Fond memories of Dysart puzzles – usually pretty tough but highly enjoyable & satisfying.
Preamble: Five characters involved in a 6 18 are hidden in the grid. Their target is invisible, but solvers must reveal it after the loss of one of the five, leaving real words in the final grid. Five other names (not necessarily capitalised) are lurking in some clues, but their discovery is not essential to solving. Corrections to definition misprints in eight down clues give items that might point to the target.
And an asymmetric grid – probably necessary, to accommodate the thematic material.
I made most progress in the bottom left quadrant, with a few other answers in the top left and hardly any on the right at all. Further advances in the top left enabled me to guess that the corrections would spell FISH-something … BONE, EYES, GUTS? … since the unclued 18a looked like AT SEA.
I spent some time trying to decide whether 14d was PISH or PUSH (Chambers has PUSH as Shakespearian for PISH = “tut” – and I’m still unclear, see below), but then my eye wandered just below to 26d MAELIDS, and ISHMAEL leapt out at me, immediately followed by STARBUCK (which I recalled from the ‘connecting wall’ on Only Connect a while back.) 
I knew Captain AHAB but couldn’t find him yet, and a look in the Oxford Companion to Eng.Lit. gave me just one more: QUEEQUEG, starting in 11a OBLIQUE and running through 4 unchecked cells to the penultimate column. That opened up the top right, and meant I’d found 4 of the 5 characters involved in a SEARCH AT SEA.
I know I’ve said before that I don’t really like masses left to do after cracking the theme, but with this puzzle I didn’t mind at all … quite looking forward to it in fact, spurred on by having to complete the rest of the right hand side, find the remaining corrections, locate the final character in the grid, and reveal the invisible target. Oh, and look for the 5 lurkers in the clues, if I’m not too exhausted and if there’s time.
OK, some time later on Sunday, the grid was filled – the corrections spelt FISHGIGS (harpoons) – but I still hadn’t found the fifth character, and I was left with a choice: either (a) go upstairs to dig out my copy of the book (bought over 40 years ago but never read) and skim through it, or (b) use Google. Well, there were lots of additional characters to choose from, and I spied FEDALLAH running across, quite low down. One of the five had to go and be replaced by MOBY DICK, leaving real words in the final grid; QUEEQUEG and STARBUCK are the right length but mess up the entries, but, if we replace FEDALLAH, then voilà. Excellent.
A lovely puzzle from Dysart – many thanks, great stuff.
BTW, shortly before Ahab’s demise, Fedallah’s corpse is seen to be lashed to Moby Dick’s back, entangled in the whale lines – so, the particular replacement here, was it by accident or design?
Don’t understand the definition for 14d PISH: “tut, as Othello put it”. Sure, if you Google “Othello PISH” you get a link to “Pish! Noses, ears, and lips.” Is that enough?
| Across | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| No. | Answer | Correction to definition (or lurker) |
Wordplay | |
| 1 | CANNACHS | Perth | CH (children) in CANNAS (showy plants) | |
| 7 | SCRAP | CRAPS (gambling game) with last letter first | ||
| 11 | OBLIQUE | OBLIGE (force) with QU(een) for G(ood) | ||
| 12 | EGO | FOREGO (give up) − FOR (because) | ||
| 13 | SOPPIER | Pipe | [PIPE]* in SOR(t) (class) | |
| 15 | AUTHOR | R(ight) after H(usband) in AUTO (car) | ||
| 17 | ABRADANT | DAN (martial arts expert) in A BRAT (youngster) | ||
| 18 | AT SEA | see preamble | ||
| 20 | CTENE | (marin)E NET C(caught) all < | ||
| 21 | HARISH | HASH (hack) around R(ibaldry) I(ndeed) | ||
| 22 | PADLE | PADRE (father) with L(eft) for R(ight) | ||
| 25 | BEMOANERS | [O(ld) MAN]* in BEERS (booze) | ||
| 28 | UNARMED | UN’ARMED (safe in Stepney) | ||
| 32 | ERNIE | ERNE (longing, Spenser) around I (one) | ||
| 34 | PARSING | PARING (cutting) around S(ierra) | ||
| 36 | KILO | Flask | (flas)K = KILO, international radio communication | |
| 37 | NORIA | A IRON (robust) all < | ||
| 38 | ESSE | SEES (gets) each half < | ||
| 40 | FED | DEF< (excellent) | ||
| 41 | AUDILE | [I (one) HAULED]* − H(ard) | ||
| 42 | SELTZER | SET (sprinkled) around L(ectern) + ZER(o) (nothing) | ||
| 43 | UPSEE | UPSE(t) (tipped out) + (al)E | ||
| 44 | PERUSES | PR (metier of spin doctors) around E(nglish) + USERS (consumers) | ||
| Down | ||||
| No. | Answer | Correction to definition (or lurker) |
Wordplay | |
| 1 | CO-STAR | F | fellow | OST (east, German) in CAR(e) (charge) |
| 2 | ABORTEE | A BEE (busy person) round ORT (fragment, dialect) | ||
| 3 | NIPA | I | drink | A after NIP (small quantity) |
| 4 | CUE | double definition | ||
| 5 | HERBOSE | S | sage | S.O.B.< (swine) in HER (woman's) E (base) |
| 6 | SEARCH | see preamble | ||
| 7 | SQUAT | Stubby | SQUA(d) (players) + T(ime) | |
| 8 | CUT DEAD | H | hail | D(aughter) in CUTE (clever) AD (notice) |
| 9 | AGONE | AGON (struggle) + E (Spain) | ||
| 10 | PORTIÈRE | G | hanging | PORT (drink) + FERE (spouse, archaic) − F(emale) |
| 14 | PISH | APISH (silly) − A(nswer) | ||
| 16 | HARAM | HA (expression of dismay) + RAM (strike) | ||
| 19 | PINERO | (w)INE (hock, perhaps) in PRO (for) | ||
| 23 | DANISH | [IS H(ot) AND]* &Lit. | ||
| 24 | LEINSTER | [LISTEN]* + ER (queen) | ||
| 25 | BUCKO | CUB< (lippy youngster) + KO (flatten) | ||
| 26 | MAELIDS | MAID (skate) around EL (wing) + S(quare) | ||
| 27 | SERAL | SERA (watery fluids) + L(ife) | ||
| 29 | NAIL UP | [TARPAULIN − TAR (sailor)]* | ||
| 30 | ROOFIE | I | pill Boomer |
ROO (boomer) FIE (slightly mad) |
| 31 | RAILER | G | gibes | RETAILER (shopkeeper) − ET (alien) |
| 33 | ANELE | PANEL (group) − P(riest) + E(arl) | ||
| 34 | PRASE | homophone: PRAISE (crack up) | ||
| 35 | SEATS | S | sites | S(mall) EATS (bites) |
| 39 | ERRS | (on)E (afte)R (forme)R (succes)S | ||
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looks like 2015 is going to be a vintage year judging by puzzles so far, so thank you dysart for very enjoyable puzzle. And you to HG for illuminating blog.
