Skylark presented her seventh puzzle for the Inquisitor series since a debut just over three years ago. Skylark’s themes have been quite varied, so it was going to be interesting to see what awaited us in this puzzle
The preamble was fairly short as follows: "Every across clue contains a misprint in the wordplay. Corrections in clue order describe (6 words) the final contents of eight cells. Every down clue but one contains an extra letter, to be removed before solving. Extra letters reveal (5 words) what should be highlighted (26 cells in total). Numbers in brackets refer to answer lengths. 29dn is in Collins".
I reckon that misprints in wordplay are more difficult to detect than misprints in definitions, so I thought we would meet a challenge in solving the across clues. Identifying extra letters is probably be easier than detecting misprints so I thought it better to start with the down clues.
I found the clues quite difficult and it took two or three sessions to break the back of the puzzle. As suggested above, I made better progress on the Down clues initially and the first word in one of the messages that I felt confident about was FICTIONAL. In the Acrosses, I got DRI at the beginning of the message fairly quickly but the rest took a bit longer, especially the clues generating SOLD which I had to reverse engineer to find the misprint once I got to the point of deducing what the message might be.
I could see that some of the clue answers were too long for the space available, but it took me some time to identify how the additional letters were being handled. The first penny drop moment came with CAVA for CAPORALS and VALE at 30 across and down, plus GRAVES from the intersection of 8 down ENGRAVE and 14 across FLAVINS. This firmed up DRINKS as the first word from the Across misprints and helped suggest IN A BAR at the end of the same message. MAYBE and SOLD took a bit longer to confirm, but eventually the whole message was revealed as DRINKS MAYBE SOLD IN A BAR.
Skylark didn’t take the conventional route to positioning the DRINKS in the grid., Often extra letters that overflow the space available are located at the beginning or end of an entry. This happened for GRAVES and CAVA as described above.
It was also the case for COKE from 22 down COAST and 20 across SPOKE,
for CIDER from CINEREAL (24 across) and FILANDER (5 down),
for BEER from BEVELER (29 down) and GREASIER (28 across) and
for RUM from RIDS (30 across) and SEDUM (18 down).
However GIN and PORT were treated differently at the intersections of 17 across / 4 down HIDAGE / ESSOIN and 32 across / 33 down SPORTIER / TRAIT.
In the Down message, it seemed that AT THE BAR would form the end of the message with FOUR looking likely after FICTIONAL. It took me a bit of time to confirm it all though. The Down message was FICTIONAL FOUR AT THE BAR. The clue without an extra letter was 29 across for BEVELER which was also the answer confirmed by Collins.
Having sorted out the DRINKS, the next task was to find the FICTIONAL FOUR. My first instinct was to look for lawyers, but when I had only found two I started to think about characters in literature, film or television who were portrayed as frequenters of drinking establishments.
In the end, it was the legal profession we were seeking. The two that came up fairly quickly included Atticus FINCH in row 1. FINCH is portrayed in To Kill a Mocking Bird, the novel by Harper Lee. The novel has also been adapted as a film and a play.
The second lawyer / barrister that I found early on was Horace RUMPOLE who first appeared in the British television series RUMPOLE of the Bailey. The series was written by barrister John Mortimer. The TV series led to the stories being presented in other media, including books and radio. RUMPOLE can be seen in row 10.
It took quite a lot of research to unearth the remaining two characters. I looked up ‘fictional lawyers’ without much success. I then started looking a possible names hidden in the grid. Fortunately my search didn’t have go beyond horizontal possibilities.
Searches based on WEAVER, FLAVIN and ELTON were unsuccessful but CARTON and FEATHERS yielded gold. Sydney CARTON is a lawyer created by Charles Dickens in A Tale of Two Cities and Sir Edward FEATHERS features in a trilogy entitled ‘Old Filth’, written by Jane Gardam. CARTON is in row 4 and FEATHERS in the bottom row. Literature is not my strong point, but I expect CARTON was known to many solvers. I will be interested to know how many solvers were aware of Sir Edward FEATHERS.
The four lawyers names total 26 letters, as required
The final grid is shown below. I have also highlighted the DRINKS to help indicate where they appear, but the preamble did not ask us to do so.
I thought the clues were quite tricky to solve, but this is an Inquisitor puzzle, so we should expect some challenges. Ones that took me a while to parse were FEATHER STITCH (ERST was my problem), WATCHING BRIEF (working out how the B was handled), FILTER (the lieutenant defeated me for some time), SEDUM (I was playing with the Dutch for four for too long) and VALE (VALE defining the world figuratively was new to me).
