This week we had an alphabetical jigsaw from Jaques. I have to confess that they’re not my favourite, although I’ve had my fair share to blog at Listen With Others. They generally involve too much cold solving unless there are some long entries to get positioned. Unfortunately, here we had loads of 3-, 4-, 5-, 6- and 7-letter words, plus 11 thematic entries that needed adjustment before entry, plus the non-thematic clues needed a letter to be restored. Oh well, onwards and upwards.
I must admit that progress with the early clues was quite slow, which justified my dislike. Luckily, the last dozen or so yielded a lot more answers and I found myself working backwards from the end. Novel, if nothing else.
Gradually my list (nothing entered in the grid yet) filled up and holes in the alphabet were gradually plugged.
The message spelt out by the letters restored to clues looked like they ended in towns and cities, and with RIGHT-ON solved, BRIGHTON was staring me in the face. Perhaps that could go in column 9 with ABUNAS crossing its B.
From then on, it was fairly straightforward, and the grid was filled, eleven entries being Non-capital British towns and cities. ‘Non-capital’ could be read with either of two meanings.
In the end, I quite enjoyed this one, and it wasn’t as daunting as I had feared, although it took me longer than my average EV. Nice PDM too, thanks Jaques.
Solving time: a lot of interruptions, but the best part of 3 hours, I think.
Legend:
Definition in clue
X = Restored letter in clues
ABC* = anagram
ABC< = reversal
abCDef = hidden
| ACROSS | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Clue No | Grid No | Entry | Extra Letter |
Clue and Explanation |
| 1 | 19ac | ABUNAS | N | Worker, perhaps, returned carrying number for Ethiopian patriarchs (6) SAUBA< (worker, ant) containing N (number) |
| 2 | 25dn | ALA | O | Italian car’s fine omission given winglike structure (3) ALFA (Italian car) – F (fine) |
| 3 | 21ac | ALLYING | N | Marrying male having neither side fibbing (7) [M]AL[E] (ie without sides) + LYING (fibbing) |
| 4 | 18dn | ANBURY becomes BANBURY |
Disease of turnips, one put into the ground (6) AN (one) + BURY (put into the ground) |
|
| 5 | 39ac | ARROGATE becomes HARROGATE |
Interminably point at northern street to claim proudly (8) ARRO[W] (point, without end) + GATE (street, northern) |
|
| 6 | 4dn | ASTELY | C | One showing craft about Tyne heartlessly, a complete central absence (6) A (one) SLY (showing craft) about T[YN]E (ie heartlessly) |
| 7 | 2dn | AULOS | A | Lost soul having about on ancient musical instrument (5) SOUL* with A (about) on top |
| 8 | 7dn | BAN becomes OBAN |
Military district outlaw reserve division (3) 3 meanings |
|
| 9 | 30ac | BROLGA | P | Australian bird’s back to tingle with warmth, almost, probing underwear (6) GLO[W]< (tingle with warmth, almost) in BRA (underwear) |
| 10 | 1ac | CASA | I | Iron’s left Texan bar-room for South America getting Spanish style house (4) CAFE (North American (eg Texan) bar-room) replacing FE (iron) with SA (South America) |
| 11 | 10dn | ENTRAP | T | Catch and capture troy and Rex in withdrawn sheet of stamps (6) T (troy) R(rex) in PANE< (sheet of stamps) |
| 12 | 38ac | ETUDES | A | Abridge case of French for their studies (6) ETU[I] (case, shortened) + DES (of, French) |
| 13 | 27dn | EXSERT | L | One no longer learning? Having no pence but succeeded to stand out (6) EXPERT (one no longer needing to learn) with P (pence) replaced by S (succeeded) |
| 14 | 41ac | HEHE | B | Chap’s bordering request for repetition for a laugh (4) HE (chap) outside EH (request to repeat) |
| 15 | 12dn | HESTER becomes CHESTER |
This girl may be a star, she’s broken territory (6) SHE* + TER (territory) |
|
| 16 | 35ac | HONEY | R | A delightful person regressing in the old Japanese drama (5) (YE (the, old) + NOH (Japanese drama))< |
| 17 | 17dn | HUT | I | Missing right irate Ruth’s shed (3) (RUTH – R (right))* |
| 18 | 16ac | INSHORE | T | Shorn that is scrapped approaching the beach? (7) (SHORN IE (that is))* |
| 19 | 14ac | LOTH | I | Rain wildly with this old repellent is horntail swarming? (4) composite anagram: (RAIN + LOTH (repellent, old word))* = HORNTAIL |
| 20 | 28dn | LOUGH becomes SLOUGH |
