Ah, what a pleasure to find a puzzle by Opsimath. We know that his puzzles are generally among the more approachable, with relatively generous clues to a large vocabulary of words and something original in the endgame.
What a lovely short preamble telling us that we will be looking for extra letters produced by the wordplay of down clues and that we will have to change ’12-letters in two straight lines’ in our filled grid, creating ‘new words and names’. There is an intriguing title too, ‘Hark the Herald’ – a singing angel?
Solving proceeds gently with some unusual words, AZULEJO, AGISTER, EPITHETONS, CURR (for a northern cat’s purring sound), NAHUATLS, PEDREROS, and some of those extra letters take some teasing out, ‘Old guns go round the middle of Madras, brothers (8)’ Almost a convincing surface reading but from it we extract PEE around (Ma)DR(as) and [B]ROS to give the Old guns – with that extra B.
Fortunately many of the clues are almost of the ‘Stripey horse (5)’ category – ‘Smart car one spotted in the Amazon (6)’ (giving us JAGUAR) and ‘Separate outhouse (4)’, for SHED. There’s a happy mix of amusing, tough and gentle clues so that it is a pleasure to fill the grid.
I need the message produced by those extra letters now. WHO WROTE BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY? Well, wasn’t that the Queen song? Solving mate Wiki tells me: “Bohemian Rhapsody” is a song by the British rock band Queen, released as the lead single from their fourth studio album, A Night at the Opera (1975). Written by Queen’s lead singer Freddie Mercury – but I don’t see FREDDIE MERCURY in my grid (though maybe that explains the title ‘Hark the Herald’ what a stroke of genius! Wiki tells me; “From the beginning, Mercury had essentially the same aspects as Hermes, wearing winged shoes (talaria) and a winged hat (petasos), and carrying the caduceus, a herald’s staff with two entwined snakes that was Apollo’s gift to Hermes.”
A full grid but where are those twelve letters we must change so that we find Freddie Mercury? We know that Opsimath loves symmetry and often gives us a pangrammatic grid and those lines of bars in the fourth and tenth rows of his grid are a broad hint where to look. What do I find? FARROKH BOLSARA (with two Rs that don’t need to be changed so that I have my 12 letters to change!)
I learn, too, that that was his name (not a convincing rock star’sname was it? No wonder he changed it).
We have shared Opsimath’s favourite Efes near his home in Turkey so I have little doubt that he will have retained his Listener oenophile link but at first I find only ‘Rats! Red out of order makes for delays (7)’ A gentle clue prompting me to anagram RATS RED, producing RETARDS. Fortunately he follows it with ‘Drain, sinking a raised mug? (7, two words)’ We needed an extra N there so removed A from DRAIN and raised a PU[N]K to give us DRINK UP! Another of those clever and well-hidden extra letters and fine advice. Mug raised in thanks for a fine crossword, Opsimath. Cheers!
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