chancellor of the Exchequer) |
| 27 | Exercises with the other flier (6) | PEWIT | E | PEEWIT | PE (exercises) + W (with) + IT (“the other”) |
| 29 | Nurse with close-cut hair lifting heavy weight (5) | TONNE | EN (nurse) + NOT (with close-cut hair) all reversed | ||
| 31 | Councillor facing apparently unpleasant behaviour (5) | CRAP | A | CARAP | CR (councillor) + AP (aparently) |
| 32 | Title of honour given to East European (5) | DANE | U | DUANE | DAN (title of honour) + E (east) |
| 34 | Considered listener’s view (4) | SEEN | Sounds like SCENE (view) | ||
| 35 | Certainly the old-fashioned succeeded (4) | YES | L | LYES | YE (the old-fashioned) + S (succeeded) |
Page 1 of 8
A real confidence restorer for me, after a second “I FOR impossible”.
I didn’t even have to Google anything either, having been a great fan of Farty Towels.
No redundant letters giving endgame instruction, no carte blanche without word lengths.
That’s what I call an Inquisitor ! Many thanks, Schadenfreude.
I made hard work of this, making several incorrect (and rash) guesses at the full grid entries. Staring at 1ac and the available letters for an age eventually did the trick, and I spotted our theme, at which point the end game was straightforward enough. As I was fairly certain 1ac might start FAW, some would argue that I should have spotted it sooner…
Thanks all round! A relatively soothing one, indeed, though it took a long time to get 1A and my early guesses at the full 1-3D (DADO, ANODAL, DAGON) had me fantasizing about DADA ARTISTS, or rather ARTISTES to fill out the space, and scouring the grid for DUCHAMP and the like. But after the dread pump parts finally fell into place, prolonged squinting eventually suggested TOWERS – which seemed almost too good to be true, and could there be such a word as FADO? The rest took only a minute and left a suitably satisfied feeling.
We can’t believe that there were so few episodes either when you consider its legacy.
We enjoyed the puzzle but our only concern during the solve was the fact that there were so many missing letters in 1ac. However, if there had been more, perhaps the theme would have revealed itself too soon.
Thanks Hihoba and Schadenfreude.
Frustrating for me; I saw where the gaps must fall and guessed there would be towers out of ‘toes’ (do pumps really have toes, though?), but a severe shortage of answers in the top left meant I never got to Fawlty. It didn’t help that I entered ‘stays’ as ‘stems’, which I never questioned (and should have).
Still, enjoyable, and thanks to Hihoba and Schadenfreude.
Having seen that Fawlty Towers fit across the top row, I then spent a ludicrously long time assuming it was just one of the “five thematic names” in the puzzle- ie that we needed to find 4 more fictional hotels, until light finally dawned
Lovely puzzle from Schadenfreude as usual
Agree wholeheartedly with MG@1 and B&J@4. Flowery Twats was a classic, especially for anagramophiles, and this puzzle was a blessed relief after the previous two.
Guessed FADO fairly quickly but could not parse EER at 36A (not 35, Hi)but Chambers put me straight.
Thanks to H for a thorough blog and to S for his usual high, but do-able, standard.
PS. Gaufrid, what has happened to the “preview comment” button? Somehow, in the previous version of this webpage, it seemed easier to spot typos and hence correct them before submitting.
DaveW
Re ‘preview comment’, please see here. An alternative option is currently being investigated.
‘Lovely puzzle from Schadenfreude as usual’ – I might as well copy that as I would have just written something similar.
This was a DNF for me. I solved al the clues except 1 across but could not find any names to fit into the empty spaces. I enjoyed the bits I could do. Thanks to all.
DaveW #7. Thank you. I have corrected the offending number.
Thanks, Gaufrid @8. I should look at the Announcements more often! Delighted and grateful that you are working on it.
Thanks for clearing this up for me. (One tweak to your graphic: The first L in POLLY shouldn’t go blank, as it’s part of SALET.)
Jon Delfin @13 You are absolutely right. However the effort involved in correcting it is disproportionate (a five stage process), so I’ll leave it as a mistake!