Down water? Look that’s disgusting! (5) LO (look) + UGH (that’s disgusting); ‘Down’, for County Down, suggests Irish word |
|
| 21 | 14ac | NASION | S | Sioux maybe dropping tomahawks initially for stokes in the middle of the bridge (6) NATION (North American tribe, eg Sioux) with T (Tomahawks, initially) replaced by S (stokes); ‘bridge’ as in bridge of nose |
| 22 | 23ac | NOVA | H | Old van’s harmed, it’s an unexpected brightness (4) (O (old) VAN)* |
| 23 | 31dn | OLDEN | T | Past study is trailing after Egyptologist essentially (5) DEN (study) after OL (egyptOLogist, essentially) |
| 24 | 24dn | ORMOLU | O | Oscar resident medical officer with lutetium, copper and zinc alloy (6) O (Oscar) + RMO (Resident Medical Officer) + LU (lutetium) |
| 25 | 7ac | OUSTED | W | Ejected stringed instrument – wrapped about female saint (6) OUD (stringed instrument) about STE (female saint, French) |
| 26 | 15ac | OVER becomes DOVER |
Not quite public and away from an upright position (4) OVER[T] (public, nearly) |
|
| 27 | 26ac | REISSUE | N | Check nearly uses badly in second edition? (7) REI[N] (check, nearly) + USES* |
| 28 | 20dn | RIGHT-ON becomes BRIGHTON |
Trendy Privy Councillor’s striking hospital (7) RIGHT HON. (Privy Councillor) – H (hospital) |
|
| 29 | 36ac | RODE | S | Sat on horseback duke’s stopping deer (4) D (duke) in (stopping) ROE (deer) |
| 30 | 9dn | ROON becomes TROON |
Niger importing Scottish wool for bit of Paisley cloth (4) RN (Republic of Niger) containing OO (wool, Scottish) |
|
| 31 | 3dn | SNIVEL | A | Recurrent bolts of lightning, some time ago and whimper (6) LEVINS< (bolts of lightning, old word) |
| 32 | 29dn | SUNDAE | N | Glaswegian to serve NUS first having returned confection (6) DAE (serve, Scottish) with NUS< first; not 100% sure that 'us' is meant to become 'NUS' |
| 33 | 34dn | TARE | D | Starling’s ditching beginning to calculate weight in the net (4) [S]TARE (starling, without first letter) |
| 34 | 32dn | TEETH | C | What closes at the race meet beneath sufficient power to be effective (5) last letters of aT thE racE meeT beneatH |
| 35 | 22ac | TIPT | I | Taking the tops off the ideal pencils, that’s pointless! (4) first letters of The Ideal Pencils That’s |
| 36 | 5dn | TIRLING becomes STIRLING |
Eilidh’s stripping wearing about little to begin with (7) TIRING (wearing) about L (Little, first letter); Eilidh, a Scottish girl’s name |
|
| 37 | 8dn | ULE | T | Plant learner for time in New Zealand’s truck (3) UTE (NZ truck) with L (learner) replacing T (time) |
| 38 | 13ac | ULITIS | I | Cause of inflammation’s buried in “You lit” islander (6) in yoU LIT ISlander |
| 39 | 33ac | UMLAUTS | E | German marks every practically making a comeback as sum’s dodgy without (7) AL[L]< (every, practically, ie nearly) + UT (as) in SUM* |
| 40 | 40ac | UNDEE becomes DUNDEE |
One local river’s wavy (5) UN (one, local word) + DEE (river) |
|
| 41 | 11ac | UNSTABLE becomes DUNSTABLE |
Rocky islands, where one’s flipped? (8) UNST (island 1) + ELBA< (island 2) |
|
| 42 | 37dn | VAE | S | Vessel’s lost son bay in the Orkneys (3) VASE (vessel) – S (son) |
I did enjoy this one, but there again jigsaw crosswords are a particular favourite of mine. Good work by the setter to find so many cities that form real words when their first letter is removed. I think I’m right in saying this is the second city-themed puzzle in a year after one from Artix not too long ago where all entries were names of towns and cities from around the world.
The only criticism I would make of this puzzle is that some of the clue surfaces were a bit on the nonsensical side. Other than that, full marks.
An enjoyable puzzle indeed. It took me a while to get going with very few clues being solved on first pass. I had more success at the bottom end of the list with the pair of Us, Unstable (nice clue!) and Undee, being amongst my first to solve. At this point I wondered whether a couple of missing Ds may be useful and it was about clipped town names. A lucky guess which saw me through to the end without much of a problem. Though it took a while – a lot more than Dave’s 3 hours. Dover and Stirling being my last two towns to reveal themselves.
Thanks once again to Dave H for the blog and Jaques for the fun.