In the week leading up to the Scottish referendum, I took inspiration from the story of Robert the Bruce in his cave with the spider…’if at first you can’t solve the EV, stare at it for ages and try and try again, until you do’!
The preamble seemed short and precise enough:
In 118, a quotation (in the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations) that starts in the top left and
runs clockwise around the perimeter strongly hints at how answers must be entered; its
author must be highlighted in the grid. Chambers Dictionary (2011) is recommended.
…except maybe for that bit that says ‘how answers must be entered‘…not just some specific answers but, presumably, all of them!? And the only way to find the ‘strong’ hint is by getting the quotation around the perimeter…but how do I get the perimeter without filling in the clues?…and how do I enter the clues without the hint?…repeat, ad infinitum. And what does ‘118’ mean – mental image of two silly men in 70s tennis gear and Mexican-style moustaches spring to mind…
Given that it was my turn to blog, I couldn’t quietly put this down and walk away, so I soldiered on to try and solve a few clues and see if anything obvious jumped out at me. I started entering those clues I could solve, which led to a load of clashes, at which point I thought maybe the answers are jumbled – there seemed to be common letters in most clashing pairs…but that could lead to so many permutations…
So a bit more soldiering, a few more clashes, and a few more spider’s webs were spun as I stared and stared…
I think the first penny-drop moment was realising that INIT and ODIST both ended in T – so if they were simply reversed, rather than jumbled, they wouldn’t clash. This simple theory extrapolated to a few other clashes soon had me rubbing out all my pencil work so far and starting again with answers reversed – maybe a ‘reverse charge’ call is the link to the 118 theme?
This led to eventual the completion of the grid and deduction of the perimeter quotation: WELL, IF I CALLED THE WRONG NUMBER, WHY DID YOU ANSWER THE PHONE?’ – the caption to a cartoon by the US humorist and cartoonist, James Thurber. Which explains the 118 of the title – ‘118 118’ being a directory enquiries service in the UK, advertised by the two aforementioned gentlemen. (Other directory enquiries services are available!)
And I would have stopped there, except for a quick re-check of the preamble…always a sensible precaution before submitting…the quotation has to start in the top left, and the strong HINT is that all answers have to be entered at ‘the wrong number’ – so the right way round, but at their symmetrically opposite position – and the author’s name must appear in the grid:
Which meant a re-print of the grid, as it was a complete mess by this stage!
Wow – what a tussle – glad I managed to stick with it and get there in the end, and thanks to Mynot for the challenge.
However, I guess solvers in other countries may have found it harder to make the ‘118’ link? And, a minor quibble, should the title have been ‘118 118’, as that is the number you have to ring to get the service?
Given the complication of the thematic devices (clue entry and quotation), thankfully the clueing generally wasn’t too devious, (for me, and compared to some EVs). There were a few interesting/new-to-me words, like SOKAH, PONZU, ARSEY (in the sense used here!) and UHURU (which I’d only ever seen before on Star Trek).
