Preamble: Five across answers of a kind are entered as anagrams, representing a thematic process: wordplay in these clues leads to original answer, definition to grid entry. From 12 down clues, a letter must be removed before solving: extracted letters spell a (2-word) product of the process that 1 across (3 words, including an abbreviation) developed further. In the solved grid, solvers must (a) highlight a product resulting from this development, and (b) change one grid entry by 3 or 4 letters to reflect their own attitude to the product. Whatever the reaction, the final grid will contain real words/phrases or proper nouns.
On reading the preamble, I pretty much guessed the theme straight away but it didn’t spoil my enjoyment. First to fall was 22a closely followed by 17d then 27a (wrongly) but then 21d sorted out the confusion. And so, unusually for me, NE corner was first to fill. I didn’t really have too much trouble with any of the clues. Most of NW followed soon after and I found 1a contained _ _ S T _ S V L I _ B _ G so I decided to check out my hunch on Wikipedia and sure enough, under that entry I found JUSTUS V[on] LIEBIG.
MARMITE – for that is the product – is a by product of brewing invented by Herr Von Liebig and it was (or maybe still is) advertised with the slogan “Love it or hate it.”
Having found BEER (27a; BERE) I was then looking out for others. I was pretty sure that LAGER (12a; REGAL) would be there as it has many anagrams and I guessed STOUT (37a; TOUTS) and PORTER (43a; REPORT) but I didn’t guess ALE (36a; LEA).
I didn’t really notice the subtlety of the word “extracted” in the preamble until writing this but the extracted letters spelt out BREWERS’ YEAST which is developed further into Marmite. MARMITE can be found in the grid running south east from d4 through j10.
So, down to the last part of the puzzle. The instructions tell us that we have to change three or four letters to indicate our own attitude to Marmite – I guess LOVE IT or HATE IT and changing letters 1, 2, 3 & 4 or 1, 2 and 4 of 31d seems to fit the bill but wait! We’re also told that the final grid contains only real words and OREADT, OREADV and OBIIE are not words. Time to rethink – could I possibly have entered 39a and 41a wrongly?
Nothing was jumping out at me so I left it overnight. Next day with fresh eyes I guessed that I should probably concentrate on a four-letter entry. There are only four and it didn’t take long to home in on 23a SO-SO, which can be changed to LOVE or HATE while changing 19d to ANANA 23d to LECTORS or HECTORS and 22 to HEIST.
Now this leaves me with a little problem because the instructions tell me that I must change 23a however my own attitude to Marmite is “so-so” I can take it or leave it. Nevertheless, I guess that the majority of solvers will have an opinion one way or the other.
Thanks eXternal for a nice fun puzzle – I LOVED it.
| Across |
||
| Clue |
Entry |
Wordplay |
| 10 Fish batter I put on half of fugu (6) |
GURAMI | fuGU (half of)+RAM (batter)+I |
| 11 Poet’s unhoused beast to lure bats (6) |
OUTLER | TO LURE (anag: bats) |
| 12 Before religious education’s brought back, steal organ (5) |
REGAL (LAGER) |
LAG (steal)+RE (religious education; rev: brought back) |
| 14 At large academy, woman in New York (6) |
ABROAD | Academy+BROAD (American word for woman) |
| 15 Old American detective’s doubt about person overacting (6) |
SHAMUS | SUS (doubt) containing HAM (overactor) |
| 16 Earl with mostly banal short sword (5) |
ESTOCK | Earl+STOCk (banal; mostly) |
| 18 Attention [in village]: running water runs (3) |
EAR | EA (running water)+Runs |
| 20 Words describing deficiency heard some time before festival (8, 2 words) |
HOLY WEEK | Sounds like WHOLLY WEAK (deficiency) |
| 22 Tumult is raunchier when characters move to different positions (9) |
HURRICANE | RAUNCHIER (anag: characters move to different positions) |
| 23 Indifferent when money going out of account doubled (4) |
