Hello and best wishes all. Our setter has invited us all on a bus ride – although, perhaps due to current circumstances, it’s rather a strange one! I wasn’t always sure whether I was coming or going (not that that’s exactly unheard of …) but I enjoyed the scenery. Thanks Harribobs!
The preamble reads:
Rows make up a continuous LONDON BUS route, each row carrying on from the previous, and the last looping back to the first. Every day the bus driver completes the circuit five times, starting and ending the day at the depot on the central square. Solvers must highlight all stops made on a particular day and, incidentally, the location of the depot. In every clue the wordplay leads to the answer plus an extra letter. These extra letters spell out a further message.
My solve started well but things got rather grim down south, with a few loose ends that needed not just tying up but hunting down first. The letters from the message were of great help – although as luck would have it the second part of the message wasn’t easily deducible without most of the letters in place. That message:
AT EVERY STOP LETTER SHOWS DISTANCE TO NEXT A ONE B TWO ETC
Ok … so, five circuits, lots of stops along the way to colour in, and at the end hopefully a nice pretty picture. And lo. Our magical mystery tour has taken us through many places around London, but we alight finally at the depot in Chingford. Well, at least we’ve not ended up at Barnard Castle.*
| Clue No | ANSWER | Clue with definition underlined | |
| Explanation, with quoted indicators in italics and letters appearing in the ANSWER capitalised and emboldened | |||
| Across | |||
| 3a | ABDUCTEE | Someone made off with cloak, taking tube to outskirts of Edgware (8) | A |
| AB[A] (cloak) + DUCT (tube) + the outer letters of (outskirts of) EdgewarE | |||
| 8a | PRIDES | Dutch clergyman houses groups of cats (6) | T |
| D (Dutch), which PRIES[T] (clergyman) contains (houses) | |||
| 10a | RANTER | Former Methodist bishop and I leave Braintree after work (6) | E |
| B (bishop) and I (from the clue) leave [b]RA[i]NTRE[E], having been anagrammed (after work) | |||
| 11a | HYAENA | Scavenger, extremely hungry, is given oats (6) | V |
| The first and last letters of (extremely) HungrY plus A[V]ENA (oats) | |||
| 13a | DRAW UP | Aldgate, for instance, backs Brussels plan’s initial draft (6, two words) | E |
| WARD (Aldgate, for instance) is reversed (backs) + [E]U (Brussels) + Plan’s first letter (initial) | |||
| 15a | OGEES | To some extent George eschews S-bends (5) | R |
| Hidden in (to some extent) GeO[R]GE ESchews | |||
| 17a | MINIMUM | Note that my university charges the least (7) | Y |
| MINIM (note), with the insertion of (that … charges) M[Y] (from the clue) and U (university) | |||
| 18a | DALT | Cameron’s foster child heading to Dagenham with sailor (4) | S |
| The first letter of (heading to) Dagenham with [S]ALT (sailor). Cameron’s indicates the answer is a Scottish word | |||
| 20a | MART | Who carelessly abandons tamworth running amok in Smithfield? (4) | T |
| An anagram of (… carelessly) WHO is removed from (abandons) TAM[wo]R[T][h] anagrammed (running amok) | |||
| 21a | OYES | We in Arbroath indeed will fetch our grandkids (4) | O |
| [O]O (We in Arbroath, i.e. Scottish) + YES (indeed), our in the definition continuing the Scottish indication through to the answer | |||
| 23a | OSTEND | Terminal station is to west of port (6) | P |
| END (terminal); [P]OST (station) is to the left of it (to west) | |||
| 24a | SIJOS | Verses from eastern lands around Japan (5) | L |
| The reversal of (from eastern) SOI[L]S (lands) around J (Japan) | |||
| 25a | VAULTS | Unionist entering men’s rooms in the Underground (6) | E |
| U (Unionist) going inside (entering) VAL[E]T’S (men’s) | |||
| 28a | ADEN | Victor barred from arriving in capital for years (4) | T |
