Solving time: c. 45 mins, no books, but one mistake found on checking answers
After a tough battle with Kruger a couple of weeks ago, this was a straightforward “treated answers” puzzle. All the first ten or so clues I solved led to answers the same length as the grid entry, and the preamble included a strong hint that the thematic processing would change the length of treated answers (so I probably hadn’t solved any yet). The penny-drop moment came when I got GESUNDHEIT at 17 to fit GE?HE??, and POTHUNTER at 40 to fit ??NT?R. Removing SUN and THU respectively would work for these, and I then saw that deleting 3-letter day-of-week abbreviations twice each could lead to ‘a fortnight off’ as the entry at 23. Only about 13 of 47 answers were difficult vocabulary, and I remembered many of those from previous puzzles, so filling in the remaining answers and finding the other thematic ones was plain sailing. With this kind of theme, it’s worth keeping track of which of the possible thematic elements are accounted for – in this case, just a “Sun Sun Mon Mon …. Sat Sat” list, for crossing out as the days were found.
| “Days off” | |
|---|---|
| 1 | RE(MON)TANT – (A N) in torment* – a remontant turns out to be a plant that can fruit or flower more than once a season, esp. a rose |
| 14 | SPIRI(TUE)L = pleuritis* |
| 17 | GE(SUN)DHEIT = (the n(ew) guides)* |
| 19 | SA(WED)GED – charade of SA=it,wed=joined,ged=pike (the fish) |
| 36 | S(WED)ISH – ed. in swish |
| 37 | EN(THU)SING – slight poser here – I can see EN = (enrolled) nurse and thing = fact, but this implies US = “not working”, which I can’t justify, except by remembering that {useless => US} is something I’ve been puzzled by in the past. |
| 39 | LEGALI(SAT)ION – (late goal is in)* |
| 40 | PO(THU)NTER – p = prince, to rev.,hunter = watch |
| 4 | T(SUN)AMI = (a must in)* |
| 5 | STA(TUE)TTE – ET in statute |
| 9 | AL(SAT)IA – sat = situated in Al = Alabama, Ia = Iowa. Alsatia was a sanctuary for debtors and criminals at Whitefriars, London, until 1697 apparently. |
| 22 | SHIRT(FRI)LL – (firs(t) thrill)* |
| 24 | NEWS(MON)GER – new, G in sermon* |
| 35 | A(FRI)CAN – fair*, can = toilet = john |
| Across | |
| 6 | NUMDAH – (had, mun = dialect ‘man’) rev. This was the mistake – I had NAMDAH, rather stupidly as this didn’t account for the ‘local’ in the clue. That said, choosing between men, min, mon and mun without the dictionary would have been a toss-up. |
| 16 | THE,RIA – theria turns out to be the marsupial and placental mammals, which I guess is all mammals except monotremes. |
| 21 | S(ENS)IB,LE(ss) – didn’t understand the wordplay here until writing this, as {ens = being} is well-disguised |
| 33 | K(IR,P)ANS – Sikh swords. See “five Ks” under K in Chambers for four more Sikh k-words |
| 34 | (c)AROUSE(l) |
| 41 | NILO=lion*,T,E=earth |
| Down | |
| 2 | TE,RED,O – a classic advanced cryptic word, this – it’s a mollusc that bores into the wood of ships. |
| 3 | A = annum = year,NOTHER = (throne)* |
| 6 | NOSHING – nothing = trifle, with T for S |
| 7 | M(O,IR)AI – the fates. |
| 12 | DO=thrive,CENTS |
| 18 | EIFEL – E in life* – I’m fairly sure there are some Eifel hills or mountains somewhere in Germany. |
| 26 | (b)RAVE,UP=leading |
| 28 | SK(E)I,G.H. – a Scots word for ‘shy’ |
| 29 | DAI,M,I,O – a Japanese noble |
37: U/S or u/s = unserviceable is in Chambers.
That’s the one! Almost impossible to find with the electronic version in use when writing my report – you have to “remember” to type “u/s” rather than “us”, as “/” comes before “a” in their sorting order. One of many cock-ups in the production of this bit of software.