Definitions in eight clues contain a misprint; correct letters spell a thematic location. Extra letters produced by wordplay in 26 further clues give a thematic quote, made by an individual whose name provides information on how each of the unclued entries is to be filled. Having completed the grid, solvers must highlight 14 cells (two doing double duty) to show a second thematic location and two further thematic identities.
This was fun! First a count: there were 34 clues, so all were one of the two types mentioned in the rubric.
I would have had much more difficulty with it if I hadn’t struck lucky with the theme. A few of the extra letters revealed themselves when I had less than half the clues solved and I had WEVE…LIDAY… from the extra letters produced by wordplay in the top half of the grid. On spec, I Googled “we’ve holiday” which led to the quote “WE’VE GONE ON HOLIDAY BY MISTAKE” (26 letters) – said by Withnail, played by Richard E Grant in his first film Withnail and I. Paul McGann was I and Richard Griffiths was Uncle Monty. The pair had a flat in Camden and went on holiday – giving us the title “Getaway” – to visit Uncle Monty in his cottage Crow Crag in the Lake District (correct letters spell a thematic location).
Having established all this, an individual whose name provides information on how each of the unclued entries is to be filled must be WITHNAIL. So I spent some time finding the nails, being held up mainly by three in the bottom half, UNGUIS, ICE-CALK, TINGLE. These and TENTER were all unfamiliar. STUD, BRAD, CLAW and SPIKE were better known.
Now I had to solve the remainder of the clues and locate the 14 squares to be highlighted. As 28/29A contained MONTY, I searched the grid and discovered UNCLE in 14/15A and CAMDEN in 13/22D (14 cells with unCle and moNty doing double duty). This was the thematic location and one of the two thematic identitiies. The 14 cells were in the shape of a letter I, – the final thematic identity.
Now there was the not insignificant matter of locating the remainder of CROW CRAG from the misprints – I only had CRCRA. I was also missing at least ten letters from the quote. I worked on, finding a lot of the wordplay, and even some of the answers, tricky – it took me ages to twig ST HELIER. Finally, I had failed to locate BARYTE at 19D as it is not in Chambers and spent ages trying to justify the mineral HAÜYNE (to fit with SNUB as the nail) with a notable lack of success.
Thanks to Gila for an excellent grid with a clever way of showing I and reminding me of Withnail. A good workout this week.
Across |
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|---|---|---|---|---|
| No. | Clue Definition [misprint] correction | Answer | Wordplay {Extra letter} | |
| 1 | Linger around excellent room without a flipping drink (8, 2 words) | TIA MARIA | {W}AIT (linger) reversed + AIRM (excellent room) round A all reversed (flipping) | W |
| 6 | Place for [r]cattle right next to a new child (5) | RANCH | R(ight) + A + N(ew) + CH(ild) | C |
| 10 | Provide source of light inside of tent to plug a hole, somehow (6) | ENHALO | (t)EN(t) + [A HOL{E}]* | E |
| 12 | One picked from this country, at university level, anyhow (7) | UKULELE | UK (this country) + U(niversity) + [LE{V}EL]* | V |
| 13 | Sund[a]ry is, in the end, always extremely awful (7) | SEVERAL | (i)S + EVER (always) + A(wfu)L | R |
| 14 | Newspaper crossword solver locally upset a group of students (6, 2 words) | THE SUN | THE{E} (you, the crossword solver, locally) + NUS (students) reversed | E |
| 15 | Old name of stage by piano in church (5) | CLEPE | CE (church) round LE{G} (stage)+ P(iano) | G |
