Serpent slithers into view – venomous? We’ll see.
Preamble: Solvers must determine how to enter the answers to across clues, listed in alphabetical order of their (equal-length) answers. Taken in clue order, the misprints of single letters in each of the down clues may assist. All across clues and all down entries, including 6 (to be deduced), are normal.
So, half jigsaw, half normal. (Note to self: the preamble says “the misprints of …”, not “the corrections to misprints of …” – pay attention.)
In the Brecon Beacons for some Easter walking. Sat down with the crossword on Saturday evening. After the first bash, I had 4 down entries (PTERIA at the top, LARGE, STENT, NUTTY at the bottom) and just under a half of the across answers – so nowhere near being able to start entering those. And they were 6 letters long. So, 24 across answers to fit into an 11×11 grid. Hmm.
A longer walk on Sunday in glorious sunshine, crossword folded and tucked into the map-holder. Solved another four across clues cold before we stopped for lunch – this was a tough puzzle; the terrain got tougher, so I put it away to think. We’ve got 24 6-letter answers = 144 characters; and an 11×11 grid = 121 cells. So, we have to ‘lose’ 23 characters; that’s one per answer, bar one. If we enter the across answers with last letter of one doubling up as the first letter of the next, then they’ll just fit; and if when we get to the end of the row we wrap around and head the other way, then we’ll get a long wriggling snake from top left to bottom right. Could hardly wait to get home to try out the idea.
Before I did so, another down clue yielded: KNEELED. And I’d noticed earlier that DAMSEL could intersect the starts of STENT + LARGE; that looked less speculative now, as it fitted with the end of KNEELED. 
I highlighted the 1st, 6th, 11th, etc. cell of the spreadsheet to mark the start/end of the across entries, and – yeah! – DAMSEL checked out, followed by LIBANT, leading to T????U … TELUGU emerging from a monster composite anagram. Boustrophedon it was, and the flood gates had well and truly opened.
The bottom half filled up very quickly, and this was when I realised that I should be looking at the misprints, not the corrections; the phrase clearly ended with RIGHT DOWN ETC, but I didn’t feel in need of assistance at this stage. The top half took a little while longer, but not much, as now the normal feedback/interplay between answers entered and clues to solve had kicked in, and cold-solving was over.
Very neat and impressive from Serpent – no unchecked cells at all! I do hope he hasn’t shot his bolt with this Inquisitor debut. Thanks – this was a slippery one.
Some misprints affected definitions, some affected components of wordplay, and others affected instructions in wordplay (remove/exchange letters). I’m pretty sure that I have got the right corrections (though I suppose 8d could be make not take), but …
· Don’t know what the correction to 11d “Keep b?t spare” is. {See comments #3, #4 & #11.}
· I’m sure that many Genovese would object to their city being described as a mere town.
· Surely the helpful message should read RIGHT DOWN LEFT DOWN ETC?
