Fifth puzzle from Vismut here. Very short title, gives nothing away. Grid not quite symmetric – middle row.
Preamble: Extra letters generated by the wordplay of 25 clues, not to be entered, give the title of a work when read in clue order. More generic works by the author (12 letters to be highlighted) can be found in the grid, framed by where they are kept (20 further letters to be highlighted in a different colour). Letters omitted from the wordplay in 10 further clues, read from the grid in the normal manner, reveal what this is itself surrounded by, which should be written below the grid.
I got off to quite a fast start with this one – the top left quadrant was pretty much filled before I even looked at the rest of the clues. One of the answers, 2d AGA KHAN, had the K omitted from the wordplay and I wondered if all the omissions would be in unchecked cells (they weren’t); or, if checked, whether the letters would be omitted from clues to both intersecting entries as is common (they weren’t).
Things were rolling merrily along, but writing the answers in the grid was a bit difficult, as I was in the passenger seat on the drive home from Hay-on-Wye on the Welsh-English border. Once home, and with all those answers entered, I could see OF A HAPPY LIFE from the extra letters in the down clues, but the assortment I had from the across clues didn’t yet suggest anything. Soon enough, I could see all the letters bar the S to spell KEW GARDENS from the omitted letters, and had all the letters, again bar the S, to spell RECOLLECTIONS from the extra letters in the across clues. And those two S’s had to come from the final two across clues.
So I Googled KEW GARDENS and RECOLLECTIONS OF A HAPPY LIFE and was rewarded with the info that the latter was the title of the autobiography of one MARIANNE NORTH who, as a botanical artist of the Victorian era, travelled the world discovering and documenting plants. From there, it was just a short hop for me to finding MARIANNE NORTH GALLERY in the grid, housing OIL PAINTINGS.
Thanks Vismut – not too difficult a puzzle to solve, but engaging enough, and always good to learn stuff. (I hadn’t heard of Marianne North, nor was I aware of the gallery of her paintings at Kew.)
| Across | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| No. | Clue | Answer | x | Wordplay |
| 1 | College of Farriers somehow wins (10, 2 words) | CARRIES OFF | R | [C(ollege) OF FARRIERS]* |
| 12 | Wheel river turns briefly in section made S-shaped (5) | OGEED | E | DEE (river) GOE(s) (turns) all< |
| 13 | Like a tablet’s upper-case filling column (7) | PILULAR | C | UC (upper-case) PILLAR (column) |
| 14 | No longer cool in Paris, dads notice (6) | PASSÉE | PAS (dads) SEE (notice) | |
| 15 | “Proper drink”? Green Lake gathering accepted 250 (7, 2 words) | REAL ALE | O | REALO (Green) L(ake) around A(ccepted) E (250) |
| 18 | In happy states, liars in EC sacked (8) | RIANCIES | L | [LIARS IN EC]* |
| 19 | Flocks of goldfinches occasionally call by ruins (6) | CHARMS | L | C(a)L(l) HARMS (ruins) |
| 20 | Ladies of the night have no opening time for tricks (4) | ARTS | TARTS (ladies of the night) ¬ T(ime) | |
| 21 | When recipe is ignored treacly crackers become powder-like (5) | TALCY | E | [TREACLY]* ¬ R(ecipe) |
| 22 | Watching fight next to northern meadow (7) | VIEWING | VIE (fight) ING (northern meadow) | |
| 24 | Books fool Republican for first of demos against disturbance of the peace (8) | ANTIRIOT | NT (New Testament, books) IDIOT (fool) with R(epublican) for D(emos) | |
| 28 | Willingly one’s leaving lavish starter of oyster inside (7) | PRONELY | C | PRINCELY (lavish) ¬ I (one) around O(yster) |
| 30 | In two minds about Georgia in paper perhaps (5) | ORGAN | T | TORN (in two minds) around GA (Georgia) |
| 32 | Malcolm’s beyond world record initially held by Morag’s grandchild (4) | OWRE | W(orld) R(ecord) in OE (grandchild, Scot) | |
| 35 | Sacrificing odd characters in air-raid, leader finds annoying (6) | IRKING | I | (a)I(r)R(a)I(d) KING (leader) |
| 36 | Historical part NE of Watling Street has detailed angel sculptured (8) | DANELAGH | [HA(s) ANGEL]* | |
| 38 | One without date, egg rejected in dye product (7) | ISATINEE | I (one) SA (sine anno, without date) NIT< (egg) | |
| 39 | Could be square visor’s uncovered by American thug (6) | ISOGON | O | (v)ISO(r) GOON (thug, US) |
| 40 | Needs run repackaged for one getting the goods (7) | END-USER | N | [NEEDS RUN]* |
| 41 | More than one sea-mist heads from Harwich and spreads across rural surroundings (5) | HAARS | S | H(arwich) A(nd) S(preads) A(cross) R(ural) S(urroundings) |
| 42 | Briefly seek division in mass movement of Jews (10) | CHASSIDISM | CHAS(e) (seek) SID(e) (division) I(n) M(ass) | |
| Down | No. | Clue | Answer | x | Wordplay |
| 2 | Chinese behind silver advanced for Muslim title (7, 2 words) | AGA KHAN | HAN (Chinese) after AG (silver) A(dvanced) | |
| 3 | Second pair of directors get Willow in close again (6) | RESEAL | (di)RE(ctors) SEAL (willow) | |
| 4 | It’s used for dyeing more delicate, Aussie jumpers introduced in retrospective (8) | RESORCIN | O | NICER (more delicate) around ROOS (Aussie jumpers) all< |
| 5 | I would, in short, feel anxiety regardless of king’s plan (4) | IDEA | F | I’D (I would) FEAR (feel anxiety) ¬ R (king) |
| 6 | Take in projections over by a long way (6, 2 words) | EVER SO | A | R (recipe, take) in EAVES (projections) O(ver) |
| 7 | Spa abandoning new spray (5) | SPRIG | SPRING (spa) ¬ N(ew) | |
