RR XIV - Second Capital

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Across clues are normal. The wordplay in all but one down clue leads to an extra letter not entered in the grid. The number of the plain down clue needs inserting at some point into the message given by the extra down letters. The message should then lead solvers to a location represented in the grid.

One row must be changed to show the location and highlighted, along with six separate features, one of them unusual. (40 cells highlighted in total.)

All entries in the final grid are real words. The Chambers 13th edition is the primary reference.

Across

  1 According to locals, ravine to west of Ghana is main point of interest (6)

  5 Judge of old is officer when in court (6)

10 The man keeping dog well-trained is a rustic (5)

12 COVID-19 often is so fast around centre of Bath (6)

13 More on the rocks, less cordial (5)

14 Colours featured in painting essentials (6)

15 Buffet items regularly ignored are sandwiches (7)

16 Fern from very large embankment with old shed (6)

18 Artificial insemination company given thanks for reversing female sterility (6)

20 Space back on ICU: man finally gets cast off (6)

21 Retired senior warrant officer backs overthrown ruler, ready to fight (6, 2 words)

23 It's a shame war film is about son being lost (6, 2 words)

27 Uncovered circular translating Eurasian group of languages (6)

31 Old man crushed by reduced sex drive hit rock bottom (7)

32 Separate and remove worn-out insole after running (6)

33 As a friend to the French and the Namibians, to some extent (5, 2 words)

34 No fat, no seconds, taking time to reflect, it's good, we say, for his gut (6)

35 In relation to waste filtration unit, learn to recycle (5)

36 Precious stone (for many) is set askew on top of tiara (6)

37 Israel's been in conflict, ignoring Blair, working for this former communist (6)

Down

  1 Gypsy girl's magic ring lost in northern hail (5)

  2 I do relish eating sorrel - its pods provide food (6)

  3 Loathing first hint of Madeira, leaves trifle (5)

  4 Group stopping longer on IOM openly cry when leaving Douglas? (8)

  5 A term of respect assumed by nobleman out East! (5)

  6 Old Spaniard’s ready to be MC in broadcast (7)

  7 Gum arabic crushed in cog (6)

  8 Think old well's empty (5)

  9 Police take guest's silk dress (6)

11 One local getting urge to take up joint (4)

12 Her turned-out feet derived her name, bad ale fermented does the same (5)

17 Returning cleric, imprisoned by peacekeepers with ordained son, issues retraction (8)

19 Give up terrible care and sulk (7, 2 words)

21 Dirty, ignoring carbon footprint? (6)

22 It includes crooked lines around divisions (6)

23 City is endlessly bullish (5)

24 Pilot securing chart in dreadful rain (6)

25 Brief introduces client’s final character witness (5)

26 Legendary king’s followers eliminating inferior knight (5)

28 Monsieur’s elder son dropped off laxative powder (4)

29 Greenlit a network of housing support for Greystoke (5)

30 Land having rough higher places with wild grapes to be picked (5)

Entries

To enter this competition, send your entry as an image or in list format giving the final entries to ccpuzzles@talktalk.net before 8th May 2022. The first correct entry drawn from the hat will receive a book from the Chambers range, which has been donated by Chambers.

Voting

You may vote for your favourite clue with your entry. You can just nominate one clue, which will be awarded 3 points, or your top three which will be awarded 3, 2 and 1 points. The person whose clue accumulates the most points will receive a prize, which also has been donated by the Crossword Centre.

Clues by…

…Anax, Avtaar, Steve Bartlett, David Beamish, Rod Beards, Rod Bell, Peter Finan, Simon Griew, Derek Harrison, Hawk, Hedge-sparrow, Karla, Eddy Looby, Alf Mullins,  Satyen Nabar, Joe Nicholson, John Nicholson, John Nolan, Andrew Macleod, Leon Marzillier, Mark Oshin, Bhalchandra Pasupathy, Phylax, Ed Powles, Sowmya Ram, Ian Simpson, Andy Smith, Peter Smith, William Snow, Andy Stewart, Robert Teuton, David Thompson, Ian Thompson, John Tozer, Vismut, Luciano Ward, Clive Weatherley, David Whyte and Keith Williams. 

