“Ten answers have been affected by an IT FEATURE and must be amended before entry in one of two ways. For the remaining clues, half contain a superfluous word which must be relocated into one of the clues in the other half before solving. Numbers in brackets refer to entry lengths. Letters in the four shaded cells can be arranged to provide an acronym of the IT FEATURE, which must be written in full below the grid. Chambers Dictionary (2016) is recommended; two answers are abbreviations.”
The IT FEATURE is GIGO, that is GARBAGE IN, GARBAGE OUT.
Five synonyms for garbage must be added to entries; five others must be removed.
GARBAGE IN: LITTER, ROT, REDD, GAS, CHAFF
GARBAGE OUT: MUSH, LITTER, BUNK, ROT, TRUCK
Some tricky parsing here!
Notation
(xxx) = definition
[xxx] = (anagram/homophone/container/etc.) indicator
XXX* = anagram
< = reversal
GLITTERING = garbage in
MUSHROOM = garbage out
soothes = superfluous word
soothes = relocated word
Please post a comment if the explanations are not clear.
| Across | ||
|---|---|---|
| 1 | GLITTERING | Old band G (good) [after] GIN (drink) (10) |
| 10 | CLAG | Country jam |
| 11 | RENAMES | [In developing] {MENS REA}*, mentions |
| 12 | SHES | S |
| 13 | DRAUGHTS | DR (Doctor) AUGHT (Anything) S (succeeded) in game (8) |
| 14 | HAUSE | Iain’s |
| 15 | ELIOT | IsraELI |
| 17 | OFSTED | Teaching profession’s regulator OF (derived from) STED (former function) (6) |
| 18 | Spread fungus (4) | |
| 19 | ELD | E (English) L |
| 20 | TORSADE | SORTED* [out] [round] A (American) ornament (7) |
| 22 | DISROOT | DIS ROOT (Treat cricket captain badly) and destroy |
| 24 | F |
{LEFT TRIED}* [reorganising] and got agitated (3) |
| 25 | ENSA | Tommy’s performers [found in] stolEN SAfe (4) |
| 27 | PARROT | R (Take) [after] PA (father) – it’s standard (6) |
| 28 | EMEER | E (Base) ER (queen) [arrests] ME (most excellent) ruler (5) |
| 29 | NAOMI | I < MOAN (complain) [about] pleasant girl |
| 31 | SHREDDED | SHE’D (She had) shelter (8) |
| 32 | WIEN | < NEW |
| 33 | PROTENSION | PRO (In favour of) TENSION (strained relations) for a duration (7) |
| 34 | GETS | Acquires GhEtToS [occasionally] (4) |
| 35 | CHASTISERS | Those punishing CHAS (Charles) RESIST* [playing] (10) |
| Down | ||
| 1 | GASHOLDER | |
| 2 | ILEUSES | |
| 3 | TASS | < SAT (Weighed) [up] S (singular) |
| 4 | ERRED | [After] ER (hesitation) RED (communist), made a mistake (5) |
| 5 | REALLOT | Reassign REAL (genuine) L (league) with |
| 6 | INUIT | IN |
| 7 | NAGORS | |
| 8 | PETRODROMES | {ROME DEPORTS}* [migrating] elephant shrews (11) |
| 9 | ASS | |
| 10 | CHAFFINCHES | IN CH (Switzerland), ES ([core of] |
| 13 | DE |
DEB (First-timer) |
| 16 | SMELTINGS | [Mostly] SMEL |
| 20 | TOLEDOS | TOLE (Tinware) |
| 21 | A DROITE | ADROIT (Ingenious) E (dEputy’s [second]) |
| 23 | RAMESH | ME (Setter) [into] RASH (lacking in caution) produces an epithet of Vishnu (6) |
| 24 | FAND | F (Feminine) |
| 26 | MEDIA | AIMED* [bats] for substances (5) |
| 27 | PRENT | ApPRENTice [bottles] impress |
| 30 | AWES |
Astonished by A RUCK (fight) [over] WEST (direction) (4) |
| 31 | SPA | PAS (Step) |
| G | L | I | T | T | E | R | I | N | G | P | A |
| A | C | L | A | G | R | E | N | A | M | E | S |
| S | H | E | S | D | R | A | U | G | H | T | S |
| H | A | U | S | E | E | L | I | O | T | R | S |
| O | F | S | T | E | D | L | T | R | O | O | M |
| L | F | E | L | D | T | O | R | S | A | D | E |
| D | I | S | R | O | O | T | F | E | D | R | L |
| E | N | S | A | M | L | P | A | R | R | O | T |
| R | C | E | M | E | E | R | N | A | O | M | I |
| S | H | R | E | D | D | E | D | W | I | E | N |
| P | E | N | S | I | O | N | G | E | T | S | G |
| A | S | C | H | A | S | T | I | S | E | R | S |
GARBAGE IN, GARBAGE OUT
Thanks for the blog Mister Sting.
In 1D I think that the rubbish is GASH rather than GAS?
I found this quite tricky – not helped by assuming that the ‘garbage out’ was also the ‘garbage in’ in every case (having solved the LITTER pair first). I liked that all the entries were real words after the amendments – thanks Stick Insect.
Yes, I made the same assumption; so often one’s immediate instincts betray one. The NW corner proved to be quite recalcitrant but gave way eventually.
One mark of a good puzzle is one in which the clueing gimmick relates to the theme, as here; I enjoyed this a lot.
I’m another who initially assumed the garbage in/out would be the same after getting the two LITTERs. It’s not a fault that it wasn’t; just another case of assume making an ass of you and me. Nice puzzle, and thanks to Stick Insect.
I thoroughly enjoyed this puzzle, and it’s a pity I didn’t quite finish it. I found all the bits of garbage that were added to or removed from their solutions but (late last night) I still had two of the superfluous words to reposition in other clues. At least my grid was complete and correct (I’ve just checked).
Getting G, I and O in their shaded cells quite early on made GIGO a racing certainty for the acronym, and it helped me also to get the other solution with the G in it. PARROT became my first solution to the first type of clue, and PENSION the next. Like all three previous commenters (as I write), I wondered if we were always going to get the same garbage going in as coming out. Fortunately, LITTER was not my next piece of litter – I got MUSH and BUNK before that.
I admired the ingenuity that went into this puzzle, and I was pleased to get so far – far enough, in fact. It took me longer than any other puzzle this year, because of all the clue manipulation, and I clearly should have started it earlier in the week!
Many thanks to Stick Insect and Mister Sting [what a pairr!].
We managed to complete the puzzle but had a very messy page in the end, when we were checking tht we had found all ten of the moves. Fortunately, the ex CERN computer man knew the acronym (obviously!) which helped us to see what was going on (rather a lot, to my mind). Many thanks for an entertaining puzzle, Stick Insect, and to Mr Sting for the blog.
With an IT background of many years, the PDM was unusually swift. I also enjoyed that the alterations lwf to real words. An easier one to entertain us after a run of tricky EVs. Nicely put together, thanks to both Stick Insect for the fun and Mister Sting for the blog.
Thanks to Mister Sting for the review and to all who’ve commented here and through the EV editor. It’s all much appreciated.
It was quite difficult finding the superfluous words and repositioning the last ones. I am pleased that my notes agree with Mister Sting. At the start I had OG in the shaded cells and thought it would lead to BLOG, but the second G soon corrected that. Thank you Stick Insect and Mister Sting.