Hello all. Xanthippe was a setter unfamiliar to me, and I looked forward to dipping my toes into new waters …
The preamble reads:
In seven across clues a letter must be discarded before solving; these letters in clue order describe victims to be removed from the grid. In nine down clues a letter must be added before solving; these letters in clue order describe what must replace the victims. Solvers must highlight the 30 cells showing the replacements and draw two straight lines through ten cells (starting in a highlighted cell) showing another of their kind, to FINISH. Chambers Dictionary (2016) is recommended; all final entries are real words.
I don’t have much to say about the solving part of the solve. I spotted something fishy going on first, and the predators followed.
Letters removed, perhaps eaten, from across clues show that the victims are:
SIX FISH
Letters added, or fed, to down clues spell:
SIX SHARKS
I had caught sight of most of the fish before completing the gridfill, and now just needed to catch the last couple and find sharks to fit the space …
… and add the FIN of the GREAT WHITE to FINISH. Fintastic!
Thanks to Xanthippe for a fin – I mean fun – puzzle!
| Clue No | ANSWER | Clue with definition underlined | |
| Explanation, with quoted indicators in italics and ANSWER letters in bold caps | |||
| Across | |||
| 1a | DUMBLY | Short Disney film[s] regularly play in silence (6) | S |
| Without the last letter (shortly), DUMBo (Disney film) + alternate letters of (regularly) pLaY | |||
| 5a | DISHES | P[i]lates, flexing side, keeping quite (6) | I |
| An anagram of (flexing) SIDE containing (keeping) SH (quiet – looks like a typo) | |||
| 10a | EXARCHAL | Alto left behind without support of bishop (8) | |
| A (alto) and L (left) following (behind) EX (without) and ARCH (support) | |||
| 11a | REASONED | Argued about boy hiding in grass (8) | |
| A (about) and SON (boy) inside (hiding in) REED (grass) | |||
| 13a | AKIN | Related article, abridged piece (4) | |
| A (article) + KINg (piece) without the last letter (abridged …) | |||
| 14a | SIGMA | Mostly symbol primarily meaning addition (5) | |
| Without the last letter (mostly), SIGn (symbol) + the first letters of (primarily) Meaning Addition | |||
| 15a | MESH | Ne[x]t’s share of income’s halved (4) | X |
| A part of (share of) incoME’S Halved | |||
| 17a | ENRIVEN | English Bond actor grasps rubles Ed’s torn (7) | |
| E (English) + NIVEN (Bond actor) goes around (grasps) R (rubles) R | |||
| 18a | SAMOA | Island nation love for bachelor in dance (5) | |
| O replaces B (love for bachelor) in SAM[b]A (dance) | |||
| 20a | HOER | Hot earth put in [f]or gardener (4) | F |
| H (hot) + E (earth) put in OR | |||
| 22a | HEREBY | Medicinal plant bordering eastern yard, not far off (6) | |
| HERB (medicinal plant) around (bordering) E (eastern) + Y (yard) | |||
| 24a | SCOWTH | In Nairn, plenty from Highlander, perhaps, embracing wife and husband (6) | |
| SCOT (Highlander perhaps) around (embracing) W (wife) + H (husband) | |||
| 26a | SEEM | Get Mike to appear (4) | |
| SEE (get) + M (Mike) | |||
| 28a | RIGHT | Correct equipment height (5) | |
| RIG (equipment) + HT (height) | |||
| 29a | SHEESHA | Tobacco ash he’s blowing across end of pipe (7) | |
| ASH HE’S anagrammed (blowing) around (across) the last letter (end) of pipE E | |||
| 32a | RANA | [I] drove a Hindu prince (4) | I |
| RAN (drove) + A | |||
| 36a | INPUT | Feed Russian leader, swapping place at home (5) | |
| Russian leader, swapping PUT (place) and IN (at home) | |||
| 37a | IBEX | In the same place, sheep centrally by goat (4) | |
| IB (in the same place) + shEep, centrally + X (by) | |||
| 38a | PEYOTIST | Tipsy poet, dropping peso, dancing around intoxicated Mexican (8) | |
| TIPSY [p]OET without (dropping) P (peso), anagrammed (dancing around) | |||
| 39a | RE-EMERGE | Grey leader returning with European to appear again (8) | |
| GR (grey) and EMEER (leader) reversed (returning) followed by E (European) | |||
| 40a | GIRDER | Ho[s]t faced cook over support (6) | S |
| RED (hot faced) and RIG (cook) reversed (over) | |||
| 41a | EMESIS | Old uncle with NY sibling, c[h]atting (6) | H |
| EME (old uncle) + SIS (NY sibling) | |||
| Down | |||
| 1d | DORSE | Take in medicine for back (5) | |
| R (take) in DOSE (medicine) | |||
| 2d | MEAGRE | <S>Pare last of cheese after unfinished dish with grains (6) | S |
| The last letter of (last of) cheesE after all but the last letter of (unfinished) MEA[l] (dish) and GR (grains) | |||
| 3d | BESMIRCH | Sta<i>n solving crimes in Belize (8) | I |
| An anagram of (solving) CRIMES in BH (Belize) | |||
| 4d | YANKEE | What follows <X->Ray’s bet? (6) | X |
| What follow’s X-Ray? In the NATO alphabet, YANKEE | |||
| 5d | DREG | Trace Dutch number plate (4) | |
