The shortest rubric of the year so far.
The unclued lights give both names of an author and his condolences (10 words). Misprints occur in the definitions of 19 clues. Corrected letters, read in clue order, give a hint to solvers.
I always enjoy Chalicea’s Inquisitors. She chooses interesting themes and her clues are approachable and at the easier end of the IQ spectrum. A good thing when there are 45 unclued squares!
I made a good start in the bottom right corner and gradually worked my way out from there, encountering some interesting words on the way, including SECERN, ACULEI, KEASAR, KGOTLA and JOOK. After an hour or two I had -P-PHFO-IRRE-L as the misprinted letters and had found ?RA?K?IN as rightmost down unclued light. This led me to FRANKLIN and hence to BENJAMIN for 1D and thence to completion of the top left corner – 1A having previously defeated me as I did not know that BOUNCE could mean “beat”.
I Googled “Franklin Condolences” and was led down a blind alley concerning a letter, discovered by Longfellow, to Franklin’s niece on the death of his brother. After this false start I looked again at the misprinted letters and thought that *IRREL might be SQUIRREL. Checking in 2, 3 and 4 down I duly found SQU and further checks revealed the hint referred to in the rubric was EPITAPH FOR A SQUIRREL.
Now Google led me here to the letter to Georgiana Shipley on the death of her pet squirrel, Mungo, which includes the immortal lines
Here Skugg
Lies snug
As a Bug
In a Rug.
Thank you Chalicea. Another most enjoyable puzzle. I look forward to your next.
| Across | |||
| Clue definition [misprint] correction | Answer | Wordplay | |
| 1 B[r]eat in the past using breadth and weight (6) | BOUNCE | B(readth) + OUNCE (weight) | E |
| 5 With [r]power declining, lacking energy in conclusion of racing (6) | WANING | WAN (lacking energy) + IN + (racin)G | P |
| 10 Retrograde failure over international observation of writers (6) | ESPIAL | LAPSE (failure) reversed (retrograde) round I(nternational) | |
| 12 Scheme involving alternative technology for large plant (6) | PLATAN | PLAN (scheme) round A(lternative) T(echnology) | |
| 13 Tr[a]ick to avoid in the Highlands, much loved one for Scots certainly (4) | JOOK | JO (Scottish loved one) + OK (certainly) | I |
| 14 One rat after another making a comeback in Ed’s hellish pi[e]t (6) | TARTAR | Spenserian equivalent of Tartarus – word for hell: RAT twice reversed | T |
| 15 T[e]amper sound of gong (6) | MEDDLE | Sounds like MEDAL (gong) | A |
| 17 Eccentric rake as German emperor once (6) | KEASAR | [RAKE AS]* | |
| 18 Attribute of independent set in Middle East (6) | IMPUTE | I(ndependent) + PUT (set) in M(iddle) E(ast) | |
| 21 Part of Tsiganes atavism; eastern deity of sa[l]pience (6) | GANESA | Hidden in TsiGANES Atsvism | P |
| 25 Skill recalled to work cooking utensil for bird (8) | TRAGOPAN | ART (skill) reversed + GO (work) + PAN (cooking utensil) | |
| 27 Endlessly difficult to handle stack of [p]hay (4) | RICK | (t)RICK(y) – difficult to handle endlessly | H |
| 28 Redness of skin round tip of shoulder diminished, showing no [p]feeling (9) | HEARTLESS | HEAT (redness of skin) round (shoulde)R + LESS (diminished) | F |
| 29 Stinging p[r]ointed items, acid mostly, about university colleges, essentially (6) | ACULEI | ACI(d) round U(niversity) + (col)LE(ges) | O |
| 30 Poet’s scheme while w[a]riting in Rabelais’ service (6) | LAISSE | Hidden in RabeLAIS SErvice | R |
| 31 M[u]ark as different screen prepared (6) | SECERN | [SCREEN]* | A |
| Down | |||
| Clue definition [misprint] correction | Answer | Wordplay | |
| 2 [B]Suffer process of water regulation in outsize elk, losing heart (6) | OSMOSE | OS(outsize) + MO(o)SE (elk) | S |
| 3 Before judge, Henry’s worn [s]quit when defending? Not likely! (6) | UPHOLD | UP (before judge) + H(enry) + OLD (worn) | Q |
| 4 With effort move along the Spanish tr[y]ust arranged to control affairs (6) | CARTEL | CART (move along with effort) + EL (the Spanish) | U |
| 6 Ser[v]ies member, an inflammable one – a Latin Citizen? (6) | ALKANE | A + L(atin) + (Citizen) KANE | I |
| 7 Gran describing a classy game for Pacific islander (7) | NAURUAN | NAN (gran) round A + U (classy) + RU (game) | |
| 8 Problem in ho[u]rses; constantly worry over couple of articles (6) | NAGANA | NAG (constantly worry) + AN + A (articles) | R |
| 9 Telephoned about discovering sna[i]rl (4) | GNAR | RANG (telephoned) reversed | R |
| 11 Person r[a]enting without ever barring regulars? (6) | LESSEE | LESS (without) + E(v)E(r) | E |
| 16 Curiously absurd rooms, principally where royal receptions occur (7) | DURBARS | [ABSURD R(ooms)]* | |
| 17 Confused talk about game in African elders’ assembly place (6) | KGOTLA | [TALK]* round GO (game} | |
| 19 Oral law’s partly schoolmarmish nature (6) | MISHNA | Hidden in schoolmarMISH NAture | |
| 20 Bul[k]l of groups from time to time pursuing Greek character (6) | TAURUS | TAU (Greek letter) + (g)R(o)U(p)S | L |
| 22 A bit of buttered bread in Glasgow for each person (6) | APIECE | A + PIECE (bit of buttered bread – Scots) | |
| 23 Old and doddery with cleanliness finally dropped – place in a secluded situation! (6) | ENISLE | SENILE (old and doddery) with (cleanlines)S moved down | |
| 24 Less healthy certainly in ages past (6) | SICKER | Double definition: less healthy and certainly (archaic) | |
| 26 Black cuckoo left shrub (4) | ANIL | ANI (black cuckoo) + L(eft) | |
Thank you, Chalicea and Hihoba. Enjoyed as always.
