Ah, it’s one of those puzzles:
Answers – each of 7 letters – start or end in the correspondingly numbered cell and must be entered either clockwise or anticlockwise, connecting to the central letter through the gap in the hexagon. Wordplay in each clue generates an extra letter: in clue order, these letters, followed by the letters entered in the numbered cells, will provide information relating to the puzzle’s title and two key final steps that solvers should follow upon completion of the grid.
Now, I’m a bread and butter sort of solver. I like my answers to go across, and down, and preferably in a direction I can predict. The grid below promised neither. Presumably both Gila and Nimrod were anticipating a wet Bank Holiday that should really be filled in a more constructive fashion than in an alcohol(ic) haze.
They were partly right – for the duration of the solve the weather remained dry, though without the “hotter than Greece” temperatures a few forecasters were excitedly forecasting. Thus there would be sufficient time before the Easter Eggs were cracked open to plug away at a grid fill that could best be described as demanding, with the requisite number of oddities from the BRB demanded of an Inquisitor solve.
And then, rather unexpectedly, a smile was raised. Gila and myself were evidently of one mind.
FILLING AN ODD GRID IS HARD ENOUGH AS IT IS SO SIT BACK AND RELAX NO SILLY ENDGAME FOR ONCE
A sudden and most definite Change of Pace, indeed. A bit of peace, too?
Mine would be found in the gentle arms of a pint of Brains SA Gold and bottle of Grants, but how did you spend the long weekend?
Thanks to John Lowe for the images used to create the GIF below.
| Clue | Answer | Extra Letter | Central Letter | Wordplay | |
| 1 | A couple of horses and other creatures from Europe? | SPANISH | F | S | SPAN (a pair of horses) + FISH |
| 2 | I succeeded restricting idiot with extreme plans | INTENDS | I | I | I(NIT END)S |
| 3 | Computer feature onliners frequently used to make money in North America | TOONIES | L | T | TOOL + oNlInES |
| 4 | Big guns and blaster positioned to protect hospital | BERTHAS | L | B | An anagram of “blaster” about H |
| 5 | Aged competitor – Australian – to enter first | AGONIST | I | A | A GO IN IST |
| 6 | Clamour surrounding stipend once assigned to minister’s residence | CANONRY | N | C | CRY about ANN (an old Scots stipend) and ON |
| 7 | Enzymes’ relationship with potentially poisonous substances | KINASES | G | K | KIN + GASES |
| 8 | Is there nothing initially entered into new dataset? | ATTENDS | A | A | The N from “nothing” into an anagram of “dataset” |
| 9 | Spy beginning to operate against troops | PLATOON | N | N | PLANT + O + ON |
| 10 | Past work, not quite finished by editor, gets wrapped up? | PAPERED | O | D | PA (“past”) OPERa ED |
| 11 | Amended rule will lead to disapproval | REVISED | D | R | R DEVISE (a will) + the lead from Disapproval |
| 12 | Recycled seven old aircraft parts | ELEVONS | D | E | An anagram of “seven old” |
| 13 | Flipping huge insult coming from up above? | SIDERAL | G | L | LARGE + DIS, all reversed |
| 14 | Trailers newly directed for Hollywood star | A-LISTER | R | A | An anagram of “Trailers” |
| 15 | Son came down to fight for property in New England | SALTBOX | I | X | S ALIT BOX – a type of American house |
| 16 | Design of belt fastening, oddly daring | PATTERN | D | N | PATTE (which is indeed a sort of belt fastener) + DaRiNg |
| 17 | Asked for starters of orecchiette and ravioli to go with wine? | ORDERED | I | O | O R DIE (“to go”) RED |
| 18 | Politicians caught in various lies ultimately appear more stupid | SIMPLER | S | S | MPS inside an anagram of “lies”, followed by the R from “appear” |
| 19 | Hugged one Scottish yob without suffering | INARMED | H | I | I + NED about HARM |
| 20 | Letters found in old, wicked, seedy place? (2 words) | OILMILL | A | L | O + ILL (wicked) about MAIL |
| 21 | Stupid people stand in toilets | LOOBIES | R | L | LOOS about BIER |
| 22 | Tried untangling a line of nets | RETIARY | D | Y | An anagram of “tried” + A RY |
| 23 | Outdoor benches – outwardly durable – are put out next to river | EXEDRAE | E | E | EXE + DE + an anagram of “are” |
| 24 | Unknown time taken by lackey to produce a fixative substance | MIXTION | N | N | MINION about X and T |
| 25 | Famous heart surgeon and philanthropist | BARNARD | O | D | BARNARD / BARNARDO |
| 26 | Crying bird, turning, takes flight over lake | MEWLING | U | G | EMU reversed + W(L)ING |
| 27 | City in Sweden with a new games company | SWANSEA | G | A | SW A N SEGA |
| 28 | Fabulous story delivered by imprudent Persian god | MITHRAS | H | M | MITH sounds like “myth” + RASH |
| 29 | Extremely sizeable region occupied by a hard marine creature (2 words) | SEA HARE | A | E | SE + AREA about A and H |
| 30 | More old-fogeyish, petty activity leading to row | FUSTIER | S | F | FUSS TIER |
| 31 | Eastern Italian city pursues mass travel ban | EMBARGO | I | O | E M BARI (well done if you knew that one) + GO (“travel”) |
| 32 | Lane blocked by fresh timber and earth | REMBLAI | T | R | LA (“lane”) surrounded by an anagram of “timber” |
| 33 | Ordinary, small and mostly anonymous things that are collected | OMNIANA | I | O | O MINI ANd A (an abbreviation for anonymous that was new to me) |
| 34 | Old provincial hospital I run around at first | RAETIAN | S | N | SAN preceded by a reversal of I TEAR |
| 35 | Cocaine dealers somehow getting acquitted | CLEARED | S | C | C + an anagram of “dealers” |
| 36 | Nationalist joke about French capital shows a bit of nerve | NEURONE | O | E | N EURO ONE (“did you hear the one about…”) |
Definitely a pencil rather than ballpoint affair with a few dead ends, but overall enjoyable in a ‘I’m proud I managed to complete it’ sort of way.