| Across | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Clue No | Length | Entry | Entered at | Clue (definition underlined) / Logic/Parsing |
| 9 | (7) | JALABIB | 40A | Women’s garments in Japan in the manner of apron (7) / J (Japan) + ALA (‘a la’, in the manner of) + BIB (apron) |
| 10 | (7) | WEARIED | 39A | About one we are dead tired (7) / WE AR_E around I (one), plus D – dead |
| 12 | (7) | LUDSHIP | 37A | Old King’s informed about address for judge (7) / LUD (pre-Roman king of Britain) + apostrophied ‘S + HIP (in the know, informed about) |
| 13 | (5) | PONZU | 36A | From river by distant country Universal Sauce is produced (5) / PO (river) + NZ (New Zealand, distant country, from the UK at least!) + U (Universal) |
| 15 | (3) | ROT | 35A | Academician leaves ecclesiastical tribunal to become corrupt (3) / ROT(A) – eclesiastical tribunal, without A (academician) |
| 16 | (8) | EMULSION | 32A | Men start to use oils to create this (8) / &lit-ish – anag (i.e. to create this) of MEN + U (first letter of Use) + OILS |
| 17 | (6) | TEGULA | 29A | Use the northern glue to manufacture a roofing tile (6) / T (the, Northern UK abbreviation) + EGUL (anag, i.e. manufacture, of GLUE) + A |
| 18 | (6) | ALSACE | 28A | Wine region, as formerly, outstanding (6) / ALS (obsolete form of ALSO or AS) + ACE (outstanding) |
| 21 | (7) | HYGIENE | 26A | Tall girl broadcast sanitary principles (7) / homophone (i.e. broadcast) – HY + GIENE sounds like HIGH (tall) + JEAN (girl) |
| 23 | (7) | ISOTRON | 24A | Is nothing on market as device that separates? (7) / IS + O (zero, nothing) + TRON (market place) |
| 24 | (7) | EYEBROW | 23A | With you in the river first one might be raised (7) / E_BRO (Spanish river) around YE (you), plus W (with) |
| 26 | (7) | TORNADO | 21A | Rent trouble causing a storm (7) / TORN (rent) + ADO (trouble) |
| 28 | (6) | ALIPED | 18A | Arab pedestrian with winged feet (6) / ALI (stereotypical name for an Arab?) + PED (pedestrian) |
| 29 | (6) | SEEDER | 17A | Ecstasy in meal for farmer sowing (6) / SE_DER (ceremonial meal of the Passover) around E (ecstasy, drug) |
| 32 | (8) | HUDIBRAS | 16A | Hyundai regularly supports Butler’s book (8) / HUDI (regular letters from HyUnDaI) + BRAS (bra = ‘supporter’, for hopefully obvious reasons!) |
| 35 | (3) | VOW | 15A | Pledge against old whiskey (3) / V (versus, against) + O (old) + W (whiskey, in NATO/phonetic alphabet) |
| 36 | (5) | ODIST | 13A | “Force is time” for poet (5) / OD (Reichenbach’s name for an arbitrary force) + IS + T (time) |
| 37 | (7) | PANGAEA | 12A | God and goddess are continent (7) / PAN (god) + GAEA (goddess) |
| 39 | (7) | DELILAH | 10A | By shop behold old temptress (7) / DELI (shop, delicatessen) + LAH (interjection – behold!) |
| 40 | (7) | ETHANAL | 9A | Around Chinese and other people acetaldehyde can be found (7) / ET AL (et alia, Latin, ‘and other people’) around HAN (native Chinese people) |
| Down | ||||
| Clue No | Length | Entry | Entered at | Clue (definition underlined) / Logic/Parsing |
| 1 | (3) | FIR | 38D | Tree’s strong with no hint of Merulius (3) / FIR(M) – strong, without M (first letter, or hint, of Merulius) |
| 2 | (5) | SOKAH | 34D | Note about soul in rhythmic music (5) / SO_H (note, in SOL-FA notation) around KA (Egyptian, spirit) |
| 3 | (4) | PULY | 36D | Make one’s way round centre of Rouen whining (4) / P_LY (make ones way along, or towards) around U (middle letter of Rouen) |
| 4 | (5) | MEIJI | 33D | Note about East Indies and justice in period of imperial power (5) / M_I (another SOL-FA note) around EI (East Indies) + J (justice) |
| 5 | (5) | ARSEY | 31D | Lucky Australian’s promiscuous years (5) / anag (i.e. promiscuous) of YEARS |
| 6 | (8) | PRELUDIO | 19D | Note this piece of music could be purloined (8) / subtraction anagram (i.e. could be) of PURLOI(N)ED minus N (note) |
| 7 | (5) | UHURU | 30D | Freedom for NI politician to embrace a companion of Moses (5) / U_U (Ulster Unionist, NI poitician) embracing HUR (companion of Moses) |