| 18 | Merry oath disguised as Scottish verse (8) | RAT RHYME | [MERRY {O}ATH]* | O |
| 21 | Judge enters with a small amount of money? That’s touching (8) | ADJACENT | J(udge) in A{N}D (with) A CENT (small amount of money) | N |
| 24 | Northern police sergeant collaring those on both sides of explosive r[i]oots in Edinburgh (5) | NEEPS | N(orthern) + PS (police sergeant) round E(xplosiv)E | O |
| 28 | Fruit left cut in half with unfinished bread (5) | LEMON | LE(ft) + MON{E}(y) (bread) | E |
| 29 | Tory going round in a bizarre red colour (6) | TYRIAN | [T{O}RY]* + [IN A]* | O |
| 30 | [L]Wet in, auntie runs wild (7) | URINATE | [AUNTIE R(uns)]* | W |
| 31 | Scots know about country town in the North West (6) | KENDAL | KEN (Scots know) + LA{N}D (country) reversed | N |
| 32 | Gutless hooligans ran quickly to avoid a scrap (5) | SHRED | {H}(ooligan)S + H(a)RED (ran quickly avoiding A) | H |
| 33 | Prop comprising one part attached to one Shakespearean garment (8) | SHIP-TIRE | SH{O}RE (prop) round I PT I (one part attached to one) | O |
Down |
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| No. | Clue Definition [misprint] correction | Answer | Wordplay [Extra letter] | |
| 2 | Begin to move slowly round, then behind (8) | INCHOATE | INCH (move slowly) + O (round) + {L}ATE (behind) | L |
| 3 | Horrifying night away in a very wet place (5) | MARSH | NIGHTMAR{I}SH (horrifying) minus NIGHT | I |
| 4 | Staff deny working for a famous 3 (6) | RODNEY | Refers to Rodney Marsh – Australian cricketer: ROD (staff) + {D}NEY | D |
| 5 | S[t]cout leader upset beer and spirit (5) | AKELA | ALE (beer) + KA (spirit) all reversed | C |
| 7 | Jump in a river somewhere in Asia (6) | ALEPPO | LE{A}P (jump) in A PO (river) | A |
| 8 | Mythical beings – tiny, with no wings and red eyes, possibly (8) | NEREIDES | [(t)IN(y) RED E{Y}ES]* | Y |
| 9 | Controlled hydrant line installed in plant (6) | HELMED | H(ydrant) + L(ine) in EM{B}ED (plant) | B |
| 11 | Situation leading to expressions of disgust and screams (6) | LAUGHS | LA{Y} (situation) + UGHS (expressions of disgust) | Y |
| 13 | [P]Racket of small crayons, all melted at the tips (4) | SCAM | first letters (tips) of Small Crayons All Melted | R |
| 16 | Travelling miles, run around the main town on an island (8, 2 words) | ST HELIER | [{M}ILES R(un)]* round THE | M |
| 17 | AA building with drink? Ha, you can’t have alcohol there! (8) | KANDAHAR | [AA DR{I}NK HA]* | I |
| 19 | Mineral in solid blocks yet to be processed (6) | BARYTE | BAR{S} (solid blocks) + [YET]* – N.B. this form is found only in the ODE, Chambers has it as baryta or barytes or barite! | S |
| 20 | Local food store gave cash to get case of champagne (6) | SPENCE | SPEN{T} (gave cash for) + C(hampagn)E | T |
| 22 | V{o}alley lodged in side-netting (4) | DENE | hidden in siDE-NEtting | A |
| 23 | Travel across water using planes to get food from New Zealand (6) | JET-SKI | JETS (planes) + K{A}I (NZ food) | A |
| 25 | Head of research approves taking temperature, luminance and variable measures of weight (5) | ROTLS | R(esearch) + O{K}S (approves) round T(emperature) + L(uminance) | K |
| 26 | Ho[w]g sound might essentially travel over the top of trees (5) | GRUNT | miGht + RUN (travel) + T(rees) | G |
| 27 | Mischievous writer of thrillers, mostly (4) | ARCH | Jeffrey ARCH{E}(r) | E |
Agreed, a fantastic, fun puzzle. I slipped up a little to the SE, as I thought I had, but thoroughly enjoyable nonetheless.
I’m another who spent a long time trying to justify HAUYNE before eventually concluding that it had to be BARYTE. I was troubled by some of the parsings and definitions, so thanks for your explanations. But how does “somewhere in Asia” define ALEPPO?
