Preamble: Ten entries, clued without definition, may be sorted into pairs to provide five names associated with a protagonist, X. In all remaining clues, single extra letters involved in wordplay spell a further description of X. One entry, an anagram of X’s name (initial + surname), should be highlighted in the final grid. The derivative at 20 is in Collins.
Another gentle offering in the IQ series – has our editor gone soft or is he hatching some evil plan to unleash a frenzy of difficult puzzles?
Trickiest part was identifying the non-definition clues but once I had TOMMY and GUNN I figured that they probably went together by this stage I had MASON and had a fair idea that LANG was right. Sticking those names into a startpage search revealed ROCKY as a possible candidate. Further investigation showed me that Rocky Balboa (the hero of the Rocky movies) has had 5 main adversaries, namely APOLLO CREED, CLUBBER LANG, IVAN DRAGO, TOMMY GUNN and MASON DIXON. I’ve only ever seen the original Rocky and I have to say that I don’t know what all the fuss was about – I didn’t enjoy it much. 🙁
The final step is to highlight BARBOLA (37a) as an anagram of R BALBOA.
I enjoyed the puzzle though. One or two clues were a bit tricky, especially 9d for which I had to seek expert help.
In the following grids, I’ve coloured the non-definition answers blue. Apologies for the terseness of this blog – I’m fighting with a laptop that keeps fighting back. I don’t really know from one day to the next how it’s going to behave 🙁 – Time to write to Santa??
Many thanks to Gila.
| Across |
||||
| No. |
Clue |
Entry |
Extra letter | Wordplay |
| 1 | Activist disrupts a Liberal ball |
APOLLO | POL (activist) inside A+Liberal+O (ball) | |
| 5 | Delivery of ball yielding runs to champion |
SPEECH | H |
SPHErE (minus Runs)+CHampion |
| 10 | Pain wiped out with load of this? |
PANADOL | I |
PAIN+LOAD (anag: wiped out) |
| 12 | Generously feed with endless porridge |
AMPLY | S |
SAMp (porridge; endless)+PLY (feed) |
| 13 | [Possibly a] spiritual man losing heart beyond reason |
HYMN | W |
WHY (reason)+MaN (losing heart) |
| 14 | Get used to going round in Bundeswehr uniform |
INURE | H |
bundeswEHR UNIform (hidden: in; rev: going round) |
| 16 | International matter involving British people living in Nigeria |
IGBO | O |
International+GOO (matter) containing British |
| 17 | Continue at length without reaching a conclusion |
DRAGO | DRAG On (continue at length; without last letter) | |
| 18 | Moving university into this building may become unprofitable |
PREFAB | L |
U+INTO+PREFAB+L (UNPROFITABLE; composite anagram: may become)) |
| 19 | By following a mermaid, one enters a tunnel |
SYRINX | E |
I (one) inside SYREN+X (by [as in multiplication]) |
| 21 | Order cuts from French department |
CREED | deCREE (order; minus DE [from in French])+Department | |
| 22 | Cockney nicked jewellery belonging to me |
TOMMY | TOM[foolery] (stolen jewellery)+MY (belonging to me) | |
| 25 | Student expelled for e.g. writing in morally corrupt American magazine |
ARMORY | L |
MORALlY (minus L[earner] (student); with added [reading] Riting [rithmetic] (the three Rs); anag corrupt) |
| 28 | One taking a stand against short dress |
ROBBER | I |
ROBe (dress; short)+BIER (stand) |
| 29 | Formally force appearance of iron dictator |
EDUCE | F |
FE (iron)+DUCE (dictator; Mussolini) |
| 31 | Send back a portion of chicken nuggets |
GUNN | chickeN NUGgets (hidden: a portion of; rev: send back) | |
| 34 | An official who was high on ecstasy the night before |
REEVE | E |
RE (on)+Ecstasy+EVE (night before) |
| 35 | Beware – I occasionally start to misbehave, giving lip |
BRIM | W |
BeWaRe I (occasionaly)+Misbehave (start to) |
| 36 | An old woman and one of her offspring |
MASON | MA (old woman)+SON (her offspring) | |
| 37 | When turned round, top of armchair can just about support a book and ornament |
BARBOLA | A |
Armchair (top of)+LOo (can; just about)+BRA (support)+A+Book |
| 38 | Being somewhat impotent is typical |
ENTITY | S |
impotENT IS TYpical (hidden: somewhat) |
| 39 | Spruce up, if old, then put away |
NEATEN | A |
AN (if; archaic)+EATEN (put away) |
| Down |
||||
| No. |
Clue |
Entry |
Extra Letter |
Wordplay |
| 1 | One infiltrating hard drive at first stops junk emails bouncing – they’re a nuisance! |
APHIDS | M |
I (one) inside Hard Drive (at first) inside SPAM (anag: bouncing) |
| 2 | One settles rising anger with a yelp |
