Is this the start of Ladies’ month? (About this time last year we had consecutive puzzles from Nutmeg, Chalicea, Vismut and Skylark.)
Preamble: Corrections to be made to single letter misprints in the wordplay of 27 clues before solving spell, in clue order, a poem’s first line. By changing a word in the completed grid and highlighting 12 cells, solvers may relieve the frustration (real words result). They must also highlight 7 other cells which cryptically represent the plot, and the author’s surname. The clue to one thematic answer lacks a definition. 41ac can be verified by Collins.
Made a bright start on this one, and filled in much of the upper half in no time at all. This’ll be a doddle, I thought. Wrong! The clues for the lower half were much more stubborn. After a little while longer I felt I had enough of the corrections, augmented by a few guesses, to try Google on the first few words of the poem’s opening line – and I got lucky, being led to Loss by Wendy Cope which starts THE DAY HE MOVED OUT WAS TERRIBLE – and continues: That evening she went through hell. / His absence wasn’t a problem / But the corkscrew had gone as well. The thematic answer lacking a definition is DISPOSSESSION along the bottom row.
Of course, now knowing the corrections (even if not the exact clues to which they applied) helped a lot, and after a few more short sessions I was done. I did find a few of the clues a bit clunky, that is to say the surface reading was not very smooth, 35a for example: “When supporting clever bishop disappears, fairly according to Ed.”
And so onto the endgame. COPE – the author’s surname – was easy enough to find, and the 7 other cells which cryptically represent the plot – SHE in HELL – weren’t that difficult either. Finally, we need to relieve the frustration by relocating the CORKSCREW; that’s 9 characters and 18a COMMANDER is the prime target. Sure enough, effecting the change to that entry results in real words (7d BROOKS, 19d COLA, 9d ALLURE, 11d ENDEWS). As we have to highlight 12 cells we need to throw in the article as well, and there we have it: THE CORKSCREW restored.
Thanks Skylark – first half of grid-fill quite easy, second half more difficult, then a pleasing endgame that was short & quite sweet.
| No. | Clue ✓[✗] | ✓ | Answer | Wordplay |
| Across | ||||
| 1 | Gorged, accepting t[k]ipper rejected by East Anglian neighbour is too fussy (13) | T | OVERELABORATE | OVERATE (gorged) around ALE< (tipper) BOR (neighbour, E Anglian) |
| 12 | Pillowcase is finally cooler in h[s]ummer (4) | H | BERE | (coole)R in BEE (hummer) |
| 13 | Aged gannet we[i]ll shortly arrive (5) | E | SOLAN | SO (well) LAN(d) (arrive) |
| 14 | Apparatus for delivering gas, evaporator emitting polonium and vanadium is faulty (7) | AERATOR | [EVAPORATOR ¬ PO(lonium) ¬ V(anadium)]* | |
| 15 | Join Eddy, almost d[l]ate (4) | D | WELD | WEL(l) (eddy) D(ate) |
| 16 | Ba[e]d base hides uncovered vile old stain (7) | A | SOILURE | SOUR (bad) E (base) around (v)IL(e) |
| 17 | Inside Globe Theatre, Ed’s easy (4) | ETHE | (Glob)E THE(atre) | |
| 18 | Chief computer programmer possesses millions, Guy[v] (9) | Y | COMMANDER | CODER (computer programmer) around M(illions) & MAN (guy) |
| 20 | School with[s] start to ape phonetic vowel sound (5) | H | SCHWA | SCH(ool) W(ith) A(pe) |
| 25 | Very harshly criticises Line[z] shunning bands (6) | E | SASHES | SLASHES (very harshly criticises) ¬ L(ine) |
| 26 | Fish once the Parisian, turning, trim[e]s (6) | M | ELLOPS | LE< (the, Fr) LOPS (trims) |
| 31 | Art’s florid no longer, owing to Rankin? (5) | ASIAN | AS (owing to) IAN (Rankin?) | |
| 33 | Fairies get initially entrancing way of seeing what would otherwise be invisible (9) | PERISCOPE | PERIS (fairies) COP (get) E(ntrancing) | |