| 8 | (6) | YEOMEN | 27D | Some petty officers finally display the sign of things to come (6) / YE (final letters of displaY and thE) + OMEN (sign of things to come) |
| 11 | (6) | ARCING | 22D | Lightning upsets car near local meadow (6) / ARC (anag, i.e. upsets, of CAR) + ING (dialect, i.e local, for a low-lying meadow, usually near a river) |
| 12 | (5) | SLURP | 25D | Consumption with noise of trumpet in heart of gospel (5) / S_P (heart, central letters, of goSPel) around LUR (trumpet) |
| 14 | (5) | DWEEB | 20D | American fool in BBC replacing leading bachelor with deserted wife (5) / (B)EEB (BBC) replacing first B (bachelor) with D (deserted) and W (wife) |
| 19 | (8) | LLANEROS | 6D | Return of kidneys in solution for plain inhabitants (8) / SO_L (solution) around RENAL (of the kidneys) – all reversed |
| 20 | (5) | OSTIA | 14D | Openings of oral shape that interest anatomists (5) / first letters (openings) of ‘Oral Shape That Interests Anatomists’ |
| 22 | (6) | MIDLEG | 11D | Calf perhaps is useless in vehicle (6) / M_G (make of car) around IDLE (useless) |
| 25 | (5) | PAREO | 12D | Cut centrally for skirt (5) / PARE (cut) + O (central letter of fOr) |
| 27 | (6) | DADOED | 8D | Father was in debt when wife left to be decorated (6) / DAD (father) + O(W)ED (was in debt, without W – wife) |
| 30 | (5) | LIEGE | 7D | Tell tales, say, about subject (5) / LIE (tell tales) + GE (e.g, say, reversed, or ‘about’) |
| 31 | (5) | AEGIS | 5D | Protection from soldier in ebbing tide (5) / AE_S (an ebbing tide is the SEA ‘going back’) around GI (American soldier) |
| 33 | (5) | ILANA | 4D | I nearly secure a girl (5) / I + LAN(D) (nearly ‘secure’) + A |
| 34 | (5) | LASSI | 3D | Girl has one cold drink (5) / LASS (girl) + I (one) |
| 36 | (4, two words) | IN IT | 2D | International fool might land one here (4, two words) / &lit-ish – I (international) + NIT (fool) |
| 38 | (3) | ETH | 1D | Glum fiancée’s letter (3) / double defn. ETH being an Old English letter, as well as the fiancée of Ron Glum in a 1950s BBC radio show – Take It From Here) |
I found the right entry method of this one almost by accident — it had seemed that entering answer backwards was the right way to go, but I thought it would be easier to keep track of things by exploiting the symmetry of the grid to enter, say, Jalabib at the bottom-right rather than the top-left. And then it turned out this was the right answer after all! Rather a bit of good luck there as I expect several people got sidetracked by entering everything backwards.
Either way, once you figured out one idea or the other it became a fairly easy puzzle but with an amusing choice of quote, so thanks MynoT.
In terms of the title, just 118 is correct because that’s the generic prefix for multiple directory enquiries services, including 118 212 and 118 888, both of which had equally annoying adverts. I think 118 212 is associated with “Maureen”, who was described as “Ooh, she’s cheap!” until they realised that this was pretty rude!
Thanks, Jaguar – quick work – you must be burning the midnight oil as well.
I take your point on my quibbl-ette on the title. I wasn’t aware it was a generic number, I just get annoyed and switch channels every time those silly adverts come on…
I didn’t mention it but my last one in was ETH – I nearly submitted it with ETA – a Greek letter – assuming there was some obscure link to ‘Glum’, and only found that radio show (before my time!) with a bit of Wiki-oogling…
Like those above, I initially entered answers backwards in their allocated space, and got as far as having an almost complete grid before realising that the quotation did not start in the top left. Some frantic rubbing out and rewriting ensued. The “top left” mention in the rubric was an important one, it seems.
Enjoyable though, and the clues were largely straightforward (although ETH puzzled me for a while).
I believe that many countries have directory inquiry numbers that start with 118, which further helps to explain the title. I think it’s pretty much a pan-European thing.
Yes those two words ‘top left’ are essential and I missed them, happily thinking I’d done it all fine with the answers reversed.