Good fun from Qaos today (despite a couple of niggles). His puzzles usually have a hidden theme of some kind: I can’t see anything in this one, but I may well have missed something blindingly obvious. Sometimes his Twitter feed gives a clue, but there’s nothing (yet) about it today. Thanks to Qaos. There is a tweet now – see comments for the theme.
| Across | ||||||||
| 1. | COMPASS | News reader? (7) You can read the cardinal points (N E W S) on a compass |
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| 5. | CURACAO | Bean you are told to put in liqueur (7) UR (homophone of “you are”) in CACAO |
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| 9. | ATRIP | Anchor just lifted, ready for a journey (5) A TRIP – the word describes an anchor that is “just drawn out of the ground” |
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| 10. | PENETRATE | Bore to babble about English goal (9) E NET in PRATE |
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| 11. | GREG NORMAN | Golf range played over par? Not by him! (4,6) G + NORM in RANGE* |
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| 12. | HTML | Language of email service without vowels (4) HOTMAIL without its vowels. In fact the name of Hotmail – the first major web-based email service – was based on the name HTML, and it was originally styled as HoTMaiL |
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| 14. | INTERCESSOR | Negotiator: I translate secrets into Norwegian (11) I + SECRETS* in NOR |
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| 18. | RUBBER STAMP | Tramp’s uberpuzzle — over a billion approve (6,5) B in (TRAMP’S UBER)* |
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| 21. | SPUN | Told small joke (4) S+PUN (“told” as in “spun a yarn”) |
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| 22. | REDCURRANT | Dog sprinted after socialist’s bone for fruit (10) RED + CUR RAN + T[-bone] |
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| 25. | BODYGUARD | “Defender‘s daughter kidnapped by young man” — by this paper (not the Scotsman) (9) D in BOY + GUARDIAN less IAN (Scotsman) |
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| 26. | INDEX | Hiding behind executive table (5) Hidden in behIND EXecutive – not sure the cryptic grammar works here |
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| 27. | WARMEST | With stream flowing, it’s most relaxing (7) W + STREAM* |
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| 28. | TITANIC | Turn? I can’t — it’s enormous! (7) (I CAN’T IT)* |
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| Down | ||||||||
| 1. | CHARGE | Storm protection (6) Double definition – storm as in an attack, and protection as in “in my charge” |
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| 2. | MARKET | Hawk lifts royal sheep above the tops of elm trees (6) Reverse of K RAM + E[lm] T[rees] |
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| 3. | APPENDICES | Supplements that might cause grumbling? (10) Double definition – the online version gives this spelling, but I think it could equally well be APPENDIXES |
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| 4. | SUPER | Great manager (5) Double definition – manager as in super[visor] or super[intendent] |
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| 5. | CENTAUREA | Fabulous creature presses on each star thistle, for example (9) CENTAUR + EA. Centaurea is a genus of plants that incudes the Star Thistle |
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| 6. | ROTA | Schedule time and relaxation — otherwise heads roll! (4) Initial letters of Time And Relaxation Otherwise, “rolled” by two positions (or just an anagram of them) |
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| 7. | CHASTISE | Correct a chess move — take it back! (8) Reverse of IT in (A CHESS)* |
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| 8. | OVERLORD | Ruler‘s sexy lover gets gold and diamonds (8) LOVER* + OR + D |
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| 13. | PEPPERMINT | Vegetable, green and sweet (10) PEPPER (vegetable) + MINT (shade of green) |
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| 15. | TESSERACT | A cucubebe? (9) A tesseract is 4-dimensional cube, whose 3-d representration can look like a cube inside a cube, i.e. cu(cube)be. |
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| 16. | CROSSBOW | This can shoot down Spooner’s top boast (8) Spoonerism of “boss crow”. The word “down” seems redundant in the cryptic reading, but perhaps a crossbow could show down a bird? |
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| 17. | ABSURDER | It’s more ridiculous — I’m lost for words after Australian has bowled Root (8) A (Australian) + B[owled] + SURD (a mathematical expression involving square (or other) roots) + ER (sound of hesitation) |
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| 19. | GARDEN | Plot flirts with danger (6) DANGER* |
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| 20. | ATAXIC | A vehicle with 50% engine capacity lacks motor co-ordination (6) A + TAXI + C (half of CC = engine capacity) – I think the definition would work better with “lacking” instead of “lacks” |
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| 23. | CADET | Trainee pet bites revolting little man (5) ED rising or “revolting” in CAT |
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| 24. | AGUE | Fit in baguette? (4) Hidden in bAGUEtte |
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re 8 down: Is this the 1st time in the history of cruciverbalism that ‘sexy’ has been used to indicate an anagram? One is inclined to hope that it will be the last.
