Sign Up Here! by Ploy
A group of two or three letters must be removed from each of ten clues, to form new clues to be solved. In the remaining clues, the wordplay leads to the answer with an extra letter that is not entered in the grid. The extra letters give a cryptic clue to the theme, its solution (6) indicating words to make from the letter groups. In the completed grid, draw identical closed curves to enclose those cells containing the theme’s letters and no others. Then complete this illustration (associated with a theme member) by connecting the curves to the top edge of the grid, in a design of your own choosing. Finally, express completion of the task with a hopefully appropriate phrase (4,4,5) below the grid, referring to another theme member.
Wow, scary!
There’s only one thing to do – let go of the pen and step away from the preamble!
As always, I ignore most of the stuff and dive straight into the clues. Trouble is, of course, there are two types and the “ten clues” are the scariest.
As it turns out, the clues were fairly gentle and the “ten” were fairly easy to spot.
The letter groups were as follows:
| Clue | Extras | Paired with | Uncle | Ref |
| 10a | CK |
31a | ||
| 17a | FES |
19d | FESTER |
IMDb |
| 20a | SI |
28d | SILAS |
IMDb |
| 28a | REM |
8d | REMUS |
IMDb |
| 31a | BU |
10a | BUCK |
IMDb |
| 2d | YA |
26d | ||
| 8d | US |
28a | ||
| 19d | TER |
17a | ||
| 26d | VAN |
2d | VANYA |
IMDb |
| 28d | LAS |
20a |
And, as you can see, the combinations are all fictional uncles and this is confirmed by the extra letters from the majority of clues, which spell out: WHAT FORMING NEW CLUES CAN GIVE. As per the instructions, we treat this as a cryptic clue. New+CLUES can be rearranged to become UNCLES.
Now on to the end game. What the heck does “closed curve” mean? Does it simply mean a circle. If so, why not say circle. Or would that give the game away too soon?
Examining the grid shows that the letters U, N, C, L, E, S appear in only twelve cells. And they’re all in tight little 2×2 squares.
I left work just over two years and since then I haven’t been asked to “square the circle” even once. Deep joy! But now, Ploy is asking me to circle the squares. As soon as I started drawing the circles I realised that I was drawing a pawnbroker sign. And pawnbrokers are also known as UNCLE. So – using a design of my own choosing (read straight lines) I connected the balls to the top of the grid. Putting the SIGN UP HERE!
OK then, on to the next phase. We have to express completion of the task.
And … that’s a wrap! Or, in other words, BOB’S YOUR UNCLE!
I really enjoyed this puzzle, so many thanks to Ploy.
| Across |
|||
| Clue |
Entry |
Extras |
Wordplay |
| 1 My getting about isle is wonderful (6) | MIGHTY | W |
MY around WIGHT (isle) |
| 5 Non-professional theatrics from ranting actor having a tipple (6) | AM-DRAM | H |
HAM (ranting actor)+DRAM (tipple) |
| 10 Brock given promotion and west-facing office in secure hospital (9) | BROADMOOR | CK |
BRO+AD (promotion)+ROOM (office; rev: west-facing) |
| 12 Metal oxide’s greyish-white, found in island on retirement (6) | THORIA | A |
AIT (island; rev: on retirement) around HOAR (greyish-white) |
| 13 S African antelope was taken in by operative regularly (5) | ORIBI | T |
O[pe]R[at]I[ve] (regularly)+BIT (was taken) (not entirely happy with this one and prepared to be corrected) |
| 16 Tee and conifer over the road – unimportant details (6) | TRIVIA | F |
Tee+FIR (conifer; rev: over)+VIA (road) |
| 17 Tip of fescue clutched by honorary House leader in Washington (6) | HONCHO | FES |
HONorary+C[ue] (tip of)+HOuse |
| 18 Bristle with singular rage ultimately – way to go! (4) | SETA | O |
Singular+[rag]E (ultimately)+TAO (way to go) |
