Entertaining stuff from Samuel. I do enjoy crosswords that give a laugh or a grin (or even a wry smile) and this gave quite a few!
The unclued lights represented two items which should be “crossed” to yield a third, and a final pair of normally clued answers was indicated by misprinted letters in 18 definitions. As the unclued items always crossed physically on the diagram it seemed logical that they should be arranged in their pairs that way.
As usual the top left hand corner was the last to yield, so the first pair I came to was ?OW crossed with ?AME?. So What do you get if you cross a COW with a CAMEL? Lumpy milkshakes! The other answers were in the same vein and are indicated in the table below.
The misprinted letters gave CRACKLING ON THE LINE and were a cross of PIG and PHONE, 6A and 6D respectively, to be highlighted.
Not difficult, though LAYLA (2D) gave me some trouble and MBABANE (4D) and IPOH (27D) are pretty obscure places. I think the clues for ÉPÉE (29A) has a problem [not now 14D OMAHA – see comments], but this was minor and did not detract from a very enjoyable crossword!
| Crosses | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| What do you get if you cross a | with a(n) | You get | |
| POLICEMAN | ARTIST | A brush with the law! | |
| COW | CAMEL | Lumpy milkshakes! | |
| SHEEPDOG | ROSES | Collie flowers! | |
| CHICKEN | BUILDER | A bricklayer! | |
| GALAXY | TOAD | Star Warts! | |
| PIG | PHONE | Crackling on the line! | |
| Misprint clues | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Across | ||||
| No. | Clue (definition) | Misprint | Answer | Wordplay |
| 6 | Scottish cro(o)ck runs from puritan | C | PIG | PRIG (puritan) remove R(uns) |
| 8 | T(w)ree place accepted returning native | R | PLATAN | PL(ace) + A(ccepted) + NAT(ive) reversed |
| 9 | Hindu tri(e)ad member acting after supporter gutted harem | A | BRAHMA | A(cting) after BRA (supporter) + H(are)M |
| 11 | Without clubs, sanction organised ra(v)ces | C | NATIONS | [SAN(c)TION]* |
| 24 | I’m wearing regularly creased chin(o)ks | K | RIMAE | I’M in (c)R(e)A(s)E(d) |
| 25 | E(j)lect liberal from violent cast (2 words) | L | VOTE IN | [VIO(l)ENT]* |
| 29 | Unaccompanied native tents – a fo(o)il’s accompaniment {I am assuming that an épée “accompanies” a foil in a fencer’s kit.} | I | EPEE | TEPEES (native tents). I’m not keen on the use of “unaccompanied” to mean remove the first and last letters, if that is what is meant. |
| 30 | Old dro(v)ne Biblical tribe back | N | DOR | ROD is a Biblical tribe. |
| 31 | Spinning hoops, they (l)gifted people’s inspiration | G | THEOSOPHY | [HOOPS THEY]* |
| Down | ||||
| No. | Clue (definition) | Misprint | Answer | Wordplay |
| 3 | Catholic’s lax about remnant of (i)ore | O | CALX | C(atholic) + [LAX]* |
| 5 | Ow(e)n self Scottish pound following insane dancing | N | NAINSEL | [INSANE]* + L (pound) |
| 7 | Sage amended seven cha(p)tters | T | GASES | [SAGE]* + S (mediaeval roman numeral for 7 or 70) |
| 10 | Area reduced longing for c(r)hime | H | AGREE | A(rea) + GREE(d) |
| 12 | Sm(a)ell gypsy’s in Australian army | E | AROMA | ROM (gypsy) in A(ustralian A(rmy |
| 14 | (H)Landing place over initially means assailants had died off | L | OMAHA | D-Day landing beach – O(ver) + M(eans) A(ssailants) +HA(d) |
| 18 | Form a co(o)il display having won for Belgium | I | WREATHE | BREATHE (display) with W(on) for B(elgium) |
| 19 | Topless maid’s ti(d)ny | N | WEENY | TWEENY (maid) topless |
| 23 | Scum exposed revolutionary made b(i)etter | E | CURED | (s)CU(m) (exposed – remove “clothing”) + RED (revolutionary) |
| Normal clues | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Across | |||