| 34 | Think co[a]st left (4) | O | FEEL | FEE (cost) L(eft) |
| 35 | When supporting clever bishop disappears, fairly according to Ed (7) | A-RIGHTS | AS (when) around BRIGHT (clever) ¬ B(ishop) | |
| 39 | Almost rev[s]eal Penny’s wide gap (4) | V | LEAP | LEA(k) (reveal) P(enny) |
| 40 | Tre[u]e, old king leaving attracts sobs (7) | E | BOO-HOOS | BO (tree) O(ld) HOOKS (attracts) ¬ K(ing) |
| 41 | Southern widowed[r] inverted organic molecules (5) | D | ENOLS | S(outhern) LONE (widowed) all< |
| 42 | Jock’s po[e]t eccentricity? Intelligence (4) | O | PATE | PAT (pot, Scot) E(ccentricity) |
| 43 | Crazily misdiagnoses losing game badly, welcoming force (13) | DISPOSSESSION | [MISDIAGNOSES ¬ GAME]* around POSSE (force) | |
| Down | ||||
| 2 | Italian anu[t]s limiting energy advanced inside historic pub (8) | U | VENETIAN | VENT (anus) around E(nergy) A(dvanced) in IN (inn, obs) |
| 3 | Ancient tale raised eastern st[n]ag perhaps (5) | T | REEDE | E(astern) DEER (stag) all< |
| 4 | Improved finale introducing w[h]ealthy European (8) | W | ENRICHED | END (finale) around RICH (wealthy) & E(uropean) |
| 5 | Rural pasture sma[e]ll crosses local rivers (6) | A | LEASOW | LOW (small) around EAS (rivers, dialect) |
| 6 | Exploits prince escaping deal, s[f]aint (4) | S | ACTS | PACT (deal) ¬ P(rince) S(aint) |
| 7 | American rubbish surrounding area’s shrubs (6) | BROOMS | BS (rubbish, US sl) around ROOM (area) | |
| 8 | Drive forward foul-tempered dwarf ignoring t[h]are (4) | T | ROLL | TROLL (foul-tempered dwarf) ¬ T(are) |
| 9 | Refer academy, e[f]ast damp’s rising (6) | E | ALLUDE | A(cademy) E(ast) & DULL (damp) both< |
| 10 | Goat’s hot, filling informer up (4) | TAHR | H(ot) in RAT< (informer) | |
| 11 | American Nobel Laureate’s final r[n]ight in Emirates on vacation (6) | R | ENDERS | END (final) R(ight) in E(mirate)S |
| 12 | Curves r[f]ound on rising arbours (6) | R | BOWERS | BOWS (curves) around RE< (on) |
| 19 | Girl standing by herself briefly (4) | NOLA | ALON(e)< (girl) | |
| 21 | Greek character’s snatching first-rate drink (4) | CHAI | CHI (Greek character) around A (first-rate) | |
| 22 | It’s a surprise husband’s welcomed by abstainers (3) | AHA | H(usband) in AA (abstainers) | |
| 23 | Foreigners touring Hi[u]ll tip off people who legally transfer property (8) | I | ALIENORS | ALIENS (foreigners) around (t)OR (hill) |
| 24 | Call upon Panama about changes performed on group of b[c]ells before (8, 2 words) | B | APPEAL TO | PA(nama)< PEAL (changes performed …) TO (before) |
| 27 | Parent’s tucked into deal[d] marine creatures (6) | L | SALPAE | PA (parent) in SALE (deal) |
| 28 | Avoided heated pool, blushing (6) | SPARED | SPA (heated pool) RED (blushing) | |
| 29 | Oxbridge exam slip, Bone[d] (6) | E | TRIPOS | TRIP (slip) OS (bone) |
| 30 | Jackets one abandoned in battles (6) | ACTONS | ACTIONS (battles) ¬ I (one) | |
| 32 | Former soldier Pascal woman welcomes back to service (6) | SPAHEE | PA(scal) in SHE (woman) (servic)E | |
| 34 | Liberal dividing dandies collapses (5) | FLOPS | L(iberal) in FOPS (dandies) | |
| 36 | Indian queen hurried through institute (4) | RANI | RAN (hurried through) I(nstitute) | |
| 37 | Lifting cake, swallow quickly (4) | GULP | PLUG< (cake) | |
| 38 | Whistles to Jock, not loudly, and scatters seeds (4) | SOWS | SOWFS (whistles) ¬ F (loudly) | |
A struggle here too, though an enjoyable one. I had the corkscrew, and the author, but came up with the ingenious if ultimately incorrect highlighting of WASHELL (what SHE went through WAS HELL). Oh well.
Sorry for any clunky clues and thanks for the blog and feedback, Holy Ghost. Glad you enjoyed the endgame.
