Hello everyone. I had never solved an Oxymoron puzzle before, and it was only when writing up the blog that I realised that thanks for this crossword are due to the late, great setter also known as Schadenfreude. Some lovely tributes can be found here. It might have been a bittersweet experience, but not realising earlier meant I could simply enjoy the puzzle as it was intended to be enjoyed — and enjoy it I certainly did.
The preamble reads:
Corrections to single letter misprints in the definition parts of seven down clues can be arranged to form the TITLE. When the answers have been entered some cells will be empty. These must be filled to complete the theme, creating new words. One other cell will initially contain three letters which must be replaced by one. Finally, solvers must highlight 23 cells to show the theme. Numbers in brackets give the lengths of final grid entries; Chambers Dictionary (2016) gives two answers only as parts of phrases.
After a slow start I started to make some headway in the lower half of the grid, particularly the SE. When HATPINS enabled me to place some of the crossing down answers it seemed fairly clear that the bottom row, and presumably the top one, would be blank. Not quite true, as it happens, and that assumption caused me a delay with at least one answer. That apart, knowing the enumerations and blank cells definitely helped — immediately, the sloth emerged from the cloth in 41d — and progress from there was mostly steady.
If I found the SE corner friendly, I had the opposite experience of the NW, but my very last pair of answers were those in which three letters become one … or rather, 1. A very nice moment!
Finally, the small matter of finding the TITLE, filling in the blanks and highlighting. The misprinted letters can be rearranged (I confess I used an anagram solver here) to form
UT SUPRA.
That’s our TITLE, just as above. I won’t go into quite how long it took me to find and fill in the obvious, but here it is:
| Clue No | ANSWER | Clue, with [x]<d>efinition underlined |
| Explanation, with quoted indicators in italics and letters appearing in the ANSWER capitalised and emboldened | ||
| Across | ||
| 12a | APLASIA | A marine creature returned possessing one abnormal organ growth (7) |
| A (from the clue) + SALPA (marine creature) reversed (returned) containing (possessing) I (one) | ||
| 13a | NASALS | A northern lass collected bones (6) |
| An anagram of (… collected) A + N (northern) + LASS | ||
| 14a | KIERON | Irishman that’s invested in Swedish currency before getting drunk (6) |
| IE (that’s, that is) inside (invested in) KR (Swedish currency, krona) before ON (getting drunk) | ||
| 15a | LATAKIA | Australian wearing a kilt crazy about tobacco (7) |
| A (Australian) inside (wearing) A KILT, anagrammed (crazy), then A (about) | ||
| 17a | NANOTECH | A formal paper penned by navy chief concerning the measurement of tiny objects (8) |
| A (from the clue) and NOTE (formal paper) inside (penned by) N (navy) and CH (chief) | ||
| 18a | TAIAHA | Tense maid carrying a hot weapon (6) |
| T (tense) and AIA (maid) containing (carrying) A + H (hot) | ||
| 19a | TALIPAT | Moles covering international diplomat’s right palm (7) |
| TALPA (moles) around (covering) I (international), then the rightmost letter of diplomaT (diplomat’s right) | ||
| 21a | BESSEMER | Elizabeth continually stopped by married inventor (8) |
| BESS (Elizabeth) followed by E’ER (ever, continually) containing (stopped by) M (married) | ||
| 26a | ENTHRONE | Moved knight here, not bishop (6) |
| An anagram of (moved) N (knight) + HERE NOT | ||
| 28a | OOLITE | In Glasgow we speak untruthfully about The Northern Rock (6) |
| OO (in Glasgow we, a Scots form of we), then LIE (speak untruthfully) around (about) T (the northern, ‘t) | ||
| 30a | LEINSTER | After retirement Maureen leaves West Midlands town for an overseas province (8) |
| The reversal of (after retirement) MO (Maureen) is removed from (leaves) LE[om]INSTER (West Midlands town) | ||
| 34a | TREHALA | Variation of the recipe prepared with something sweet (7) |
| An anagram of (variation of) THE + R (recipe), then À LA (prepared with) | ||
| 36a | SCHELM | Special constable to direct rogue in East London (6) |
| SC (special constable) + HELM (to direct). South African (… in East London) word for a rascal or rogue | ||
| 37a | WIDOWERS | Our partners are lifeless with infectious diseases and worse off (8) |
| W (with) plus ID (infectious diseases) and WORSE, anagrammed (off) | ||
| 40a | ITERANT | Repetitive tirade by the other European (7) |
| RANT (tirade) by IT (the other, sex) and E (European) | ||
| 42a | PRELIM | English lecturer engaged in formal examination (6) |
| E (English) and L (lecturer) inside (engaged in) PRIM (formal) | ||