| Across | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Answer | Location | Wordplay | ||
| ATTIRE | r10 c5 | [BIRETTA − B(ishop)]* | ||
| DAMSEL | r7 c5 | DAM (mother) + SEL (self, Scot, identity) | ||
| DEARER | r3 c4 | [RE-READ]* | ||
| DSOMOS | r4 c4 | DSO (decoration) + MOS(t) | ||
| EARNED | r2 c2 | HEAR (listen) + NED (hooligan) − H(ooligan) | ||
| EEYORE | r11 c1 | EYESORE (what a sight!) with (monke)Y moved right over S(tartled) | ||
| ENNAGE | r2 c7 | E- (electronic, Internet) GANNE(t) (bird, flyer) all < | ||
| ENRING | r9 c8 | ERRING (wayward) with R(esistance) replaced by N(o) | ||
| ENTRÉE | r11 c6 | homophone: ON TRAY (… may be delivered this way) | ||
| FLECKS | r1 c1 | homophone: FLEX (lead) | ||
| GENOVA | r10 c10 | GE(rman) + AVON< (river) | ||
| LIBANT | r7 c10 | LIB(eral party) + ANT (social worker) | ||
| REVERT | r3 c9 | EVER (always) in RT (right) | ||
| SATIRE | r1 c11 | (Mahle)R in SATIE (composer) | ||
| SCHIST | r5 c7 | SCHISM (discord) with T(une) replacing last letter | ||
| SELAHS | r6 c6 | SHALES< (rocks) | ||
| STAMPS | r1 c6 | TAMP (pack in) in SS (seconds) | ||
| STONED | r6 c1 | double definition | ||
| STYLES | r5 c2 | [LESS]* around T(ra)Y | ||
| TAKHIS | r6 c11 | [SIKH AT]* | ||
| TAMINE | r9 c3 | [TEAM]* around IN (home) | ||
| TANKED | r4 c9 | double definition: TANK (prison, US slang) | ||
| TELUGU | r8 c8 | [UTTERED URDU LANGUAGE − UNDERGRADUATE]* | ||
| URGENT | r8 c3 | GEN (information) (learn)T after UR (homophone: er, hesitation) | ||
| Down | ||||
| No. | Answer | Misprint/ Correction |
Wordplay | |
| 1 | FARMOST | L | socket | FARM (till) O (love) S(ocke)T |
| 2 | LENOS | E | not | OS (operating system, Windows perhaps) after LINEN − IN (fashionable) |
| 3 | EGESTA | F | holding | (coll)EGE STA(ff) |
| 4 | CADDY | T | carrier | double definition |
| 5 | KNEELED | D | lied | K(ing) NEE (born) + LIED − I |
| 6 | SNAKES ALIVE |
see preamble | ||
| 7 | TERN | O | bird | (bit)TERN (bird) |
| 8 | AREACH | W | take | (b)AR (pub) EACH (for every) |
| 9 | MIRTH | N | swap | MONTH (May perhaps) with ON (about) replaced by IR (Inland Revenue) |
| 10 | PTERIA | R | bones | [PIRATE]* |
| 11 | SAVE | I | but | |
| 12 | SIMENON | G | less | MENO (less) in SIN (fall) |
| 13 | STIBINE | H | bits | BITS< + E(ast) around IN |
| 14 | HORNIE | T | hell | HE around OR (other ranks, troops) + NI (Northern Ireland, Ulster) |
| 15 | LEGATO | D | break | LEG (on) A T(omat)O |
| 16 | KENNER | O | new | REEK< (smoke) around N(ew) + N(ew) |
| 17 | NUTTY | W | taste | double definition: NUTTY (taste like Brazil?) |
| 18 | STENT | N | seeds | S(eeds) TENT (temporary accommodation) |
| 19 | LARGE | E | lager | [LAGER]* |
| 20 | GERE | T | gear | double definition: GERE (Richard G, actor) |
| 21 | UMAR | C | mostly | (s)UM(s) AR(e) |
|
|
||||
Great puzzle, great blog. HG, I fear this new arrival in the Garden will use craft guile and cunning deceit to bring about our downfall – so much more sssssatisfying than venomous bite.
Coming back to the puzzle itself, I wonder if the correct spelling in 11D was ‘but’.
‘Save’ can mean keep, but also mean spare. (According to BRB).
Fine puzzle indeed, and blog. Don’t worry, he hasn’t shot his bolt.
11D is certainly ‘but’: a triple meaning I think, as ‘save’ and ‘but’ are both defined as ‘except’ in Chambers.
Thanks to HG for the blog and also to the response to my late query at the end of the blog to IQ1379.
Thanks also to Serpent for a puzzle I found very difficult to complete: it needed a lot of cold solving of clues.
I’m full of admiration for this puzzle. Fully checked grid, clever entry method but completely clear and unambiguous. I also parsed 11d as a triple definition with ‘but’ as the correction. Hope to see another Serpent soon.
Thanks to setter any blogger.
Yes, an excellent IQ. A slow start but once the tipping point had been reached a steady and satisfying stroll to the finish. Many thanks to Serpent and to HG.
