I wasn’t familiar with Jack as a setter, but I have encountered him as Serpent in the Inquisitor series.
The special instructions:
The solutions for one lot of clues have a common theme, not further defined. All other clues contain a letter to be disregarded in order to reach their solutions. In clue order, these discarded letters spell out the theme of the first lot of solutions.
Why “lot”, I wondered after I had solved half a dozen of the down clues (all of the second variety) but only one of the across clues (18 across – clearly of the first kind). Could it be a simple division between across and down? and so it proved. At first, with only SUTHERLAND to work with, and not enough letters from the down clues to assist, I thought the theme might be Scottish counties, or opera singers, but when I got NERUDA I remembered that a Sutherland on the Wikipedia disambiguation page was a Nobel prize winner, so that transpired to be the theme. There are however several hundred Nobel Prize winners from whom to choose.
Some of the names were certainly familiar: Einstein, Pirandello, Gordimer and Faulkner for a start. Others were more obscure so it was a question of solving as many of the down clues as possible to provide plenty of crossers. In some cases it proved possible to parse the across clues with enough confidence to be able to enter a name (as was the case for SUTHERLAND and NERUDA), but others were more tricky. Unfortunately, in several cases I found it impossible without the assistance of a definition to derive the answer from the wordplay alone. I found myself trawling through the Wikipedia list of Nobel Prize winners looking for names to fit. There was one trap for the unwary, at 24 across, where the crossing letters gave S.N.E. – and there are at least two possible candidates: Isaac Bashevis SINGER (Literature 1978) or Frederick SANGER (Chemistry 1958 and 1980), but it was clear from the clue that it had to be SANGER.
It soon became clear that the letters omitted from the down clues spelled out the message NOBEL LAUREATES. There were some nice surfaces and a good variety of types of clue but overall I found the puzzle too much of a research exercise: I could never have solved it without access to the internet or a good reference book. Gaufrid helped me resolve a couple of queries with the across clues.
In the blog I have put the letter to be disregarded in the down clues in bold.
| Across | ||
| 1 | GORDIMER | One that sticks around looking gloomy (8) |
| DIM (gloomy) in GORER (one that sticks?). This must be the second meaning of gore in Chambers, defined as “to pierce with anything pointed” but gorer is not in Chambers, nor in the OED. Nadine Gordimer won the literature prize in 1991. | ||
| 5 | LANDAU | Estate car’s right-hand side gets clipped (6) |
| LAND (estate) AU(to). Lev Landau won the physics prize in 1962. | ||
| 9 | EINSTEIN | Leading home network provider coming round this month (8) |
| INST in EEIN. EE is a broadband provider: IN (home). Albert Einstein won the prize for physics in 1921. | ||
| 10 | LEVITT | Left musical without seeing finale by tenor (6) |
| L(eft) EVIT(a) T(enor). Michael Levitt shared the chemistry prize in 2013. | ||
| 11 | MORRISON | Exhibit behind screens starts to reveal royal lives (8) |
| MOON (exhibit behind), around R(eveal) R(oyal) IS (lives), the inclusion indicator being “screens”. Toni Morrison won the literature prize in 1993. | ||
| 12 | PORTER | Journalist loses heart from stress (6) |
| (re – middle letters of stREss)PORTER. Rodney Porter shared the prize for medicine in 1972. | ||
| 14 | PIRANDELLO | River engulfing valley after current flowed (10) |
| I RAN (current flowed) DELL (valley) in PO (river). Luigi Pirandello won the prize for literature in 1934. | ||
| 18 | SUTHERLAND | The lads run wild! (10) |
| *(THE LADS RUN). Earl Sutherland won the prize for chemistry in 1971. | ||
| 22 | ARAFAT | National service enriches apathetic adolescents’ training to begin with (6) |
| RAF (national service) inside first letters of Apathetic Adolescents’ Training. Yasser Arafat shared the peace prize in 1994. | ||
| 23 | MCFADDEN | Host passing fancy retreat (8) |
| MC (host) FAD (passing fancy) DEN (retreat). Daniel McFadden shared the economics prize in 2000. | ||
| 24 | SANGER | Drives round bend when cycling (6) |
| ANGERS (drives round bend) with the final letter “cycled” to the front. Frederick Sanger won the prize for chemistry in 1958 and shared it in 1980. | ||
| 25 | PRESCOTT | How one might describe Amundsen’s arrival at the South Pole? (8) |
| Pre-Scott. A clever clue which held me up for a long time. Edward Prescott shared the economics prize in 2004. | ||
| 26 | NERUDA | Criminal under arrest giving away almost everything (6) |
| *UNDER, A(rrest). Pablo Neruda won the literature prize in 1971. | ||
| 27 | FAULKNER | Football’s governing body meets new head of state about country hosting league (8) |
| FA (governing body of football), L inside UK, N(ew) ER (head of state). William Faulkner won the literature prize in 1949. | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | GLEAMS | Alien man’s leg is a source of light (6) |
