Hello everyone. I was happy to see a puzzle from a Jaguar (even if this one isn’t one of my cousins!). For me it was very much at the easier end of the EV spectrum, but still fun to solve – thanks, X-Type.
The preamble reads:
In NAME THAT TUNE, solvers must find and highlight in full the name of the tune which is indicated by the two unclued references running along the top (3,7) and bottom (6,4) of the grid; both of these references must also appear in full in the completed grid. Five unclued theme-words will be discovered during completion of the puzzle; these entries must obey the implicit instruction, as given by the highlighted tune name. But remember that the earlier instructions, relating to the tune title and the two references, must still be obeyed. Chambers Dictionary (2016) is the primary reference. One answer is an abbreviation.
When I started this I had only actually intended to create the table for the blog ready to tackle later, but a few answers jumped out at me. So I added those into the table … and a few more fell into place … and then I decided to see how many clues I could solve cold. With a surprising proportion of the clues solved, I thought I may as well enter them into the grid and carry on.
By and large, I finished the clued answers before turning my attention to the rest, but the theme-words were (ironically) fairly VISIBLE:
LUCID, INVISIBLE, CLEAR, HYALINE and LIMPID
Then it was a case of spotting a fit for the unclued entries at the top and bottom of the grid:
THE BEATLES
RUBBER SOUL
I was born in the early 80s, which is my excuse for not knowing the track listing of this album, but in the internet age it was easy to look up. Granted, it was a rookie error not to have checked the diagonals of the grid straight away, but once I’d found that YOU WON’T SEE ME was one of the songs on the album, it didn’t take very long to, well, see it.
I had to reread the preamble a few times to be CLEAR exactly what should be deleted from the completed grid: while the five unclued theme words should obey the implicit instruction to be INVISIBLE, the references at the top and bottom of the grid and the highlighted tune must still appear in full:
| Clue No | ANSWER | Clue |
| Explanation | ||
| Across | ||
| 8a | GHYLLS | Catches reported from these brooks (6) |
| GILLS (catches (fish) by the gills) sounds like (reported from) GHYLLS | ||
| 9a | GISMO | Thingumajig, buried by dog, is moving! (5) |
| The answer is contained in (buried by) doG IS MOving. This made me smile, because, aside from the amusing surface, I used to know a dog called Gismo | ||
| 11a | ERA | Goddess ignoring husband for an age (3) |
| [h]ERA (goddess) without (ignoring) H (husband) | ||
| 13a | LINN | Nothing flowing West over Northern fall (4) |
| NIL (nothing) reversed (flowing west) around (over) N (Northern) | ||
| 15a | REH | Setback: salt efflorescence appearing from somewhere (3) |
| Reversed (set[ ]back), this salt efflorescence is found in somewHERe | ||
| 16a | LEI | Garland from the French institute (3) |
| LE (“the”, French) + I (institute) | ||
| 18a | DONNÉE | Young Trump born? It’s a given! (6) |
| DON (diminutive form of Donald, Trump) + NÉE (born) | ||
| 20a | TOMAN | The Piper’s son with an old coin (5) |
| TOM (The Piper’s son) with AN (from the clue) | ||
| 24a | YOU-ALL | How a Texan might address Lou, Al and Yvonne initially, when drunk? (6) |
| LOU, Al and the first letter of (… initially) Yvonne, anagrammed (when drunk) | ||
| 25a | RETROVERT | Turn back from old-style extension to snowboarding ramp (9) |
| RETRO (old-style) + VERT (a vertical extension to a skateboarding or snowboarding ramp) | ||
| 27a | RAI | Air waves providing music (3) |
| AIR is anagrammed (waves) | ||
| 29a | EER | Always, Scotsman’s yard back (3) |
| REE (Scots word for a yard or enclosure) reversed (back) | ||
| 32a | INDRA | God of stormy rain and darkness, primarily (5) |
| An anagram of (stormy) RAIN and the first letter of (… primarily) Darkness, with an extended definition | ||
| 34a | EILD | Disorganised deli in Perth not providing milk (4) |
