Ploy, the winner of the Shield for IQ Puzzle of the Year 2023, is back again.
Preamble: Some clues contain an extra word, to be removed before solving. From each word, take the letter in the same position as the word’s position in the clue. In clue order, they lead to the first and third words of a three-word activity. Each indicates a process by which an affected clue’s answer must be entered in the grid, and has itself undergone the same process. In the completed grid, a pair of characters familiar with the activity each appear in a straight line, as will a third character (seven letters) when two letters are changed. Three letters must then be changed in one of the pair, to complete an inappropriate two-word spoken phrase, which must be highlighted. All letter changes give real-word grid entries. Extra words in two clues give definitions (also inappropriate) to the two unclued grid entries.
What a daunting preamble! We’ll see.
1a was a fairly obvious anagram, but as the clue had an extra word the answer had to be ‘processed’ before entry. I solved a few of the intersecting down clues and it seemed like 1a should be entered backwards. But that wasn’t going to work for 4d, ending in T but no T in 1a. I ambled along not very methodically; other special across answers also fitted by being reversed, but those from down clues seemed merely jumbled. In passing, the unclued POTPOURRI emerged very soon, and as to the other, I felt MANGETOUT more likely than the earlier possibility of MINCEMEAT.
Sooner or later the grid was more or less filled – a few hiccups along the way, with some ‘extra’ words not being extra at all, and some puzzlement over a couple of the later down clues until I recalled the last para of the preamble: Extra words in two clues etc. – and it was time to pay more attention to the extra letters. Those from across clues gave GNILEEHW, ie WHEELING wheeling, while those from the down clues were NIDLAGE, which, when unscrambled, results in the third word of the three-word activity WHEELING & DEALING. (My best guess as to the intended meaning of DEALING is to distribute, as in a pack of cards for example.)
So I quickly finish the grid and look for DEL BOY and RODNEY, the two obvious wheeler-dealers. (Obvious to me not because of any great familiarity with the BBC sitcom Only Fools and Horses but because it has been eminently suitable crossword fodder – a quick check of David Hennings’ The Crossword Database lists 3 Inquisitors, 2 Listeners, and an EV.) A brief web search reveals that MANGETOUT and POTPOURRI are just two examples of Del Boy’s inappropriate use of French words & phrases, and, once I’ve noted that a third character, TRIGGER, will appear on the diagonal after changing two letters in TLIGGNR, I leave the rest for another day.
I won’t bore you by recounting the trials of my rather lengthy grid-search, but I had felt for a while that the then in the preamble was important (… must then be changed …) and further reasoned that three letters of what was now RODEEY had to change. And change to give DAVE, Trigger’s habitual misnaming of Rodney – very neat. What else? A further bit of reasoning (my goodness, why was I so slow?) indicated that the other letter-change that had yielded TRIGGER had to come into play and so it was that I was led to ALRIGHT.
All very good from Ploy, thanks. (Except I now know rather more about Only Fools and Horses than I really want to.)
PS I met Roger Lloyd-Pack at a party some 20-odd years ago – charming man and we had a lovely conversation. Not at all like Trigger. And never once called me Dave.
| No. | Clue [extra word] | X | Answer | Wordplay |
| Across | ||||
| 1 | Permeability is up, so [dosage] sensor reset (10) | G | POROUSNESS | [UP SO SENSOR]* |
| 7 | Jenny, possibly a girl to lose her head (3) | ASS | (l)ASS (girl) | |
| my pleasure (see 29d) | MANGETOUT | |||
| 12 | I’m to replace centilitre of wine in a Turkish inn (6) | IMARET | I’M replacing CL (centilitre) in CLARET (wine) | |
| 13 | Curry ingredient, according to Art [Garfunkel], with a touch of genius (4) | N | SAAG | SA (according to art, L) A G(enius) |
| 14 | Inclination to serve stale nuts now and then (4) | KANT | KA (serve, obs) N(u)T(s) | |
| I don’t believe it! (see 26d) | POTPOURRI | |||
| 15 | Examination of substance like rock, but not containing cocaine (4) | ORAL | CORAL (substance like rock) ¬ C(ocaine) | |
| 16 | Wooded country – conifer that is [well-nigh] 50% cleared (5) | I | FIRTH | FIR (conifer) TH(at) |
| 17 | Before document signed, the old [indwellers] plough Moravian soils (5) | L | EARDS | DS (document signed) after EAR (plough, obs) |
| 20 | A perennial plant, as sesame is to some locals (7) | ASTILBE | AS TIL (sesame) BE (is, dialect) | |
| 22 | Special grill device transforms bony structures (13, 2 words) | PELVIC GIRDLES | [SP(ecial) GRILL DEVICE]* | |