SO-SO (LOVE) (HATE) |
SO (standing order: money going out of account; doubled) |
| 24 Shift beams back to conceal marks (5) |
SYMAR | RAYS (beams; rev: back) containing Marks |
| 27 Barley’s improved when not dry in the middle (4) |
BERE (BEER) |
BEttER (improved; minus TT (teetotal: dry) |
| 28 Course abandoned by leader after nothing’s saved acting workshops, [historically] (9) |
NAILERIES | NIL (nothing) containing Acting + sERIES (course; minus leader) |
| 32 Fastening headwear with band (8, 2 words) |
CAP SCREW | CAPS (headwear)+CREW (band) |
| 36 Quantity of hay unopened for pasture (3) |
LEA (ALE) |
bALE (quantity of hay; minus first letter) |
| 37 Spies on horses in the open air on street (5) |
TOUTS (STOUT) |
STreet+OUT (in the open) |
| 39 Mountain nymphs tangle with Norse god protecting diamonds (6) |
OREADS | ORE (tangle)+AS (Norse god) containing Diamonds |
| 40 Member of ancient civilisation, very old, incised section of intaglio (6) |
INCAVO | INCA (member of ancient civilisation)+Very+Old |
| 41 Fetish leads to idiocy and they died (5) |
OBIIT | OBI (fetish)+I(diocy)+T(hey) – leads to |
| 42 Networks containing new tissue sensitive to light (6) |
RETINA | RETIA (networks) containing New |
| 43 Lay a charge against employee in hospital (6) |
REPORT (PORTER) |
PORTER (employee in hospital) |
| 44 Deviant bust spleen, getting in article of Fraulein’s underwear (13, 2 words) |
SUSPENDER BELT | BUST SPLEEN (anag: deviant) containing DER (the in German) |
| Down |
|||
| Clue |
Entry |
Extra letter |
Wordplay |
| 1 One we might hear blowing top (6) |
JERSEY | B |
We might hear a JERSEY cow lowing! |
| 2 Sickly sauce knocked up in the Seychelles (6) |
SUGARY | SY (Seychelles) cotaining RAGU (sauce; rev: knocked up) | |
| 3 Sound of heavy footsteps from foot of giant on slope (5) |
TRAMP | gianT (foot of)+RAMP (slope) | |
| 4 Provençal farm in quiet surroundings is ruin (5) |
SMASH | MAS (farm in France) inside SH (quiet) | |
| 5 Traveller’s wary mount (6) | VIATOR | R |
VIA (way)+TOR (mount) |
| 6 Leap with trouble over plant (7) |
LOBELIA | E |
LOBE (lap)+AIL (trouble; rev: over) |
| 7 Antidiuretic must be sampled by law (4) |
IURE | antidIUREtic (hidden: sampled) | |
| 8 Shaped like an orange, topless [Scot’s] bashful (5) |
BLATE | oBLATE (shaped like an orange; minus first letter) | |
| 9 Emmet and most of LEGO cast in possession of crack cocaine (7) |
GROCKLE | LEGo (most of; anag: cast) containing ROCK (crack cocaine) | |
| 13 Hawaiian parties from impressive people with ware to knock out centrepiece (5) |
LUAUS | W |
LUlUS (impressive people) with L replaced by Are |
| 17 Wife with sailor in ship mopes (5) |
SWABS | E |
Wife+AB (sailor) inside SS (ship) |
| 19 Acreage soon set up for plants like sweetsop (5) |
ANONA (ANANA) |
Acreage+ANON (soon; rev: set up) | |
| 21 Weird restaurant lacks appropriate technology (5) |
EERIE | EatERIE (restaurant) minus AT (appropriate technology) | |
| 22 Landlord retrains this crossword setter to steal (5) |
HOIST (HEIST) |
R |
HOST (landlord) containing I (this setter) |
| 23 Recalled nonsense to cut sticks for telescopes (7) |
SECTORS (LECTORS) (HECTORS) |
S |
ROT (nonsense) inside SECondS (ticks) |
| 25 Military force raised to protect monarchy north of European capital city (7) |
YEREVAN | Y |
NAVY (military force; rev: raised) containing ER (monarch) |
| 26 Bishop occupied with 80s film character – love recreating the past (5) |
RETRO | RR (bishop) containing ET (80s film character)+O (love) | |
| 29 One fish circling river is unsurpassed (6) |
RECORD | E |
RE (on)+COD (fish) containing River |
| 30 Danes, [for example], investing dean in church (6) |
CLAIRE [danes] (actress) |
A |
LAIR (den) inside CE (church) |
| 31 Old pair of fools running away from each other (6, 2 words) |
PAST IT | SAP (fool) + TIT (fool) (going in different directions) |
|
| 33 Wordplay, extremely tortuous for kicks (5) |
PUNTS | PUN (wordplay)+TortuouS (extremely) | |
