This is the thirty-second puzzle by Eclogue following the first appearance of this setter in 2012. I have seen reference to Eclogue being the pseudonym for a pair of setters in the past but I don’t know whether that is still the case.
The preamble told us that “Clues are presented in alphabetical order of their solutions. Solvers must complete the central cell and highlight a protagonist, plus cryptic representations of five works (a total of 41 cells in six straight lines). This is to be achieved by deleting 16 cells, adding a number where it would usually appear, with an appropriate colour being used throughout. Ignoring spaces, all entries in the final grid are real words or proper nouns”
The puzzle is initially a jigsaw with no clue numbers and little indication of where entries will go, other than lengths of answers. Normally with jigsaw puzzles there are two or more long entries which intersect and can be used to start populating the grid. Today we only had 4, 5, 6 and 7 letter entries which made the gridfill a bit more difficult. I had to cold-solve a large number of clues before I had enough to feel confident that I could begin populating the grid correctly.
For me, the clues seemed to be slightly easier than normal for a barred crosswords. Together with this fact and the alphabetical ordering of the clue answers, I made good progress with the solving.
There were 50 clues which fell into the 4-, 5-, 6- and 7-letter entry categories as shown below:
| 4 letters |
5 letters |
6 letters |
7 letters |
| AIRN | AINEE | ABACAS | AGA SAGA |
| ALAE | AUNES | AGENDA | ALEGGES |
| LENG | BASSO | ANGSTS | CHASTEN |
| NEVI | BETSY | ASSIGN | PERLITE |
| OATH | CHEAT | BICEPS | PHRASER |
| PAGE | ENSKY | EAGLES | SAGUARO |
| TALL | PEGHS | EXCITE | STEAMER |
| TOSH | RAGES | GRANTH | URETHRA |
| RHEIN | MANTLE | ||
| SPEAR | NADINE | ||
| STEAR | POLICY | ||
| STEPS | RESEAT | ||
| UNTIL | RHEXIS | ||
| YEALM | ROCHET | ||
| SAFELY | |||
| SEARLE | |||
| SHEEPO | |||
| SPREES | |||
| TAENIA | |||
| TAHINA |
I started the gridfill by trying the 7-letter answers in the second row. When I did this I had seven of the eight 7-letter entries. I found that STEAMER looked like the only answer that could fit there and intersect with other answers that themselves could intersect with some of the remaining answers. There was, of course, the off chance that the one 7-letter answer I didn’t have, should have gone in row 2. Fortunately, that wasn’t the case as the grid filled quite quickly giving me the chance to identify more letters in the answers I hadn’t yet cracked.
When complete, the initial grid looked like this [showing clue numbers that would be present in a normal crossword].
I knew we were looking for 41 cells to highlight in various straight lines. The main diagonals are usually a good place to look for thematic material. The NW-SE diagonal revelaed nothing in either direction but the SW-NE diagonal was more fruitful displaying RICHAR HANNAY. I’m not a great one for literature, but even I had heard of RICHARD HANNAY, as the main character or protagonist in the James Buchan book The 39 STEPS. So I put a D in the central cell to complete the diagonal and noticed that STEPS would be 39 across in a standard crossword depiction.
There are five novels where HANNAY is the main character, two where he plays a minor role and one short story where he gets a mention These are:
The Thirty-Nine Steps;
Greenmantle;
Mr Standfast;
The Three Hostages;
The Island of Sheep;
The Courts of The Morning;
Sick Heart River; and
The Runagates Club [book of short stories]
The 39 STEPS has been located as described above.
GREENMANTLE can be created by colouring the entry MANTLE in the bottom row GREEN
MR STANDFAST is represented cryptically by MR TSAF (FAST reversed [standing]) in the right-hand column
THE ISLAND OF SHEEP can be created by deleting the letters in the 16 cells surrounding SHEEP in column 2. I have coloured those cells blue to represent the sea and make SHEEP an island.
That left me with one more title to find. The most likely remaining title for a cryptic representation seemed to be SICK [anagram indicator] HEART R (river) and we have RETHRA and anagram of HEART R in the row with URETHRA at the left hand end. Unfortunately, that didn’t lead to the right number of highlighted cells, so I kept looking. I had noted that THRAGES in the eighth column looked a bit like THREE HOSTAGES, but I couldn’t see the cryptic connection and it too didn’t generatethe right number of cells to highlight. Eventually the penny dropped when I also saw the EE below AGES and I realised that we had THR (AGES) EE which could be clued cryptically as THREE contains (HOST) AGES. By highlighting THRAGESEE, I finally had the required number of highlighted cells.