Hi Andrew
Still working on this – but Qaos’ Twitter feed says, ‘Can you decipher my latest puzzle for the @guardian?’
So far, I’ve got CROSSBOW, OVERLORD, CHASTISE, COMPASS…
Re ‘sexy’ as an anagrind (Logomachist @ 1): perhaps it’s a reference to Tony Blair’s famously sexed up ‘dodgy dossier’.
Can’t see a theme, though.
Well done Eileen – I think you can add PEPPERMINT to your list..
And BODYGUARD, TITANIC, MARKET GARDEN…
.. and BODYGUARD and TITANIC
Thanks Qaos and Andrew
First pass I only entered the golfer, and the wrong one at that (Gary Player!). However I gradually worked up from the bottom and finished in the NW. I like CHASTISE and MARKET in particular (for the latter I spent ages trying to remember the name given to a hawk that ladies flew, ending in ET – it still hasn’t come).
Unusually for Qaos, I found myself “checking” several, thinking “could it really be that?” – SUPER and SPUN in particular. I didn’t see the “revolting little man” in CADET. I saw but didn’t like the operation required to get ROTA – another “check”.
Pedants’ corner: HTML stands for Hyper Text Markup Language, so should be given as (1,1,1,1) – admittedly this would make it a lot easier. Centaureas are “thistle-like” plants, but they aren’t thistles – most are called “knapweeds”. They aren’t prickly!
Military offensives, Eileen?
Right, now that’s sorted, I’ll come back and say thanks to Andrew for the very early blog – too early to have seen Qaos’ comment! – and Qaos for the entertainment and challenge.
I had spotted CROSSBOW and OVERLORD by the time I finished and, just on the off chance, followed Andrew’s link to Twitter – and there it was.
Favourite clues: COMPASS and BODYGUARD.
Enjoyed this tremendously. Thanks Qaos and Andrew. I thought the first and last word in 6Down can serve as definition as well as anagram indicator. Clever
I withdraw my objection to CENTAUREA – I’ve only just noticed that the clue does say “star thistle” rather than just “thistle”!
That was very tough – more than any previous Qaos puzzle than I can remember, and I must admit to having used a bit of guess and check to finish it. CENTAUREA and ATAXIC were unfamiliar, and although I had heard of the book, I didn’t know that TESSERACT was a type of hypercube (in fact I thought of hypercube as a possible solution before I had any crossers) – my first thought for HTML was MIME but fortunately that was unparseable.
A bit too clever for me – might have been better in the prize slot!
Thanks to Qaos and Andrew
Thanks Qaos and Andrew.
This was very hard going, especially ATRIP and the cucubebe, all that would come to mind was TELETUBBY…
COMPASS was great!
Thanks to Qaos for a stiff test and to Andrew (with grateful hat-tip to Eileen)for a fuller explanation. If I recall, the last couple of Qaos puzzles have attracted comments along the “a bit too easy” line, and I think this redresses the balance a bit.
I know Qaos’s ghost theme MO, and unfortunately I solved BODYGUARD and TITANIC one after the other which sent me off in the wrong direction. When I saw OVERLORD, I did consider D-Day but failed to make the other connections.
