We’ve seen Radler about once a year since his debut in 2013 (theme: QUARKs).
Preamble: Eight clues lead to answers that are the wrong size: they must be used to fill the unclued slots and alternatives deduced for entry at their own positions. In nine other clues – each adjacent to a themed clue – solvers must correct a one-letter misprint (sometimes with adjustments to punctuation and spacing) in order to solve normally. Misprinted letters and their corrections provide two further examples of thematic pairs.
I found this quite hard. After quite a long session on Saturday, I had only a handful of solved clues – maybe half a dozen ordinary ones, 36a IRATE & 14d EDEN that had corrections to misprints, and 27a LEE which was the wrong size. (It wasn’t till sometime later that I realised that I simply had to place this, unadulterated, in an unclued slot of the appropriate length.) Another bash at the puzzle later on Sunday, and I had sorted out maybe half the clues – but no more ‘wrong size’ ones, and no more with corrections to misprints. Oh dear. (I won’t start panicking just yet – maybe tomorrow, or later in the week.)
I had a bit of spare time at the end of Monday afternoon, so I took another look at the dismal results of my effort so far and took a deep breath. First 38a SESAMES (correction to misprint) yielded, then 8d EYESHADES, and then (at last) another ‘wrong size’: 37a BLAIR – this would fit in the slot in the middle of the central column (or maybe row). I stared at the letters I had for the entry at 27a: ??RR??G?S and somehow BURROUGHS suggested itself. Googled BURROUGHS LEE and discovered that William BURROUGHS (Naked Lunch) also used the pen name William LEE. A quick glance back at the entry at 37a: O????? seeking a connection with BLAIR – why, ORWELL of course. So that was the theme: author’s real names and their pen names, aka their assumed names or Assumptions. (Real names in red, pen names in blue.)
Guessed VINE for the slot on the left of the middle row which led to RENDELL, which would fit at 12d and the clue checked out. Clues were falling like dominoes now, often by my thinking of well-known authors (TWAIN from CLEMENS) or their pen names (SAND for DUPIN), or a bit of both (DICKENS & BOZ). Still not finished when I went to bed, but I woke ridiculously early and thought AMIS; got up, checked MARKHAM, then went back to bed for an hour or so until the alarm went.
From the misprints and corrections I could see that the second pairing was PLATH and LUCAS (which finally helped me resolve 11a: “weigh a” becomes “weight“), but tidying up the bottom left hand corner exercised me because all I had for the other pairing was ?A?? and ?L??. Earlier, running through my mental list of well-known authors and their pen names, I’d thought of a few more, and one of them leapt out and rescued me: LAMB and ELIA. It took me a while to figure out how 32a: AND worked, and even longer to understand 25a: TENDER “One waiting for Will in medium to pay”, before I decided that “grace” was a good enough synonym for ENDOW at 26d.
It always seems a bit of a shame (but I don’t mind) when you can complete the grid correctly without ‘finishing’ the puzzle: here, finding and correcting the nine misprinted clues. It happens every so often when we don’t have to ‘prove’ ourselves by writing something under the grid. Overall, for me, not quite the pay-off from the puzzle for the effort involved. And I don’t like constructions such as in 33d: secondary indication leads to LAP UP and we have to take “up” as an instruction – I wouldn’t expect “disadvantage” as the wordplay for WARD (i.e. DRAWback). Nevertheless, thanks Radler – but I’m not that OK with the clue for the entry/answer BRONTË/BELL at 5a: “Call one makes six times a day”.