Nothing special to add except a rueful admission of a silly red-herring trail. I saw EPITAPH FOR A SQUIRREL while still in a state of hideous uncertainty about the unclued cells, and tried quite hard to fit Rex Stout into the grid — remembering that his Nero Wolfe mystery If Death Ever Slept takes its title from a little ode to a dead squirrel written by one of the female suspects. Oh well!
A little trickier than I was expecting for Chalicea, perhaps due to the large number of unclued entries, but enjoyed still. I had even fewer misprints than you did, so spent a lot of time looking through the many “amusing” epitaphs Franklin wrote, most of which appear to have been for himself.
The part of the grid that yielded most readily was the bottom right, and I duly filled all the white cells in that quadrant plus the word above it (KEASAR). The name in the silvered cells down the right-hand side just had to be FRANKLIN, and at that stage there were two places where BENJAMIN could go.
Even after getting a lot further, and placing BENJAMIN down the left-hand side, I could make no sense of the other four silvered entries. I then embarked on an enjoyable journey, taking in Franklin’s condolences to his niece on her father’s death (already mentioned here) and the condolences of the French to the US on Franklin’s own death, before finding (at last) the epitaph composed by Franklin for his friend’s pet squirrel! Far from being an anti-climax, that enabled me to complete the puzzle with the words EPITAPH and SQUIRREL from the corrected letters as well as the complete epitaph in the silvered cells. All great fun and a satisfying finish.
Thanks to Chalicea and Hihoba.
As Jon_S comments @2, this was harder than usual for a Chalicea puzzle, but a welcome respite after the previous week’s monster. Nothing really to add except that I uncovered the hint about the SQUIRREL before I got FRANKLIN + BENJAMIN and then his “condolences”.
Thanks go to blogger & setter, but I do wish that rubrics wouldn’t refer to “corrected letters” as I’m always uncertain whether that refers to the misprints (which have to be corrected) or to the correct letters themselves.
A pretty straightforward task this week – aided by the fact that it only involved a 12×12 grid with a mere 32 clues. I liked the fact that a fair number of the answers were unusually spelled and / or rarely used words. The NE quadrant was the slowest part to complete for me, though the misprints that I had (TAPH FOR A IRR L) soon led me to the necessary answers to the unclued lights, and the remaining answers just fell in.
15A was a devious clue, as both Temper and Tamper can mean MEDDLE, so there was no actual need to correct the E to A. 28A almost fooled me too, as tip (an extremity) to me always conjours up the concept of the front end rather than the rear (chalking my billiard cue), so I immediately looked to use the S of shoulder, and not the R. Get’s me every time, that does. Grrrrrr.
I think that it would have been a good idea to number the grid correctly, including the six unclued entries too, as there was plenty of room in which to write ‘Unclued – see preamble’ six times. I initially imagined that both 1D and 26A might be ‘special’ in some way or other, but they weren’t (unless, of course, you happen to be called Benjamin Asabug, in which case, please accept my sincerest apologies).
Prize request – a bottle of Umbrian extra virgin olive oil for me this week, I think (à la Independent Magazine – see the comments on last week’s blog).
Many thanks, as always, to both blogger and setter … and so on to Inquisitor No 1723 we all go.
I thought 1a was BRAG for BOUNCE so I looked elsewhere and as soon as I saw Benjamin Franklin I got out the ODQ and took the short cut!
What a guy!
Many thanks to Hihoba and for all those generous comments. I am sorry if the theme led some of you on a Franklin wild goose chase. The squirrel epitaph was just too delightful to resist despite his many other comments and achievements that would provide (and have provided) themes.