| 24 | Explosive compounds blasted [somewhat] stridently, letting loose awful din (7) | E | TETRYLS | [STRIDENTLY]* ¬ [DIN]* |
| 26 | Foremost in avoiding sun, woman is very pale (5) | ASHEN | A(voiding) S(un) HEN (woman) | |
| 27 | More counterfeit degrees about to rebound (5) | BASER | BAS (degrees) RE< (about) | |
| 30 | Rare [felt] pen mount discarded (4) | E | STYE | double definition {pen, rare; mount, obs} |
| 32 | Inky blotch on correction of typo restricting English, in a nutshell (9, 2 words) | MONKEY POT | MONK (inky blotch) [TYPO]* around E(nglish) | |
| 34 | Nettle bread in Malta no longer changing hands (4) | RILE | LIRE (former currency …) with L(eft) & R(ight) swapped | |
| 35 | In time, agree factious tycoons too divided to be ignored (4) | SYNC | [TYCOONS ¬ T..OO]* | |
| 36 | Feel acute shame, resistance going west in decline (6) | WRITHE | WITHER (decline) with R(esistance) moved earlier | |
| 37 | [His] sporting win seemed wrongly judged to Ed (9) | H | MISWEENED | [WIN SEEMED]* |
| 38 | Critically examine terms of last [reviewed] linear identity (3) | W | TRY | (las)T (linea)R (identit)Y |
| 39 | Are our gigs in resort sociable? (10) | GREGARIOUS | [ARE OUR GIGS]* | |
| Down | ||||
| 1 | Rest of AFL players finally amass, a short time before kick-off (5) | SMOKO | (amas)S MO (short time) KO (kick-off) | |
| 2 | Starting late, suspect planners to be beset with problems (7) | ENSNARL | [(p)LANNERS]* | |
| 3 | Ian’s guileless, helps me to adjust when out of hospital (6) | SEMPLE | [HELPS ME ¬ H(ospital)]* | |
| 4 | A ready collapse for [ailing] Israeli currency (6) | N | AGOROT | A GO (ready) ROT (collapse) |
| 5 | Limitless financial resources for essential oil (4) | OTTO | (b)OTTO(m) (financial resources) | |
| 6 | Hermit crabs settled around tent on Sabbath (8) | PAGURIDS | PAID (settled) around GUR (tent) S(abbath) | |
| 7 | Mites turned up in Madeira cake (5) | ACARI | (Made)IRA CA(ke) rev. | |
| 8 | In a beanery, greedily devour a joint (5) | SCARF | double definition | |
| 9 | Transfers of land on Skye function amid rising tides (7) | SASINES | SINE (function) in SEAS< (tides) | |
| 10 | One’s to read up [erudite] article giving minute detail (4) | I | IOTA | I (one) TO< A (article) |
| 11 | Alfred Askew’s dropped anything cumbersome (6) | FARDEL | [ALFRED]* | |
| 16 | [Demobbed] soldiers returning home initially express relief, perhaps (4) | D | SIGH | GIS< (soldiers) H(ome) |
| 18 | Scottish swimmers [will] scrap over five unopened German beers (8) | L | GARVOCKS | RAG< (scrap) V (five) (b)OCKS (German beers) |
| 19 | Cake decorator is creatively embellishing ratafias – toppings only (4) | ICER | I(s) C(reatively) E(mbellishing) R(atafias) | |
| 21 | Busy person facing tumult, missing bus in scurry (6) | BEETLE | BEE (busy person) BUSTLE (tumult) ¬ BUS | |
| 22 | Amy’s [carefully] checking Will’s reputation and character (7) | A | AMPASSY | AMY around PASS (reputation, Shakesp) |
| 23 | With a flourish, [rangers] attempt to capture owl circling island (7) | G | SHOWILY | SHY (attempt) around OWL around I(sland) |
| 25 | Regularly drinking hard, got up clutching cask (6) | TOPING | GOT< around PIN (cask) | |
| 26 | Can the roots harbour a pollen source? [I don’t believe it!] (6) | ANTHER | (c)AN THE R(oots) | |
| 27 | Barony abandoned by knight errant and former aristocrat (5) | BOYAR | [BARONY ¬ N (knight)]* | |
| 28 | Faded first-fruit? Not the first in erstwhile military district (5) | ANNAT | BANNAT (military district, hist) | |
| 29 | Decay, of timber – time to replace maple primarily in [my pleasure] dome (4) | DOTE | T(ime) for M(aple) in DOME | |
| 31 | More than one wrinkle appears pronounced (5) | SEAMS | homophone SEAMS (appears) | |
| 33 | Slice of advertised reward enticed [miscreants] (4) | E | DREW | (advertise)D REW(ard) |
I did this through much of Saturday and Sunday with a friend in Belfast. Neither of us know OFAH in depth but we knew enough to get DEL BOY, RODNEY and TRIGGER. Though we were led up the path by “I don’t believe it”, which sent us down a OFITG rabbit hole.
However, the final ALRIGHT DAVE eluded us altogether.
I think that was a leap too far in an otherwise excellent puzzle.
I have good memories of two previous puzzles by Ploy (in 2021 and 2018), but this one gave me a rather different experience, mostly because I knew next to nothing about the theme. I thoroughly enjoyed working with all the trickery in the thematic clues, both Across and Down, and the design and gridfill – with symmetry! – were amazing. I had to finish with PSAMSAY (from AMPASSY) correct but unparsed, forgetting that ‘checking’ can mean enveloping as well as stopping in crosswordland! To find that answer I would have had to look it up, but for that I needed to know it first (‘character’ being, I believe, the broadest definition in any clue that I have ever encountered).