I guess the title A LOCAL CALLING is based on LOCAL meaning Public House or BAR and CALLING describing a career or occupation
Thanks to Skylark for giving us a good cruciverbal workout.
| No |
Clue Amended Clue |
Letter |
| Across | ||
| 1 |
Lither female moves slowly welcoming English fliers (13, 2 words) Dither female moves slowly welcoming English fliers (13, 2 words) WEAVER FINCHES (any member of a family of small FINCH-like birds [Estrildidae] which includes the waxbills; fliers) (WAVER [dither] + F [female] + INCHES [moved slowly]) containing (welcoming) E (English) W (E) AVER F INCHES |
L->D |
| 10 |
Expects section to adopt conservative approach (6) Experts section to adopt conservative approach (6) ACCESS (approach) (ACES [experts] + S [section]) containing (to adopt) C (Conservative) AC (C) ES S – either C could be the one contained |
C->R |
| 11 |
Fine rap from bard, husband’s dropped money (5) Fine rip from bard, husband’s dropped money (5) FRANC (former unit of currency in France, Belgium and Luxembourg; example of money) F (fine) + RANCH (word for tear [rip] used by John Dryden [1631-1700], English poet; bard]) excluding (dropped) H (husband) F RANC |
A->I |
| 14 |
Dyes around six black metal discs for stamps (7) Dyes around six blank metal discs for stamps (7) FLAVINS (yellow dyes made from the bark of quercitron, a North American oak) FLANS (blank metal discs on which a design is stamped to produce a coin) containing (around) VI (Roman numerals for six) FLA (VI) NS |
C->N |
| 15 |
Lots of filling is outside for packaging (9) Lots of killing is outside for packaging (9) CARTONAGE (cardboard; packaging) CARNAGE (extensive or indiscriminate slaughter, especially of people; lots of killing) containing (outside) TO (for) CAR (TO) NAGE |
F->K |
| 16 |
Monkey mask by independent company (4) Monkey mass by independent company (4) MICO (type of marmoset; small South American monkey) M (mass) + I (independent) + CO (company) M I CO |
K->S |
| 17 |
Gove heading cutting national outdated charge for land (6) Move heading cutting national outdated charge for land (6) HIDAGE (tax once assessed on every hide [variable unit of area of land, enough for a household]) Anagram of (move) HEADING excluding (cutting) N (national) HIDAGE* |
G->M |
| 20 |
Announced special job (5) Announced special jab (5) SPOKE (announced) S (special) + POKE (jab) |
O->A |
| 24 |
Like Ash, Al pursues canine furs around Newcastle’s outskirts (8) Like Ash, Al pursues canine fury around Newcastle’s outskirts (8) CINEREAL (relating to ashes) C + (IRE [fury] containing [around] NE [first and last letters of {outskirts of} NEWCASTLE]) + AL C I (NE) RE AL |
S->Y |
| 25 |
Romeo in dodgy house hacks annoying fool (4) Romeo in dodgy house backs annoying fool (4) NERK (an irritating fool or idiot) R (Romeo is the international radio communication codeword for the letter R) contained in (in) KEN (house, especially a disreputable one; dodgy house) reversed (backs) NE (R) K< |
H->B |
| 26 |
Supplied with weapons Chuck leaves delighted (5) Supplied with weapons check leaves delighted (5) ARMED (supplied with weapons) CHARMED (delighted) excluding (leaves) CH (check) ARMED |
U->E |
| 27 |
Dined missing plate by grand African mountain (4) Dined missing slate by grand African mountain (4) BERG (South African word for mountain) BERATE (criticise; slate) excluding (missing) ATE (dined) + G (grand) BER G |
P->S |
| 28 |
Simpler after grass is more ingratiating (8) Simpler after gross is more ingratiating (8) GREASIER (more unctuous or ingratiating) GR (gross) + EASIER (simpler) GR EASIER |
A->O |
| 30 |
Clears rifts ignoring European (4) Clears lifts ignoring European (4) RIDS (clears) RIDES (journeys in someone else’s vehicles; lifts) excluding (ignoring) E (European) RIDS |
R->L |
| 32 |
More stylish king entering almost got level (8) More stylish king entering almost dot level (8) SPORTIER (more stylish) R (rex; king) contained in (entering) (SPOT [dot] excluding the final letter [almost] T + TIER [level]) SPO (R) TIER |
G->D |
| 35 |
Turn one’s back upon top date displaced by king (4) Turn one’s back upon tip date displaced by king (4) RUMP (turn one’s back upon) DUMP (tip) with D (date) replaced by [displaced by] R (Rex; king) R UMP |
