Published in the i newspaper on 3 October 2020.
Quite a clever theme this week, although it took me a while to cotton on - after getting ARTFUL and DODGE fairly early on I jumped to the mistaken conclusion that it must be Oliver Twist! Don't know if this was a deliberate attempt to throw solvers off the scent.
The message spelled out by the letters removed from most of the clues was SP AND IN DID COME THE STRANGEST FIGURE. I'm glad I had a hint about the significance of the first two letters, which I would never have guessed: they stand for the Latin phrase sine prole (without issue, i.e. childless). The rest is an easily identifiable quotation from The Pied Piper of Hamelin by Robert Browning, which provides the theme.
The extra phrase to be added at 24 across is BOYS AND GIRLS - presumably referring to another quote from the poem: "All the little boys and girls, With rosy cheeks and flaxen curls". Thus the above message can be taken as an instruction to remove BOYS AND GIRLS from the grid and replace it with THE PIED PIPER. This creates a number of new words and proper nouns which form part of the final solution, listed at the end.
The theme also gives an indication of how to modify the twelve "straight" clues; the Pied Piper drove out the rats from the town, so the word RAT has to be removed from each of the twelve answers before entry, in each case creating a new word (though this wasn't specified in the preamble). It was slightly annoying that the enumerations in brackets referred to grid entries - in other puzzles of this type, where some entries have to be modified, the enumerations have referred to solutions before modification, and in one case (15 across) the enumeration was positively misleading. I presume this was done deliberately to make it harder to identify the twelve clues, but it struck me as non-standard.
One curious thing: the word PIED appears running downwards from the second cell in column 2, and I initially assumed that PIPER would turn up somewhere else, but it doesn't.
Most of the clues seemed fair although I had issues with a number of them, included in the comments below. In the detailed solutions, I've identified the letter to be removed from the clue by picking out the relevant word, adding it after the clue number and underlining the letter. Grid entries for the twelve "straight" clues are given in italics.
Across
1 - answers. ASTHMA = "inspiring problem"; anag. of (MATHS + A)
"Applied" is the anagram indicator; A = "answer"
5 - top. BUKSHI = "paymaster"; homophone of "buck she"
"To auditor" is the homophone indicator, but can "buck she" really be taken as a phrase meaning "resist female"? There are two separate homophones here, not one.
9 - aid. PAROTIDITIS = "disease"; IT in (PA + ROT + ID + IS)
PA as in "per annum". A less common variant of parotitis, an inflammation of the salivary (parotid) glands on the side of the face.
10. CIRE/CIRRATE = "cloudy" (?); IR in CRATE
IR is the former Inland Revenue, but I couldn't find CIRRATE meaning "cloudy" - only "equipped with a cirrus" (a structure similar to a tentacle). There are cirrus clouds though, so I suppose the formation is logical.
11 - on. ORTOLAN = "frequent flier"; hidden in [airp]ORT O LAN[ding]
The ORTOLAN is a bird of the bunting family.
13 - housed. HETERO = "straight"; (E + TER) in HO
15. PROA/PRO RATA = "in proportion"; ?
I couldn't work out the wordplay on this one, and I thought the enumeration was misleading; although PRO RATA is a two-word phrase, the grid entry PROA was a single word (a type of sailing vessel). I spent some time looking for a two-word phrase with four letters before I realized it didn't exist.
17. STUPED/STUPRATED = "ravaged" (?); (P + RATE) in STUD
This looks like an error. The only definition of STUPRATE that I can find is "to ravish or rape; to have sexual intercourse with". "Ravage" means "to cause severe and extensive damage to" and is not synonymous with "ravish", even though people occasionally confuse them.
19 - Paris. SCRAP = "waste material"; C in anag. of PARS
22 - demon. ARTFUL = "cunning"; makes FORMULATED when anagrammed with DEMO
This is not what I would consider a standard cryptic clue, with the definition in the middle. I don't know if they're common in this type of puzzle but I would have appreciated an indication.
24 - BOYS AND GIRLS (as per preamble)
27 - issued. PARENT = "person that has issue"; PA + RENT
28 - said. SCALD = "poet" (?); C and L spaced regularly in SAD
A skald is an ancient Scandinavian poet, but I struggled to find this alternative spelling.
30. LUSTED/LUSTRATED = "purged ritually"; LUST + RATED
34. IONS/RATIONS = "restricted fare"; anag. of (S[ervice] + O[n] + TRAIN)
37 - bard. GOBLIN = "nasty little man"; anag. of (IN GLOBE - E)
I.e. "bar close to Shakespeare" (without the final letter of "Shakespeare")
38 - cur. VAURIEN = "good-for-nothing"; (UR + IE) in VAN
It doesn't actually specify in the preamble that the modified clues have to contain actual words, but all the others do, so this is a little odd. I'm not aware that "ur" is a word without an initial capital letter (ancient city of Ur), though it can be a prefix.
39. PING/PRATING = "talking nonsense"; PRAT + IN + G
40 - poet. TRUMPET TREE = "what's naturally instrumental"; (anag. of TERM PET) in TRUE
Hadn't heard of a TRUMPET TREE before but a neat cryptic definition within the clue.