After finding DELBOY and RODNEY, I hoped I could make GRANDAD (through the D of RODNEY), but I would have needed to change three letters, not two, and leave three non-word grid entries, not none. I now see that TRIGGER was intended. Not knowing the subject in general, or Dave in particular, I had no way of working out which three letters to change in order to form an ‘inappropriate’ phrase. But I did manage to identify the ‘extra words’ (phrases, in fact) in two further clues (26d and 29d), albeit needing a friend to explain how they ‘inappropriately’ defined the two French words.
A brilliant design, as I have said already, plus many excellent clues, but I didn’t quite make it. Thanks to both Ploy and HolyGhost.
Never got into this one at all – simply couldn’t solve enough clues (knowing how many clues contained extra words would have made it just a bit easier, and I think wouldn’t be an unreasonable request). But the final fiddling around to reach Alright Dave, and the level of detailed knowledge of OFAH needed, would have been steps too far anyway. Thanks to HolyGhost for elucidating the many obscurities for me, and a mental note to treat Ploy puzzles with great respect and caution!
An interesting theme but indeed quite hard work this!
First of all the anagrams were tough, because it made it tricky to get the answer and then unless you had almost all the letters in place you couldn’t enter them. At least the reversing was easy enough once you’d figured it out (off the extra letters or fitting in one or more answers)
And then for the final change…I was pretty sure it was ROD that needed changing, because the preamble talked about real words and there weren’t enough letters in DELBOY that could work, whereas ROD offered plenty of options. I was right about that. But I was also certain we were looking for another faux-French word (with FROMAGE FRAIS the most apt choice) so tried forever to make one fit. I was wrong about that!
It was only when I looked again at a friend’s suggestion of DAVE (initially dismissed as “that’s not French is it”) that it all fell into place and it became clear that RIGHT wasn’t there by accident.
So got there in the end, and very neat, but I’d agree that the last bit was one step too far.
PS: Did anyone else notice YANKEE starting in the bottom left corner? Clearly a coincidence but I kept thinking it might mean something.
I failed at the last hurdle.
I also noticed the YANKEE mentioned by arnold. Another thing that worried me was the clue at 11 down. Surely “dropped” is a redundant word – and so should have given an extra “O” for the letters generated; if not, how does the parsing work?
John @5
I think ‘dropped’ refers to the archaic indication in Chambers.
Thanks Alan B @6; I was also confused by this. The combination of jumbled entries and some tough or obscure clues made this a long solve. Like some others, I decided to halt my research once I’d found three characters and two French imports. Thanks to Ploy and HG.
arnold @6. Oh, yes, of course! Thanks. Thanks also to Ploy and to HG.
I found this rather tough but for the most part enjoyable although I failed at the last millimetre of the last hurdle…! I knew I was looking for TRIGGER and ALRIGHT DAVE but both eluded my gaze. I mustn’t have thought of looking diagonally. Like some other Inquisitor puzzles it felt like the preamble wording was carefully chosen to be technically correct but rather misleading! The ‘inappropriateness’ of the first two French words and the final phrase were quite different in nature. But such misdirection is part of the setter’s art, of course.
Thanks both!
thanks to Del Boy and Rodney! but it’s wasn’t ALRIGHT DAVE (missed that)
Many thanks to Ploy and HolyGhost. This one took me all week because I knew only vaguely about the tv series. Just enough to recognize DEL BOY after (like @1 above) being diverted by “I don’t believe it” into some hunting around for MELDREW. Much research online disclosed RODNEY, the 7-letter cast member TRIGGER and — though this part did get a bit tedious — lists of inappropriatenesses containing the unclued answers, and of funny lines from Trigger including a page that actually started “Alright Dave”.
AMPASSY was the toughest anagram for me, although I eventually read the definition not as the too-broad (according to @2 above) “character” but the much fairer “and character”.
David @11
Thanks for pointing out my misreading of the clue to AMPASSY. I should not have missed that ‘and character’. My remark concerning ‘checking’ still stands, though. I remember only one previous occasion when ‘checking’ (or it might have been ‘checks’) was used as a containment indicator. I think it is clearer when it is used as an insertion indicator – in the sense of ‘stopping’.
@10 & @11: I must admit that I too had overlooked the subtlety of “and character” in 22d; and “check” can mean “restrain”, so I reckon its use is OK.
We had high hopes for this puzzle as we have enjoyed Ploy’s other crosswords. Actually solving the clues was quite a challenge which we enjoyed. We eventually spotted the WHEELING and DEALING element and immediately thought of OFAH. We had to search online for Del Boy’s sayings although we had figured out the words in the grid.
Finding DELBOY, RODNEY and TRIGGER was OK but we almost gave up searching for the inappropriate phrase. Changing 3 letters in Rodney to make Dave seemed a bit of a stretch.
Thanks though to Ploy – we are still looking forward to your next IQ.
Thanks HolyGhost – another impressive blog.