| No. | Clue (definition) | Answer | Wordplay |
| 13 | Crow endlessly about sad dismissals | ROADS | (c)RO(w) (endless) + [SAD]* |
| 15 | German short of time insists on amazing things | GASSERS | G(erman) + ASSER(t)S (insists on minus T) |
| 16 | Darken spaceship’s gangway with navy | EMBROWN | EM (space) + BROW (gangway) + N(avy) |
| 20 | Every now and then devalue regional channel | EAU | (d)E(v)A(l)U(e) |
| 22 | Record unsatisfactory publicity | RECLAME | REC(ord) + LAME (unsatisfactory) |
| 28 | Retreats tired us out | REDUITS | [TIRED US]* |
| Down | |||
| No. | Clue (definition) | Answer | Wordplay |
| 1 | Russian woman’s snared by cool gadget | OLGA | Hidden in coOL GAdget |
| 2 | Song with legendary axeman up front {&lit – song by Eric Clapton (axeman = guitarist)} | LAYLA | LAY + L(egendary) A(xeman) |
| 4 | Bachelor of medicine and associate poison African city | MBABANE | MB (Bachelor of medicine) + A(ssociate) + BANE (poison) |
| 6 | Call priest to grieve for locals | PHONE | P(riest) + HONE (dialect for grieve) |
| 17 | During rush question Strauss’s second bat | RACQUET | RACE (rush) round QU(estion)+ (S)T(rauss) |
| 21 | Playwright’s lofty ambitions risk enemy finally scuttling his | SKYISH | (ambition)S (ris)K (enem)Y + [HIS]* |
| 26 | Mistaek | TYPO | Clever! |
| 27 | Heartless hippo trashed Malaysian place | IPOH | [HI(p)PO]* |
We returned from Italy to find that our newsagent had unfortunately mislaid our Saturday Indy papers. Thanks to Duncan we have were able to keep our record of not missing an Inquisitor.
We finished this one a few days ago and we had a smile or two as well. We had problems early on as we thought the unclued answers were all animals until we found ROSES and SHEEPDOG.
We think OMAHA works if you take O to mean ‘over’ as in cricket. It’s in Chambers.
Thanks Hihoba and Samuel.
O for over is not in my online Chambers, but does appear in the hard copy 11th edition, so I withdraw my objection and will amend the blog when I get time. Thanks Bertandjoyce.
It was great fun – thanks for the very full blog. I also set out imagining the “crosses” might be a bit more feasible than some of them are – I mean, however much a toad fancies a galaxy they’re hardly likely to have any offspring, are they? But given that the remit was basically bad jokes, in the end that one (along with the Pig with the phone – another interesting image) might have been my favourite. I’m slightly surprised you didn’t know o=over; it must have been in thousands of other clues and is not exactly rare in the real world either (along with m=maiden, w=wicket, r=runs etc.). Epee/teepees is more perplexing – I don’t remember being troubled by it at the time but it does seem a bit weird now. I suppose it’s just a very creative reading of “unaccompanied”.
Sorry – I hadn’t seen 2.
Thanks for the write-up, and the comments. ‘O’ does these days equal Over in Chambers, but is a fairly recent edition.
This was the latest in a long series of joke-themed Samuel puzzles; previous ones were published in The Magpie. The first in the series, “Doctor, Doctor” (from sometime in 2006, I think) can be found as one of the sample puzzles available to download without subscription from http://www.piemag.com. Any solvers of Inquisitor, EV or Listener puzzles should subscribe to the magazine – 6 puzzles per month of varying degrees of difficulty by many of the same setters who provide puzzles for the aforementioned series. At (I think) £30 per year, it’s a bargain.
Something of a stroll, this one – OK if you like a stroll, less so if you like the occasional hill to climb.
I guess “unaccompanied” = “unescorted”, and T and S are ‘escorting’ EPEE in TEPEES – creative indeed.