Hmmm! I’m not sure I’ve seen this before… clues in alphabetical order of their answers but with clashes! Ten to be precise.
I decided to do a quick scan of the clues to see what jumped out at me. The 8-letter words in the first and last columns seemed to be the likely way into the grid. When I got to them at 16 and 30, it struck me that they had been made deliberately easy.
I must confess that I didn’t suss out the winning strategy straightaway. I was probably twenty minutes into the puzzle before I thought that the clashes wouldn’t just be scattered willy-nilly around the grid. One of the main diagonals seemed to be a likely place, each with ten checked, and clashing, squares and two unchecked.
With over a dozen clues from my first run through, it seemed that INSERTED would be the entry to go in column 1, with ITN running across form its first letter. This left REHEARSE to go in column 12. From then on, it was a relatively straightforward, but enjoyable, solve, especially as my initial hunch about one of the diagonals was correct. This spelt JIGSAW PUZZLE.
A fine puzzle from a fairly new setter with some good clues. My favourite, for some inexplicable reason, was clue 28 which went in at 29ac — REAL ALE!
Solving time: just over two hours
Legend:
Definition in clue
ABC* = anagram
ABC< = reversal
abCDef = hidden
| Clue No | Grid No | Entry | Clue and Explanation |
| 1 | 11ac | AIRMAN | One’s in RAF, perhaps, before becoming pilot (6) I (one) in ARM (RAF, perhaps, a branch of the fighting forces) + AN (ante, before) |
| 2 | 36ac | ASSESS | Judge fools Samuel initially (6) ASSES (fools) + S (Samuel, initially) |
| 3 | 16dn | BALL VALVE | This could stop current dance having waltz, see, instead of Sarabande at first (9, two words) BALL (dance) + VALSE with V (see) replacing S (Sarabande’s first letter) |
| 4 | 8dn | CLARE | Sister college (5) 2 meanings; sister as in nun |
| 5 | 37ac | DELVE | Research after degree’s tricky – left unfinished (5) D (degree) + ELVE[n] (tricky, unfinished) |
| 6 | 6dn | DISCERN becomes DISCERP |
Detect first pair of diquarks with strangeness at physics research centre (7) DI (first pair of DIquarks) + S (strangeness) + CERN (physics research centre) |
| 7 | 35ac | DUNELM | Grey-brown tree of northern university town (6) DUN (grey-brown) ELM (tree) |
| 8 | 22dn | ENROLS becomes ENROLL |
Records broadcast in parts (6) sounds like IN ROLES; yes, that’s the pronunciation given by Chambers! |
| 9 | 28ac | ERE | Earl and King wanting kiss before (3) E (earl) + REX (king) – X (kiss) |
| 10 | 34ac | ETEN | Old giant’s seen occasionally in East of Eden (4) every third letter in EasT of EdeN |
| 11 | 27ac | EVOLVE becomes EVOLUE |
Develop pistol that’s sawn off at both ends (6) [r]EVOLVE[r] (pistol, losing first and last) |
| 12 | 13ac | FLEE | Some cars mostly disappear (4) FLEE[t] (…of cars) |
| 13 | 32ac | FOOTLE becomes FOOZLE |
Walk with the French? Nonsense! (6) FOOT (walk) + LE (the, French) |
| 14 | 5ac | IDIOCY | Gods found in moon cruelly disembowelled? Madness (6) DI (gods) in IO (moon of Jupiter) + CY (CruellY, disembowelled) |
| 15 | 7dn | IGNORAMUS | Funny or amusing fool (9) (OR AMUSING)* |
| 16 | 18dn | INSERTED | Introduced new resident (8) RESIDENT* |
| 17 | 18ac | ITN | Eyewitness providing news source (3) in eyewITNess |
| 18 | 26dn | JAMES | King Henry the author (5) 2 meanings; reference Henry James of The Turn of the Screw fame |
| 19 | 1ac | JOOKS | Scottish ducks or sweethearts — all right for English (5) JOES (sweethearts) with OK (all right) replacing E (English) |
| 20 | 3dn | K-MESON | Planck ultimately misinterpreted some neutrinos initially as another particle seen at LHC perhaps (6) K (plancK, last letter) + SOME* + N (Neutrinos, first letter) |
| 21 | 12dn | MASTIC becomes IASTIC |
Gum found in fruit I chewed, cut short? (6) MAST (fruit) + I + CHEWED – HEWED (cut) |
| 22 | 30dn | MEMO becomes MEME |