With the highlighting of the cryptic representations, the highlighting of RICHARD HANNAY and the deletion of 16 cells, this fulfilled all the requirements of the preamble.
I couldn’t think of an obvious colour to associate with 39 STEPS, MR STANDFAST or THE THREE HOSTAGES so I just picked random colours for my highlighting. Perhaps I have missed something there.
Looking at the final grid below we can see that, ignoring spaces, all the entries are real words or proper nouns. The left-hand across entries in rows 1, 2,3, 5, 6 and 7 are:
SO
SEAMER
HAT
ELITE
PEES and
ICY.
Reading down in columns 2 and 3 we have SHEEP and ENG as the first entries in each column. I did wonder if I could block off SHEEP completely, but that would leave EAMER as an across entry in row 2 and I can’t find a dictionary entry for EAMER. AT, LITE and possibly even EES would be acceptable I think.
I’m not sure about the title Right-hand Man. The only thing I can come up with is RH is an abbreviation for Right Hand and RH are the initials of RICHARD HANNAY.
Thanks to Eclogue for an enjoyable Inquisitor that didn’t turn out to be quite as fearsome as I first thought it would.
| Detail |
| Counter switching Burmese title to advance fibres of the Philippines (6)
ABACAS (Manilla hemp fibres obtained from a plantain grown in the Philippine Islands) ABACUS (counting frame, consisting of horizontal rods along which movable beads can be slid) with the U (Burmese title of respect, prefaced to a man’s name) being replaced by (switching … to) A (advance) to form ABACAS ABACAS |
| Commander with military cloaks popular novel (7)
AGA SAGA (a popular novel in a semi-rural middle-class setting) AGA (Turkish commander or chief officer) + SAGA (plural of SAGUM [Roman military cloak]) AGA SAGA |
| Order paper to have grand finish in rock (6)
AGENDA (programme of business for discussion at a meeting; order paper) (G [grand] + END [finish]) contained in (in) AA (type of scoriaceous volcanic rock with a rough surface and many jagged fragments) A (G END) A |
| Scots own early English elder in France (5)
AINÉE (French for elder or senior.) AIN (Scottish word for ‘own’) + EE (early English) AIN EE |
| Greenock’s metal’s excellent service (4)
AIRN (Scottish [Greenock, town in Scotland, west of Glasgow] word for iron [metal]) AI (A one; excellent) + RN (Royal Navy; [armed] service) AI RN |
| At first a little ain’t enough for petals (4)
ALAE (side petals in the pea family) ALAE (initial letters of [at first] each of A, LITTLE, AIN’T and ENOUGH) A L A E |
| Lessens for Edmund on dividing time (7)
ALEGGES (Edmund Spenser’s term for one of the meanings of ALLEGE [allay; lessen]) LEG (the on side in cricket) contained in (dividing) AGES ([period of] time) A (LEG) GES |
| Worries when around no good street (6)
ANGSTS (anxieties; worries) AS (when) containing (around) (NG [no good] + ST [street]) A (NG ST) S |
| God to indicate transfer (6)
ASSIGN (transfer) AS (aesir [Norse God]) + SIGN (indicate) AS SIGN |
| Local one in rising tide for old French lengths (5)
AUNES (old French measure of length, especially of fabric, approx 119 cm) UN (dialect [local] word for ‘one’) contained in (in) SEA (tide) reversed (rising – this entry appears in the grid as a down entry) A (UN) ES< |
| Perch over singer (5)
BASSO (a BASS singer) BASS (European sea fish of the sea perch family) + O (over) BASS O |
| Elizabeth backs onto yard (5)
BETSY (a diminutive of the name Elizabeth) BETS (gambles; backs a horse) + Y (yard) BETS Y |
| Muscle response to traditional medicine with mushrooms (6)
BICEPS (a muscle with two heads) BI (in traditional Chinese medicine, one of five responses [BI syndromes] that present as blockages in the circulation of chi in the meridians) + CEPS (mushrooms) BI CEPS |
| She can’t upset discipline (7)
CHASTEN (to punish or discipline) Anagram of (upset) SHE CAN’T CHASTEN* |
| Do tailors teach? (5)
CHEAT (swindle; do) Anagram of (tailor) TEACH CHEAT* |
| Raptors beheaded harriers (6)
EAGLES (birds of prey; types of raptor) BEAGLES (one of a medium-sized keen-scented breed of dog for hunting hares; harriers) excluding the first letter (beheaded) B EAGLES |