PAYER | I |
IRE (anger)+YAP (yelp) (rev: rising) |
| 3 | Latitude is given to a new government |
LANG | Latitude+A+New+Government | |
| 4 | Scottish boy’s old swearword |
OONS | L |
LOON’S (Scottish boy) |
| 5 | Left stain around extremely rusty residue |
SLURRY | L |
SLUR (stain) containing Left+RustY (empty) |
| 6 | Appear that Bobby’s covering a huge distance |
PARSEC | I |
ARISE (appear that) inside PC (Bobby) |
| 7 | Living close to the ground in Paris where, cutting pose, I “age” mysteriously |
EPIGAEOUS | O |
OU (where in French) inside POSE I AGE (anag: mysteriously) |
| 8 | Jewish layman upset by a priest? |
CLUBBER | CLUB (priest)+REB (Jewish layman; rev: upset) | |
| 9 | Crystalline salt eroding dull old copper from bevel wheels |
HYPOID | N |
HYPONItrite (crystalline salt; minus TRITE (dull))+D (penny: old copper) |
| 11 | Return unknown documentation after drama abroad |
DIXON | NO (drama abroad)+X (unknown)+ID (documentation) (rev: return) | |
| 15 | Celibate matron hits out |
HARMONIST | T |
MATRON HITS (anag: out) |
| 20 | Your travels to Scottish town from West Africa |
YORUBAN | O |
YOUR (anag: travels)+OBAN (Scottish town) |
| 22 | Entertainment device got me active and very excited |
TV GAME | O |
GOT ME Active+Very (anag: excited) |
| 23 | Deprived of sight a long time ago, slimy fish – tail first – gets caught at last |
YBLENT | N |
BLENNY (with last letter first)+caughT |
| 24 | Not far off having extra support at this place |
HEREBY | E |
HERE (at this place)+BYE (extra) |
| 26 | Deliver an official sermon | REFER | S |
REF (official)+SERmon |
| 27 | Urge on former country farmer |
YEOMAN | H |
HYE (urge; obsolete))+OMAN |
| 30 | Hot food made by cook mostly contains grease |
CHILE | O |
CHEf (cook; mostly) containing OIL (grease) |
| 32 | A means to avoid financial ruin before end of recession |
IVAN | IVA (Individual Voluntary Agreement; means to avoid financial ruin)+recessioN (end of) | |
| 33 | Swedes initially being overwhelmed by American lingo |
ABBA | T |
Being (initially: doing double duty) inside American BAT (lingo) |
After my personal best run of recent completions (three in a row plus getting very close with ‘Blockage’), I found this too difficult and had to admit defeat with only a few answers entered. Looking at the answers, I actually did better than I thought as several of my guesses were correct (e.g. ABBA, SYRINX). I got CHILI too but wasn’t aware of the alternate spelling (CHILE) so couldn’t make the clue work. I didn’t get anywhere near enough answers to spot the link, and probably ought to have persevered as I knew a little about Rocky.
Unlike ken, I didn’t think this was easy at all, and many clues were quite tough. (Even when I’d essentially finished, I had to think hard to parse 9d HYPOID, 21a CREED, and 8d CLUBBER, not to mention BARBOLA at 37a.)
I resisted Googling the description given by the extra letters (HIS WHOLE LIFE WAS A MILLION TO ONE SHOT), or any of the ten undefined names until I’d solved all the clues & filled the grid. So I found the endgame a bit of a let down, never having been interested in seeing any Rocky film.
For me: effort quite high, satisfaction lowish. Thanks to setter & blogger all the same.
I with those that found this on the tricky side although I did enjoy it. I spotted the theme relatively quickly but some of the solving went on for quite a while – even when I realised that 8d had to be CLUBBER I needed a visit to Chambers to work out why. Thanks to GIla for the puzzle and to kenmac for the blog (particularly for HYPOID which I wrote in but never managed to work out the parsing).
Re 9d. As I said to my “expert” – I would never have parsed that in a million years. Maybe he will reveal himself by replying but I’m happy to protect his anonimity.
Also, apologies for not spelling out HIS WHOLE LIFE WAS A MILLION TO ONE SHOT. I did mean to.
Thanks kenmac
There is no requirement for me to remain anonymous, I’m always glad to be of assistance. An A-Level in chemistry probably helped with parsing 9dn (along with a searchable electronic version of Chambers 😉 ).
We also used an electronic search in Chambers for 9d and also needed an online search for all the Rocky references. Our son enjoyed the films but at an age when we didn’t have to accompany him!
Overall it was OK – not a wonderful PDM but the clueing was good so thanks to Gila.
Thanks for the blog kenmac – we hope that Santa is reading the blog.