| 20 Tarsia worked with loud flatterer (8) | ADULATOR | SI |
TARS+LOUD (anag: worked) |
| 23 Before Henry consumed by interest, fancy an imaginative trifle? (8) | WHIM-WHAM | R |
WHIM (fancy) around WARM (imaginative) around Henry |
| 25 Great Britain stopping international award for Nigerian (4) | IGBO | M |
International+GB (Great Britain)+OM (award: Order of Merit) |
| 27 Papal officer repulsed help with tray under the table (6) | DATARY | I |
AID (rev: repulsed)+TRAY (anag: under the table) (under the table meaning “drunk”) |
| 28 First premier’s excited all but Eastern Malaysia (6) | PRIMAL | REM |
PI[e]R (all but Eastern; anag: excited)+MALaysia (IVR) |
| 30 Pub backtracked and stored wine for Jewish doctor (5) | RABBI | N |
BAR (pub; rev: backtracked)+BIN (stored wine) |
| 31 Alternately against/for progressing with flipping trophies and half bugong (6) | STOP-GO | BU |
POTS (trophies; rev: flipping)+GO[ng] (half of) |
| 32 Audacity shown by influential chap accompanying husband with dodgy hairdo (9) | HARDIHOOD | G |
Husband+HAIRDO (anag: dodgy)+GOD (influential chap) |
| 33 Supposing cash is put into weak hotel area funds initially? (6, 2 words) | WHAT IF | N |
Weak Hotel Area F[unds] (initially) around TIN (money) |
| 34 Protea was nearly best part of book by Ploy (6) | WABOOM | E |
WA[s] (nearly)+BOO[k] (best part of/most of)+ME (Ploy, the setter) |
| Down | |||
| 1 Maori, getting one for nothing, holds something revolutionary for agent (8, 2 words) | MATA HARI | W |
MAARI (maOri with A (one) replacing O (nothing)) around WHAT (something; rev: revolutionary) |
| 2 Adult squad with Kenya finally included (7) | GROWN-UP | YA |
GROUP (squad) around With+[ke]N (finally) |
| 3 Hymn tune snubbed as music for circle dance (4) | HORA | C |
CHORA[l] (hymn tune) to SNUB is to cut short |
| 4 Staff at ceremony queue – now I get it! (6) | TAIAHA | L |
TAIL (queue)+AHA (I get it) |
| 6 Sterile chamber is heaving with precious jade (5) | MOORY | U |
ROOM (chamber; rev: heaving)+YU (precious jade) |
| 7 To become like some Greeks, earl’s in pursuit of little boats (6) | DORISE | E |
DORIES (little boats)+Earl |
| 8 By accident, cousin blocking order outside castle (9) | ARBITRARY | US |
BIT (coin) and Rook (castle) inside ARRAY (order) |
| 9 Mother of Hermes, but in French academy (4) | MAIA | S |
MAIS (French for but)+Academy |
| 11 Spinsters tackling tango on upturned bed – they’re neither sane nor insane (8) | MATTOIDS | C |
MAIDS (spinsters) around Tango+COT (bed; rev: upturned) |
| 14 Road hog lambasted over accident round curve (9) | HODOGRAPH | A |
ROAD HOG (anag: lambasted)+HAP (accident; rev: round) |
| 15 Peg got into small lake and explored beneath the surface (8) | POTHOLED | N |
POND (small lake) around THOLE (peg) |
| 19 Destructive larva distracted mater with money worry (8, 2 words) | ARMY WORM | TER |
MA+Money+WORRY (anag: distracted) |
| 21 Pashm spoilt by sticky stuff – clean with detergent (7) | SHAMPOO | G |
PHASM (anag: spoilt)+GOO (sticky stuff) |
| 22 Hay pile set up to tempt herbivorous marsupial (6) | WOMBAT | I |
MOW (hay pile; rev: set up)+BAIT (tempt) |
| 24 Bats harm a Vermont lady (6) | MARTHA | V |
HARM+A+VT (Vermont) anag: bats |
| 26 Scotswoman’s mailvan mostly going around Ireland (5) | MAIRI | VAN |
MAI[l] (mostly) around IReland |
| 28 Pianolas with previously rough projecting part (4) | PROW | LAS |
Piano+ROW (old word for rough) |
| 29 Putting Scots grandchild into a sledge is a blunder (4) | BOOB | E |
BOB (sledge) around OE (Scots grandchild) (there was a touch of ambiguity about this one. It could equally have been OY for grandchild but clearly E is the desired letter) |
Lovely puzzle. Leaving clues that read well after corrections seems to be a trademark of Ploy, and a pretty good one to have.