| Being gutless, Kenny yields Bill’s place in the heavens (5)
ENSKY (William [Bill] Shakespeare’s word for ‘to place in the SKY [heavens]) ENS (being or existence) + KY (letters remaining in KENNY when the central letters ENN are removed [gutted]) EN SKY |
| Stir former partner with quote (6)
EXCITE (stir) EX (former partner) + CITE (quote) EX CITE |
| Sacred scripture to endow foremost in holiness (6)
GRANTH (the holy book of the Sikhs) GRANT (bestow; endow) + H (first letter of [foremost in] HOLINESS) GRANT H |
| Extend lost name in stage … (4)
LENG (obsolete [lost] word for lengthen [extend]) N (name) contained in (in) LEG (stage) LE (N) G |
| … role staff let off (6)
MANTLE (the status, role, authority, etc of a person as assumed by or passed on to another) MAN (staff) + an anagram of (off) LET MAN TLE* |
| French girl Dianne represented (6)
NADINE (girl’s name of French origin) Anagram of (re-presented) DIANNE NADINE* |
| Utahan birthmarks occurring in Bonneville (4)
NEVI (American [Utah] form of the plural of NEVUS [birthmark]) NEVI (hidden word in [occurring in] BONNEVILLE. The Bonneville Salt Flats are located in Utah) NEVI |
| Goatherd’s apparent appeal (4)
OATH (solemn appeal to a god or something holy or reverenced) OATH (hidden word in [apparent {that may be seen}] GOATHERD) OATH |
| Seek out episode (4)
PAGE (to seek or summon by sending a PAGE around, by repeatedly calling aloud for, especially using a public address system, or by means of a PAGEr) PAGE (incident or episode in a book that fills a PAGE) double definition PAGE |
| Jock’s pants secure in this sense (5)
PEGHS (Scottish [Jock’s] word for pants or breathes heavily) PEG (secure) + HS (Latin for ‘hoc sense’ [in this case]) PEG HS |
| Reptile smashed glass (7)
PERLITE (any acid volcanic glass with a perlitic structure) Anagram of (smashed) REPTILE PERLITE* |
| One repeating empty terms harps on in front of king (7)
PHRASER (a repeater of empty phrases) Anagram of (on) HARPS + ER (Edward Rex; King) PHRAS* ER |
| Line of endless coppers at Yard (6)
POLICY (course of action; line to be taken) POLICE (coppers [policemen]) excluding the final letter (endless) E + Y (yard) POLIC Y |
| El Salvador flag primarily expresses passion (5)
RAGES (expresses passion) RAG (flag) + ES (International Vehicle Registration for El Salvador) RAG ES |
| Find new place for trio of residents to have lunch? (6)
RESEAT (find new place for) RES (first three letters [trio] of RESIDENTS) + EAT (have lunch) RES EAT |
| German river man captivated by Sandy’s race (5)
RHEIN (German name of the river we refer to as the RHINE) HE ([descriptive of a] man) contained in (captivated by) RIN (Scottish [Sandy’s] word for run or race) R (HE) IN |
| Nearly survive beyond right hand vessel rupture (6)
RHEXIS (rupture, especially of a blood vessel) RH (Right Hand) + EXIST (survive) excluding the final letter (nearly) T RH EXIS |
| Hector’s undone tight-fitting vestment (6)
ROCHET (close-fitting surplice-like vestment worn by bishops and abbots) Anagram of (undone) HECTOR ROCHET* |
| Peter is next to empty lorry, free from risk (6)
SAFELY (free from risk) SAFE (peter) + LY (letters remaining in LORRY when the central letters ORR are removed [empty]) SAFE LY |
| Mexican plant to droop right over around Ukraine (7)
SAGUARO (giant cactus of South West US and Mexico) (SAG [droop] + R [right] + O [over]) containing (around) UA (International Vehicle Registration for Ukraine) SAG (UA) R O |
| Cartoonist Ronald having new release unfinished (6)
SEARLE (reference Ronald SEARLE [1920 – 2011], English artist and satirical cartoonist) Anagram of (new) RELEASE excluding the final letter (unfinished) E SEARLE* |
| Antipodean farm worker mostly clear by chamber (6)
SHEEPO (Australian and New Zealand [antipodean] farm worker who drives sheep into pens for shearing) SHEER (clear) excluding the final letter (mostly) R + PO (chamber[pot]) SHEE PO |
| Pierce southern fruit (5)
SPEAR (pierce) S (southern) + PEAR (a fruit) S PEAR |
| Special enclosures in the lowlands for bouts of drinking (6)