Crossword News March 2022

 Crossword News March 2022

Last month, the Prize Puzzle was Missing Letters by Conto. Because of the number of unches, it was quite hard until you realised that the missing letters matched the grid numbers. Here are some of the comments from solvers.

This was a pretty quick solve once the theme was spotted - 26 clues all with unique entry numbers made it quite easy to spot but it was still very enjoyable. I imagine it must have been a bit tricky to construct and get all 26 letters in there but there were no obscure answers even though I’m not a fan of less than half the letters being checked.  I don’t think I have encountered Conto before but I’ll definitely watch out for more of their puzzles.

A simple idea, beautifully implemented by Conto. Clearly this one was all about the clues, of which I admired pretty much all of them, but in particular the amusing surface reading of FRAUD, the delightfully misleading clue for FORECASTS, and the just perfect clue for MY WAY. I'm sure I could go on. Many thanks, Conto.

Many thanks to Conto. I thought this was quite a tricky puzzle, with some well concealed wordplays and some amusing and witty clues. I realised fairly quickly that each clue had a different missing letter of the alphabet but had the grid well filled before the penny dropped that the clue numbers corresponded to position in the alphabet of the missing letter. That would have made filling the grid a lot easier!

There were 59 entries, of which only 2 were marked incorrect. The lucky winner, picked from the electronic hat, was Clive Walker from London, who will be receiving a prize donated by Chambers before the end of the month.

There is a full solution at https://crosswordcentre.blogspot.com/2022/03/solution-to-missing-letters-by-conto.html

You still have lots of time to finish this month’s prize puzzle, Endless Shame by Chalicea.

The April Prize Puzzle will be our 14^th Round Robin crossword. Once again we were amazed at the number of volunteers who came forward to write clues. When you send your solution you can vote for your favourite clues and the clue that gets the most votes will receive a prize.

Clues were written by Anax, Avtaar, Steve Bartlett, David Beamish, Rod Beards, Rod Bell, Peter Finan, Simon Griew, Derek Harrison, Hawk, Hedge-sparrow, Karla, Eddy Looby, Alf Mullins,  Satyen Nabar, Joe Nicholson, John Nicholson, John Nolan, Andrew Macleod, Leon Marzillier, Mark Oshin, Bhalchandra Pasupathy, Phylax, Ed Powles, Sowmya Ram, Ian Simpson, Andy Smith, Peter Smith, William Snow, Andy Stewart, Robert Teuton, David Thompson, Ian Thompson, John Tozer, Vismut, Luciano Ward, Clive Weatherley, David Whyte and Keith Williams.
***
Fifty years ago, on the 5^th March 1972, the first Azed crossword was published in the Observer. On the death of Ximenes, Jonathan Crowther had sent an ‘in memoriam’ puzzle in the shape of an X to the paper. The crossword editor said they would like to publish that puzzle and offered him the job. Azed has done a fantastic job in those 50 years. You can read more in this Observer article.

In the article the group of Azed followers who meet for lunch is wrongly called the Groundings. Tim Moorey has assured me that the group is called the Gruntlings. He says, “The founder members were Colin Clarke and me. We met at an Azed anniversary and lunched at LS Grunts as it was close to where we both worked at the time. Colin in High Holborn and me in Covent Garden.

We lunched together a couple of times and were joined later by John Grimshaw, Paul Henderson, Chris Brougham, Jeff Pearce and Mike Laws. I'm not sure what the order of their joining was.

I do recall the name Gruntlings coming up for the first time was at a suggestion of either John or Paul which we quickly adopted. I think that was in Porters restaurant but I may be mistaken in that.”

***
The Wordle game has become increasingly popular and I enjoy the daily challenge. I have also been trying the game in Spanish and French. You can find a list of available languages here https://rwmpelstilzchen.gitlab.io/wordles/
***
The annual Apex competition has continued now for 50 years since Eric Chalkley started it and twenty years since Phi took over. So, the 2021 puzzle was themed on 50s (L) and 20s (scores). Competitors had to write a double clue to SCORE/FIFTY with a redundant word beginning with L. At the end of the voting, it was John Hood who came top. Congratulations, John!

