This was nearly a DNF (did not finish) for me – in fact it still may be – and it was certainly an MSD (missed submission deadline), as I didn’t crack the final PDMs until long after last Tuesday…but enough TLAs (three-letter acronyms…)
The preamble states that:
“Six entries appropriately located are different from their clued answers. Two of the four unclued entries account for the DIFFERENCES. The other two must be completed in accordance with the theme. One normal entry is thematic but wrongly placed for the theme; however, it might have been considered suitable as an entry for 1d. Solvers must highlight it and write what would have been its thematic partner below the grid.”
After several re-readings I didn’t really have much more of an idea what would be going on, so I started cold solving to see what would transpire. Not a lot and not very quickly seemed to be the answer! After a couple of days of picking up and putting down my working copy, I had some semblance of grid-fill building up, and started to get a feel of some of the ‘different’ entries – e.g. BANJO looked like FERNS, and TIMER could be APTLY?
30D looked like TIGER, but the clue seemd to lead to HONED or TONED – ‘outwardly smooth’, with NE as EN (nut) about in HOD or TOD – but I couldn’t work out where ‘dock’ came in.
Time passed, the grid slowly filled some more, and the first PDM came when ADMIX had to map to BENJ?, presumably BENJY, which seemed to be a ‘SHIFT’ (21A) of one letter? BANJO to FERNS would then be 4 letters, and TIMER to APTLY 7 letters.
Many of you would have made the obvious jump to clue numbers (and Caesar shifts) here, but I didn’t. And I also struggled with those other unclued entries: ?AE?A? could be CAESAR or MAENAD; LA?OU? could be LABOUR or LAYOUT; ?US?ON could be PUSH ON, EUSTON or FUSION?
By this point I had just about all the normally clued answers, except GREYER/GREYED (still unparsed), and had realised that the shift was the (mod 26) of the clue number. But I couldn’t explain FIZZY at 31D (to give KNEED), or GREYER/GREYED – which left CAESAR and MAENAD as possibles for 26D…
More time passed, including 5 days in a tent in Devon (Croyde) which led to the missed deadline and some loss of focus. And then during the four-hour drive back up the A303 (whilst my other half was driving!) I finally made the link to the CAESAR SHIFT, or cipher (which I was obviously not familiar enough with!), to get two of the unclued entries. But I still couldn’t explain the others, unless we had to ‘PUSH ON’ the ‘LAYOUT’ of the entries by their clue numbers?
At this point I turned to the last bit of the preamble – the ‘wrongly placed’ normal/thematic answer that could have been at 1D. Assuming it must be a 5-letter answer, to fit at 1D, I put all the normal 5-letter answers into an Excel worksheet and did some Caesar shifting on them using formulae until I worked out that only U-BOLT made a real word – TANKS when shifted by +/- one letter, or in fact any number of letters.
In desperation I also put LA?OU? and ?US?ON into my Excel formulae and eventually realised that LAYOUT and FUSION were ‘shifts’, by 6 and 20 – their clue numbers – of each other – genius! A little Wiki-oogling on Caesar Shifts and FUSION/LAYOUT confirmed this – as there are a limited number of combinations of real words that do ‘shift’ into each other.
What to say?! This was pretty tough, and would have been quietly ‘shift’ed into the recycling pile if it wasn’t my turn to blog (sorry, Dysart!). An interesting and clever grid construction and device/dénouement, and very satisfying to finally crack it, even if I missed the chance of being drawn out of the hat for the prize…
I did finally work out the parsing of FIZZY, but am none the wiser on GREYER, assuming that is the right entry? Any enlightenment welcomed below…(Explained below in first comment)
| Across | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Clue No | Solution | Entry (if different) | Clue (definition underlined) / Logic/Parsing |
|
| 1 | BE OFF | Core of friends in entertainment get going (5, two words) / B_OFF (entertainment) around E (core, or middle letter, of friEnds) |
||
| 6 | LARUMS | Warnings of danger once unionist enters fighting, following Lincoln’s lead (6) / L (first letter, or head, of Lincoln) + AR_MS (fighting, soldiering) around U (Unionist) |
||
| 11 | EMBLEMA | Setter rejected blame after breaking inlaid ornament (7) / EM (me, the setter, rejected) + BLEMA (anag, i.e. breaking, of BLAME) |
||
| 12 | BOTES | Man in New York appointed to go over legal damages (5) / BO (man, US slang, i.e. in New York) + TES (set, or appointed, to go over) |
||
| 14 | NAKER | Old drum without the usual covering, not quite right (5) / NAKE( |
||
| 15 | U-BOLT | Pole can be secured by this runner (5) / double defn(-ish?!) – U BOLT could be Usain Bolt, runner; and a U-BOLT could fasten a pole… |
||
| 16 | JIBE | Taunt shy earl (4) / JIB (shy, or balk – of a horse) + E (earl) |
||
| 17 | NAOS | Temple where Ariadne was abandoned, without being killed (4) / NA( |
