Fifteensquared

All but three or four seemed to be the usual pleasant accessible Phi crossword, but then I became totally stuck on 11dn, 21dn perhaps, 22dn perhaps and 25ac, and eventually I had to use various electronic cheating devices.

Great puzzle from this highly consistent setter with a mini-theme I would never have spotted if fellow blogger nmsindy hadn’t sent me the following:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/irish/7380607.stm

6 and 12 aren’t blogged but are part of the theme (look at the list of players at the end of the BBC article). And now we know why Bannsider is Bannsider!

As ever an excellent puzzle from Brendan. It was quickly apparent that every clue ended in “, say”. After solving a few it became clear that Brendan was using “say” in a number of capacities: definition by example, homophone, part of the fodder, and as the definition itself. This led to more homophones than you’d normally get in a daily puzzle but Brendan balanced this with some superb examples of this clue type.

* = anagram
dd = double definition
“” = homophone

This was a very enjoyable exercise in ‘thinking outside the box’.

Solvers were told that by disregarding convention they would discover three words, and were told further that given the position of any of these words, a puzzler’s maxim would be suggested. This maxim was to be exemplified by a non-word that had to be entered at one of the two unclued entries, which were 1 across and 39 across. The other unclued entry, which was stated to be a real word, was described as an arrangement of the non-word, and had to have a connection to the title of the puzzle.

The numbers in brackets at the end of each clue related to the length of grid entries, not necessarily equal to the length of answer to the clue.

There was a minor misprint in numbering the across clues, but it was fairly obvious that 2 across should have been 6 across. All clues were normal in that wordplay and definition led to the same word.

However, it fairly soon became apparent that there were a number of clues, twenty-one in all, that generated solutions that were one letter long than the space available. Crossing answers led to the deduction that these twenty-one answers had to be entered without either their first or last letters. It wasn’t immediately obvious, to me at least, what the logic was behind the dropping the first or last letters.

I have to admit that I had completed the grid before the penny finally dropped. I had been looking at the letters omitted in clue order and had looked at first letters and last letters separately. I noticed that REFLECT was nearly spelt out by the last letters and the word POND appeared within the first letters. It was the realisation that the all the answers with dropped letters abutted the edge of the grid that caused the penny dropping moment.

By ignoring convention and writing the missing letters in their ‘correct position’ outside the grid, the three words - PONDER, REFLECT and COGITATE - became apparent by reading clockwise round the outside of the grid, or box.  The maxim therefore was ‘think outside the box’.

An analysis of the checking letters available for 1 and 39 across showed that seven of the eight letters had to be EIMNORS.  This led to 39 across being INERMOUS which means unarmed and fits well with the title of ‘ARMLESS FUN.

This left only 1 across to be entered.  The word MUSE (meditate, ponder, be absorbed in thought) stood out from the eight available letters, leaving INRO (a small Japanese container [box] for pills or medicine) in the middle , leading to MUINROSE which could be interpreted as ‘think, outside the box’.

The surface reading of many clues was very well designed to mislead the solver.  A clear focus on the constituent parts of the clues was required to solve them.  Indeed one often had to think outside the box to solve the clues.

After slogging my way through yesterday’s Monk puzzle last night, I was expecting much easier fare today.  However, this one was no cakewalk either, and I had to use the world of Wiki to justify what was initially an optimistic guess on my part at 12A.

Across
1 THE,O(RISE)D
6 SPECS - double def’n
9 MOOLA - A,LOOM(rev)
10 (-u)NEARTHING - a little bit of a cliche, but I needed Viking to throw me a couple of bones to get started.
11 ELEMENTARY - one of those clues where I suspect you either tumble on the solution immediately, or else have to wait for full checking.  Count me in the latter camp.
12 BA(N)T - I had to confirm the definition of “diet” online… Do you Bant?
15 M(IS,F)ILE - another neat and well-engineered clue.
20 (-t)HICK
22 ASTON,I,SHED - ref A. Villa, those sporting titans of the West Midlands (1874-1982)
26 GREBE - E,BERG(Rev)

Down
1 TE(MP)E - Arizona resort town.
2 EX,ONE,RATE - concise, simple but still tricky.
4 SENATOR - seer with NATO for E(nergy).
6 SAT,I - a variant of Suttee, self-immolation.
7 EVITA - it’s a beheaded reversal of either dative (or sedative?).  The latter fits better with “number”, but less so with “missing original”.
8 SIGH, TREAD
13 A,S(PIR)INGLY - a good plausible surface.
14 FRIGHT,FUL - “journey” = flight (with directional switch of L to R).
21 CARE,T - a.ka the circumflex, ^, “hat” etc
23 D(-u)RESS