Across clues have an extra letter to spell out a name and a decoration. Seven down clues have a redundant word described by two words in a book title in the middle of the grid – these are used to populate the perimeter in Capital form. A Central character needs to then be turned
The extra letters spelled out Percy H Fawcett DSO – a British ‘explorer’ who disappeared in 1925 hunting for a lost city. The sixth row then became THE LOST CITY OF with the central square N rotated to a Z making THE LOST CITY OF Z.
The extra words were all anagrams of capitals and are to be entered from the top left as specified by the number in brackets around the perimeter:
PAIRS – PARIS (6)
ROMANIANS – SAN MARINO (2)
FOREWENT – FREETOWN (3)
PRIORATE – PRETORIA (1)
UNITS – TUNIS (7)
LOUSE – SEOUL (4)
SCARIEST – CASTRIES (5)
And that was that – good fun and educational too as I’d never heard of Percy Fawcett. Thanks VISMUT
Key: Underline (definition); DD double definition; Reve Reversed; * anagram
| Across | |
| 8 Poor paupers scrubbing posh Eastern Mexican’s blanket (6) | |
| P | (paupers)* – u(posh) + e(eastern) = SERAPE |
| 10 Story teller honest about second piece of fiction on reflection (4) | |
| E | Rev. real (honest) about I (second piece of fiction) = LIAR |
| 12 German man cycling to discover monkey (6) | |
| R | RHer (german man – herr – cycling) + sus(discover) = RHESUS |
| 13 Hubbub of Nice front I ignored (5) | |
| C | Nicoise (Of Nice) – I = NOISE |
| 14 Hold very small – intermediate needle (7) | |
| Y | Bet (hold) + Weeny (very small) = BETWEEN |
| 15 Tinamou shot by human (6) | |
| H | (by human)* = YNAMBU |
| 16 Surpass wolf cub to regularly feast (5) | |
| F | wOlF cUb To + Do (feast) = OUTDO |
| 19 Oceans surrounding heartless secret fisher folk (7) | |
| A | Seas(oceans) around inner(secret) – n (heartless) = SEINERS |
| 23 Not allowed according to girl found in SW19 losing Spanish title (13) | |
| W | Wimbledon (SW19) around per (according to) + miss(girl) = IMPERMISSIBLE |
| 26 Upsets remarkable relics (5) | |
| C | (relics)* = RILES |
| 27 Nigerian rhino found in forests are I anticipate coming back (6) | |
| E | Rev. hidden forestS ARE I ANticipate = NAIRAS |
| 29 Academy rejected pie fed up to the stars (7, two words) | |
| T | A(academy) + Rev. tart (pie) + sad(fed up) = AD ASTRA |
| 30 Came across entertaining over-the-top choral composition (5) | |
| T | Met (came across) around OTT (over-the-top) = MOTET |
| 32 Echoing say new low whine from grumpy bairn (6) | |
| D | Rev. eg (say) + n(new) + deep(low) = PEENGE |
| 33 Runs over tense worry (4) | |
| S | Sews (runs over) around t (tense) = STEW |
| 34 Date-free codes sorted by line encryption system (6) | |
| O | (codes – d)* + row (line) = ESCROW |
| Down | |
| 1 Contracted agreement to buy back more potato boxes (4) | |
| Hidden moRE Potato = REPO | |
| PAIRS | 2 Pairs mink’s relatives, reproduced 19’s first six with male inside (7) |
| (seiner)* around m = ERMINES | |
| 3 Sailor ship holds last couple of animal bones (7) | |
| Tar (sailor) + ss (ship) around al (last couple of animal) = TARSALS | |
| ROMANIANS | 4 Romanians restored breath leaving time for short recovery (5) |
| (breath – t)* = REHAB | |
| 5 Want awfully obscene mail dodgy limo dropped off (7) | |
| (obscene mail – limo)* = ABSENCE | |
| FOREWENT | 6 Forewent knights without car or jewellery (8) |
| Sirs (knights) around auto (car) = SAUTOIRS | |
| 7 Figure stonking winery produced terrible gin, work’s lost (6) | |
| (stonking winery – gin – work) = NINETY | |
| PRIORATE | 9 Launch priorate of French just the same (5) |
| De(of French) + but (just the same) = DEBUT | |
| 11 Gibbon’s performance maybe, stood out from version of poet’s Addoom (6) | |
| (poets addoom – stood)* = APEDOM | |
| UNITS | 17 Physical units, units of Queen’s unruly teens (8) |
| O(of) + ers(Queen’s) + teds(teens) = OERSTEDS | |
| 18 Among dancing maids with Tobago’s leader (6) | |
| (maids)* around T (Tobago’s leader) = AMIDST | |
| LOUSE | 20 I am absolute louse covering up say Washington’s old sign (7) |
| Im (I am) + a (absolute) around pre (say Washington) = IMPRESA | |
| 21 One’s hot dry and dusty Lord stripped loos around croquet club (7) | |