26 down caused me some problems, as I assumed the misprint (HOW) was in fact SOW, not HOG. And it seemed to me that the unclued nail which you have rendered as STUD could just as plausibly have been STUB, with no way to verify which was correct.
Although I never successfully extracted all the letters from the quotation, I guessed the theme from CROW CRAG, which links to the film via its Wikipedia entry. That enabled me to complete the end game, which was very neat.
bridgesong #2. If you Google Asia, the map shows Syria as part of the area, so I think it is OK.
As with previous puzzles by Gila, I thought this had an excellent set of clues, and I enjoyed solving them.
I was relieved to have been told at the start that the corrections to misprinted letters, making either CROWCRAS or CROWCRAG, were in order and not an anagram. It was Crow Crag that turned out to be an actual fictional location. I looked up the quote separately, and naturally it led me to the same thematic source. (The S in CROWCRAS, by the way, comes from ‘sow’, not ‘hog’, in the clue.)
TENTER, ICE CALK and UNGUIS were unfamiliar to me. I filled in STUB, but I noted that STUD (as blogged) is an equally valid answer for that item. I happened to see UNCLE, MONTY and CAMDEN in the grid, centrally and symmetrically placed with the right number of letters, and by looking up the same source again I confirmed that second location.
Thanks to Gila and Hihoba.
bridgesong @2
Sorry for repeating your points about SOW and STUB! Your comment hadn’t appeared when I entered mine.
I had LOW in 26d. I never actually saw either the quote or location. I just spotted UNCLE MONTY and went from there.
I’d hazard a guess that RODNEY MARSH was more likely the footballer?
(I’m a little embarrassed to say that I wrote in ROMNEY as that fitted the definition and I never bothered to check it properly).
How come it was a Camberwell carrot when they were in Camden-must have been good dope.
Something about the dope sealer reminds me of Martin Hannett.
Great puzzle-thanks all
I really enjoyed this, partly it has to be said because it happens to be my favourite film and has a particular place in my heart.
@cop – I’d never thought about the resemblance to Hannett but you’re right!
Not too taxing a puzzle, but enjoyable for all that, and a well-crafted grid – thanks to Gila for that.
I had/have the STUD/STUB dilemma that’s already been mentioned a few times. I thought that TENTERHOOK was the nail, but having just rechecked Chambers I see that one meaning of TENTER (a frame for stretching cloth) is in fact TENTERHOOK.
I agree with Kippax @7 that the famous MARSH (3d) was RODNEY (4d) the footballer rather than the cricketer, who was known as Rod. But thanks to Hi for the blog.
I’ve never seen the film but once the message appeared from extra letters it didn’t take much searching to find out what was going on. Nice touch having the names represent the letter I in the grid. Very enjoyable – thanks Gila.
A couple of comments have mentioned the STUB/STUD dilemma. I think either would do, though stub refers normally to a worn nail. Also on the RODNEY MARSHes, either would do – I chose the cricketer on the grounds of international fame, but did think of the footballer.
At last, another well-balanced Inquisitor, the last being Serpent’s inspired offering (in my view). In many recent ones, I have found the endgame too involved, which, had I let it, would have taken me longer than solving the clues. In this puzzle, the clues were not too difficult although for some I was grateful for the nudge provided by anticipating the misprints/extra letters. I watched Withnail & I many moons ago and did not remember the quote, but it did not take too much inter-netting to see what was needed. Regarding the two ambiguities already mentioned, I am another who initially had Sow rather than hoG and I opted for STUD rather than STUB as being the more common.
An enjoyable puzzle just hard enough for a satisfying journey. Thanks to Gila and Hihoba.
I had grunt as a ‘low’ sound, just for variety.
Very enjoyable, even if I failed to notice that the words formed an ‘I’ shape, and couldn’t guess half the nails (research didn’t feel like time well spent, the puzzle having been cracked). The great popularity of this film has always baffled me. Many thanks to Gila and Hihoba.