Winning clues to SCORE/FIFTY (with intervening word beginning with L)

1st       Bitter about calorie count, languid half-ton fatty regularly overlooked eating condition                                                         John Hood

2nd      Fellow in agreement with X’s successor: half a century later the principles of sound clueing only reinforce each result        John Tozer     

3rd       Irritated about Conservative record, look sharp imposing fine for Number 10 several times                                       John Grimshaw

3rd       Stokes and company achieve little, flopping in four Tests, yearning firstly for an innings worth applauding?            Philip Marlow

If you would like to try the puzzle, Phi will be posting it on his website shortly. http://phionline.net.nz/
***
On the 22^nd February it was the 90^th birthday of Roger Squires, the crossword setter known as Rufus. I tweeted a link to Roger's crossword records and his account of the time when the Telegraph was on the brink of sacking all their setters. What surprised me, on a second read, was to learn who was editor of the Telegraph at that time.

Best wishes
Derek

 

 

 

Solution to Missing Letters by Conto

 Solution to Missing by Conto

‘Missing Letters’ by Conto – Solutions/Explanations – Definitions underlined

For each clue, the correlating letter from the alphabet is absent from the wordplay. Such respective letters are indicated below in bold.

4. A mature saying (5) A + AGE = ADAGE
25. Fruit beer distributed with obscure packaging (9) BLU{(BEER)*distributed}R = BLUEBERRY
12. East of Switzerland, old queen makes trench (7) CH + ANNE = CHANNEL
15. Situation in court – ten playing against ten (7) C{(TEN)*playing+X}T = CONTEXT
9. One committed to assasinate the King in state capital of Eswatini (7) F[r]ANCE + E[swatini] = FIANCEE
6. Fish used to provide these, cryptically – roe upon sea’s surface (9) ORECAST + S = FORECASTS / ORE CAST = (ORE)*cast = roe
1. Father nude…Nude? That’s a crime! (5) FR + [n]UD[e] = FRAUD
11. Come to be cuddling a special seal (6) G{AS}ET = GASKET
5. How mum passes buck to a guy for shark wrestling (2,3,4,6) (TOAGUYFORSHARKWRESTLING)*wrestling = GO ASK YOUR FATHER
7. Attic smell (5) REEK = GREEK
8. Bill and Dorothy’s dog eaten by eagle – filleted or whole? (4-2-3) E[agl]{AD+TOTO}E = HEAD TO TOE
19. That man sung songs (5) HYMN (homophone, ‘sung’, of ‘him’) = HYMNS
22. One key number that is imaginary or unknown (5) I + OR + Y = IVORY
10. Young person (that’s posh) by the banks of Venice river (8) U + V[enic]E + NILE = JUVENILE
24. City leaders in advance talks with Conto’s waste disposal facility! (8) LA + A[dvance] T[alks] + I’VE = LAXATIVE
17. Starts to lay out utensils and to serve oriental fruit (7) L[ay] O[ut] U[tensils] A[nd] T[o] S[erve] = LOQUATS
18. Mother with large boy getting the train? (7) MA + L + LAD = MALLARD
20. Meals regularly dispatched by one very loud dog (7) M[e]A[l]S + I + FF = MASTIFF
13. Standard or dairy-free Galaxy? (2,3) [milk]Y WAY = MY WAY
16. Dog and Duck football team (7) O + INTER = POINTER
14. Broken toy, buckets, bottles and locks one’s gathered (9) P{(TOY)*broken}AILS = PONYTAILS
3. Socialist’s repeatedly taken drugs, thus declines (7) RE{E}D{E}S = RECEDES
2. Misguidedly met up with her online, i.e. exchanged contact (9,6) (METUPHERONL[I>E]NE)*misguidedly = TELEPHONE NUMBER
21. Turnover of three-hundred dairies containing teats (5) Reverse hidden = UDDER
22. Heated with heat (6) ARMED = WARMED
26. ‘Bungle Bear’ is an animal (5) (BEAR)*bungle = ZEBRA