O->I |
| 36 |
Hear local confused about tip of elbow (9) Near local confused about tip of elbow (9) OLECRANAL (about projection on the upper end of the ulna, at the elbow) Anagram of (confused) NEAR LOCAL OLECRANAL* |
H->N |
| 38 |
Skint after apparently stopping orange-pink fuels for pipes (8) Saint after apparently stopping orange-pink fuels for pipes (8) CAPORALS (types of strong, dark, shag tobacco; fuel for pipe smokers) (AP [apparently] contained in [stopping] CORAL [an orange-pink colour]) + S (Saint) C (AP) ORAL S |
K->A |
| 39 |
Jill welcoming lecturer reviewed Cheshire village (5) Bill welcoming lecturer reviewed Cheshire village (5) ELTON (village in Cheshire) (NOTE [paper money; bill] containing [welcoming] L [lecturer]) all reversed (reviewed) (E (L) TON)< |
J->B |
| 40 |
Bolt, oddly uneasy, dances (6) Boat, oddly uneasy, dances (6) GIGUES (lively dances) GIG (long light boat) + UES (letters 1, 3 and 5 [oddly] of UNEASY) GIG UES |
L->A |
| 41 |
Embroidery art (remarkable!) formerly within pub (13, 2 words) Embroidery art (remarkable!) formerly within rub (13, 2 words) FEATHER-STITCH (one of a series of STITCHes making a zigzag line; embroidery) FEAT (remarkable skill or art) + (ERST [formerly] contained in [within] HITCH [small difficulty; rub]) FEAT H (ERST) ITCH |
P->R |
| Down | ||
| 1 |
Counsel’s instructions prevail, despair retaining loft with lowered roof (13, 2 words) Counsel’s instructions prevail, despair retaining lot with lowered roof (13, 2 words) WATCHING BRIEF (instructions to a counsel to WATCH a legal case) (WIN [prevail] + GRIEF [despair]) containing (retaining) BATCH (lot) with the first letter (roof) B moved lower within this down entry W (ATCH) IN G (B) RIEF |
F |
| 2 |
Cycling ruin plant (4) Cycling run plant (4) ACER (plant of the maple genus) RACE (run) with the letters cycled left to form ACER ACER |
I |
| 3 |
Match is held by bravest camps (5) Match is held by bravest amps (5) VESTA (a wax-stemmed match; a short match with a wooden stem) VESTA (hidden word in [held by] BRAVEST AMPS) VESTA |
C |
| 4 |
In court excuse is honest finally – terrible noise about it (6) In court excuse is hones finally – terrible noise about it (6) ESSOIN (an excuse for not appearing in court) Anagram of (terrible) NOISE containing (about it) S (last letter of [finally] HONES) E (S) SOIN* – either S could be the one contained |
T |
| 5 |
Without lieutenant, clarify collecting pliant worm (8) Without lieutenant, clarify collecting plant worm (8) FILANDER (threadlike intestinal worm in hawks) FILTER (purify; clarify) excluding (without) LT (lieutenant) containing (collecting) LAND (deposit, drop or plant) FI (LAND) ER |
I |
| 6 |
Supposes boy visits pictures (8) Supposes by visits pictures (8) IMAGINES (supposes) IN (by) contained in (visits) IMAGES (pictures) IMAG (IN) ES |
O |
| 7 |
Shone halving church’s sin (5) Shoe halving church’s sin (5) CRIME (sin) RIM (a shoe is a RIM of iron nailed to a hoof) contained in (halving the letters of) CE (Church of [England]) C (RIM) E |
N |
| 8 |
Deeply impress head of agents, in letter enthuse (7) Deeply impress head of gents, in letter enthuse (7) ENGRAVE (impress deeply) G (first letters of [head of] GENTS) contained in (in) (EN [the letter N] + RAVE [enthuse]) EN (G) RAVE |
A |
| 9 |
Glam kid is hard and immature (13) Gam kid is hard and immature (13) SCHOOLGIRLISH (like or characteristic of a SCHOOLGIRL; immature?) SCHOOL (a gam is another term for a SCHOOL of whales) + GIRL (child; kid) + IS + H (hard when referring to pencil lead) SCHOOL GIRL IS H |
L |
| 12 |
Cuckoos feast in Delaware picking up fruit (7) Cuckoos east in Delaware picking up fruit (7) ANISEED (SEED of the anise [a dried fruit]) ANIS (cuckoos) + E (East) + DE (Delaware) reversed (picking up; down entry) ANIS E ED< |
F |
| 13 |
Despots oking topless builders (7) Despots king topless builders (7) KAISERS (emperors, especially German emperors; despots [people invested with absolute power]) K (king) + RAISERS (builders) excluding the first letter (topless) R |
O |
| 18 |
Dutch four succeeded in reflections about plant (5) Dutch for succeeded in reflections about plant (5) SEDUM (any rock plant of the genus SEDUM, with white, yellow or pink flowers) MUSES (contemplations; reflections) with D (Dutch) replacing the middle S (succeeded) and then reversed (about) SEDUM |
