Hello! As this is my last blog before a certain festival (and of the year), I would like to wish you all the very best for the season and for the year ahead.
The preamble reads:
In LINE OF FLIGHT, the bottom row contains the name of a poet (including first name initial); part of the first line of one of his works appears in the remaining outer cells. In each across clue, an extra letter must be removed before solving; in clue order, these letters identify the subject. The letters of single extra words in four down clues (to be removed before solving) confirm entries in the 20 unchecked outer cells. Solvers must complete the title of the work in the unclued entry, and highlight three other close relatives of the subject (17 cells in total) in the completed grid. One entry does not appear as a headword in Chambers Dictionary (2016), which is recommended.
The across clues seemed like a good place to start, not just because they are first, but also as they are all of a kind. Clues like this also have the friendly feature of having a limited number of letters which can be removed to leave real words. Before too long I had a nice cluster of answers towards the bottom and centre but not so a lot up top. A bit more work and the rest came together, and overall I found this a very pleasant steady solve.
While I had looked at words which might fit a two-word title beginning with THE, I resisted the temptation to search for the poet or poem until I had all bar 5d solved. I was mildly concerned that the emerging letters removed from across clues were not making any sense whatsoever! With the help of a certain well-known search engine, the poem, poet and first line were easy enough to find:
THE WINDHOVER by GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS.
The letters of GOTHIC, IMPI, SEI and RIGGING complete the perimeter:
I CAUGHT THIS MORNING MORNING’S MINION …
The extra letters from the acrosses also now made sense. The windhover is another name for the common kestrel, FALCO TINNUNCULUS.
All that remained was to find the 17 cells containing close relatives of Mr F. Tinnunculus (rather closer relatives than the hedge-sparrow!).
HOBBY, and MERLIN weren’t a problem, but I had to comb through the 6-letter words to identify GENTLE, which Chambers informs me is a trained falcon, hence a peregrine falcon.
Finally, before the grid and clues, a line of thanks to Hedge-sparrow for the aerial display.
| Clue No | ANSWER | Clue with definition underlined | |
| Explanation, with quoted indicators in italics and letters appearing in the ANSWER capitalised and emboldened | |||
| Across | |||
| 8a | HOBBY | Members of pressure group flake out after hot pursuit (5) | F |
| [l]OBBY (members of pressure group) without L (lake out), after H (hot) | |||
| 11a | IBERIAN | Don, perhaps, extremely cold but not [a]shiver (having spent winter in France) (7) | A |
| sIBERIAN (extremely cold) without (but not) S[hiver], without (having spent) HIVER (winter in France) | |||
| 13a | TALON | Hooked finger – a feature of b[l]ack demonolatry (5) | L |
| Included in (a feature of) the reversal of (back) demoNOLATry | |||
| 14a | SIGN | Trace stray inse[c]t with general intelligence (4) | C |
| SIN (stray) containing (inset with) G (general intelligence) | |||
| 15a | GASH | Cut fuel h[o]ard (4) | O |
| GAS (fuel) + H (hard) | |||
| 16a | LIMOUS | Muddy antique car[t] that’s large and unserviceable (6) | T |
| LIMO (car that’s large) and US (unserviceable), antique being an indicator of an archaic word | |||
| 17a | HETMINATE | The rolling ma[i]n upset Cossack officers (9) | I |
| THE, anagrammed (rolling) + MAN (from the clue) + ATE (upset) | |||
| 19a | OGAM | [N]otary’s primary school produces inscription in ancient alphabet … (4) | N |
| Otary’s first letter (primary) + GAM (school, of whales) | |||
| 22a | USER | … one utilising mysterious ru[n]es (4) | N |
| An anagram of (mysterious) RUES | |||
| 24a | PARTHENON | Greek temple priest investing King in Athens almost fo[u]nd disrobed (9) | U |