I read 13a as ‘was taken in’ i.e was deceived.
Although I’m sure your interpretation of the endgame is correct, I came up with the 3 letter Os situated at d2,h2 and f5 which are symmetrically arranged in the shape of the pawnbroker’s symbol.
I wondered about Mairi at 26d, given the editor’s comment in the Give Me a Clue section on the same page where he explains “we don’t allow otherwise unindicated boys’ and girls’ names”. If “girl” (as in the Rufus clue he cites) is not an adequate indication, how is “Scotswoman”, I wonder?
As John Nick said, a lovely puzzle. It took me quite a long time to get through all the clues, purely because each one had to be unravelled as well as solved in order to determine what letter or letters it would yield. I had to change one of the single letters (T to W in 1d), and find two more that I missed, but as soon as that was done I had a readable clue.
REMUS was the only uncle I saw straight away, and to get VANYA I had to change LVA to VAN, the clue yielding either of those sets of letters. I also knew SILAS, but FESTER and BUCK were new to me, or I had forgotten them.
The final instruction took a few minutes to work out – I got it by assuming UNCLE would account for the 5 in (4,4,5).
Thanks to Ploy and kenmac.
Great blog and artwork
I’m ashamed of my grid!
Thanks all
Got the uncles and the phrase, but didn’t quite feel entitled to it, as I messed up on the artwork (for some reason, I failed to include the ‘s’s among the letters, so got a very odd face). But I agree with the praise; nice to come to this blog with no queries on parsing (except 6d).
Thanks to Ploy and kenmac.
Schoolboy error here – I had UNCLE instead of UNCLES as the theme so the curved lines looked illogical to me!
My bad entirely
Great puzzle
Not been too lucky with endgames recently, so I was pleased to get this one right. Good puzzle. Interesting that in French – maybe other languages as well – going to the pawn shop is ‘aller chez ma tante’.
For me, the most entertaining puzzle of the year so far. Just hard enough with plenty of PDMs and a finish which brought a smile to my face.
Many thanks to Ploy and to Kenmac
My resultant cryptic clue was a bit of a mess (perhaps because I made very heavy weather of the grid fill), but thankfully it was clear that the groups of 2/3 letters were all UNCLES, and the theme thus revealed. My own artistic talents are fairly rudimentary, but I’m curious as to whether anybody really went to town with the invitation to produce a design of your own choosing.
Overall very nicely put together, from the title through to the phrase to write under the grid.
In 13 ac, it is more likely that BI sounds like (taken) BY.
Frank, that part of the wordplay has to render an extra T. Under ‘bite’ Chambers has ‘To deceive, take in (now only in passive)’ – ‘was taken in’ would fit BIT.
Sorry, ignore what I said. Chambers is referring to the action of deceiving not being deceived. Odd to me because when I think of someone biting in the sense of ruse, I think of them falling for the ruse not being the instigator.
John Nick @12, I think you are wrong to with draw your earlier comment: “I have been deceived,” could be “I have been bitten,” used in the passive form as required. Bit is an archaic form of bitten (Chambers), so “was taken in” refers to to the usage being archaic.
*withdraw*
Yes, of course, John, thanks. Brain fog! I have since heard that wasn’t the setter’s intention anyway so apologise for the diversion.
Excellent blog btw.
Having finished the grid, but not understood all the parsing, I had something like “what form in _ne illness can give”, and assumed “fester” and “sick” must be related to this – even though I could see Vanya and Silas and Buck were also there, the penny didn’t drop – doh! Very clever uncles theme! Thank you to Ploy and Kenmac.
Coming very late to this one. Each week I make a note of whether the puzzle might feature in my end-of-year top 5: this one’s in the list. ‘Nuff said.