||
| 19 | CUISINE | After removing joint, strain juices in dishes (7) / anag, i.e. strain, of ( |
||
| 21 | SHIFT | Unclued (5) / Thematic deduction |
||
| 23 | TAPA | Returned at the right time before light snack (4) / TAP (pat, at the right time or place, returned) + A (Latin, ante, before) |
||
| 24 | UDOS | Japanese plants thrive in America (4) / U_S (America) around DO (thrive, fare) |
||
| 27 | CEASE | Close to edge after opening of chasm (5) / C (opening letter of Chasm) + EASE (edge, move slowly) |
||
| 29 | STELLAR | Excellent old guide protecting lines (7) / STE_AR (obsolete spelling of steer, or guide) around (protecting) LL (lines) |
||
| 34 | AEON | Remarkable person moving east for a very long time (4) / A ONE (a remarkable person) moving E (east) back a couple of places = AEON |
||
| 35 | REPP | This cloth imported by Paraguay would be expensively fashionable (4) / If Paraguay (PY) ‘imported’ REPP (cloth), the result would be PREPPY – expensively fashionable) |
||
| 36 | OGRES | Fearsome people going to sacrifice prince and son (5) / ( |
||
| 37 | EEJIT | Move right over – it’s Macdonald’s ass (5) / EEJ (jee or gee, move right – to a horse – over) + IT |
||
| 38 | NEEPS | Pheasant regularly served up with English turnips at Muirfield (5) / anag, i.e. served up, of PESN (regular letters of ‘PhEaSaNt’) + E (Engliish) |
||
| 39 | ABETTAL | Coffee upset after sailor gets assistance (7) / AB (able seaman, sailor) + ETTAL (latté, coffee, upset) |
||
| 40 | GREYER | Ultimately voting for change may be far less clear-cut (6) / Ultimate letters of ‘votinG foR changE maY bE faR’ |
||
| 41 | DAILY | Woman that does in lady at work (5) / anag, i.e. at work, of I (in?) + LADY |
||
| Down | ||||
| Clue No | Solution | Entry (if different) | Clue (definition underlined) / Logic/Parsing |
|
| 1 | ADMIX | BENJY | Naval commander and Roman cardinal intermingle (5) / ADM (admiral, naval commander) + IX (nine, cardinal number, in Roman numerals) |
|
| 2 | E-MAILS | Messages smear Academy cuts in recession (6) / SLI_ME (smear) around (cut by) A (academy) – all in recession, or reversed |
||
| 3 | FLEET | Speedy group of cars, say (5) / double defn. – a FLEET of cars; and FLEET as speedy |
||
| 4 | BANJO | FERNS | Instrument that’s plucked – and a job to play (5) / anag, i.e. to play, of N (contraction of and) + A JOB |
|
| 5 | IMPACT | Influence acting to support graft, as in the past (6) / IMP (obsolete for a graft, or scion – botany?) + ACT (acting, abbreviation) |
||
| 6 | FUSION | LAYOUT | Unclued (6) / Thematic deduction |
|
| 7 | ABUSIVE | Four entering a vehicle – the last of these is coarse (7) / A + BUS (vehicle) + E (last letter of thesE), around (entered by) IV (four) |
||
| 8 | ROBUST | Strong move energetically capturing bishop (6) / RO_UST (move, energetically) around (capturing) B (bishop) |
||
| 9 | UTOPIAST | American Trump associate regularly attacked idealist (8) / anag, i.e. attacked, of A American) + TUP SOIT (regular letters of TrUmP aSsOcIaTe) |
||
| 10 | CUBED | MELON | Chopped up bits of bacon and egg in partly digested food (5) / CU_D (partly digested food) around BE (first letters, or bits, of Bacon and Eggs) |
|
| 13 | STREAM | Force restraining river flow (6) / ST_EAM (power) around (restraining) R (river) |
||
| 18 | SHOETREE | These, or European nuts in support for Oxford? (8) / anag, i.e. nuts, of THESE OR + E (European) |
||
| 20 | LAYOUT | FUSION | Unclued (6) / Thematic deduction |
|
| 22 | FILASSE | Eccentric girl splits vegetable fibre (7) / FI_E (fey, eccentric) around (split by) LASS (girl) |
||
| 25 | SLEEPY | Quiet spot stays sheltered (6) / S_PY (see, spot) around (stayed by?) LEE (shelter) |
||
| 26 | CAESAR | Unclued (6) / Thematic deduction |
||
| 27 | CROMBS | Good grief – United’s been taken over by old local crooks (6) / CR( |
||
| 28 | ESPIAL | Executive committee is excluded from principal observation (6) / ESP( |
||
| 30 | PECAN | TIGER | Outwardly smooth nut about to enter dock (5) / PE_N (dock, enclosure) around (entered by) CA (circa, about) |
|
| 31 | FIZZY | KNEED | Vivacious female concealing Bobby’s book (5) / ( |
|
| 32 | GRETA | Woman much admired, putting Australian down (5) / GREAT (much admired) with A (Australian) falling down to the bottom = GRETA |
||
| 33 | TIMER | APTLY | What displays minutes in a row? (5) / &lit-ish – TI_ER (row) around M (minutes) |
|
GREYER is the last letters of “voting for change may be far”.
I never did parse FIZZY.
And I only parsed ADMIX after I had completed the grid and coupon.
The shift between FUSION and LAYOUT is a delight.
Thanks to mc for the entertaining Blog and to Dysart for the challenge
Thanks, Cap’n P’ng – obvious now you point it out…it was right in front of me, or rather right behind them!…
I love this crossword combining as it does with another type of word puzzle. I did complete it but failed to parse a couple of the clues, the same ones as Cap’n P’ng’n.
I wonder what is the longest word that will Caesar Shift to two other words.