41 - him. HISSES = "expresses disapproval"; HI + rev. of SESS
SESS is an alternative spelling of cess, an impost or tax (hence "duty").
42 - care. HEARSE = "terminal car"; EAR in HSE
Down
1 - tends. ARCHES = "vaults"; [w]AR CHES[t]
2. SPIED/SPIRATED = "in ever decreasing circles"; anag. of TRAIPSED
SPIRATED is an adjective meaning "twisted like a spiral", although curiously there seems to be no corresponding verb "spirate".
3 - hold. TARTARY = "place that was vaguely defined"; TA in TARRY
A blanket term once used by Europeans for unknown areas of Asia. TA = "old volunteers" (i.e. the Territorial Army, the old name for the Army Reserve).
4. MOORY/MORATORY = "delaying"; ORATOR in MY
A legal term meaning "authorizing delay of payment". MY = "writer's".
5. BITE/BITRATE = "measure of transmission speed"; (rev. of TAR) in BITE
Although there's nothing wrong with the clue, there was something odd about having to put RAT into BITE for the solution and then having to take it straight out again!
6 - peat. KILP = "this seaweed"; forms LIKE PAT when anagrammed with TEA
KILP appears to be a dialect form of the more common "kelp". This is my least favourite clue for two reasons; it uses an unfamiliar device similar to the one in 22ac (though with the definition at the start this time), and it's ambiguous. It would be quite consistent for the extra letter to be I rather than E, and for the answer to be KELP rather than KILP. Admittedly this would leave the nonsensical LKE PEAT as the anagram fodder, but it's not entirely certain whether modified clues have to consist of actual words (see comments on 38ac).
7 - goggles. STARE = "goggle"; TAR in [the]SE
8 - atlas. ISRAEL = "country"; anag. of (REALISE - E)
Only works if you take "alas" as anagram indicator - a bit cheeky?
12 - borne. ROSIN = "what causes", etc.; R + OS + [viol]IN[ists]
I presume this is intended as an "&lit" clue.
14 - awaiting. BURGS = "US towns"; ?
Can't parse this one. I took the first A out of "awaiting" because nothing else makes sense.
16 - nearly. CASE = "patient"; (CASH - H) + E[arly]
Don't quite get this. "Cash" = "ready" and "H" = "hospital, but wouldn't that give you "hospital to leave ready" rather than "ready to leave hospital"? I can just about accept "forgetting almost everything" as an indication to just keep the first letter, but it's not very elegant.
18 - Gin. DULL = "insensible"; L in [a]DUL[t]
20 - creating. COAL = "fuel"; A in COL
"Crating" seems to be the inclusion indicator here.
21 - son. PANTO = "production"; NT in rev. of OAP
23 - taxing. TICK = "beat"; STICK - S[tate]
25 - fending. DODGE = "gas guzzler"; DODGE[m]
26 - Turin. RALLIER = "driver"; rev. of (ILL in REAR)
27 - Gout. PLINTH = "supporter"; (PLAINT + H[appens]) - A[cute]
29 - forum. DONGLE = "tool to clone mobile phones" (?); anag. of LONGED
"Form" is the anagram indicator, but I don't recognize the definition. A DONGLE is
a small USB device that allows you to access the internet - it doesn't "clone" anything as far as I know.
31 - spurn. UNAUS = "laid-back individuals"; hidden in [sp]UN AU[sterity]
Mildly cryptic definition - a UNAU is a two-toed sloth.
32. CONTE/CONTRATE = "related to orientation of teeth"; anag. of (A ROTTEN C)
This is the second time I've seen "canine" for C, and I'm not sure where it comes from. The definition part is nicely misleading, as CONTRATE refers to gears with teeth set at right angles to the wheel.
33. LINES/RATLINES = "they are involved in rigging"; LINE in rev. of STAR (?)
Not sure about the parsing here - if STAR = "network configuration" then "up" can be taken as the reversal indicator, but I'm not convinced.
35 - use. SUMS = "results"; anag. of (US + S[how] + M[isleading])
36. PIES/PIRATES = "bad guys in the main"; rev. of (SET + A + RIP)
Final modifications to grid
I recognized all the amended words except CHAL, which turns out to be a beverage of fermented camel's milk! The initial B and final S are in cells which don't intersect with Down clues, and two other substitutions make no difference to the grid.
| B -> T | ||||
| COAL | O -> H | CHAL | ||
| TARTARY | Y -> E | TARTARE | ||
| CASE | S -> P | CAPE | ||
| PANTO | A -> I | PINTO | ||
| ROSIN | N -> E | ROSIE | ||
| DODGE | D -> D | unchanged | ||
| BURGS | G -> P | BURPS | ||
| TICK | I -> I | unchanged | ||
| RALLIER | R -> P | PALLIER | ||
| DULL | L -> E | DUEL | ||
| S -> R |
As with other similar endgames, no clues were given to the amended words. This seems like an omission to me - it would be nice to be able to check one's final answer. However, it seems to be standard practice.
No comments:
Post a Comment