| P (priest), then R (king) inserted into (investing … in) ATHENs without the last letter (almost), and finally fONd without the outer letters (disrobed) | |||
| 27a | APPLET | Tee[n] following computer manufacturer’s small program (6) | N |
| T (tee) following APPLE (computer manufacturer) | |||
| 29a | LEAP | Violently [c]rush countrywoman’s basket (4) | C |
| Two definitions, the second a dialect (countrywoman’s) word | |||
| 31a | COSE | Co[u]ld one with north to south transfer make oneself comfortable? Rarely (4) | U |
| C (cold) + O[n]E (one) with N changed to S (with north to south transfer) | |||
| 32a | SOLDO | Betrayed [l]over for an old Italian piece (5) | L |
| SOLD (betrayed) + O (over) | |||
| 33a | IRONING | One r[u]ing carrying on household chore (7) | U |
| I (one) + RING containing (carrying) ON (both from the clue) | |||
| 34a | GREEN | Grassy plot [s]een on outskirts of Gloucester (5) | S |
| EEN (from the clue) following (on) the outer letters of (outskirts of) GloucesteR | |||
| Down | |||
| 1d | SOAVE | Preserve bottles of Italian wine (5) | |
| SAVE (preserve) contains (bottles) O (of) | |||
| 2d | OBOE | Stop tramps getting skinned (4) | |
| hOBOEs (tramps) without the outer letters (getting skinned) | |||
| 3d | NISAN | Upset in former isolation ward for a month (5) | |
| The reversal of (upset) IN + SAN (former isolation ward) | |||
| 4d | NIGHTDRESS | Close old-fashioned lock securing [Gothic] daughter’s negligée (10) | |
| NIGH (close old-fashioned) + TRESS (lock) containing (securing) D (daughter) | |||
| 5d | MERINO | Newcomer in Oz once seen inside here (6) | |
| NewcoMER IN Oz is seen inside here | |||
| 6d | RIVO | Queen taking over the lead in lively dramatic drinking-cry (4) | |
| R replacing the first letter of (taking over the lead in) vIVO (lively) | |||
| 7d | NASUA | Coati turning up in Lausanne (5) | |
| Reversed in (turning up in) LAUSANne. (This is the entry which is not given in Chambers as a headword, but can be found under the entry for coati) | |||
| 9d | BLITHE | Cheerful Scots talk garrulous nonsense, for the most part (6) | |
| BLITHEr (Scots talk garrulous nonsense) without the last letter (for the most part) | |||
| 10d | DISANALOGY | Treat with contempt an apology that disregards Post Office’s lack of correspondence (10) | |
| DIS (treat with contempt) + AN A[po]LOGY (from the clue) without (that disregards) PO (Post Office) | |||
| 12d | REMOVE | Take off and travel aimlessly across space (6) | |
| ROVE (travel aimlessly) around (across) EM (space) | |||
| 18d | MERLIN | Magician vanishing tail of dead whiting (6) | |
| Formed by removing the last letter of (vanishing tail of) MERLIN[g] (dead whiting, obsolete word for whiting) | |||
| 20d | GENTLE | Amiable pagan [Impi] dispossessed of island (6) | |
| GENT[i]LE (pagan) without (dispossessed of) I (island) | |||
| 21d | WEEVIL | Almost snare very unpleasant, destructive insect (6) | |
| Most of (almost) WEb (snare) + EVIL (very unpleasant) | |||
| 23d | SPERM | [Sei] whale initially seen riding the waves (5) | |
| The first letter of (initially) Seen on (riding) PERM (the waves) | |||
| 25d | TAE-BO | It’s not entirely forbidden to embrace Eastern exercise system (5) | |
| This is most of (not entirely) TABOo (forbidden) going around (to embrace) E (Eastern) | |||
| 26d | OLDEN | Happy to forget government of former times (5) | |
| [g]OLDEN (happy) without (to forget) G (government) | |||
| 28d | PROA | [Rigging] sailing-boat for one (4) | |
| PRO (for) + A (one) | |||
| 30d | CORK | Metamorphic rock forming a plug (4) | |
| An anagram of (metamorphic) ROCK | |||
Thanks for the blog, Kitty and thanks to Hedge-sparrow for a lovely neat puzzle. I panicked at first, when I saw some of the letters ‘spelling out the subject’, but I was glad I could ignore that for a while. I like crosswords like this, with various steps leading us to a neat finish. I didn’t even mind doing some bird-watching, that’s a first!
My experience mirrored kitty’s with relatively straightforward solving and yet concern about letters emerging not making sense until Google came to my aid.