| V (Victor) removed from (barred from) AD[v]EN[T] (arriving) | |||
| 29a | POOR | Soldiers from East End in a sorry state (4) | T |
| [T]ROOP (soldiers) written right to left (from east end) | |||
| 31a | TOLAS | Weights of main line, over time, needing overhaul (5) | E |
| S[E]A (main) + L (line) + O (over) + T (time), all reversed (needing overhaul) | |||
| 33a | RAETIA | Historical province where struggling proletariat loses plot badly (6) | R |
| An anagram of (struggling) [p][R][ol]E[t]ARIAT loses an anagram of (… badly) PLOT | |||
| 34a | STEIL | Cracks returning across end of drive shaft in places (5) | S |
| [S]LITS (cracks) going backwards (returning) around (across) the last letter of (end of) drivE. In places indicates a dialect word | |||
| 36a | VETOED | See what gets kicked out (6) | H |
| V (see, vide) + E[H] (what) + TOED (kicked) | |||
| 37a | ANTHEA | Before Academy snubbed one more woman (6) | O |
| Before A (Academy), all but the last letter of (snubbed) AN[O]THE[r] (one more) | |||
| 38a | SASINE | Legal delivery of Scotland’s feudal property or South Africa’s Constantia? (6) | W |
| SA (South Africa)’S + [W]INE (Constantia) | |||
| 39a | NAVELS | Transit vans, linking with railroads at these hubs (6) | S |
| Reverse (transit) VAN[S] linking with ELS (railroads) | |||
| 40a | SANSAS | Instruments of Polish regiment (6) | D |
| SAN[D] (polish) + SAS (regiment) | |||
| 41a | HYSSOP | Physios massaged provider of herbal remedies (6) | I |
| PHYS[I]OS anagrammed (massaged) | |||
| Down | |||
| 1d | SIENNA | Pigment used in Renaissance, mixed taking elaborate care (6) | S |
| [re]N[a]I[S]SAN[c]E anagrammed (mixed) removing (taking) an anagram of (elaborate) CARE | |||
| 2d | PEATMAN | Hindu’s spirit subdued by private fuel supplier (7) | T |
| ATMAN (Hindu’s spirit) underneath (subdued by) P[T]E (private) | |||
| 3d | AS TO | Asking if king’s gone the right way – is it apropos? (4, two words) | A |
| AS[king] if KING’s gone + T[A]O (the right way) | |||
| 4d | BREGMA | High point for head of rail company, say staff (6) | N |
| BR (rail company) + EG (say) +MA[N] (staff) | |||
| 5d | UNSENT | A French perfume not despatched (6) | C |
| UN (a, French) + S[C]ENT (perfume) | |||
| 6d | TERM | Musician drops current president off before Mile End (4) | E |
| [trump][E]TER (musician) drops TRUMP (current president) before M (mile) | |||
| 7d | ERAS | Skipping through yesterday’s Times (4) | T |
| Taking alternate letters from (skipping through) yEs[T]eRdAy’S | |||
| 9d | RAPIDS | Jeep and mini finally accessing lanes in fast flow (6) | O |
| The last letters of (… finally) JeeP and minI inside (accessing) R[O]ADS (lanes) | |||
| 11d | HWYL | Why Outer London could give inspiration (4) | N |
| WHY plus the outer letters of Londo[N] can be anagrammed to make (could give) the answer | |||
| 12d | KEIRIN | Almost hold on to Irish in cycle race (6) | E |
| All but the last letter of (almost) KE[E][p] (hold on to) + IR (Irish) + IN (from the clue) | |||
| 14d | WIDEST | French cardinal turning in a direction furthest from target (6) | X |
| DI[X] (French cardinal) reversed (turning) in WEST (a direction) | |||
| 16d | SHOO | Drive away from middle of Ruislip and sound horn (4) | T |
| The middle of RuiSlip, and HOO[T] (sound horn) | |||
| 18d | DYSODILES | Soldier’s day off spent, primarily, researching minerals (9) | A |
| SOLDIE[r]S D[A]Y anagrammed (off) having shed (spent) the first letter of (primarily) Researching | |||
| 19d | TOUPEE | Trevor procured evenly cut travelling rug (6) | O |
| TrEvOrPr[O]cUrEd, with the removal of even letters (evenly cut), anagrammed (travelling) | |||
| 22d | SAVANNAH | Plain covered wagon parked next to hospital? No! (8) | N |
| VAN (covered wagon) parked next to SA[N] (hospital) + NAH (no) | |||
| 24d | SEA BEAN | Seed spotted around Lincoln before? (7, two words) | E |
