‘Twas the season of goodwill when this was published, between Christmas and New Year, when all Cagey craved was a little PEACE and quiet…
The preamble states that:
‘A certain group has left Cagey’s house in PEACE. Six clues consist of wordplay only, with an associated word forming each entry, which must be highlighted. Running clockwise from Cagey’s ‘basement’ is most of a relevant sentiment (6,6,4,8,2,3,3,7,3) whose final word (9) must be written below the grid. Numbers in brackets indicate entry lengths. Chambers Dictionary (2016) is recommended.‘
I solved this whilst visiting (i.e. imposing my family on) my parents for Christmas, and guessed pretty much on completing the reading of the preamble that Cagey must be talking about the peace that descends after such a visit has taken place!
On a first scan through the clues I spotted GUEST at 17A, and then also at 23D – which rang an immediate PDM bell, which was then distracted by GEST at 16A.
Fortunately this was a fairly gentle EV in terms of clueing, and I made quite good progress with the grid-fill, finding a couple more GUESTs along the way, who all seemed to be gathered in the middle/bottom of the grid. In fact, they eventually seemed to make a nice symmetrical shape – a house? – although the grid itself wasn’t quite symmetrical – 11 by 12, and presumably asymmetry dictated by the ‘sentiment’ in the perimeter…
Some of the crossers in the GUESTs’ spaces helped to point me in the right direction – BEE?, H?US?, N?GH?, R??M…BEER, HOUSE, NIGHT, ROOM? And it turned out they were all there as combinations under the Chambers entry for GUEST – BEER, WISE, ROOM, ROPE, NIGHT and HOUSE. I hadn’t heard of GUEST ROPE before, and GUEST-WISE is listed as obsolete, but the others were fairly familiar. The GUESTs have left, leaving their combination words behind, to be highlighted.
The perimeter took a little while longer, as I hadn’t quite completed all the crossing entries, but I eventually wheedled out what looked like ‘…ALWAYS GIVE PLEASURE.’ and ‘…ARRIVAL…’, but I confused things by assuming it started with GUESTS…, until Kapil DEV made me realise it was VISITS…
So, the sentiment, starting in the ‘basement’ of the ‘house’, is that ‘VISITS ALWAYS GIVE PLEASURE, IF NOT THE ARRIVAL THE …’ with DEPARTURE as the word to write below the grid:
I enjoyed the very brief ‘Catch runner’ for U-BOLT at 24D, although I am sure I have seen something fairly similar recently; and also the use of ‘Ian Paisley’ in 22A, where the Ian is part of the definition, implying ‘Scottish’, and the Paisley is part of the wordplay, indicating another Scottish word, but the surface reading had me imagining a visit to a university in NI by said politician! 14A has an exclamation mark next to it in my notes…enough said! PESHWAS, OIDIA and VOLOST were all new to me, and needed looking up to check what I had guessed from the wordplay/crossers.
To sum up, a nice gentle EV for the holiday period, whilst digesting left-over turkey and mince pies. (Gentleness particularly welcome, after several recent personal DNFs in the EV, IQ and Listener!) My solving notes indicate four sessions over a couple of days, totalling about 45 mins – which is pretty quick for me for an EV.
Many thanks to Cagey – and I hope you had a few moments of peace after your guests had departed – as did my parents, no doubt…
| Across | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Clue No | Solution (if different) | Entry | Clue (definition underlined) / Logic/Parsing (wordplay leads to adjusted entry, not original solution) |
|
| 8 | PORTIA | Non-PC lottery prize left by main road to the west (6) / PORT (left, nautical) + IA (A1, main road, reversed, or to the west) |
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| 9 | VOLOST | Maybe Napoleon seen in set all around part of Russia, once (6) / T_V (television set) around SOLO (card game, aka Napoleon), all turned around = VOLOST |
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| 10 | ECLECTIC | Broad chosen to smuggle cocaine in Cuba (8) / E_LECT (chosen) around (smuggling) C (cocaine), plus I (in) + C (Cuba) |
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| 12 | TITLE ROLE | Love god curtly grabbed by game little Irene Forsyte? (9, two words) / TITL_LE (anag, i.e. game, of LITTLE) around (grabbing) ERO( |
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| 13 | INES | Signora who’d be best if wrapped in pink sheets? (4) / If INES (Spanish female name, i.e. Signora) was ‘wrapped’ in the letters FT (Financial Times, so pink sheets – of paper), she might become FINEST, or best. |
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| 14 | ALPHA | A cry of joy following lap dancing (5) / ALP (anag, i.e. dancing, of LAP) + HA (interjection, cry of joy!) |
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| 16 | GEST | Long-dead romance is joke, we heard (4) / homophone, i.e. we heard – GEST (obsolete for adventure story, or romance) sounds like JEST(a joke) |
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| 17 | GUEST | BEER | Every 5th of June got drunk, opening screwtop! (4) / Thematic/undefined GUEST = every 5th letter of ‘june Got drUnk, opEning ScrewTop’! |