Though while I appreciate the endgame in-joke, I do like a good bit of highlighting so slightly disappointed that there wasn’t any!
Arduous journey, yes, but, like arnold @1, pleased to have reached the destination. I might have expected OPERA in 10 to be clued as “works” rather than just “work”, as here. And, of no consequence, I noted that ORDERED at 17 can be entered either clockwise or anticlockwise. Thanks for the blog, Jon_S.
PS Some endgames are silly; many are not. Thanks Gila.
Hmm…got some traction in the bottom corners, but ran out of momentum both times. Several very obscure answers and tough clueing for what is basically cold solving. Witty to offer up a silly GIF, after all.
Well, more warm than cold solving as once a couple of clues went in, you then had 2-letter or 3-letter patterns for adjacent clues with typically 4 options to use them (clockwise or anticlockwise, with starting or finishing letters in the centre). That and the Chambers App eventually got me there, especially once the pattern of the sentence in the grid started to become clearer.
But yes, many answers and clues were indeed rather tricky!
PS: I assume there might have been a version of this puzzle without the ‘gap in the hexagon’ indication, now that would have been really tough.
I really enjoyed this unique puzzle. It was quite hard work trying to gain footholds in the grid, a task that was compounded with that of determining all the extra letters generated by the clues. The geometry of the grid was such that working upwards or downwards rather than laterally whenever possible seemed to be the best way to progress. The message was a long one, and even before I completed it I realised how unusually informal it was!
My endgame was unexpectedly short, but great fun.
The clues were excellent, and the grid design amazing. I would just add that the clue to 21 could have yielded an R or a D, from BIER or BIDE (each meaning ‘stand’) respectively, but the message clearly required R.
Thanks to Gila and Jon_S.
Rather amusing. I found this format a tad unhelpful since after a slow cold-solve start ‘crossing’ letters were few and far between, and there were (I think) four options for each answer entered. Anyway, light dawned, Eureka was whispered, more pennies dropped and things were entered, only once going wrong.
A good giggle when after a very tough grid-fill the “two key final steps” didn’t after all require hours of research in Wikipedia and/or ODQ! Many thanks to Gila
and Jon_S.
I only just scraped in under the wire (i.e. the arrival of the next i) and even then had a non-word — resulting from a guess at SALT TAX rather than BOX at 14 — that needed rethinking. For a while, LOATIES at 21 seemed quite plausible as a word for silly people in Perth or maybe the other Perth….
A wonderfully constructed grid. One of the toughest puzzles so far this year, the four possible orientations for answer entry adding significantly to the problem. This one had to be really ground out, so it was very satisfying to record a successful finish. The final instructions raised a smile here too.
Very tough solve but worth it for the nice payoff at the end
As observed,he grid fill was quite a struggle. I got most of the middle to the north-east corner which was enough to anticipate most of the message, allowing much better luck with the rest, finally conceding with 1, 4 and 34. I considered TOONIES for 4 but thought these were Novacastrians – I should have checked in Chambers. A great finish.
Thanks to Gila for the entertainment, Jon S for a tough job and John H for permitting such heresy to pass through the net.
Got most but failed to finish about 4 of them by the end, so gave up. 3 is actually ambiguous, and set me off on a wrong and frustrating path: LOOP is just as much a ‘computer feature’ as TOOL, if not more so, which gave me LOONIES ratther than TOONIES; hence a spare P rather than L. Spotted the error only when I ploughed through the good work done by Jon_S.