SPREES (bouts of drinking) SP (special) + REES (Scottish term for enclosures, especially partially-roofed walled yards, eg for coal, for wintering cattle, for confining sheep, etc, so likely to be in the lowlands rather than high on the hills) SP REES |
| Ship’s wetsuit (7)
STEAMER (type of ship) STEAMER (slang term for a wetsuit) double definition STEAMER |
| Elderly guide attention seeker getting attention (5)
STEAR (obsolete [elderly] spelling of STEER [guide]) ST (sound made to gain attention) + EAR (attention) ST EAR |
| Stages dance movements (5)
STEPS (stages) STEPS (dance movements) double definition STEPS |
| Short Japanese people chew up type of worm (6)
TAENIA (any member of the tapeworm genus of the same name) (AINU [people of Japan, taller and with more abundant body-hair than most Japanese] excluding the final letter [short] U + EAT (chew) all reversed (up; this is a down entry); (TAE NIA)< |
| Oily paste affected a thin article (6)
TAHINA (an oily paste made of crushed sesame seeds) Anagram of (affected) A THIN + A ([indefinite] article) TAHIN* A |
| Thailand, to everybody, is unbelievable (4)
TALL (hardly to be believed) T (International Vehicle Registration for Thailand) + ALL (everybody) T ALL |
| Testament of someone honest primarily – definitely not (4)
TOSH (twaddle; rubbish; definitely not) TOSH (initial letters of [primarily] each of TESTAMENT, OF, SOMEONE and HONEST) T O S H |
| Up to the time when peacekeeper’s work is short (5)
UNTIL (till; up to the time) UN (United Nations, a peacekeeping organisation) + TILL (work [the land]) excluding the final letter (is short) L UN TIL |
| Canal carrying waste from ancient city to broken earth (7)
URETHRA (the canal by which the urine is discharged from the bladder; canal carrying waste) UR (ancient coastal city near the mouth of the Euphrates on the Persian Gulf, but the location is now well inland) + an anagram of (broken) EARTH UR ETHRA* |
| The old getting relief cut for thatching material (5)
YEALM (bundle of straw laid straight, ready for thatching) YE (old form of the word ‘the’) + ALMS (relief given out of charity to the poor) excluding the final letter (cut) S YE ALM |
I used to dislike jigsaw crosswords like these, purely because one is forced into cold-solving a lot of clues, but since I took up the idea (about a year ago) of cold-solving for fun (!), even when I don’t need to, I have welcomed them. Obviously one expects to have to solve most of the clues before attempting the jigsaw, but the usual, and welcome, feature of having the clues’ answers in alphabetical order helped a lot. In fact, over two days, I solved all the clues, the last six or so taking me as long as the other 44! (My last one, PHRASER, foxed me because I didn’t see ‘on’ as an anagrind – and I still don’t!)
I started the jigsaw by focusing on one of the two places where a 7-letter word intersects both a 7-letter word and a 4-letter word. In this way I found that I could fix the entries of SAGUARO, PHRASER and TOSH, followed by UNTIL and thence the rest of the grid.
The construction of this puzzle was admirable, as was the thematic design, with the cryptically clued titles. The ‘three host ages’ was my last to find.
I assumed that we should read the words around SHEEP ignoring the spaces (SEAMER, HAT, etc).
Thanks to Eclogue and duncanshiell.
Alan B @1: Chambers gives “on” as ‘slightly drunk’ (or similar).
Duncan: the preamble says “with an appropriate colour being used throughout” which I took to mean just one colour for all the highlighting, which must be green for MANTLE.
I solved 47/50 clues before I could make a decent start on the jigsaw, with STEAMER, NEVI, OATH, RHEIN, … similar to Duncan. And I agree that Right-hand = RH probably nods to Richard Hannay.
Thanks to Duncan for the blog & Eclogue for the puzzle – an achievement to get the five main RH titles in the grid.
Though I’m one who fell by the wayside, my thanks to Eclogue and duncanshiell. It’s reassuring to see that after cold-solving most of the clues I started well by correctly completing the NW quadrant. But then I went down with some lurgi and lost the will to continue. A pity, because it would have been fun to spot Hannay on the diagonal and wrestle with the endgame!