For 14D I could only parse as TUT and PISH being synonyms (for ‘impatience’ in BRB). Pish being the version Othello used in that quote.
Enjoyed this one a lot. SEARCH AT SEA first set me thinking about the Bismarck for some reason, but that was of course fruitless. Moby Dick was my next bright idea and QUEEQUEG instantly leapt out. Unfortunately so did ISHMAEL, not in the right place but starting in HARISH, leading to some wrong assumptions about 22A (MAEL something?) that caused a fair bit of delay.
I could remember the other grid names but had to look up FEDALLAH. Isn’t he the first of the five to die in the book, and hence the logical choice for “vanishing” to reveal the whale?
Like H___G____ I bought a copy of Moby Dick, probably about 40 years ago but with various house moves and general clear-outs I probably don’t have it any more. I never read it either but I do remember seeing the movie: Moby Dick when I was a kid. Thus I remembered the oddly named QUEEQUEG and that was the first of our names to jump out. Over the years the names QUEEQUEG and PEQUOD (the boat) became muddled in my mind so I was never quite sure which one was which 🙁 I knew of ISHMAEL, AHAB and STARBUCK but had never heard of FEDALLAH so a trip to Wikipedia was required.
Good fun from Dysart and thanks, H___G____ for the blog.
I remember hugely enjoying Dysart’s Septet last year so I was pleased to see the name again. I got ‘search at sea’ relatively quickly and it all fell into place without too much bother. I got ‘pish’ from thebwordplay, thought ‘That sounds Shakesperian’ and just wrote it in without any more thought.
Lovely, logical puzzle.
As always many thanks to setter and blogger.
I got quite a long way with this, but struggled with the top left. This unfortunately meant that I was unable to find any of the hidden names that I would have recognised. I can see Fedallah in my grid but having never read Moby Dick *blushes* that didn’t mean anything to me!
I enjoyed the puzzle nevertheless, so many thanks to Dysart and HG for the excellent blog.
After carrying out wide ranging in-depth research (asking a few friends) it seems that nodody in the world has actually read the book.
I’ve read the book! But it didn’t help much as I couldn’t remember many of the names off the top of my head. I did get the theme from the QUE_QUE though, which stood out as too much of a coincidence. I was frustrated for a while with the unclued 6,18 because for some reason I had assumed that 18 was one word.
I have mixed feelings about this puzzle. Having finished it I’m obviously feeling pretty pleased with myself, but to be honest I needed to resort to searching through the dictionary for likely words that fitted in places. I thought there were too many obscure words with clues that themselves involved obscure words. I don’t mind one or the other, but having impenetrable clues and unrecognisable solutions takes some of the fun out of it.
I didn’t much like the clue for 38A and I still don’t get where the flas goes in 36A. On the other hand i didn’t have a problem with PISH as tut.
I thought that it was a wonderful puzzle and I loved the clues. In fact I am a huge fan of Dysart’s clueing and always pleased to see the name on a puzzle.
OPatrick @7: the clue at 36a has “Term for hip-flask” to indicate the last letter, namely K … but it doesn’t seem like the usual ‘definition & wordplay’ style of clue. And I thought that the clue for 38a was quite inventive: take SEES and flip both the first pair of letters & the last pair.
Regarding PISH, the “as Othello put it” doesn’t add very much at all to the “tut”. Perhaps the setter will enlighten us. (He sometimes does; he did with his SEPTET puzzle.)
OPatrick,
I parsed 36A as TERM= end.
The end of the word hip-flask is K.
Loved this one…Moby Dick is a fantastic read. It is mindblowing to think of how those whalers lived and died. Starbuck gave the theme away, but there was still plenty of work to do to finish it.
I struggled with where to put Moby until I found ‘Danisk’ tucked away in Chambers.
Thanks to Dysart and HG
I enjoyed this, though I struggled with some of the clueing. Like Ahab, I had difficulties with the lower areas, which meant I never found the whale. Starbuck also the theme-giver for me. And, yes, I’ve read the book.
Thanks for your very kind comments. The choice of Fedallah to be replaced by Moby Dick was deliberate for the reason given by David Langford above, so it was fortunate that the word lengths were the same. I was also very lucky that Chambers had DANISK, which solved a bit of a headache in the grid construction. I re-wrote the clue for PISH as John Henderson wasn’t entirely happy with the original (and justifiably so). In the new clue I thought I ought to include an indication that the word is somewhat archaic, hence the reference to Othello.
Dysart