| 43a | RE-EDIT | Head of Economist tried desperately to make an additional revision (6) |
| The first letter of (head of) Economist + TRIED anagrammed (desperately) | ||
| 44a | HATPINS | Rejected bargain, oddly trashy ornamental fasteners (7) |
| SNIP (bargain) and odd letters of (oddly) TrAsHy, all reversed (rejected …) | ||
| Down | ||
| 1d | SPICAE | Spurs I see overwhelmed by divine Scots (6) |
| I + C (see) inside (overwhelmed by) SPAE (divine Scots, Scots word for divine) | ||
| 2d | LEGISTS | Substance taken by the French law boffins (8) |
| GIST (substance) inside (taken by) LES (the, French) | ||
| 3d | ARRAS | Queen stops a prince hanging (6) |
| R (queen) goes inside (stops) A + RAS (prince) | ||
| 4d | SO THERE | Society of engineers interrupted by additional expression of defiance (8, two words) |
| SE (Society of Engineers) containing (interrupted by) OTHER (additional) | ||
| 5d | INN | Picked up fashionable ba[g]<r> (4) |
| Sounds like (picked up) IN (fashionable) | ||
| 6d | ALATE | Dusty recently had a meal outside US city (6) |
| Archaic (dusty) word meaning recently. ATE (had a meal) around (outside) LA (US city) | ||
| 7d | NANA | Sheila’s n[o]<u>t an elderly relative (5) |
| Two definitions, the first being an Australian (Sheila’s) slang term for the head | ||
| 8d | AT | Cats endlessly bre[e]<a>d in Vientiane (3) |
| [c]AT[s] without the outer letters (endlessly) | ||
| 9d | SATIN | Something silky acted as a substitute (6) |
| SAT IN (acted as a substitute) | ||
| 10d | AKE | King overcome by aged vintage [w]<p>ine (4) |
| K (king) inside (overcome by) AE (aged, aetatis, Latin). Ake is an old (vintage) spelling of ache | ||
| 11d | ALICANT | Associate on Long Island to auction some wine (7) |
| A (associate) preceding (on, in a down answer) LI (Long Island) + CANT (to auction) | ||
| 16d | AT BEST | Bomber in a trial assuming the most favourable conditions (6, two words) |
| B (bomber, prefix) in A + TEST (trial) | ||
| 20d | THERMS | Conditions restricting hospital units (6) |
| TERMS (conditions) containing (restricting) H (hospital) | ||
| 22d | MONEL | Family’s crest on the Spanish me[d]<t>al (3) |
| MON (Family’s crest) on EL (the, Spanish). Monel metal | ||
| 23d | ROI | Cook fleeced a French monarch (3) |
| [b]ROI[l] (cook) with the outer letters removed (fleeced) | ||
| 24d | CONCERT | Former Republican appearing in court performance (8) |
| ONCE (former) + R (Republican) inside (appearing in) CT (court) | ||
| 25d | VITELLI | Parts of eggs quickly turned bad (8) |
| VITE (quickly) plus the reversal of (turned) ILL (bad) | ||
| 27d | NERITES | Snails with diminishing speed observed climbing outside (7) |
| RIT (ritardando, with diminishing speed) having SEEN (observed) reversed (rising) around it (outside) | ||
| 29d | CHORD | Member of a framed structure Henry bound with thin rope (6) |
| H (henry, SI unit of inductance) contained in (bound with) CORD (thin rope) | ||
| 31d | EARTH | Hide craft in what? (6) |
| ART (craft) in EH (what?) | ||
| 32d | SHEEP | Maybe t[o]<u>p female record (6) |
| SHE (female) + EP (record) | ||
| 33d | ELFIN | Wonderful life with new child (6) |
| An anagram of (wonderful) LIFE + N (new) | ||
| 35d | LENT | Advanced revenue changing hands (5) |
| RENT (revenue) with R changed to L (changing hands) | ||
| 38d | DEE | Judge short of money to stop working in Perth (4) |
| DEE[m] (judge) without (short of) M (money). Scots form of (… in Perth) die | ||
| 39d | SPA | Singular old man to stay at a health resort (4) |
| S (singular) + PA (old man) | ||
| 41d | AI | Somewhat plain [c]<s>loth (3) |
| Somewhat plAIn | ||
Fine blog of an excellent puzzle. The great beauty of John Harrington’s puzzles is that he put elegance over difficulty for its own sake. His puzzles weren’t easy, but generally he avoided tiresome obstacles like an excess of jumbled entries or grids which required a lot of cold solving. What’s more his endgames always worked out neatly, without ambiguity or hours of staring at the grid. And, of course, his clues were honed to perfection. With some puzzles of this type you get the impression that the clues are almost an afterthought, and a few setters pack the clues with obscurities with the result that solving can be a slog. Not so with John; his love of clue-writing is plain to see.
This puzzle lived up to his high standard, and is a poignant reminder of the great mind we have lost.
A perfect summary of his talents and approach to setting, if I may say so. I would just add that John was an unassuming delight to work with.
It was a pleasure to be defeated by the great man. A sad loss.
And as I suspected, the end game is obvious – now that Kitty has pointed it out to me.