Moggie by Chalicea
14 supposedly said “13 46”. An extra letter in addition to those needed for the solution is produced in 24 clues. These letters, in clue order, give an instruction concerning the subject of the title.
A nice concise preamble. This means a bit of a rest for the brain when the end becomes closer – thanks Chalicea.
All-in-all I found this to be at the easier end of the spectrum, which is not unusual for this setter. It brings a sense of relief to a blogger who has committed to a weekend in Dublin including a 300km drive down on Friday and a drive back on Sunday followed by two days of fixing minor problems around the house. So I didn’t make a start on this until Wednesday after receiving the sad news of Gaufrid’s passing: https://www.fifteensquared.net/2023/01/23/gaufrid-rip/.
Still, on the upside, I did get to play pinball on real tables for the first time in years at a great Dublin venue called Token (or, as I read it, “To Ken”.) I don’t know if I’ve told you but ever since I was a young boy I played the silver ball. From Soho down to Brighton, I must have played them all.
And, more relevantly, except for a couple of minor queries,I largely had this puzzle done in somewhere between one and two hours.
As I concentrated more on the end game, I had most of the generated letters and the potential instruction, which turned out to be true, was SHADE FORTY-FOUR AND FIFTEEN. These entries were CAR DESIGNER. By this time I was fixated by 14d being DUFFIELD – don’t ask me why. So I started searching for DUFFIELD CAR DESIGNER and good old Qwant said, “do you mean NUFFIELD?” At this point the penny started to drop. I have memories of people referring to their Morris Minors as Moggies and I remember the name Nuffield. A quick visit to Wikipedia revealed that Lord Nuffield allegedly said, of the Morris Minor prototype, “It looks like a poached egg.” And we find that phrase at 13, 46.
So there you have it, shade CAR DESIGNER and confirm your avuncular relationship with Robert.
Oops – too hasty. Of course it’s not that simple – it’s Inquisitor, after all.
Really we should highlight the actual name of the car (MORRIS MINOR) and designer (ISSIGONIS) as can be seen in the newly attached grid. Thanks to RB and m_s_h_a_h in comments 2 & 3.
Many thanks Chalicea, enjoyable as always.
| Clue | Entry | Generated letter | Wordplay |
| 1 ?Condemn unheard tubby fellow without research and justice (8) | PREJUDGE | S |
PUDGE (tubby fellow) around Justice+RESearch |
| 7 ?Sidestep American car company (5) | DODGE | (double def) Dodge |
|
| 11 A female active environmentalist may be so incorruptible (8) | SEA-GREEN | H |
SHE (a female)+Active+GREEN (Environmentalist) |
| 12 Measure minute storage organ (4) | CORM | COR (measure)+Minute | |
| 13 See preamble (11, 3 words) | IT LOOKS LIKE | ||
| 18 Newspaper cautiously includes illuminating comment (6) | APERÇU | A |
newspAPER CAUtiously (hidden: includes) |
| 19 One not difficult to persuade nastily cheats you (9, 2 words) | EASY TOUCH | CHEATS YOU (anag: nastily) | |
| 22 In Edinburgh endure opening of French bank (4) | REEF | D |
DREE (endure; Scottish)+F[rench] (opening of) |
| 23 Prominent saint; foreigner at heart (7) | SALIENT | ST (saint) around ALIEN (foreigner) | |
| 24 Reactionary liberated southern villein (4) | SERF | E |
FREE (liberated)+Southern rev: recationary |
| 26 Committing murder in Vegas, taking risks removing dead (5) | ICING | [d]ICING (taking risks; minus Dead) | |
| 27 Commotion about iron explosive devices (5) | FUSES | F |
FUSS (commotion) around FE (chemical symbol for iron) |
| 29 Acquire advanced footwear (4) | GETA | GET (acquire)+Advanced | |
| 31 Tone rebranded intermittently in art-deco (7) | MODERNE | O |
MOOD (tone)+[r]E[b]R[a]N[d]E[d] (intermittently) |
| 34 Circular vessel in echinoderms, curiously arcing neatly now and then (9) | RING CANAL | ARCING (anag: curiously)+N[e]A[t]L[y] (now and again) | |
| 36 What could be in rose and red stain (5) | EOSIN | R |
IN ROSE (anag: what could be) |
| 37 Surrendered produce heartlessly exposed (7) | YIELDED | YIELD (produce)+E[xpose]D (heartlessly) | |
| 39 Tin ware not essentially advised in lavatory (4) | TOLE | T |
TO[i]LET (lavatory) minus [adv]I[sed] (essentially) |
| 41 Lusted-after teacher caught in act (7) | DESIRED | DEED (act) around SIR (teacher) | |
| 44 Retrograde racy vehicle (3) | CAR | Y |
RACY (rev: retrograde) |
| 45 Heard woman use offensive language for feminine clothing (10) | LADIESWEAR | Sounds like LADY (woman)+SWEAR (use offensive language) | |
| 46 See preamble (11, 3 words) | A POACHED EGG | ||
| Down | |||
| 2 ?Soaks eroded spots (4) | RETS | F |
(double def) FRETS (eroded spots) |
| 3 ?English beer might have been foul for Falstaff (4) | EALE | English+ALE | |
| 4 ?Rogue’s toe injured section of snake (8) | UROSTEGE | O |
ROGUES TOE (anag: injured) |
| 5 ?Dissipated duke framing king over casual look (5) | DEKKO | U |
DUKE (anag: dissipated) around King+Over |
| 6 ?Embraces troubled cleaners (7) | ENLACES | R |
CLEANERS (anag) |