U |
| 19 |
Rector inside thanks settler permanently covering over Auckland road surface (7, 2 words) Rector inside thanks settle permanently covering over Auckland road surface (7, 2 words) TAR SEAL (New Zealand [Auckland] term for tarmacadam surface on a road) R (rector) contained in (inside) (TA [thanks] + SEAL [settle permanently]) TA (R) SEAL |
R |
| 21 |
Appropriate Macbeth’s pain’s endless, master part (7) Appropriate Macbeth’s pin’s endless, master part (7) PREEMPT (to appropriate) PREEN (Scot’s [Macbeth] word for a pin) excluding the final letter [endless] N + M (master) + PT (part) PREE M PT |
A |
| 22 |
Succeed easily, told among actors (5) Succeed easily, old among actors (5) COAST (to succeed or proceed with minimum effort) O (old) contained in (among) CAST (group of actors) C (O) AST |
T |
| 23 |
Stick skewers quality historic cooked food (8) Sick skewers quality historic cooked food (8) GRILLADE (example of cooked food prepared on a GRILL) ILL (sick) contained in (skewers) GRADE (degree or step in quality) GR (ILL) ADE |
T |
| 29 |
American manufacturer of sloped surfaces is bitter about one abandoning cover (7) American manufacturer of sloped surfaces is bitter about one abandoning cover (7) BEVELER (American spelling of BEVELLER [one who cuts material or surfaces cut to an oblique angle]) BEER (bitter is a type of BEER) containing (about) VEIL (cover) excluding (abandoning) I (Roman numeral for one) BE (VEL) ER |
|
| 31 |
Shore contains round mollusc in Orkney (5) Sore contains round mollusc in Orkney (5) SPOOT (Orcadian term for the razor shell mollusc) SPOT (sore) containing (contains) O (a round-shaped character) SP (O) OT – either O could be the one contained |
H |
| 33 |
Touch gate, ignoring top (5) Touch gat, ignoring top (5) TRAIT (stroke or touch) STRAIT (a gat is an opening between sandbanks; a strait) excluding the first letter (ignoring top) S TRAIT |
E |
| 34 |
Braving giant funeral for Maori (5) Raving giant funeral for Maori (5) TANGI (Maori ceremony of mourning, a funeral) Anagram of (raving) GIANT TANGI* |
B |
| 37 |
Ultimately Rowena’s dismissed Highland cattle (4) Ultimately Rowen’s dismissed Highland cattle (4) NOUT (Scottish [Highland] term for cattle) N (last letter of [ultimately] ROWEN) + OUT (dismissed) N OUT |
A |
| 38 |
See your world figuratively (4) See you world figuratively (4) VALE (goodbye; see you) VALE (figurative term for the world) double definition VALE |
R |
Phew! That was indeed a workout. All thanks to Skylark and duncanshiell.
Although I eventually got all the drinks I found the lawyers difficult, and FEATHERS baffled me for more than a week — I’d seen the Old Filth books reviewed but hadn’t read them and forgot the name. Never saw the construction for what had to be BERG. Not one of my finest hours!
Thought it was a lousy drinks list but that recalled Rumpole’s “Chateau Thames Embankment 198? a particularly brutal year”
I do remember Featherstone in that series but not FEATHERS
I did see Atticus and CARTON(easy to forget that he was a lawman)
Great BAR puzzle!
This puzzle took a long time to complete. Having to unravel the clues while solving them, in order to identify a key letter as well as get the answer, is of course a familiar kind of challenge to have to meet, but this puzzle seemed to have an abundance of sticky clues, of which 27a and 18d held out the longest (at least to parse fully).
The construction was impressive, with four long answers round the perimeter and thematic items squeezed into eight other cells.
I saw RUMPOLE in the grid and highlighted it, as this was surely a name that would lead me to the other three. Because GRAVES (a legal eagle in Rumpole) was there in plain sight in one cell I highlighted that too. I even highlighted FEATHERSTONE (another lawyer in Rumpole) after changing two letters, leaving real words going down and an ‘H’ on its own in the corner, but by then the fun was over because we were not told about making any changes. It just remains for me to add that I have never heard of CARTON, FEATHERS or FINCH and would never have thought of looking them up.
