This is Vagans’ fourth crossword in the Listener series. Previous ones have challenged us with eggcorns and ancient English letters as well as a list of seven churches in Asia.
We find a circular grid with six rings, and the title asks us ‘What on Earth?’ so we are prompted that our theme will somehow be connected with Earth. Astonishingly, we are told that all but four of the sixteen rings are ‘thematic (placed appropriately) and clued by wordplay only’. That clearly prompts us to begin our solve with those, and Vagans’ habitually generous and straightforward cluing spells out SOUTH, WEST, NORTH and EAST as well as a number of geographic features all rather intriguingly placed. We place INDIA and the EAST at the top of our putative Earth and AFRICA goes to the NORTH. Hmmm; a bit of head-scratching.
Four of these ring clues have definitions and we find NO-GOOD, ASP, OBA and AMPLER which tells us that ‘Knight turns round to listen’ KT< around HEAR = THE ARK must be thematic, along with those seas and regions.
Clearly we must attack the radials to discover what is going on, and here solving becomes more difficult since entries read inwards or outwards, half of each, but we are going to have to work out the direction for each clue and we need to do that to discover an instruction that we must follow since extra letters will appear only in the wordplay of clues for inward-facing entries. That is an original and challenging device!
The other half of the Dash team compiled this crossword and this half struggles with clues for GREER, ‘More ingratiating but not as feminist (5)’ eventually opting for GREER (Germaine) removing AS from GREASIER and producing an extra I in the wordplay; ‘Island saw ready to be trimmed (5) AIT + RIP gives the unusual word ATRIP with another extra I; ‘In fine university, rag computer nerds (5)’ TAT in OK U produces a Japanese word for those nerds with an extra T, OTAKU; and ‘Rue UHF novice in retrospect (5) Chambers confirms that BUCHU is rue (UHF CUB, all reversed with the F extra). Those tough ones are needed to give the message HIGHLIGHT FOCAL CITY and sure enough JERUSALEM has convincingly appeared in the central ring of our grid.
Light dawns: ‘Present during start of dinner’ gives us HERE FOR D, and ‘Mum, very quiet in the morning, almost unravelled gives us MA PP AM UNDI[d]. We consult co-solver Wiki.
“Mappa Mundi is drawn on a single sheet of vellum (calf skin) measuring 64 × 52 inches (1.58 × 1.33 metres), tapering towards the top with a rounded apex. The geographical material of the map is contained within a circle 52 inches in diameter and reflects the thinking of the medieval Church with Jerusalem at the centre of the world. Superimposed on to the continents are drawings of the history of humankind and the marvels of the natural world. These 500 or so drawings include of around 420 cities and towns, 15 Biblical events, 33 plants, animals, birds and strange creatures, 32 images of the peoples of the world and 8 pictures from classical mythology.””
The map of course is “oriented” with East at the top, but the odd placing of EUROPE and AFRICA seems to have been a mistake by one of the scribes. There’s been a lot of academic ink spilled about it, some saying it was deliberate since only God can really make the world or anything perfect.
What a gem, Vagans. This certainly merits a raised glass and Vagans invokes the complete terroir, ‘Mistake distinctive quality of wine as temperature drops off (5)’ We removed the T and produced yet another extra I to leave ERROR. Cheers, Vagans!