| D (Dutch) + REG (number plate) | |||
| 6d | SHAM | False top to <s>table leg, back part (4) | S |
| The first letter of (top to) Stable + HAM (leg, back part) | |||
| 7d | HAKE | Inner door’s shaken, lacking frame (4) | |
| sHAKEn without outer letters (lacking frame) | |||
| 8d | SUNHAT | Eccentric <h>aunt under square cover (6) | H |
| An anagram of (eccentric) HAUNT after (under) S (square) | |||
| 9d | REIN | Curb and command he<a>rd (4) | A |
| REIGN (command), homophone (heard) | |||
| 12d | DOSEH | Cairo ceremony once first of eight breaks bread (5) | |
| The initial letter of (first of) Eight goes inside (breaks) DOSH (bread) | |||
| 16d | SOLE | Irritable without <R>ex touring loch alone (4) | R |
| SO[r]E (irritable) without R (Rex) around (touring) L (loch) | |||
| 19d | ABSENTEE | Person missing <k>night after arranging base support (8) | K |
| N (knight) after anagramming (arranging) BASE + TEE (support) | |||
| 21d | OBIA | Bygone charm of bishop in America (4) | |
| O (‘o: of) + B (bishop) + I (i’:in) + A (America) | |||
| 22d | HOT UP | Increase energy in Tuesday dance outside (5, two words) | |
| TU (Tuesday) with HOP (dance) around it (outside) | |||
| 23d | ERRING | Slipping out second of garnets from jewellery (6) | |
| Remove (out) the second of gArnets from E[a]RRING (jewellery) | |||
| 25d | THEY’RE | Some are year in that place (6) | |
| Y (year) in THERE (that place) | |||
| 27d | ESPIES | Baked food in canteen withdrawing master discovers unexpectedly (6) | |
| PIE (baked food) in [m]ESS (canteen) removing (withdrawing) M (master) | |||
| 30d | HUSO | Swimmer’s partner swapping band for ring (4) | |
| HUS[band] (partner) swapping BAND for O (ring) | |||
| 31d | ATTIS | God from region around Athens is shunning club<s> (5) | S |
| ATTI[c] (from region around Athens) and ‘S (is) without (shunning) C (clubs) | |||
| 33d | NE’ER | No way in here, entrants held up (4) | |
| The answer is in heRE, ENtrants reversed (held up) | |||
| 34d | AXED | Reduced variable education supporting academy (4) | |
| X (variable) and ED (education) after (supporting) A (academy) A | |||
| 35d | BEER | Teetotaller leaving gambler drink (4) | |
| TT (teetotaller) removed from (leaving) BE[tt]ER (gambler) | |||
This is the second EV puzzle in a row with, for me, no theme or endgame, but at least this time I was able to complete the crossword, despite leaving a few of the clues not fully parsed.
I missed both the F and the K from the set of collected letters, and one other letter was wrong. The only good data I had to go on were SIX and SIX.
I hope for better luck next time.
I started off at a gallop with a quick grid fill and a complete message, followed by immediately spotting the fish/shark replacements of the LHS plus HAKE/MAKO. Then I spent two hours staring at the grid before I found the other two. It didn’t help that I’d wrongly entered SORE at 16 down, and didn’t realise my error for ages. I realised HUSO was one of the fish but I didn’t know HUSS, and a search in Chambers for words/phrases containing “shark” doesn’t give it. Finally it occurred to me that that only the last letter could change, and a search for HUS? brought up the required result.
From time to time I’ve had a legitimate reason, I believe, to describe a barred thematic as “nice puzzle spoiled by a tedious grid stare.” In this case it was “nice puzzle spoiled by this solver’s incompetence!”
An enjoyable solve, with the grid filling smoothly (though couldn’t see the last added S in down clues – think it has to be clubs in 31dn rather than club?) and the six fish fairly easy to spot. The replacements went in with the help of Bradford’s. Thanks Xanthippe and Kitty.
I really should have seen HAKE and HERRING – two of a kind, in plain sight, and not needing a ‘tedious grid stare’ (to quote cruciverbophile above). Then I would have guessed FISH and SHARKS to complete my set of collected letters.
Too late now!
Thanks to Xanthippe for a fair puzzle and to Kitty for the blog.
When I solved this I thought that the last S of SHARKS came from 23D.
“out second of garnets” becoming “oust second of garnets” etc. etc.
But Chambers doesn’t give club as a meaning for ‘C’, so that must be clubs at 31D as given above.
Good fishy entertainment from Xanthippe.
31d proved to be a tricky clue. When I solved it, correctly adding an S to ‘club’ and removing the C from ATTIC, I then added S to ATTI (note ‘S = ‘is’), not IS.
Thanks for the correction, Alan B. It took a couple of “but that’s what I wrote!”s before I saw what you meant. It has been a long week! Blog tweaked.
Fin puzzle indeed! thanks Kitty and X! I puzzled over SHEESHA because I couldn’t find a reference to tobacco per se — always to the pipe in which it (and other substances!) is smoked.