| *(MAS LEG). | ||
| 2 | RUN DRY | Stop producing rehearsal after first half droops completely (3,3) |
| DRY RUN (rehearsal) with the first part of the phrase dropped to the end. | ||
| 3 | INTUIT | Divine right finally beaten by northerners (6) |
| (righ)T in INUIT (northerners). | ||
| 4 | EDITORIALS | Aide loiters around leaders (10) |
| *(AID LOITERS). | ||
| 6 | ADENOIDS | Tissue’s wrongly diagnosed after black part of lung is removed (8) |
| *DIA(g)NOSED. | ||
| 7 | DAINTILY | Hip stylist’s lending charlady clothes with style and grace (8) |
| IN (hip)(stylis)T in DAILY (charlady). | ||
| 8 | ULTERIOR | Uranium ore lit unusual reactor below the surface (8) |
| *(U ORE LIT R) with U standing for uranium and R for rector. | ||
| 13 | MAGNA CARTA | Historic document promoted cause of abstract artist to preserve school (5,5) |
| AT (case of AbstracT), RA (artist) CAN (preserve) GAM (school) (all rev). | ||
| 15 | ASSASSIN | Top brass repeatedly involved with liquidator (8) |
| (b)ASS ASS IN. | ||
| 16 | STRAINER | Reset plastic surrounding shower screen (8) |
| RAIN in *REST. | ||
| 17 | GET AHEAD | Avoid gauche volunteers meeting chief in advance (3,5) |
| G(auch)E, TA (volunteers), HEAD. | ||
| 19 | DAMSEL | Unmarried woman that raised triplets maddens nurses (6) |
| Hidden and reversed in “triples maddens”. | ||
| 20 | ADJOIN | Neighbour lied to judge in a murder case (6) |
| J (“lid” to judge) in A DO IN (a murder case). I felt that this was somewhat contrived to achieve the surface reading. | ||
| 21 | INSTAR | Mutant strains in part of insect’s development (6) |
| *TRAINS. | ||
*anagram
Thanks Bridgesong. My first two across solutions were SUTHERLAND and MORRISON which suggested Scottish clans, but EINSTEIN put me right. I’d be impressed with anyone who solved this without using any reference source – if just to confirm that some of the names were indeed Nobel laureates.
For what it’s worth, I imagined Audi to be the car in 5a.
Thanks to Jack for an interesting puzzle, but maybe not a type I’d want too regularly.
Great puzzle from JC. I really liked the way the themers and the missing letters gradually emerged out of the fog to make the sun shine.
Or some such pretentious tosh. Thanks all.
Why Arent they all as good as this?
After I’d got LANDAU (also understanding AU<di>), LEVITT and PORTER from wordplay, I put them in a list to a Google search, which seemed to suggest they were all characters from LA Law, which I’ve never seen and which made me want to give up. However, when I got PIRANDELLO (whose name I recognised as a great Italian writer and who is not apparently in LA Law), I put the question to my old ex-librarian friend Supersearcherman (whose real identity is, of course, secret): what have these names in common? Once alerted by him to the theme, I was able to fill in a lot of Laureates from https://stats.areppim.com/listes/list_nobelxprize.htm. I actually thought there was an error in construction when I found SINGER and SANGER both (all three, really — two SANGERs) fit a slot before I remembered there was wordplay in the clue to help!
I wouldn’t have known a lot of the names as Laureates without the lists, and once I started using the lists it became a bit too easy with the crossers in. Without twigging the theme (respect, Supersearcherman!), I probably would have found it too hard, so not my favourite kind of puzzle.
I don’t know why the instructions didn’t just say ‘across clues’ rather than “one lot of clues”. It makes it a little harder, but not in an enjoyable way, really.
I think my favourite clue was PRESCOTT, even though I suspected it was the answer from first sight of the clue (but wasn’t included in my search for the common factor, it appears from my search history)
I thought this was excellent, and am surprised at the largely (so far) lukewarm response. All of the laureates were gettable from the wordplay, so looking up the unfamiliar ones was simply a matter of confirmation. Also what an achievement to fit them in to all across clues without having to resort to obscurities in the downs. It’s true that any puzzle would have looked good after the previous Genius, but this was still a splendid effort in its own right.
We started with PRESCOTT – a brilliant clue which sent us looking for barons and politicians. Once we had got going we enjoyed the missing letter game and searching out the laureates.Thanks Jack, and Bridgesong for a comprehensive blog.
My printout got buried somewhere so wasn’t going to comment but felt the need to come on and say vale Toni Morrison, wonderful woman. [A very capable Oz telejouno once interviewed her here and looked like a callow kid out of her depth].
From memory, agree with cruciverbophile that all the laureates, famous and not so, were gettable from the wordplay. The smoothest genius I’ve attempted so far. Haven’t looked at the current one, might give it a crack. Thanks all.
I loved the previous puzzle by Jack, but I thought this was horrible. I gave up after getting only a few clues done in a week.