I also saw “cube within cube” easily enough, but that was as far as I got with that.
A fail for me, but enjoyable all the same.
Got there in the end with a bit of googling – hadn’t heard of ATRIP or CENTAUREA. Favourites were RUBBER STAMP, COMPASS, GREG NORMAN and ABSURDER. Many thanks to Qaos and Andrew.
PS For others as ignorant as me, the theme seems to be code names for military operations.
Thank you, Andrew, needed you for the ‘sexy’ anagrind and the explanation of ATRIP.
Uncle Yap @9 Welcome back, you have been much missed.
Missed the theme (as usual) but there are some belters here…HTML, GREG NORMAN, APPENDICES, TESSERACT to list a few.
Muffin @7 we must be linked in some way. I solved this from the bottom up and ended up in NW but entered BARBET for the ladies’ hawk unparsed.
Favourite today was CADET with its ‘revolting little man’!
Thank you Qaos.
Nice weekend, all.
In fact HTML is HyperText Markup Language, so if we’re being pedantic it could be (2,1,1), but that way lies madness.
Thanks Qaos & Andrew.
My computer and I struggled through this and I didn’t find it a particularly enjoyable solve. On googling cucubebe, the answer was revealed although I didn’t know it. COMPASS was my last one in and I didn’t even parse it. Aren’t compass points supposed to be in capitals?
I, of course, failed to see the theme even after Eileen’s first hint. Possibly a good source is here.
1d, charge = protection just doesn’t work for me. Protection racket?
Donalogue@18 Me too. I sort of see the ‘under my protection’ = ‘in my charge’ thing but it doesn’t quite make it, somehow. Perhaps I’m missing something.
I was thinking ‘charge’ in the financial sense as in protection for a loan. Otherwise an interesting struggle. Thanks Qaos and Andrew
Finished this with a bit of googling & checking – Needless to say, no chance of me spotting the theme! Needed Andrew’s help for some of the parsing.
Thanks Andrew & Qaos
Like muffin and William, I solved S first, then the NE and finally the NW. Perhaps that’s the only way to solve today’s puzzle!
Regarding 1D (CHARGE), I agree with William. If something or somebody is under my protection it is in my charge – so the clue nearly works.
This is a bit like yesterday’s puzzle: there were some great clues, indicating trouble taken over clue construction and wordplay, but with niggles here and there.
1A (COMPASS) was quite straightforward: when you see ‘News’ you think immediately of the four points of the compass. However, the wording of the clue indicates that it is the compass that reads, not us (as implied in the blog). If you can think of the compass ‘reading’ magnetic north, then the clue works. Alternatively, ‘reader’ could be a loose description of ‘something that gives a read-out’. Not brilliant.
In 6D (ROTA) I think ‘roll’ must be an anagrind (which makes sense), and in 8D (OVERLORD) ‘sexy’ does the same job, although I don’t see how. 5A (CURACAO) could have been written more logically as ‘Liqueur you are told to put in bean’, but I can understand how and why the surface dictated the other way of writing it – a good choice by the setter.
I agree with Andrew concerning what I would call the looseness of three of the clues: 26A (INDEX), 16D (CROSSBOW) and 20D (ATAXIC). In 9A (ATRIP) I think the definition must be ‘Anchor just lifted, ready’, otherwise ‘ready’ serves no purpose, and in 2D (MARKET) ‘hawk’ is not indicated as an example of a market.
Apart from these little niggles, only a couple of which held up the solving, this was a very enjoyable challenge. My favourite clues were 5A (CURACAO), 1A (GREG NORMAN), 12A (HTML), 22A (REDCURRANT), 25A (BODYGUARD) and 7D (CHASTISE).
Many thanks to both Qaos and Andrew.
Sorry about the clumsy formatting in my post @22. It’s obvious where I went wrong, and it corrects itself mid-comment. I’m unwilling to post it again as it turned out to be rather longer than I thought!