| S[E]EN (spotted) around ABE (Lincoln) and A (before, ante) | |||
| 26d | LATCHES | Character most frequently seen in Millwall meets unmarried Aussies in bars (7) | B |
| L (Character most frequently seen in MiLLwaLL) + [B]ATCHES (unmarried Aussies) | |||
| 27d | THIVEL | Scottish agitator and insurgent Balt infected by virus (6) | T |
| Reversed (insurgent) LAT[T] (Balt) containing (infected by) HIV (virus) | |||
| 28d | AORTAS | Main arteries out of area round centre of Wandsworth clogged by accident (6) | W |
| A (area), O (round) and the centre of WandS[W]orth containing (clogged by) RTA (accident) | |||
| 29d | PYTHIA | Priestess predicting terrible atrophy when east side of Timor becomes independent (6) | O |
| An anagram of (terrible) AT[r][O]PHY when the rightmost letter of (east side of) TimoR becomes I (independent)I | |||
| 30d | ODEONS | Individuals gathering for God in halls (6) | E |
| ON[E]S individuals containing (gathering) DEO (for God) | |||
| 32d | LUOS | Harry, coming out of Southall, picked up Kenyans? (4) | T |
| HAL (Harry) removed from (coming out of) SOU[T]halL, reversed (picked up) | |||
| 35d | LANT | Sand eel is unable to cross lake (4) | C |
| [C]AN’T (is unable) around (to cross) L (lake) | |||
*I’m really sorry. Other than wishing you well, I do try not to mention or allude to the pestilence in these blogs, and today I’ve failed twice. I’ll do my best to ensure it won’t happen again.
Not my cup of tea, I’m afraid. I got on pretty well with most of the clues, but with some others it took me too long to grind out both the answer and the longer non-word that would yield the extra letter. With six clues unsolved I hoped to have enough letters to make an intelligible message, but unfortunately that didn’t happen. I never really got on top of this puzzle and was not too disappointed to miss out on the endgame.
I have happy memories of two outstanding puzzles by this setter in another series, and I hope I have better luck with the next one I try.
Thanks anyway to Harribobs for a clever puzzle and to Kitty for a blog that seems to explain everything (!).
I thought this was an impressive construction by Harribobs.
I’d worked out the instruction before I had solved all of the clues, but I couldn’t make any headway on the journey until I had all the answers.
Thanks to Kitty for the blog.
A wonderful puzzle – thanks to Harribobs and Kitty.
I tried to do the ‘journey’ manually but kept losing count, so I resorted to an Excel spreadsheet and a VBA macro to finally get me to Chingford.
Just like London buses, you wait ages for a Harribobs and two come along at once, with last Saturday’s Listener 4609 in the Times. That one is still ‘live’, so I won’t comment on it except to say that the preamble starts: ‘We present a tour of Britain…’, which suggests that maybe Harribobs is a composite setter? I have solved/attempted/enjoyed many a Harribobs puzzle, and blogged three(?), but have never got to the bottom of who he/she/they is/are…
I’m sorry to be dense but you don’t explain why those particular cells are highlighted?! I had and still have no idea what the instructions required me to do – any enlightenment gratefully appreciated
Start at depot, turn letter to number, move forward so many, turn this this letter to number & move, repeat until after 5 laps through the grid you will be back at the depot. Highlight letters you stopped at.
I practised the same trick in the Listener (no spoiler, it’s in the instructions), and was confused in this one that nothing was being spelt out, just couldn’t see the Chingford.
I had a full grid, and most of the instruction (my parsing skills being such as they are) and then… Left it at that, as it became clear I was unlikely to untangle the endgame. My loss I suspect as I’d thoroughly enjoyed the puzzle to that point.