Thanks to both Skylark and duncanshiell.
I left the bar early with only six drinks and one lawyer, but well-satisfied. A very tough challenge, and a several tricky, tricky clues, but even so I found this one of the most enjoyable journeys of the year; I was determined to (almost) finish.
Many thanks to Skylark and duncanshiell for a very complete blog.
As remarked, a difficult solve but do-able and with sound clues. The only one to defeat me was BERG, although I knew this had to be the answer and that S was the correction. I was mystified by the clashing, busy cells until I spotted G-IN and things gradually fell into place. I also wondered whether the four were drinkers and thought of the TV series Cheers. I spotted a very convoluted FRASIER, starting at 11 and using the S at the end of 8, but nothing more. Then RUMPOLE leapt out, soon followed by FINCH and CARTON. I searched online for FEATHERS and DE GIGUES(?) without success and decided to take a punt on the former.
So, a completion by the skin of my teeth.
Thanks to Skylark for a tough but enjoyable journey and to Duncan for his customary thorough analysis.
Pretty tough, and my parsing was that incomplete that my final messages were rather garbled. Frasier CRANE following on from RUMPOLE had me looking for a mix of drinking as well as legal characters that led me astray for a long time. The final list was completed with a lot of help from Google, as I’d only heard of the former and FINCH. A good workout all in all that was satisfying to finish.
Wow. Where to start? It was certainly a workout what with misprints, extra letters and overflowing cells!
I thought it unusual that the preamble did not mention the overflowing cells, but at least the (numbers in brackets) reflected the answer lengths, many of which clearly wouldn’t fit, so we were on our way though initially none the wiser.
GRAVES was also the first one to fall for me, combined with some across fragments led me to the Theme. I found hunting down the remaining 7 great fun, as the options were increasingly limited yet PORT would not yield for some time.
A minor nitpick (from a perfectionist’s view) might be that GRAVES feels like an odd-one-out, it being a type of red wine as opposed to a drink category such as RUM or BEER. But on tbe flipside, did anyone notice the drinks were symmetrically placed? Very impressive.
I cottoned onto the lawyer theme more quickly, but (controversially perhaps) feel that the puzzle might have been stronger without it – there was a lot of fruitless (though not uninteresting) hunting for fictional lawyers with FEATHERS and CARTON particularly obscure. They didn’t look particularly nice in the grid either, being mostly parts of existing words rather than new revelations – though I might have been more excited had MCBEAL appeared instead ?
But overall a fantastic efforts so many thanks to Skylark and ds
Some tough clues to solve this week. I always like the tougher puzzles and really enjoy the mental workout, but to my mind the combination of misprints in across clue wordplays, added letters in all but one down clues and many answers that simply wouldn’t fit was just too much for me. It left me with a grid with huge swathes that were largely unpopulated even though I had solved many of the clues. In the end, I just ran out of time. I felt that there being no mention in the preamble as to what to do with the excessively long answers was a little unfair – we already had enough troubles to deal with! So another DNF for me this week … but a really fun and tough workout.
I agree with Arnold @7: the symmetrical placement of the drinks was very impressive. I somehow failed to notice it, even with the vivid highlighting in the diagram above!
Thanks so much, Duncan, for this interesting and detailed blog, and to all solvers who kindly tackled the puzzle and commented. Glad Arnold and Alan B noticed the symmetrical placement of drinks – it was an extra challenge I posed myself when composing this grid.
I agree with Arnold that GRAVES was a bit of a stretch, but try as I might, I couldn’t shoehorn any more likely drink into that space.
Sorry to all solvers who struggled to find Feathers (and fellow Rumple fans who initially spotted Featherstone) but I hoped to draw the attention of any keen readers who had not yet encountered Jane Gardam to her excellent books on Old Filth.
I have to say I didn’t really enjoy this – the effort to pay-off ratio was too high for me. I couldn’t dig out the wordplay for 7d CRIME or 27a BERG, so thanks to Duncan for those. (The construction such as that for BERG always gets me: when I see ‘X missing Y’ I seldom think about finding Y and then removing X.)
I found RUMPOLE quite easily, and FINCH was next up; CARTON was OK but I hadn’t known he was a barrister; FEATHERS was impossible without an awful lot of help.
Sorry Skylark – maybe some other time. (I didn’t spot the symmetrical placing of the drinks – well done.)