Having escaped from the jaws of Playfair codes with yesterday’s Listener (Oh, No! Not Another Playfair), courtesy of Mordred, here I am well and truly in at the deep end! Time to see if I can sort out one of these pesky blighters.
Luckily for me, Rustic’s clues were straightforward and fair, with the four asterisked clues leading to four birds: GROUSE, PIGEON, MERLIN and THRUSH. There were four unclued 4-letter entries which also needed to be encoded and were thematic. I wouldn’t be able to solve them until I had uncovered the Playfair codeword. With the grid completed, these codings were revealed:
| GR coded as DT |
| SE UL |
| PI RP |
| ON LC |
| ME coded as UC |
| IN PE |
| TH IG |
| SH UG |
I think that the first thing to look for is where letters appear on both sides, in this case PI coded as RP, since the three letters involved would be in the same line or column, thus IPR. However, that still left the choice of IPR, R··IP or PR··I.
After that, it seemed that it was a case of tinkering! TH coded as IG and SH as UG, so pairings T / S and I / U must each be in the same columns. Although not certain, it was probably better than 50:50 that the G and H were next to each other and were part of the code-square following on from the codeword. Next I saw SE coded as UL, and I guessed that the SU were next to each other near the bottom and LE adjacent near the top. It also seemed likely that the bottom line was VWXYZ. All in all, a lot of guesswork trial and error logical experimentation.
Anyway, to cut a long story short, I came up with PRATINCOLE. I nearly dismissed it, since I had never heard of it, but a thumb through Chambers confirmed it as a bird of the plover family. The next thing I did was to decode the title, and I got Feathery, so I guessed that the remaining 4-letter words were either words for ‘feather’, or more likely, some more birds. Decoding the two letters I had for each one gave RA··, ··OT, ··EN and HA··. A short while later I had encoded RAIL, KNOT, WREN and HAWK to complete the grid. It also confirmed 10dn as LEER and not LEAR.
A very enjoyable and, even with the Playfair jiggery-pokery, a fairly quick solve, so thanks to Rustic.
Legend:
Definition in clue
ABC* = anagram
ABC< = reversal
abCDef = hidden
| ACROSS | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| No | Entry | Clue and Explanation | |
| 1 | SIRI | It helps to see turned over leaf (4) IRIS< (it helps with vision) |
|
| 5 | CRUSTAL | Injurious influence in Calfornia relating to the earth’s surface (7) RUST (injurious influence) in CAL (California) |
|
| 11 | CATECHISE | Systematically examine injured hiccatees … (9) HICCATEES* |
|
| 12 | LENDING | … providing fish eating the last bit (7) LING (fish) containing (eating) END (last bit) |
|
| 13 | RAIL —> ATTE | Unclued | |
| 14 | INCEPT | Begin awkward without clubs (6) INEPT (awkward) outside C (clubs) |
|
| 16* | GROUSE —> DTEQUL | Australian’s very good grumble (6) 2 meanings |
|
| 18 | SPINEL | Draw out the Spanish mineral (6) SPIN (draw out) EL (the in Spanish) |
|
| 19 | LIBERATE | Free balance holding end of pole (8) LIBRATE (balance) holding E (end of polE) |
|
| 13 | ICE SKATE | Ray’s after cool piece of sporting kit (8, hyphenated) SKATE (ray) after ICE (cool) |
|
| 25 | MANAGE | To get on West’s straddling horse (6) MAE (West, the actress) straddling (either side of) NAG (horse) |
|
| 26* | PIGEON —> RPHLLC | Earlier a girl’s animal starts to eat organic nourishment (6) PIG (animal) + EON (first letters of Eat Organic Nourishment) |
|
| 28 | TUFFET | Fine volcanic rock on edges of endmost mound (6) TUFF (fine volcanic rock) + ET (edges of EndmosT) |
|
| 30 | KNOT —> VBLA | Unclued | |
| 31 | AIRSIDE | Diaries set out description of part of Heathrow? (7) DIARIES* |
|
| 32 | EXECUTORS | They perform simulated outré sex without clothes at first (9) (OUTRE SEX)* outside of C (first letter of Clothes) |
|
| 33 | ACROGEN | Unusual orange coloured fern? (7) (ORANGE C (coloured))* |
|
| 34 | OMEN | Sign from submariner turning (4) NEMO< (submarine captain) |
|
| DOWN | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| No | Entry | Clue and Explanation | |
| 1 | SOLIDLY | Sensibly cover top and side of loin in sauce (8) LID (top) + L (side of Loin) in SOY (sauce) |
|
| 2 | IDENTICAL | Idea Clint formulated is not different (9) (IDEA CLINT)* |
|
| 3 | WREN —> RCNC | Unclued | |
| 4 | JAIPUR | Quarrel when I turn up inside Indian city (6) I + UP< in JAR (quarrel) |
|
| 6 | REGISTER | Written record concerning wild tigers (8) RE (concerning) + TIGERS* |
|
| 7* | MERLIN —> UCTCPE | Wizard trapping Rex Lambert in abandoned mine (6) R (rex) L (lambert) in MINE* |
|
| 8 | SHARIA | Muslims are mostly within the law (7) AR[E] in SHIA (Muslims) |
|
| 9 | TITANIA | Young girl cuckoo about satellite (7) TIT (young girl) + ANI (cuckoo) + A (about) |
|
| 10 | LEER | King’s reported to look lecherously (4) sounds like LEAR (king) |
|
| 15 | KENTLEDGE | Scots knew attached strip’s pig iron (9) KENT (Scots knew) + LEDGE (attached strip) |
|
| 17 | LACERATE | Rip fastening chord on standard (8) LACE (cord) + RATE (standard) |
|
| 20 | BUNDLER | Packer’s mistake moving top of label down (7) BLUNDER (mistake) with L (top of Label) moved down |
|
| 21 | LECTERN | Reading-desk recently shortened and moved (7) RECENTL[Y]* |
|
| 22 | MACACO | Former Portuguese colony introduces Cape lemur (6) MACAO (former Portuguese colony) containing (introducing) C (cape) |
|
| 23* | THRUSH —> IGIMUG | The hurry to avoid Eastern disease (6) THE RUSH (hurry) – E (eastern) |
|
| 24 | SPURRY | Type of chickweed out east with a short fruit-bearing branch (6) SPURREY (chickweed) – E (east) |
|
| 27 | UVEA | Iris partly mauve and purple (4) in maUVE And purple |
|
| 29 | HAWK —> FIVM | Unclued | |
This was my first taste of Playfair, and while I’m still not really used to it I think it was a good introduction. The choice of codeword was a bit obscure but otherwise fine.