Has Chalicea been naughty and parked her car somewhere she shouldn’t have, committing a PARKING OFFENCE?…
The preamble states that: “Circling the perimeter from the top left is the description of an action related to the PARKING OFFENCE and the person performing it. The wordplay of 12 clues produces an extra letter in addition to those needed for the answer. These, read in order, give an instruction. Chambers Dictionary (2016) is recommended.”
A 13 x 12 grid from Chalicea this week, but still maintaining beautiful symmetry, and some perimetral material to divine – with a short and sweet preamble to point us on our way.
With ‘only’ 12 ‘extra letter in wordplay’ clues out of 37, one can approach them knowing most will be ‘normal’. And the key will be in the crossers around the perimeter…which can only be got by solving some clues!
The grid filled up fairly steadily, albeit with a few new/obscure (to me) words like NUCHAE, GROK, SHAMBA…and DOIN, which I couldn’t find in any of my slightly older e/paper Chambers, but could verify online.
[I did know SHAMBA subliminally, as I spent a large part of my early childhood living in Southern Africa – Zambia, Tanzania, Malawi – and the only Swahili phrase I remember – phonetically – is ‘Umtu moja kwende, kwende lima shamba’, which we were taught as the equivalent of ‘One man went to mow, went to mow a meadow’… or smallholding!]
The perimeter was not very promising when followed from top left, but the PDM came when I realised the left-hand side (upwards) had to be LOVELY RITA, with RITA provided by four crossers.
This triggered an earworm of said Beatles song, although I do confess to resorting to a little wiki-ogling to confirm the lyrics, and the instruction to SHADE HER ROLE had been taking shape, leading to the slightly offset leading diagonal containing METER MAID:
One very minor quibble is that the lyrics I found online had ‘the ticket’ rather than ‘a ticket’, which could have stretched the grid to 13×13, but might have made filling the grid and fitting the ‘role’ in harder? (As a non-setter, I have no idea what the ramifications might be, or even how our wonderful setters get from some crazy idea in their heads to the finished product we enjoy so much, so I will stop this quibble here…)
Chalicea continues her ‘modus operandi’ of creating puzzles around scientifically and/or culturally significant female characters, albeit a fictional one here, but one based on many a real ‘meter maid’ the pre-Beatles Beatles would have seen, known, been ticketed by, developed crushes on… My thanks to her, and I hope I have done justice to it above and below.
Across | ||||
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Clue No | Extra letter | Solution | Clue (definition underlined)
Logic/Parsing (ext(R)A letters in brackets and bold) |
|
9 | AMEBOID | Bursting into hollowed abdomen, almost like a shape-shifter (8)
anag, i.e. bursting, of I( |
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10 | S | UDON | Sample of curious donuts; Japanese culinary item (4)
hidden word in, i.e. sample of, ‘curioU(S) DONuts’ |
|
11 | THE WHO | Rock band‘s questionable identity? (6, two words)
CD, charade, or punning double defn.?! – rock band THE WHO could be said to have a questionable identity! |
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13 | BICORNE | Hat‘s brim regularly once woven round first of ribbons (7)
BI (regular letters of BrIm) + CO_NE (anag, i.e. woven, of ONCE) around R (first letter of Ribbons) |
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14 | INSTEPS | Arches by stages (7)
double defn. (ignoring punctuation) – the arches of ones feet are also called INSTEPS; and if you take something by stages, you might take it IN STEPS |
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16 | H | RASP | Horribly sharp, grating sound (4)
anag, i.e. horribly, of S(H)ARP |
|
18 | TATAMI | Rubbish on French friend’s floor covering (6)
TAT (rubbish) + AMI (French, friend) |
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19 | MILLRACE | Fast stream staff surrounding sick king (8)
M_ACE (ceremonial staff, or rod) around ILL (sick) + R (rex, king) |
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21 | A | EDEN | Garden some egghead engineered (4)
hidden word in, i.e. some of, ‘egghE(A)D ENgineered’ |
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22 | D | LANA | Boy going round North American wood (4)
L_A(D) boy around NA (North American) |
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24 | ALMSDEED | Charitable act – Middle East sadly abandoning it (8)
subtractive anag., i.e. sadly, of M( |
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26 | E | ELVISH | Self-willed, slippery character; very independent second husband (6)
E(E)L (slippery character) + V (very) + I (independent) + S (second) + H (husband) |
|
29 | SKYE | Scottish island‘s weather reportedly (4)