| Sir (lord) + oo (stripped loos) around cc (croquet club) = SIROCCO | |
| SCARIEST | 22 Scariest stag’s trail petered out abruptly over ancient city (7) |
| Abated (petered out) – d around Ur (ancient city) = ABATURE | |
| 24 Arouse a reply for actor (6) | |
| *a reply)* = PLAYER | |
| 25 Empty saunas finally freed from bats (5) | |
| Insane(bats) – s (saunas finally) = INANE | |
| 28 “Every other character in landau held up gathering Georgia darling” (5) | |
| Rev. LaNdAu around Ge (Georgia) = ANGEL | |
| 31 Hasten, on vacation, to leave excited senhor love god (4) | |
| (senhor – hn)* = EROS |
There’s a setter’s blog here http://bigdave44.com/2023/01/26/ev-1573-setters-blog/#more-165181 which mentions 15sq!
To give full credit to Vismut and as the preamble says, I noted anagrammed capitals from words in the other down clues: Rome, Manila, Lima, Kingston, Dodoma, Bogota, Oslo, Roseau, Nassau, Luanda and Athens. Thanks Vismut!
Yes, I enjoyed sorting out the names of the cities, and the whole puzzle was great fun – thanks, Vismut, and Twencelas for the blog.
Thanks to Vismut for another intricately crafted and satisfying puzzle; to twencelas for the hard work of unravelling and explaining it; and, equally, to crypticsue@1 for supplying the link to the setter’s blog, a additional pleasure to read, and its final words should be taken seriously:
“I noted that Kenmac referred to he and the other bloggers thriving on feedback on https://www.fifteensquared.net/. I’m fairly sure that most setters feel the same…especially if it is positive….and with a couple of attempts to stop the EV already, I’m guessing the more response these puzzles get on all the blogging sites, the better.”
Why is the response here usually so sparse? Is it the time-gap, or is it that not many people attempt the puzzle, or get close to finishing it? Maybe there is a gut resistance to engaging with the Telegraph? which I have no problem doing once a week for the big puzzle section, and the cricket writers are good….
Anyway, I will try to go on giving feedback and hope that a few others may join the party.
@quenbarrow – Comments are generally light and you may be right about the stigma of the Telegraph – but to me a good puzzle series is a good puzzle series and I can ignore some of the more extremist views (IMO) around some of the day’s news that come alongside it. Were it in the daily mail, I might answer differently.
Of course it may be that the EV is no longer available if you don’t buy the paper from your local garage or some such. My sister in Australia for example can no longer get this puzzle even though she has paid a subscription and has access to all the other puzzles that appear in the Sunday Telegraph. Bit of a shame really.
Thank you for the blog Twencelas, I’m glad you, ub, biffo and quenbarrow enjoyed the puzzle.
Thanks to Vismust and twencelas – very enjoyable, and kudos to Vismut for getting a capital anagram into every down clue!
For those having trouble accessing the puzzle, please see below the text from a comment by Tyro on a recent EV blog – it may be possible to get it via Pressreader and a UK library card number (although that may not help EVismut’s sister in Australia!)
“A suggestion for those who want a copy of the EV puzzle. Download the app PressReader to your smart thingy and using your UK library card details as a login gives free access to many publications – one of which is the ST and EV therein. You will have to take a screen shot of the crossword – then print. A couple of points – there is a copyright so I would suggest not sharing it publically and the registration lasts for 30 days – once over you can re-submit your library card details for another 30 days. I have been doing this these past few months so hopefully this may be helpful. I use this method sometimes with the Observer to get an AZED whch is sometimes late in being published to the Guardian site.
Another benefit of the library card is full access to the complete OED – happy days.“
For those who cannot get hold of the newspaper, a Telegraph reader kindly posts a link to a scanned copy of the puzzle on another forum every Sunday.
A Google search for ‘RickGDG EV’ will get you there.
…this week’s puzzle can be found here and the hints and tips here.