| 8 | Dated washer by disc number on layer (7) | FLANNEN | H | FLAN (disc) N(umber) HEN (layer) |
| 9 | Gail mixed for example spit and organic matter in mineral water (7) | GLAIRIN | A | [GAIL]* RAIN (spit) |
| 10 | Very high tone dresser (5) | VALET | V(ery) ALT (high tone) | |
| 11 | Crowd carrying organ pushes into service (10) | PRESS-GANGS | PRESS (crowd) around SANG (organ) | |
| 16 | Bard’s to bear afternoon inside writing (3) | EAN | P | A(fternoon) in PEN (writing) |
| 17 | Eight feet lines of optics, a dope’s getting smashed (10) | OCTAPODIES | P | [OPTICS A DOPE]* |
| 22 | Savoy’s designed to accommodate sick, grey tourists (8) | VOYAGERS | Y | [SAVOY]* around [GREY]* |
| 23 | Pan of Chinese duck’s swallowed by boy – what’s to be done? (8) | WORKLOAD | WOK (pan of Chinese) O (duck) in LAD (boy) | |
| 25 | Twister against Ronald dancing (7) | TORNADO | L | TO (against) [RONALD]* |
| 26 | Hires cycles to gather up Wicked musical ornament (7) | RELLISH | I | IRESH (HIRES cycled) around ILL< (wicked) |
| 27 | Leaders of singing are able to rest now and again (7) | CANTORS | CAN (are able) TO R(e)S(t) | |
| 29 | Introductions of naïve, foolish innocents, have included little sweet nothings (6) | NIHILS | F | N(aïve) F(oolish) I(nnocents) H(ave) I(ncluded) L(ittle) S(weet) |
| 31 | Soldier and unusually agile Australian’s natural depression (6) | GILGAI | E | GI (soldier) [AGILE]* |
| 33 | First person contracted didn’t take place – strike has succeeded towards the end (5) | WASN’T | SWAT (strike) with S(ucceeded) moved later | |
| 34 | Censure regularly unhappy revolutionary (3) | PAN | (u)N(h)A(p)P(y)< | |
| 37 | Lively hits in Ghanaian dialect (4) | TSHI | [HITS]* | |
|
|
||||
With a completed grid, but not having collected all the surplus and missing letters, I found the theme by chance, noticing OIL PAINTINGS circling the middle. I had thought first of a solid 6 x 2 block of letters (which would have 20 cells surrounding it), but it turned out to be a 5 x 3 block with 3 cells unused.
It was a good set of clues, but I found that it often took longer to find the missing or surplus letter than to get the clue’s solution, and I was left with many queries to resolve. Knowing the theme helped a lot with achieving that, and I had just one unresolved query at the end: I couldn’t fully parse CHASSIDISM. (I guessed the last S would be the one released because of ‘in mass’, but I couldn’t see how ‘side’ is shortened to ‘sid’.)
I knew nothing of the theme at the start, and it was a pleasure to find out about it. I noticed that the puzzle appeared exactly two weeks before the anniversary date of the artist’s birth (24 October 1830).
The grid was nearly symmetrical. (In fact it was symmetrical except for the middle column and the middle row.) I liked the overall design. including the two different kinds of clue manipulation for the two different sets of letters. Overall, a satisfying solve.
Thanks to both Vismut and HolyGhost.
My extra letters consisted of some correct ones, some wrong, and loads of question marks – such are my parsing skills – but with a little creative googling I got there, and learnt something new and interesting. Perhaps I need to learn to be a bit less haphazard with my grid fills! A nice puzzle nevertheless…
A relatively gentle and enjoyable puzzle. A subject about which I was entirely ignorant, but solving this enabled me to answer a question about her on University Challenge three days later…
Thanks to blogger and setter
Having a daughter living in Richmond, we are quite frequent visitors to Kew and the Marianne North paintings are absolutely stunning, both in quality and in number. The story of her life and journeys was showing on a loop when I visited, and she was an amazingly intrepid traveller! I highly recommend the gallery to anyone visiting Kew.
I completed the puzzle, but failed to parse Chassidism, so thank you for that HG. I found Marianne North etc. before discovering the missing letters for the place, so had to reverse engineer most of them.
Thanks HG and Vismut.
Like others, I finished the puzzle but had a rather large number of unparsed answers and question marks (and I still cannot find ‘ing’ in my Chambers, after three searches, for meadow, though I am aware of the usage – only in crosswords).
Thanks to Vismut and Holy Ghost – and I will be taking a trip to Kew Gardens to see for myself.
Neil Hunter @5: ING is there in Chambers where you would expect to find it – between infusoria and -ing (at least it is in the 2008 edition, and also in the electronic version).
Thanks, bridgesong. My Chambers is 1998, which goes straight from infusoria to the three -ing suffixes. Which I also get from Chambers online.
Fair puzzle. Kew Gardens suggested itself quite early for me (perhaps prompted by a recent Listener) but the rest of the theme took much longer. Thanks to Holy Ghost for the blog and filling in the parsing I skipped. And to Vismut for the challenge.
An absolutely lovely puzzle from Vismut. This had everything I’d ask for : lovely clues, slightly (for me, anyway) obscure subject, super good construction and I learned something new. A perfect Inquisitor. My respect to Vismut and my thanks to HolyGhost for another top blog.
I got that question right too Bingybing. Thanks to Holy Ghost for the blog and to everyone else for their generous comments. It’s always nice to get some positive feedback on these puzzles. As to Marianne, you can only admire her for her courage and determination and of course her wonderful paintings.