homophone, i.e. reportedly – the Scottish island SKYE usually sounds like SKY, or the weather |
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31 | H | ALIENOR | One who transfers property dubiously in Lahore (7)
dubiously, of IN LA(H)ORE |
|
32 | OUTBARS | Excludes unfashionable public houses (7)
OUT (unfashionable, not in) + BARS (public houses) |
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33 | ENDALL | Ultimate goal, spend all or three quarters of it (6)
three quarters, or six letters, of (SP)END ALL |
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35 | GROK | Fully understand grand legendary bird (4)
G (grand, usually monetary) + ROK (variation on roc, legendary bird) |
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36 | SEPHARDI | Curiously I phrased type of Hebrew pronunciation (8)
anag, i.e. curiously, of I PHRASED |
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Down | ||||
Clue No | Extra letter | Solution | Clue (definition underlined)
Logic/Parsing (ext(R)A letters in brackets and bold) |
|
1 | LOESS | Minor circling old windblown loamy deposit (5)
L_ESS (minor) around (circling) O (old) |
||
2 | E | LEW | Lukewarm sheltered wife (3)
LE(E) (sheltered) + W (wife) |
|
3 | NOOPS | Scoop up Scott’s tips (5)
SPOON, or scoop, up = NOOPS [noop – Walter Scott, knob or tip, e.g. of the elbow] |
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4 | R | IDIOT | Afflicted with folly, partly veto ridicule on the rise (5)
reversed hidden word, i.e. partly and on the rise, in ‘veTO (R)IDIcule’ |
|
5 | NUCHAE | Leaders of Northern University Council haven’t accepted base scruffs (6)
NUCHA (leaders, or first letters, of ‘Northern University Council Haven’t Accepted’) + E (logarithmic base) |
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6 | R | ADOPTEES | Fuss over originally parasitic trees, those accepted as one’s own (8)
ADO (fuss) + P (original letter of parasitic) + T(R)EES |
|
7 | O | TORNADE | Poet’s windy outburst recalling part of Mohammedan orotundity (7)
reversed hidden word in, i.e. recalling and part of, ‘mohammEDAN (O)ROTunity’ |
|
8 | IN NAME | By repute hostelry with soul (6, two words)
IN_N (hostelry) + AME (French, a soul) |
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12 | HEEL | List despicable person (4)
double defn. – to HEEL can be to lean, or list; and a HEEL can be a despicable fellow |
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15 | SHAMBA | Bogus and mostly worthless East African smallholding (6)
SHAM (bogus) + BA( |
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17 | PLAIN BOB | Modest nod for description of bell-ringing changes (8, two words)
PLAIN (modest) + BOB (nod) |
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20 | IN VITRO | Awful riot after French wine with lowered volume in glass (7, two words)
IN_V (vin, or wine, in French, with V – volume – lowered to the end, for a Down clue) + ITRO (anag, i.e. awful, of RIOT |
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23 | L | ALBUGO | The greatest possible defect, ordinary leucoma (6)
AL(L) (the greatest possible, e.g. in all haste) + BUG (defect in software) + O (ordinary) |
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24 | ASHAKE | Like gadoid food fish in shivery state once (6)
AS (like) + HAKE (gadoid fish) |
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25 | DOIN | Not fully performing therapeutic massage (4)
DOIN( |
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27 | HURST | Wood found in Arthur’s table (5)
hidden word found in ‘artHURS Table’ |
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28 | ALEPH | Foreign character‘s beer case in porch (5)
ALE (beer) + P( |
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30 | KNARL | Knot in tree raised large row (5)
L (large) + RANK (row), all raised to give KNARL |
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34 | E | DAE | Oddly deadened do on Speyside (3)
odd letters from ‘DeAdEn(E)d’ |
I’d always remembered it as ‘a ticket’, but if you listen carefully he definitely sings ‘the ticket’. They did come up with some very silly songs, didn’t they?
Really lovely blog, thank you mc.
I enjoyed this one, yet again learning something new from a Chalicea puzzle. I’d never heard or heard of this song. The Beatles form an enormous gap in my cultural knowledge, rather embarrassingly. So it took a while for the perimeter to be complete for me.
Thanks to Chalicea for the entertainment and education
TonyG – indeed: octopus’s gardens; yellow submarines; eggmen/walruses…ob-la-di ob-la-da…I guess they were off their heads on psychedelic drugs a lot of the time…
Phil R – glad to hear you have been culturally enlightened!
mc_rapper
The original notes show it was “a ticket”. Don’t know why it was changed. Thanks to you and Chalicea for comments and puzzle.