(ed: formatting fixed)
Alan: I was thinking the same way as you about “ready” in 9A, but came down on the side of thinking it was a kind of linking word.
In 2d I took hawk/market to be in the verb sense, both meaning to sell.
Andrew @24
Thanks for your response.
I assumed from your underlining that’s what you thought about ‘ready’ in 9A, and I agree that is a valid possibility. A strange linking word, though!
As for ‘hawk’ = ‘market’ in 2D, I didn’t think of the use as a verb. This was one of a couple of clues that held me up. I think you must be right.
I’m grateful also for the correction to the formatting.
Afternoon all!
During my recent outings, I couldn’t help but smile at the cries of “Too easy!” knowing this puzzle was in Hugh’s pile. So, congrats to all those who survived today’s assault and be careful what you wish for :-).
Tricky ghost theme, I’ll admit, but I thought 8dn would start your antennae twitching. Especially with WWII codenames being so famously linked with crosswords (see here). As ever, the ghost theme is just a bit of extra fun.
For those blogging who want to check a ghost theme, I reveal them on my webpage (see here). Partly so I can keep track of the topics I’ve already covered.
Best wishes,
Qaos.
PS. “? – three = 0”? I was expecting “How many faces does a 15d have?”
This was hard but I found it much more agreeable than yesterday’s puzzle. I did have to resort to Mr Google et al from time to time,well, quite a lot really if I’m honest. I didn’t know CENTAURIA, ATRIP or ATAXIC. I was quite pleased to have remembered GREG NORMAN from an earlier puzzle, which now constitutes my entire knowledge of golf!
I loved COMPASS and BODYGUARD but I wasn’t too happy with CHARGE for the reasons others have mentioned. I did spot the theme for once.
A real workout- Thanks QAOS.
This puzzle showed up my limitations as a solver – dragging out some of these answers was as much fun as pulling teeth. I had AUTOCUE at 1a for ages, the sort of thing that can happen with dd/cd clues. ATRIP needed a cheat, and several others needed a check, so little sense could I make of either def or cryptic part. Totally unaware of a theme until reading the blog. Still, HTML was quite a fun clue. Hoping for something more on my wavelength tomorrow.
Also Operation Supercharge.
For those that are counting, I put in 9 codenames, with some split across multiple answers.
That’s the thing about this hobby, you live and learn. Having never had anything to with HoTMaiL, being a user of it’s rivals, I hadn’t realised they meant it to be typed like that. But that raises the question why? On most services, e-mails are just texts, the inclusion of HTML within them is optional, whereas that naming would imply mandatory. Anybody know more? It’s off topic so click my name and send me an e-mail using the feedback link on my website. Ta.
Perhaps SUPERCHARGE is the ninth?
Qed @29, sorry, I did not spot your answer since it is not in capitals, I wonder if Qaos saw it?
Derek @31
I’m guessing the Hotmail/HTML sub-topic doesn’t have to go off this page just yet. I think I can answer, or partially answer, the point you made.
I’m old enough to remember when Hotmail came on the scene, and yes it was presented as ‘HoTMaiL’ then – although not for long. Whatever it had to do with HTML (possibly nothing) was irrelevant, as I remember: Microsoft only grudgingly embraced ‘the Internet’ at the time, but they still wanted to look cool and knowledgeable, HTML was hot, and ‘Hotmail’ (however you write it) was a brilliant exploitation of that magic acronym.
To summarise what you and I no doubt know already: emails are just text, plus optional embedded and/or attached objects, but HTML is also just text, including mark-up like , , and many other examples.
I won’t dissect the clue because Andrew has done that at the top of the page.
Oops – sorry, I’ve done it again. I overlooked the fact that giving mark-up as examples would affect my comment @34!
I hope I can call on the editor again to correct it. My comment might as well end at ‘including mark-up’ – I don’t need the rest.