I was surprised that there has been no comment about 6D. It was a phrase that I don’t remember encountering for at least half a century. My grandfather, who died in the 60’s, used to use it as a mild expletive and my better half thought she seemed to remember it from the the Beano, etc., at around that time. The phrase is not in my 2006 Chambers or in Brewer’s, who does include “great snakes!”
I am wondering whether Serpent is of “my generation” or whether the phrase is still in common use in some places.
No problem for our younger solvers, however, since 6D has no unchecked letters
I really enjoyed this but I confess that I too tracked the corrections rather than the misprints until they were too late to be of any use.
Re Wickball@5: I didn’t question the phrase in 6D as it was familiar enough, but now he mentions it I too haven’t heard or read it in fifty years and a quick Google search doesn’t recognise it either. I can’t help with its origin but it sounds the sort of thing that might feature in children’s adventure books of that era.
Thanks HG for the blog and I look forward to the next puzzle from Serpent.
Thanks to both blogger and setter.
I enjoyed this, but I agree with HG that the message really should have started with ‘right’ not ‘left’ – having worked out that the acrosses must snake & overlap I couldn’t make it work initially because I was trying to follow the message precisely – not enough to spoil my enjoyment of the puzzle, but I wouldn’t normally expect the IQ to have such an inexactitude.
I didn’t manage to complete enough down clues to get very far with this (though I had quite a few across clues sorted). Am very impressed with the way the puzzle is put together, so many thanks and plaudits to Serpent!
I’m in the unprecedented position of finding a puzzle easier than the other commentators on this blog – helped by getting KNEELED in quickly in addition to those mentioned in the blog. I think Styles or Stoned was my first across but I spent much longer trying to string them all wrapping left to right before the penny dropped!
Great stuff
Many thanks for all the kind comments and the excellent blog. I was delighted to hear that the puzzle unfolded in just the kind of way I had hoped.
@WickBall: I’m just gone 50. I haven’t heard anyone use the phrase in conversation. I think I must have read it in a book at some point and it has stuck with me for some reason. And of course it fitted the puzzle perfectly.
@shikasta: I hadn’t thought of that way of reading the message obtained from the misprints. My intended reading was “(start) LEFT, DOWN, (start) RIGHT, DOWN,…” I now see that “(go) LEFT, (go) DOWN, (go) RIGHT,…” is a more natural interpretation. Apologies for any confusion!
I hope you’ll see another Serpent slithering past soon…
I meant to confirm that 11d is indeed a triple definition, with ‘but’ being the third definition.
What a brilliant puzzle this was, a quite genius construction which took me ages to solve. I persevered and in much the same way as HolyGhost, it was circling my mind whilst out for a walk. No map holder with me though; a nice idea for damp proofing ones inquisitor !
Many thanks to serpent on a splendid debut. And to HG for the blog and generating other ideas
Thanks HG and Serpent, a very enjoyable and satisfying puzzle. I understood the instructions to be “from the left” and “from the right”, in the way that we read, so no confusion for me.
I failed to fill the grid completely as I mistakenly had RETIRE instead of REVERT: IT in E’ER (ever) then R (right) all reversed, definition &lit
What a fine puzzle! We also took a while to get started. We guessed that you needed to overlap the answers to fit them in and then we wondered about the answers snaking their way down the grid. It still took us quite a few sittings though to complete the puzzle. It was a very satisfying solve. We had a question mark by TELEGU so thanks for the parsing HG.
We made the stupid mistake of using the corrections rather the misprints so we gained no assistance as to how to fill in the grid. We kicked ourselves as we neared the end and wondered what was going on!
Thanks Serpent – a lovely debut. We are looking forward to the next one.
I am still not clear about parsing of Telugu, can you explain please?
jonsurdy @15: I don’t have the clue to hand but the structure is “this” [the answer] + UNDERGRADUATE could make UTTERED URDU LANGUAGE. That’s what I referred to as a ‘composite anagram’.
HG, thanks for that.