I, too, spotted that the last six letters of URETHRA could be clued by Sick Heart River. Also, Hannay appears in a Buchan short story, The Green Wildebeest, and GNU appears as a triangle of contiguous cells which could also be coloured green ! Obviously this is ruled out by the setter’s instruction that the works are in straight lines, but is the presence of both these works in the grid just coincidence, or did Eclogue have a change of mind about what solvers should be asked to do ?
Some say hell is other people; some say it’s cold-solving a squillion clues; but then – it turned out to be possible after all, and the Hannay novels were ingeniously disguised. Also grateful that Richard Hannay was very findable… thanks to Eclogue and duncanshiell.
I found this a bit unsatisfying ultimately. Solve the clues, fine. Fit clues into grid, fine too. Study the title of the puzzle and start looking for possible connections with a Dexter, such as the Morse books; less fine. Ultimately, with the unsolicited but evilly welcome help of a hint from thom on this site, spot Richard Hannay and start looking for the five books, which I know quite well. Quickly notice Steps, Mantle, Sheep and Mr Safe, and know that three hostages must be there somewhere, but never worked out how the deletions operated (it always feels a bit irritating to be deleting what one has laboriously inked in), and decided I simply couldn’t be bothered to work out exactly how they’d been concealed. It’s obviously ridiculous to complain that a cryptic crossword feels pointless, and this one is cleverly constructed in all its parts, but it was one layer of complexity too many for my taste – though I did enjoy fitting the jigsaw together. It looks as if the highlighted answers, if all coloured green, should make an appropriate picture or message, but I can’t work out what it should be (Hannay, to honest, is a pretty unmemorable character, although the books are fun). Thanks to Eclogue and Duncan.
HG @2
Thanks for pointing out that ‘slightly drunk’ meaning of ‘on’. Indeed, you only have to ‘slightly’ jumble HARPS to make PHRAS (just move two letters), so that’s fair enough!
Having read the preamble, I thought this one was going to be a DNF. As it turned out, the clues were pretty fair on the whole and I made good progress with the cold-solving. In the absence of a couple of long entries to help, I saw that there were two pairs of intersecting 7s. Like Alan B, I was stumped by the PHRASER clue but even the other 7 gave too many options. Then I found that BASSO & BICEPS in the NW corner seemed to allow the addition of an increasing number of entries unambiguously. Then it was downhill all the way, the LOI being PHRASER. The end-game was neat and not too difficult.
Overall, an enjoyable diversion. Thanks to Eclogue and Duncan
I too was looking for the Dexter connection, but when I discovered Hannay I said Right you are and left it at that. A little too much endgame, after having to cold solve almost all of the clues.
Pleased with myself for solving the clues and getting them all in the grid, but I didn’t really understand the instructions for the endgame, thinking that the protagonist would appear only after deleting some of the 16 cells and assuming that only one colour was relevant. Still, got some satisfaction and you can’t win ’em all.
Thanks to Eclogue for the challenge. We like the occasional jigsaw grid but this one was a bit more challenging than usual – no complaints though.
It then took us a while to sort out the theme and the endgame needed a bit of sorting too. We took ages to uncover the ‘Three Hostages’ but when we did, it was a very satisfying conclusion.
A very impressive grid fill.
Thanks to Duncan for the blog.
From rookie’s corner
I (just about) managed to fill the grid and saw the author going diagonally
But Im not that good at instructions or counting
I could see 39a would fall in the vicinity of STEPSand That MRTSAF represented MR Standfast and MANTLE should be shaded green
but it took a friend to point out the THR(AGES)EE shtick
I finally fell on yay sword by seeing SHEEP and IS at the bottom of the column
Thanks Eclogue and Duncan
I still hate cold solving especially with only 4-7 letter clues (so you really needed to do 90% of them), but the endgame here was very impressive & well worth persevering for.
I also found THRAGESEE last, and my very minor quibble is with the highlighting – clearly MANTLE must be in green but the final E here does double duty and really there is no reason to highlight any of THRAGESEE, indeed if you highlighted everything in green it would no longer work logically (it’s not Three Green Hostages after all). So the instruction to use “an appropriate colour throughout” didn’t make much sense to me.
But apart from that, a very impressive puzzle at just the right level of difficulty for me. Thanks eclogue and ds.