| 7 ?Inane fellow’s dead – requiescat in pace! (4) | DRIP | Dead+RIP (latin) Quite poignant given the news of Gaufrid’s death. https://www.fifteensquared.net/2023/01/23/gaufrid-rip/ |
|
| 8 ?Ordinary money some say for oafish Aussie yobs (6) | OCKERS | A |
Ordinary+ACKERS (money) |
| 9 ?Female animal runs – an active one (4) | DOER | DOE (a deer, a female deer)+Runs | |
| 10 Food stores selling processed river congers (7) | GROCERS | N |
River+CONGERS (anag: processed) |
| 14 See preamble (8) | NUFFIELD | ||
| 15 Rejected grass clutching signal for plotter (8) | DESIGNER | REED (rev: rejected) around SIGN (signal) | |
| 16 24-hour period at home producing letter (4) | AYIN | D |
DAY (24-hour period)+IN (at home) |
| 17 Not completely reciprocal upset over northern year resembling late season (7) | AUTUMNY | MUTUA[l] (reciprocal; not quite; rev: upset)+Northern+Year | |
| 20 Narrow opening in singular mechanism for raising vessels (4) | SLIT | F |
Singular+LIFT (mechanism for raising vessels) |
| 21 Engaged for money, lacking Rubles, made haste (4) | HIED | HI[r]ED (engaged for money; minus Rubles) | |
| 25 With no limits bearing net (4) | EARN | I |
[b]EARIN[g] (without limits) |
| 27 Frustrated fellow, slightly intoxicated (6) | FOILED | Fellow+OILED (slightly intoxicated) | |
| 28 Marine creature primarily swimming employing flippers and tip of tail (4) | SEAL | F |
S[wimming]+E[mploying]+F[lippers]+A[nd]+[tai]L |
| 30 Eastern company mother paid initially for diagram of family’s local interactions (6) | ECOMAP | Eastern+COmpany+MA (mother)+P[aid] (initially) | |
| 32 Critically examine rising or elevated poetic enthusiasm (5) | ESTRO | T |
TEST (critically examine)+OR (rev: elevated) |
| 33 Six circle the French instrument (5) | VIOLA | VI (six)+O (circle)+LA (the in French) | |
| 35 According to Ed, put an end to interminable breaks in Parliament proceedings (5) | CESSE | E |
[r]ECESSE[s] (breaks in Parliament proceedings; interminable) |
| 38 Small remnant of Democratic Germany returning (4) | DREG | Democratic+GERmany (rev: returning) | |
| 40 Intertwine resinous substance (3) | LAC | E |
LACE (intertwine) (double def) |
| 41 Extremely calamitous with no right to come to an end (3) | DIE | DI[r]E (extremely calamitous; minus Right) | |
| 42 Close attention (3) | EAR | N |
NEAR (close) (double def) |
| 43 Uninteresting and oddly dirty (3) | DRY | D[i]R[t]Y (oddly) | |
“WE CANT MAKE THAT!”
A gentle but fun puzzle, very much at the easier end of the spectrum. All present and correct here. The car designer was ISSIGONIS … he is contained within the grid, starting at the cell marked 13 and heading due south east, so I shaded his name.
The shading should be MORRIS MINOR (diagonal from right) and ISSIGONIS (diagonal from left).
Well done @2 &@3, I wondered how long it would take someone to notice. Let that be a lesson to all you men.
(OK, enough of the Captain Mainwairing)
I’ll amend the blog shortly and give the editor a severe reprimand.
I too made the same mistake as Kenmac, reading the preamble too literally. Doh!
I shaded Issigonis – the car designer. Job done. Oh. Car and designer. And that single diagonal did look a bit lonely…
The indirect reference was unusual but clear enough, and yet for some reason I too stopped short of the final task of finding and shading the two names.
I enjoyed the crossword. It was a good implementation of the familiar kind of ‘extra letter’ manipulation of about half of the clues. I remember having to use the dictionary a lot, but having a quantity of unfamiliar words and meanings is fair game in these puzzles.
Thanks to Chalicea and kenmac.
This was fun. All thanks to Chalicea and kenmac. Maybe it was a memory of the recent Grace Darling crossword (where you had to Eighteen Across a particular word) that made the indirect instruction seem natural — though I’d forgotten Issigonis and had to look him up. And earlier on before the penny dropped I too was fixated on Duffield rather than Nuffield, a bit embarrassing since long ago I was at Oxford.
RB @ 3 : You are absolutely correct … like N+H @ 6 I only shaded the one name, as I read the instruction as ‘car designer’ rather than ‘car and designer’. You are of course absolutely correct … so for the records, actually a DNF must be recorded to Me_sat_here_at_home on this occasion.
Very gentle but good fun. Took me a while to get the shaded cells but once I did, I quickly spotted ‘Morris Minor’ hiding in the grid, which led me to reverse-engineer the remainder of the puzzle.
Thank you for a fun challenge!
Rather easy I thought, but I did spend quite some time searching the grid for ALEC. Thanks to Chalicea for her diagonals and to kenmac for finding time in his busy schedule to attend to blogging matters.
(Ken: Whatever you’re using to format the clue text produces a ‘?’ at the beginning of single-digit clues.)
Many thanks to kenmac and all. Sorry to have been the cause of errors (that missing car). When I use only half the clues for a misprint or missing letter, I try to use them alternately – just for neatness – but that ‘AND” was clearly well hidden. I’m delighted, as always, that it was fun.