I was stuck for a while, but after a break to wash dishes most of the rest came fairly easily, though the NW slowed me down a lot. ATRIP was new to me, but I knew CENTAUREA because there was one in the front garden when we bought our house. I failed to parse the RANT in REDCURRANT. After Andrew mentioned there was a theme, I did spot it, but I only got as far as CROSSBOW, OVERLORD and MARKET GARDEN.
Favourites were COMPASS and TESSERACT.
Thanks, Qaos and Andrew.
Enjoyed this a lot more than yesterday’s, which isn’t to say I found it any easier, it just felt more like a really good workout than a long hard slog.
Defeated by ATRIP and TESSERACT (a cucubebe!), and INTERCESSOR – led on a hopeless merry dance through Norwegian geography looking for obscure towns, villages, forests!
Many thanks for the puzzle and the parsing
Thanks Andrew and Qaos!
I enjoyed this one – ATRIP was LOI.
Fav: COMPASS, RUBBER STAMP and OVERLORD.
As usual for me, the theme went way over my head.
A bit late to the party so I will just say thanks to Qaos and Andrew for today’s fare. However, I wished to make a different point. The crossword editor regularly comes in for stick in these pages when the puzzle is late, or there are errors, and I guess that is fair enough. But, this week we have had brilliant puzzles from Rufus, Imogen Nutmeg and Qaos. And, who knows, waiting in the wings for tomorrow might be Paul, Arachne, Philistine, Picaroon, Brummie, etc. etc. I know little about the process of getting a crossword into the paper, but I assume that the Crossword editor is largely or entirely responsible. Therefore, I think we might admit how lucky we are to have such a terrific variety of setters and to give Hugh his due in all this.
PS I would also like to say welcome back to Uncle Yap!! I hope we hear more from you!!
I see that 5 of you count COMPASS as a favourite clue. I’m outnumbered – it was my least favourite clue – but I just wondered if anyone could explain it to me. I solved it, and it turned out to be correct, but that’s incidental.
This is a genuine appeal, by the way. Why the ‘?’, and in what way is a compass a reader? (Does some-one have a dictionary that says a reader can be something other than a standard text-book that can be read?) It is a mystery to me.
[Sorry about the crazy fomatting in a previous post. I was hoping it would be corrected.]
Thanks to Qaos and Andrew. I am unusually late to the party today and have nothing of any substance to add. As with others, CENTAUREA, ATRIP, and ATAXIC were new to me but I did manage to piece them out, and HTML was my last in. I always find this setter a challenge – but an enjoyable one.
Nothing much to add so I’m only here to say what a great puzzle.
Naturally I didn’t spot the theme. (Of course I never look for them so it’s not surprising!)
I wasn’t aware of the Hotmail connection with HTML even though I worked in IT for about 40 years. ( It was on good ol’ mainframes though!)
I also did my degree in Pure Mathematics and didn’t know what a Tesseract was but knew the word and the crossers made its entry compulsory!
So overall I was a bit of a dummy today.
Enjoyed the crossword though 🙂
Thanks to Andrew and Qaos
Alan Browne @41, COED, reader n. 3 a device for producing an image that can be read from microfilm etc.. Not sure if this is of any help, of course a compass can be read directly, but it is a “device”.
Alan Browne @41 if you’re still there, the letters of news have to be read as the four compass points N E W S. So a compass ‘reads’ north, east, west, south.
Cookie @44
Thank you for coming to my rescue! I found something similar but a bit less convincing in one dictionary (Collins, from memory).
I think yours is the only way to explain it. The ‘?’ is needed because we are asked to use a little imagination to make a compass a device that falls within the scope [compass!] of ‘reader’ – all for a good cause, namely, a smooth surface for the clue (and make it look clever, if I wanted to be critical).
I’m happy with that. It makes COMPASS my 30th favourite clue today – out of 30 – and much closer to the 29th than it was before.
… and Trailman @45 also – thanks for taking the trouble to reply.