Note a king losing both of his knights (4) MEMNON (king) – both Ns (knights) |
| 23 | 2dn | ORGANZA | Angora woven round unknown silk material (7) ANGORA* about Z (unknown, variable) |
| 24 | 19ac | OTTERS becomes OATERS |
Turning to practically smooth antique furs (6) TO< + TERS[e] (smooth, almost) |
| 25 | 33dn | OUD | Man in Jo’burg with daughter’s instrument (3) OU (man, South Africa) + D (daughter) |
| 26 | 21dn | PRETZEL | President meeting the Spanish holding time for biscuit (7) PREZ (president) + EL (the, Spanish) containing T (time) |
| 27 | 1dn | RASP becomes JASP |
Take hold of missing Government file (4) GRASP (take hold of) – G (government) |
| 28 | 29ac | REAL ALE | Various pubs with this beer could be pleasurable (7, two words) comp anag: (PUBS + REAL ALE)* = PLEASURABLE |
| 29 | 25dn | REATA | Limitless coil’s a lasso (5) [w]REAT[h] (coil without first and last) + A |
| 30 | 10dn | REHEARSE | Centres of area then park used to practise (8) centres of aREa tHEn pARk uSEd; believe it or not, I don’t think I’ve seen this wordplay before! |
| 31 | 24dn | REZONE | Change boundaries of reservation first (6) REZ (reservation) + ONE (first) |
| 32 | 4dn | SAL | Indian tree, half willow (3) SAL[low] (willow, half) |
| 33 | 14dn | SAMELY becomes SAGELY |
South America’s honey variable but unvaried (6) SA (South America) + MEL (honey) + Y (variable) |
| 34 | 23ac | SCALLOP | Cut, cut and cut away… slice! (7) SCAL[p] (cut, shortened, ie cut) + LOP (cut) |
| 35 | 17ac | SCOWRIE | Finally spots mollusc or young gull in Fair Isle (7) S (spotS, final letter) + COWRIE (mollusc) |
| 36 | 15ac | SNEATH | Girl almost holds elegant curved handle (6) SH[e] (girl, almost) containing NEAT (elegant) |
| 37 | 31ac | TAMALE | Mexican dish cooked at meal (6) (AT MEAL)* |
| 38 | 20ac | TRAPPER becomes WRAPPER |
Groom losing first horse’s covering (7) [s]TRAPPER (groom, without first letter) |
| 39 | 20dn | WOOLENS | Old Liberal replacing male in women’s clothes in America (7) WOMENS with O (old) L (liberal) replacing M (male) |
| 40 | 9dn | YETIS | Originally yak eyed Tibet’s invisible snowmen? (5) first letters of Yak Eyed Tibet’s Invisible Snowmen semi-&lit; I think! |
I thought this was quite good. It took me until I had a complete grid to work out how the clashes would be resolved. A simple idea, but nicely executed. The composite anagram for REAL ALES was very nice, as you say. I hope to see more from Jaguar. He seems to be becoming an EV regular, to go alongside my favourite quartet of Oxymoron, Kcit, Samuel and Ifor.
A nice tease, this. I’ve never thought of a pretzel as a biscuit but the dictionary confirms it. I solved the clashes by deducing jigsaw puzzle from the unchecked cells.
Many thanks to Dave for the blog and Mike for the feedback — glad you both enjoyed it. A pleasant enough puzzle to put together and it was nice to have the freedom to write up clues that, I hoped, people found easy but entertaining. The real ale clue was one of my favourites too, along with the clue for Delve as it is somewhat relevant to my current job as PhD student — I hope it won’t turn out to be a prophecy!
If you’ve never seen the wordplay style for clue 30 then I’m pleased if I’ve indeed invented a new clue style! That said it’s just a natural extension of, eg, “Hearts of the ‘bad egg’ lady”, to coin a rather poor example, that will presumably have been done at some point. Nothing like inventiveness though and maybe there are still more ideas that are lurking out there waiting to be tried for the first time!
Obviously this ended up being published not too long after another EV of mine, No 1136. There is a good reason for that, as a late change in scheduling meant that a different puzzle to be published as No 1141 had to be moved, and this took its place. Magpie solvers amongst this blog’s readers can see an adapted version of that puzzle in the October edition.