| Across | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| No. | Answer/ Entry |
Misprint/ Correction |
Wordplay | ||
| 1 | TWAIN CLEMENS |
A in TWIN (pair) &lit. | |||
| 5 | BELL BRONTË |
??? | |||
| 9 | SAND DUPIN |
S ((type of) bend) AND (on top of, i.e. in addition) | |||
| 10 | PAOLI | L | from last from east |
E | (w)IL(l) OAP (one retired) all< |
| 13 | OMICRON | O(ld) MICRO (oven) + N(ew) | |||
| 16 | BACONS | CAB< (taxi) ON (over) S(quare) | |||
| 17 | GOD FORBID | GO FOR (accept) BID (offer) around D(irector) | |||
| 18 | IDEATE | I + E in DATE (girlfriend) | |||
| 19 | PANGEA | PAN (all) G(reenland) E(urope) + A(merica) &lit. | |||
| 20 | GELD | GEL (hair product) + D(readlocks) | |||
| 22 | ÉCARTÉ | E(arl) TRACE (suspicion) all< | |||
| 24 | ENSILE | A | ease else |
L | [IN + ELSE]* |
| 27 | LEE BURROUGHS |
double definition: ref. Bruce LEE (martial artist) | |||
| 28 | TENDER | M | Med – Mum medium |
I | double definition: (legal) TENDER = “medium to pay” |
| 32 | AND | B | bid aid |
A | AID with I (one) replaced by N(ame) {def.: AND = “to”, as in “I’ll go and look”} |
| 34 | AMIS MARKHAM |
single definition | |||
| 35 | CLAIM | L | lacking packing |
P | I (yours truly) in CLAM (instrument to grip) |
| 36 | IRATE | U | maul mall |
L | [METAL RAIL − MALL]* |
| 37 | BLAIR ORWELL |
homophone: BLARE (hoot)) {ref. Tony BLAIR} |
|||
| 38 | SESAMES | C | crabs Arabs |
A | [SEEMS] around S(pider) A(rabs) |
| Down | |||||
| No. | Answer/ Entry |
Misprint/ Correction |
Wordplay | ||
| 2 | LUMP | PLUM (choice) with P(enny) moved down | |||
| 3 | MICA | (rhyth)MICA(l) | |||
| 4 | ENROOT | [ONE OR T(wo)]* | |||
| 5 | DICKENS BOZ |
D(aughter) + CHICKENS (fearful people) − CH(urch) | |||
| 6 | OILCAN | OIL CAN (answer to question) &lit. | |||
| 7 | NYLON | N(ote) + (p)YLON (support made of steel) | |||
| 8 | EYESHADES | E (Spain) YES (agreed) HADES (place below) | |||
| 9 | DOT | DOT(h) (acts, archaic form) | |||
| 11 | LEAD | A | weigh a weight |
T | LAD (youth) around E(cstasy, drug) |
| 12 | VINE RENDELL |
[I’VE + N(o)]* | |||
| 14 | EDEN | S | some home |
H | [NEED]* |
| 15 | CREWE | homophone: CREW (hands) | |||
| 17 | GIVE IT A GO | GIT around I’VE + AGO (earlier) | |||
| 19 | PIERS | [SPIRE]* | |||
| 21 | EIGG | (wher)E (bikin)I (wearin)G (thon)G | |||
| 23 | REDUCE | RED (flushed) (p)UCE (shade of purple) | |||
| 25 | NORRIS | SIR (teacher) R (writing, 3 R’s) ON (about) all< {ref. Frank NORRIS, American writer} |
|||
| 26 | ENDOW | [OWN + ED(ucation)]* | |||
| 29 | OKRA | O (love) ARK< (boat for couples) | |||
| 30 | PATE | double definition: PÂTÉ (spread) | |||
| 31 | EME | [MEET − T(ime)]* | |||
| 33 | PAL | LAP UP (accept with pleasure) with “UP” being an instruction to solvers |
|||
|
|
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At 5a I think the clue just about works. Call = Bell as in “Give me a bell” meaning ring me. The word play is based on the nautical use of the bell to mark each four hour watch – so one bell would occur six times a day.
My way into the theme was via Rendell and Vine. Luckily I already had the V & the N in place to put Vine in the grid.
Thanks to HG for the blog and Radler for the puzzle.
