We were told that 8 answers had been affected by a quotation in ODQ, and its author, which ran clockwise round the perimeter plus 3 squares in row 2 (see below). The quotation was “We haven’t got the money so we’ve got to think” and the author was ‘E Rutherford‘. Only the ‘lack of money’ part of the quotation applied to the thematic entries. The title of the puzzle had also been thematically affected and was originally ‘Propounds’.
The preamble stated that “numbers in brackets refer to grid entries” whereas in fact they were the enumeration of the answers themselves which made solving the thematic clues somewhat easier than it might otherwise have been. The fact that real words were left when the ‘money’ had been removed also helped.
There was a second error in the preamble in that it should have read ‘clockwise in the perimeter + 2 squares in row 2′.
With about half the grid completed the ‘lack of money’ theme became apparent (from 14a and 16a) which enabled the relevant quotation to be found in ODQ. With the perimeter filled in the remaining clues became relatively easy to solve apart from 38a and 15d, the former because the only checked letters were the last three, ‘ing’, and the latter because both part of the clue (soul=ame) and the answer are somewhat obscure.
*(XXX) – anagram
[x] – removed
{xxx} – removed from answer before grid entry
Across
9 IDE ID (I had) E[aten]
10 DEPTH *(THE DP)
12 FRET dd – not quite a triple def. because, according to Chambers, ‘fret’ is a decoration applied to a cornice rather than the cornice itself
13 DECIARE ERA (time) ICED (killed) reversed (on the contrary)
14 AC{cent}ED *(T CADENCE) – ‘t’ being a northern version of ‘the’
16 S{ecu}LUM *(CLUES) U[nearth] M[alta]
17 EOLIAN EO (game) NAIL (pin) reversed
18 BET BET[a] (letter)
20 WANGLE W (western) ANGLE (point of view)
22 S{lat}TERN L (left) [b]ATTER (paste) in SN (tin)
24 TARGE *(GREAT)
26 DREAMY E (English) AM (morning) in DRY (not wet)
27 DUO DUO[mo] (cathedral)
28 MAGUEY AGUE (fit) in MY
30 RABI RA (Argentina) BI[d] (proposal)
33 M{anna}-ASH A N (new) in *(SHAMAN)
34 EMICATE MICA (glassy material) in ÉTÉ (summer, in French)
35 LEGO hidden in ‘argyLE GOlf’
37 KASHA KA (serve) S[wis]H A (American)
38 {pound}ING POUN[ce] (seize) DING (ring)
39 SOW homophone of ‘so’ (very good)
Down
1 ERR [k]ERR[y] (Irish county)
2 ANTEING *(GENTIAN)
3 VIVDA D (duke) in VIVA (to examine)
4 EDDY alternate letters in ‘EnD a DaY’
5 NEED-BE NEE (born) DBE (honoured lady)
6 GEIST I (one) in GEST (adventure)
7 OPAL OP (work) A L (lake)
8 DECLARE DE (of, in French) CLARE (nun)
11 TRUER *(TURRE[t])
15 {para}MESE AME (soul) in PARSE (analyse)
19 BEMUSES MUS (foreign letters) in BEES (workers)
21 GEUM E (European) in MUG (swot) reversed
23 TAGALOG TAG ALO[n]G (follow)
25 AGAMA GAM (leg) in AA (rock)
26 DOITIT *(IDIOT) T (tenor)
27 DICHT *(DITCH)
29 AMIGO AMI (friend) GO (ready)
31 B{rand}ISH BRAND (mark) IS H (hot)
32 SE{dime}NT MEN (ships) in *(TIDES)
36 GOV odd letters of ‘GrOoVe’