That poem has been a favourite of mine since I first read it after a kind schoolfriend brought me two Wendy Cope collections for Christmas.
I couldn’t find the 7 letters either. The only thing I could see was AERATOR with it’s connection to wine, but I knew that was wrong.
I had put this aside as a DNF with one clue incomplete and only some of the misprints corrected. I didn’t have enough to enable me to deduce the first line of the poem. But I belatedly realised that DISPOSSESSION must be the undefined thematic answer, and that helped me think about what kind of poet might write a poem about something going missing: Wendy Cope came to mind, literally in the middle of the night. The next morning I found her surname in the grid, which confirmed my thesis. Luckily I have a volume of her poems, Serious Concerns in which Loss appears. I was then able to reverse engineer the missing misprints to produce the first line (and to solve the incomplete answer). Are misprints in wordplay harder to identify than misprints in definitions? 27 is certainly a lot of misprints to find. But the outcome was worth the effort.
Loved this, Skylark. Nice surface and pleasing endgame. It’s always a good sign when my copy of the clues has no question marks on it, though it took me a while to parse 2d (vent = anus hadn’t occurred to me!) A poet who was new to me, though my wife found another poem in an anthology – My Funeral – which is amusing but also quite moving. Thank you for the blog H_G_.
I enjoyed this and wasn’t aware of the verse so thanks for the edification
Glad to have done this one and enjoyed the verse. My sort of poetry – short, sweet and memorable.
I had the same experience as bridgesong, without the midnight inspiration. So frustration was my ultimate experience, although I enjoyed the grid fill a great deal.
Thanks to Skylark for the challenge, and HolyGhost for the relief.
The real solution to the problem, incidentally, would be two corkscrews.
What fun! There have been more difficult and more complex puzzles this year, but none that has made me smile as much as this one, so thanks to Skylark for that. We overthought the endgame and spent a lot of time looking for something along the lines of “Go to the pub” or “Find a screwtop” to relieve the frustration, rather than reinstating the corkscrew with, as HG says, COMMANDER as the prime target.
In the mid 1980s, shortly after Wendy Cope’s first published collection, “Making Cocoa for Kingsley Amis”, came out, I put on a poetry reading at Manchester Central Library by Wendy and her contemporary Carole Rumens. I can’t remember much about it except that not many people turned up! No doubt my fault for not promoting it better.
In contrast to HG, most of my first 20-odd answers were in the bottom half of the grid and I was slightly alarmed to find that only a handful of their clues contained an extra letter. What was I missing? Thankfully, the answer was “nothing”. As usual a bit of rev. eng. came in useful for the last few entries. I did not recognise the first line but soon found it and it raised a smile. COPE was easily spotted and I then surprised myself by finding the word change and remaining highlighting fairly quickly.
Thanks to Skylark for an enjoyable and amusing excursion and to HG for the usual comprehensive blog.
I have been a fan ever since she summarised The Waste Land in limericks. I heard of her of course in a crossword
Thanks Skylark and HG.(This week is a likely DNF)
I found this a mixture of enjoyable, doable clues and some impenetrable ones – I finished the grid but with “Nell” for “Nola” (not a name I know), so “asill” for 15th, which made little sense, but neither did “Asian” to my slow wits – I must learn to check for extra meanings of common words in the dictionary! I can see the parsing of it now – thank you HolyGhost – I really should have gone with “ian” for Rankin! – but didn’t see how Asian” could be the definition. I cobbled together enough misprint letters to create a first line of verse that went “The mayhem over, it was terrible” – only 26 letters, I know! – couldn’t find any poem that related to it, and gave up! For 13ac, I assumed “late” to refer to “d” as short for “dead”, so was struggling to find a misprint for Eddy…. Ah well, maybe I’ll have better luck next time!
Popping in belatedly to say Thanks all round. It took me some time to think of Wendy Cope, but the book was on our shelves in the next room, which made me feel simultaneously a bit smug and a bit of a clot.
@11 I love the Waste Land limericks too!
Finally finished this after wrestling with the endgame for a fortnight! I had real difficulty identifying the correct misprints (e.g. WINS at 20a, MULL at 23d) but eventually managed to identify the poem via googling possible options around ‘WAS TERRIBLE POEM’. It then took a while longer of attempting to crowbar ‘Bottle opener’ into the grid (12 cells) before corkscrew appeared.
Belated thanks to Skylark.
Now to try and do the same with the previous Ifor puzzle…