Yours is a good alternative to the other explanation that I have just discussed with Cookie. It might or might not be what Qaos intended, and again a little imagination is needed, but I can’t fault it. (It still comes 30th, though!)
@Alan Browne
As a phrase like “The compass reads due north” implies, the compass can be seen as the subject doing the reading. So the clue works quite nicely in this sense. I think the question mark is only to point out a cryptic definition as the clue type. The clue would work without it too, in my opinion.
Very fine puzzle, harder than the first five entries suggested.
Of course, as ever, we were completely defeated by the ghost theme.
The two of us are not interested in ‘War’ – What Is It Good For, Absolutely Nothing.
We failed on 15d as we didn’t know the word.
We saw, of course, the ‘trick’ but I don’t think it’s actually a great cryptic clue.
There is just ‘something’ missing for me.
A matter of taste, probably.
We had the same feeling about 1ac as Alan Browne (initially) had.
It is a nice clue, though.
Just like Andrew, we didn’t like 26ac very much, although we know setters do it like that.
And in 2d, K = ‘royal’?
Via ‘King’, I guess, not really happy with that.
If you have no knowledge about hawks, MARRET (including R = royal) may be a perfectly acceptable ‘guess’.
Could be a bird – why not?
Sil @49
Nice to hear you also not only didn’t see the theme but didn’t care for it!
I thought 26A worked OK if you condsidered “Hiding behind executive” as an adjectival clause. (The clue then becomes &littish almost 🙂 )
I do agree about 2D as K is really a chess abbreviation so it’s a two level step to get to King Ram = “Royal Sheep”.
I was lucky I had heard of tesseract but had forgotten what it meant. That’s always the problem with CDs and DDs, they require the solver to know the vocabulary!
Will someone please explain what the theme is?
If you follow the link in 26 above, you’ll find ‘WWII Operation Codenames.’
davey @51 – code names of operations in World War 2. I didn’t see it, and Overlord is the only one I would have recognised – like Sil I was never interested in military history…
Davey – There are many code-names of military operations – Overlord is one for example; the cross-channel assault in 1944.
Thanks Qaos and Andrew
This one spilled over two days, so I guess it was at the harder end of the scale – and was another who ended up in the NW corner with ATRIP (didn’t know the term and looked it up on spec after putting A TRIP together), COMPASS (clever trick) and MARKET (even cleverer) the last few in. TESSERACT was another new word.
Missed the theme and would not have been able to have related the nine words together if they had of all been listed – had no real interest in facets of either of the World Wars (apart from a couple that had direct Australian impacts – obviously ANZAC and BURMA-RAILWAY).
Didn’t parse 23d properly – had gone down a path of CAD (revolting little man) with [P]ET (to somehow equate to pet bites – more like something bit the pet !!)
An enjoyable solve, even though it has pushed back the solving schedule of other puzzles for the week.
Qaos @23, not sure if that was a question in your postscript or a spare clue, but a tesseract has 20 faces – if you imagine the conventional 2D or 3D representation, there are six on the outer cube, six more on the inner cube, plus the four joining (say) their upper faces, and four more joining their lower faces… (Oh, now I realize it was a reference to the captcha – when is someone going to sue that as a puzzle answer?)
I couldn’t get 9a (I wanted “EUROS” – “ready” for a trip…), which I needed to “prove” CHARGE and to solve APPENDICES. Which latter leads me to wonder, are not several of the organs called “appendixes” and the sections at the end of a work “appendices”?
Many thanks for the puzzle, and the blog!
Thanks Andrew and Qaos.
Wow! That was tough but ultimately rewarding – even though I missed the theme.
It has all been said above in terms of the quality of clues. COMPASS was my favourite too.
My only extra comment is that 15dn reminded me of a Robert Heinlein short story about a house built as an unfolded (I.e. 3 dimensional) tesseract – as I recall it folded in on itself during an earthquake leaving the 3 dimensional occupants caught in a 4 dimensional world.