Like John Lowe@1 I assumed it was the nautical connection which Radler was alluding to. However, a “bell” has a unit of half-an-hour so it is eight bells which is sounded six times a day.
My entry to the theme was via TWAIN and CLEMENS and like HG I had trouble parsing several of the entries after filling the grid. I never did succeed with 32a and 33d so thanks to HG for the explanations. Thanks to Radler as well for a challenging but entertaining puzzle.
Thanks for the blog of a tough puzzle.
My solving experience was very similar to yours – except that VINE/RENDELL was the thematic pair that enabled me to enter most of the unclued slots & eventually complete it – and work out most of the parsing – although 6d & 33d still eluded me. I parsed 5a as John@1.
Although I found the clues really tough to disentangle, everything was perfectly fair once I had & even though this was very slow going over several sessions I thought it was an excellent puzzle.
Despite the comments @1 & @3, I tend to agree with Howard L that each extra bell signals the end of half an hour of a ship’s watch of which there are six a day. So why pick on one bell for six times a day? Why not two or three, or indeed eight as Howard L suggests?
And anyway, the Dog Watch (16:00 to 20:00) is split into two watches, and the end of the first half hour of each is marked by a single strike of the bell – so there are in fact seven strikings of the single bell per day. Which is why I wasn’t happy with the clue.
I came close to abandoning this one but pushed on and managed to keep picking off clues, at a rate of about one per hour (or at least that’s what it felt like)of staring hopelessly at the grid. I’m cross with myself for not spotting the theme earlier, having found BLAIR and knowing that the alternative answer was a six letter word beginning with O – in retrospect it’s hard to see how it hadn’t clicked at that point, but it was the VINE / RENDELL pair that gave me the satisfying PDM in the end.
Even with the theme I still didn’t find it an easy solve and there were several parsings I was slightly dubious about, if I remember rightly. I also didn’t quite finish off, having failed to get 35A and 23D, but I’ve lost my grid now so I can’t check the clues to see if I was being an idiot or not.
Thanks, Holy Ghost, for blogging this very tough puzzle and clearing up the two extra pairs. As you say, the puzzle can be solved without identifying all the misprints and we simply didn’t bother. Our way in was via the relatively easy clues for the popular phrases at 17a and 17d and the literary theme became apparent once we had AMIS, VINE and LEE. We knew alternative names for the first two, and they fitted, and assumed the third must be Harper LEE, but it seemed unlikely someone so unprolific would have a pseudonym! In fact this was the last thematic to fall when we had the rest of the grid filled.
Thanks to Radler for some very tough clues which kept us occupied for a long time, even when we had found most of the authors. The wordplay in 25d is ingenious, but the writer in the answer is a lot more obscure than those in the thematic clues.
Thank you all for the comments and to HG for the blog.
I accept your point about 33 down; it’s a construction that’s often seen, but it does involve a degree of indirection and is perhaps better avoided.
Regarding “Bell”, Collins online has
(nautical) a signal rung on a ship’s bell to count the number of half-hour intervals during each of six four-hour watches reckoned from midnight. Thus, one bell may signify 12.30, 4.30, or 8.30 a.m. or p.m
The six times could equally apply to the numbers 2 through 8, but one provided the better surface reading.
It took us a while for the penny to drop. We realised the theme involved writers but it wasn’t until we had the possibility of DICKENS that Bert remembered BOZ. Google and a little reverse solving were needed at the end to help us complete the grid.
We liked 33d but would agree that the device should be used sparingly!
A tough challenge as others have already said but a very satisfactory solve.
Thanks to HolyGhost and Radler.
Thanks to HG and Radler. I liked this one and got it all except the parsing for 33dn. Even if I had thought of the parsing I would probably have discounted it as too tenuous anyway. I’m not complaining though – these puzzles are supposed to be tough and it is good to have something other than the usual charades and anagrams.