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| 18 | BRRR | Bridge spanning banks of river that’s freezing (4) / B_R (bridge) around (spanning) RR (surrounding letters, or banks, of RiveR) |
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| 19 | SOH | Bit of scale is found on John’s heart (3) / S (contraction of is) + OH (heart, or middle letters, of jOHn) |
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| 21 | NURD | Knight almost beat back feeble person (4) / N (knight – chess notation) + URD (almost all of DRU( |
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| 22 | WHAUR | Question word of Ian Paisley who meets university rector (5) / WHA (Scottish, i.e. Paisley, form of who) + U (university) + R (rector) |
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| 25 | GUEST | WISE | Set off chasing German Uboat, losing ship (4) / Thematic/undefined GUEST = G (German) + U (U-boat, losing boat, or ship) + EST (anag, i.e. off, of SET) |
|
| 27 | GUEST | ROOM | Dodgy tabs found in stomach (4) / Thematic/undefined GUEST = GU_T (stomach) around ES (Es, or ecstasy tablets) |
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| 28 | ADAGE | Saw rum Aussie embraced by Aussie’s arms (5) / A_E (arms, or outer letters, of AussiE) around (embracing) DAG (Australian for eccentric, or rum) |
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| 29 | GODUNOV | Governor holds party to welcome a foreign Tsar (7) / GO_V (Governor) around (holding) D_O (party), itslef around, or welcoming UN (French indefinitie article, so ‘a, foreign’ – from a UK perspective!) |
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| 31 | WISH | With no time to accommodate special request (4) / WI( |
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| 32 | GUEST | ROPE | Island instruments debut on Taransay (4) / Thematic/undefined GUEST = GUES (gue – a type of violin in the Shetlands) + T (first letter, or debut, of Taransay) |
|
| 33 | SOLA | Found in isolation, alone! (4) / hidden word, i.e. found in, in ‘iSOLAtion’ |
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| Down | ||||
| Clue No | Solution (if different) | Entry | Clue (definition underlined) / Logic/Parsing (wordplay leads to adjusted entry, not original solution) |
|
| 1 | EOCENE | Runny cone consumed by English earl ages in the past (6) / E_E (English + Earl) around (consuming) OCEN (anag, i.e. runny, of CONE) |
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| 2 | STETS | So with nothing to lose, third of text is deleted! In the end Tess restores (5) / S (S |
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| 3 | RATTLE | Sneak let off alarm (6) / RAT (sneak) + TLE (anag, i.e. off, of LET) |
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| 4 | EVIL | The villain that conceals why he is so! (4) / hidden word, i.e.that conceals, in ‘thE VILlain’ |
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| 5 | FLORA | Flowers and the like for Miss MacDonald? (5) / double defn. – FLORA can mean the vegetable life of a region, so ‘flowers and the like’; and FLORA MacDonald is a famous person from Scottish history) |
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| 6 | NOMOGRAM | Mathematical figure having no second pulse (8) / NO + MO (second) + GRAM (pulse, or chickpea) |
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| 7 | OSTLER | Groom is doomed having first delayed Queen (6) / ( |
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| 11 | PESHWAS | Nearly passed out lugging Holkar’s lead weight for Mahratta leaders (7) / PES_AS (anag, i.e. out, of PASSE( |
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| 14 | ABUSER | One reviling person doing sit-ups? (6) / a person doing sit-ups would be using their abdominal muscles, hence an AB USER ! |
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| 15 | PEDRO | Maybe 13’s other half is a card! (5) / double defn.(?) – the Spanish INES at 13A might have a Spanish ‘other half’ called PEDRO; and, in the card game ‘sancho-pedro’, the 5 of trumps is called the PEDRO |
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| 20 | OIDIA | Monica regularly drapes papers over mildew (5) / OI_A (regular letters of ‘mOnIcA’) around (draping) DI (id, or papers, over) |
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| 21 | GUEST | NIGHT | United replacing central character of stage cast (5) / Thematic/undefined GUEST = G( |
|
| 23 | GUEST | HOUSE | Five plague-stricken characters? (5) / Thematic/undefined GUEST = hidden word, i.e. five characters of, in ‘plaGUE STricken) |
|
| 24 | U-BOLT | Catch runner? (5) / double defn.(?) – a U-BOLT is part of the u-bend, or catch, in a drain; and U BOLT could refer to Usain Bolt, a famous runner! |
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| 26 | EGOS | Is scrooge returning to exorcise monster? (4) / If S( |
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| 30 | DEV | County drops legside cricketer (3) / DEV( |
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I was not familiar with Cagey, but as you say, a welcome gentle solve after a number of more challenging puzzles over the festive period. I liked the GUEST clues and the way their entries made a house shape in the grid. The saying around the perimeter is amusing but so true!