| 34 My sword – it hurts when penetrating a short distance (5) |
WOWEE | S |
OW (it hurts) inside WEE (a short distance) |
| 35 Meat dish, almost crucial bait for eels (5) |
KEBOB | KEy (crucial; almost)+BOB (fish bait) | |
| 38 It becomes adult in function to be sensible (4) |
SANE | T |
SiNE (function) Adult replaces I |
Nice puzzle by eXtermal. Personally I love marmite – however my enjoyment was tempered by the fact that I’ve just set an identically-themed puzzle myself, with precisely the same denouement. Which I had ready to submit to the IQ as I solved this one! Oh well, that one gets filed in the drawer of doom…
Thanks kenmac for the blog. We finished the puzzle but could not parse 23ac. The top row took some sorting out as we hadn’t located MARMITE. Thankfully Google and their predictive text came to the rescue.
Thanks eXternal for the fun and commiserations to Samuel.
Samuel at #1 – maybe you could try to get it past the EV editor…
My guess is that quite a few Sunday Telegraph readers don’t also take the Saturday Indy (the more’s the pity of course)…
Now kicking myself since this was one of my failures. Finished the grid as clued, highlighted MARMITE (though like kenmac I didn’t think to do it in brown), but never worked out which answer to change — mainly owing to obsessive belief that one needed to generate LOVE IT or HATE IT, leading to a fruitless focus on the bottom right corner where tempting instances of IT are strewn to lure the unwary …
@nmsindy: I’ll speak to him tonight!
Thanks for the blog kenmac. I found this one fairly straightforward and informative – I knew about Liebig (I read Chemistry at Uni and a Liebig condenser was a common part of our apparatus) though I didn’t know he was Justus von L, nor that he studied yeast and “invented” Marmite. Like BertandJoyce I had trouble with the wordplay for SO-SO – so obvious now that I have read the blog!
My only criticism was the length of the preamble. It was accurate and necessary, but it is nice when you don’t have to read an essay to complete the puzzle!
Thanks to eXternal.
Quite enjoyed this one. Got the fermented drinks theme quite early; enough letters enabled me to guess the chemist responsible (tho’ I know of him from my secondary school days only for his “condenser”). Dug out the letters to be “extracted”, which only then led me to look for MARMITE in a relatively easy grid search.
I guess most of us first tried to change 31d PAST IT to LOVE/HATE it, and like kenmac dismissed that possibility. SO-SO at 23a had been the last entry to justify, and was a prime candidate – and so it was.
Thanks to eXternal for the puzzle, & kenmac for the blog. (It hadn’t struck me that “so-so” was expressing indifference to the product – a rather neat touch.)
PS I HATE IT. (Almost as much as tofu.)
Count me in as another who spent an inordinately long time squinting very hard at OREADV, trying to convince myself it was a real word. It must have taken me as long to realise it was SO-SO that needed changing as to do the rest of the puzzle put together (which, sadly, is not a reflection of how rapidly I managed to complete the rest of it).
Had I sent this in I would have been rebellious and insisted on leaving my preferred option as so-so – I feel very strongly about my right to sit on the fence.
This one took me a wee while I have to confess. I’ve never heard of Lieber, though I did dose through the majority of my chemistry O Level lessons. Getting 1D opened up the puzzle for me and like bertandjoyce, Google’s predictive thingamajig helped with the identification.
Once the theme came out, the instructions made sense and therefore the soso lights were the obvious target to change to hate. I’m much happier tasting the liquid products referenced elsewhere in the grid.
Many thanks once again to both eXternal and kenmac. I couldn’t parse 35D so thank you for clearing that one up.
Definitely love it, both the puzzle and the yeast extract.