| A Scottish word (in Perth) for not yielding milk is an anagram of (disorganised) DELI | ||
| 35a | BOP | Born to work – or dance? (3) |
| B (born) + OP (work) | ||
| 36a | POEMS | Author of the macabre document revealing sensitive writings (5) |
| POE (author of the macabre) + MS (manuscript, document) | ||
| 37a | ZUFOLI | These note-makers are strictly for the birds! (6) |
| Cryptic definition: small flutes or flageolets used in training songbirds | ||
| Down | ||
| 1d | AGE-OLD | Ancient silver lode exploited (6) |
| AG (silver) + an anagram of (… exploited) LODE | ||
| 2d | THROE | New mothers endlessly suffer pain (5) |
| An anagram of (new) [m]OTHER[s] without the outer letters (endlessly) | ||
| 3d | BLOC | Pub (local) providing group with a common purpose (4) |
| PuB LOCal is containing (providing) our answer | ||
| 4d | AVIDITY | Temperamental sort coming up with it, plus an unknown factor: desire (7) |
| DIVA (temperamental sort) reversed (coming up, in a down answer) next to (with) IT (from the clue), plus Y (an unknown factor) | ||
| 5d | LINE | Tree on which one might hang washing (4) |
| I think this is a double definition, where line = lineage = [family] tree | ||
| 6d | SMEE | Wigeon, perhaps: spot me in the Home Counties? (4) |
| Here, we can spot ME (from the clue) in SE (the Home Counties?) | ||
| 7d | EOTHEN | English originally, to start off; and after that, Eastern (6) |
| E (English), the first letter of (… to start off) Originally, and THEN (after that) | ||
| 10d | SERB | Balkan constituent of bresaola reviewed (4) |
| Part of (constituent of) BRESaola reversed (reviewed) | ||
| 12d | TUI NA | Massage Aunt I massaged! (5, two words) |
| AUNT I, massaged into an anagram | ||
| 14d | NESTOR | Thrones wrecked? Not hard for this ancient Greek ruler (6) |
| T[h]RONES, anagrammed (wrecked) without (not) H (hard) | ||
| 17d | NEROLI | Emperor almost drunk oil (6) |
| NERO (emperor) + most of (almost) LIt (drunk) | ||
| 19d | EN VILLE | Maybe onion-seller’s not at home … (7, two words) |
| French for (maybe onion seller’s) not at home. Can’t pretend I’m wild about the indication here, but then I’m just a silly rosbif! | ||
| 21d | OUTRÉ | … not in/about? That’s most unusual! (5) |
| OUT (not in) + RE (about) | ||
| 22d | MARABOU | White, raw silk about to be reduced after damage (7) |
| ABOUt is to drop its last letter (to be reduced) after MAR (damage) | ||
| 23d | CREEPY | Native American with Paraguayan vehicle registration – how weird! (6) |
| CREE (Native American) with PY (Paraguayan vehicle registration code) | ||
| 26d | TRUE | One hundred missing from peace agreement: that’s a fact (4) |
| C (one hundred) missing from TRU[c]E (peace agreement) | ||
| 28d | ATOLL | Island area with road charge? (5) |
| A (area) with TOLL (road charge) | ||
| 30d | EBOR | Posh gown run up in York (4) |
| ROBE (posh gown) reversed (run up) | ||
| 31d | WEMB | We’ll need a doctor to see the uterus (4) |
| WE (from the clue) + MB (doctor). Old dialect form of womb | ||
| 33d | DEUS | Taken to court, taken aback: God! (4) |
| SUED (taken to court) reversed (taken aback) | ||
Thank you Kitty.
I re-read the preamble several times and very nearly submitted the grid with all the cells filled in.
But I re-read it again and changed my mind and submitted it with the blanks.
It seemed odd that the unclued words had unique thematic answers that didn’t appear in the completed grid.
Good fun from Jaguar
I enjoyed this crossword but found the preamble confusing. I eventually came to the conclusion explained by Kitty above. Interestingly another track on Rubber Soul could have been relevant, “I’m looking through you”. I often complete the EV but by the time I can post a comment it can be difficult to recall the details. Thank you X-type and Kitty.
What’s Jaguar got to do with this?
Hah.
I managed to mis-interpret Kitty’s comment as well.
Apologies to X-Type (and to Jaguar).
@2Pentomino
Another solver pointed out to me that “Nowhere Man” from this album also would have fit, and that was his first guess until he checked the diagonals.
Thanks to Kitty for blog and to X-Type for good fun.