A Puzzle by Meles
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The puzzle is available by clicking on the above grid.
Meles provide's this week's alternative exercise in lateral thinking with a clever puzzle.
Across
9a Bury's centre-back becomes completely motionless (5)
INERT: A synonym of bury (no capital required) with the centre letter moved to the rear of the clue
10a I lead riot, could become leader (9)
EDITORIAL: Anagram (could become) of the preceding three words
11a Those people call the setter quiet and elaborate (9)
EMBELLISH: A charade of an informal “those people”, a synonym of call (on a phone), a first person pronoun and a way of asking for quiet
13a Some dream as seducers gathered (7)
AMASSED: Hidden in the clue
15a This only works if you believe set reading material OK to be ignored (7)
PLACEBO: A synonym of set or position plus “bo(ok)”
17a Now creep a little across to the right (5)
TODAY: A synonym of a creep or sycophant with the letter A moved one place to the right
18a Really disheartened by 'e' in Whiskey? (3)
RYE: The outer letters (disheartened) of ReallY plus the letter “e” from the clue
20a I appreciate that holding stuff back leads to change (5)
ADAPT: An informal “I appreciate that” or thanks around a synonym of stuff all reversed
22a Prepare for another use of chopped cold celery (7)
RECYCLE: Anagram (chopped) of C(old) plus CELERY
25a Give the right name (7)
ENTITLE: A smart double definition
26a Fish regularly seen in the star map (5)
TETRA: Alternate letters of ThE sTaR mAp.
27a Food store moving outside of British economy (9)
HONEYCOMB: Anagram of the outside letters of BritisH and ECONOMY
30a Recipe to make tame pie filling (9)
MINCEMEAT: If you split the solution 5-4 we have an anagram indicator and fodder to possibly make “tame”. I think this clue would benefit from a question mark.
31a Write up core piece of judicial reasoning (5)
LOGIC: A word meaning write up or register and the core of judICial.
Down
1d &13d/26d. Repeatedly a feature of each of setter's better attempts? (4)
TIME: Cryptically the solution is a reference to what features in seTTer’s beTTer aTTempts.
2d Something to make notes on? (8)
KEYBOARD: Double/cryptic definition, one referencing a laptop maybe, the other an instrument
3d Raised behind - and the rest! (2,2)
ET AL: A reversal of a synonym of behind (time)
4d Something evocative of America is lost in what's left after division (8)
REMINDER: Remove the abbreviation for America from a word meaning “what's left after division”
5d Piece of game bird cleft in twain by butcher perhaps (6)
BISHOP: Half of (cleft in twain) BI(rd) plus a retail establishment. I think “butcher” here should be “butcher's”
6d Relaxed regulation finally about discussion over network (10)
NONCHALANT: Put together the final letter of regulatioN a preposition meaning about, and an informal discussion, into which is inserted a computer network
7d Furious diatribe, expressing invective and bile primarily? (6)
TIRADE: Anagram of DIATRIBE after “expressing” the initial letters of invective and bile, giving a nice &lit.
8d &16d/29d. Compliment attempt to stop someone choking? (4)
SLAP: Double/cryptic definition. Not sure if the first needs “on” in order to work but it's smart.
13d See 1d (5)
AFTER:
14d Fight between broadcaster and former head of state is building (10)
SKYSCRAPER: A ubiquitous broadcaster and our former head of state into which is inserted a fight or brawl.
16d See 8d (5)
ONTHE:
19d Turning 9 yet getting to an age... (8)
ETERNITY: Anagram (turning) of the solution to 9 and YET. Very smart
21d ... while a life's beginning, difficult to accept help at first (8)
ALTHOUGH: A from the clue, the initial letter of Life and a synonym of difficult into which is inserted the initial letter to Help. The ellipses are very cleverly used here.
23d Observation of something rarely seen in speech - giving credit where it's due (6)
CITING: Homophone (in speech) of an observation
24d Earl opted to exchange the last two rings (6)
ECHOES: The abbreviation for Earl and a synonym of opted with the last two letters exchanged.
26d See 1d (4)
TIME:
28d Letting slip I'm hurt, afraid to scream (4)
YELL: A synonym of afraid or cowardly with an exclamation meaning that hurt removed from the rear of the word.
29d See 8d (4)
BACK:
Very enjoyable, thanks Meles.
Oops – getting a 404 on the link to the puzzle. Is a tweak needed to the post? Thanks!
same here
I have been behind the scenes and republished the offending page. It now seems to be working.
Thanks Meles for another excellent NTSPP challenge for which caffeine was required. But that didn’t stop me putting a strange collection of letters in 8d which slowed me down in the NE generally.
Smiles for 12a, 30a, 31a, 2d, 6d, and 8d/16d/29d (once I had unscrambled 8d!).
Thanks again and thanks in advance to SL.
Very enjoyable – thanks to Meles (and thanks to Prolixic for rescuing the puzzle).
The second word of 7d seems to be doing double duty.
My ticks went to 12a, 20a, 30a and 1/13/26 down.
What a magnificent puzzle! It was a joy to solve from start to finish and certainly a 5* rating for enjoyment. As the icing on the cake, I particularly like it when multi-word answers are aligned in the same row or column.
9a is fine for me, but is “centre-back” strictly speaking a valid instruction to move the middle letter to the back?
WIth ticks aplenty, my top picks are the most apt 12a, the clever 1d/13d/26d, the very well disguised 2d, and the perfect &lit 7d.
Many thanks to Meles and in advance to SL.
Many thanks to Prolixic for saving the day and making this excellent puzzle from Meles available to us. I particularly enjoyed the clever manipulation of letters within words, such as 9a – which is in my list of favourites alongside 18a, 31a, 1/13/26d, 7d & 21d. Like RD I had 7d pegged as an &lit. I found a few clues quite tricky to parse, with 6d being the last one for all the pieces to fit neatly into place. Solving was made even more tricky by the distraction of watching England women’s rugby team scoring a dozen magnificant tries v Ireland – oh, make that thirteen now…
My thanks to Meles and in advance to StephenL.
Oh dear, where’s a pod of wales when you need them! Seriously, this has taken me a long time and I almost entered ‘wild guess’ territory on a few occasions. I shall eagerly await the review from SL(?) to find out whether I actually got everything in the right order.
Thanks to Meles for making 30a of my solving abilities.
We struggled and had to resort to revealing letters, sadly. A tad too difficult for us and we look forward to SL’s review tomorrow.
Held up in the SE corner, I needed a wordfinder for 27ac, after which the rest fell into place. But overall an enjoyable puzzle. I liked 7dn and 28dn.
Thanks, Meles and SL.
Many thanks for the review, SL. Turns out that I had filled in all the correct answers but there were three bits of parsing that had defeated me. One was stupidity on my part – the repeated feature, the other two I didn’t think were!
Thanks again to Meles for the puzzle.
Thanks to everyone who took the time to solve and comment, and of course to Stephen L for the lovely review (plus Mr K and Prolixic for the behind the scenes work). Seems this one was a little trickier than I intended, hopefully it provided some enjoyment regardless. Thanks again, until next time