Parallels by Apt
Reading clockwise, the perimeter consists of the surnames of the six members of a literary society, five of whom are clued (by wordplay only). The first spoken words in the record of the society’s inaugural meeting (and its principal concern) are to be cryptically represented at 11. After filling the grid, a thematic location must be revealed by restoring the ‘parallels’ between it and 11 (a strategy employed with notable success by the sixth member of the society), changing six cells in one row and leaving real words and names.
It’s always scary when it’s my week to blog, knowing that I’ll be travelling before the blog’s due to be published. Let’s hope it’s not too tough. Thankfully this wasn’t too tough by any means.
Well, the grid fill was relatively easy but I struggled with the end game.
Keeping an eye on the perimeter, I saw MARPLE potentially appearing in the bottom row but I couldn’t massage any of the “Members” to fit. Then I noticed the possibility of PENDER down the right.
(apologies for the use of “massage” and “member” in the same sentence.)
I tried looking up Pender on the internet and I got excited when I found this article which shows Harold Pender and his relationship with ENIAC (from 9 across).
That turned out to be a dead end. So (with the help of the partial names in the perimeter) I set about solving the rest of the members. I expected the clues to be in the same order as they appear in the perimeter but that’s not the case.
MARPLE turns out to be the sixth (unclued) member of a group calling themselves the Tuesday Night Club. [As an aside, I wonder if that was the seed for the 2020 novel The Thursday Murder Club. I haven’t read the book but I did have the misfortune to see the Netflix movie of the same name, last Thursday.]
The group first appeared in The Thirteen Problems by Agatha Christie. The first spoken words are “Unsolved mysteries”, which accounts for STMERYSEI at 11 across.
Next we have to find the location. I found the instructions, “must be revealed by restoring the ‘parallels’ between it and 11” a bit confusing and, to be honest, I still do. Anyway the cells to be changed are in row 8 of the grid. HANANSMAAD has to be changed to ST MARY MEAD, where Miss Marple lived.
All-in-all good (if slightly confusing) fun and I still don’t understand the title. Many thanks to Apt.
| Members | Entry | Wordplay | ||
| • Choose fresh air breaks (9) | PETHERICK | ETHER (air) inside PICK (choose) | ||
| • Claimant’s not retired (6) | PENDER | P[ret]ENDER (minus RETired) | ||
| • Containers of white spirit (4) | WEST | W[hit]E S[piri]T (conatiners) | ||
| • Pliant when taken in by cold call (10) | CLITHERING | Cold+LITHE (pliant)+RING (call) | ||
| • Premier League extremely corrupt (9) | LEMPRIERE | PREMIERE L[eagu]E (extremely) anag: corrupt | ||
| Across | ||||
| 9 Retired actor Michael’s old computer (5) | ENIAC | (Michael) CAINE (rev: retired) Michael Caine ENIAC |
||
| 10 Partner’s repelled by loud commotion (4) | FLAP | F (loud)+PAL (partner; rev: repelled) | ||
| 11 See preamble | (unsolved) MYSTERIES | |||
| 12 Grassy Scottish yard backed onto by another (5) | REEDY | REED (yard; Scottish; rev: backed)+Yard | ||
| 14 Repaired unitard over a long weekend? (7) | TRIDUAN | UNITARD (anag: repaired) | ||
| 18 Couch in terms of fairness to staff and alumna (4) | SOFA | [fairnes]S [t]O [staf]F [alumn]A (terms) | ||
| 19 Cheeky bit of informal aromatherapy (5) | MALAR | inforMAL ARomatherapy (hidden: bit of) | ||
| 21 Sponsor high-school dance or the equivalent (7) | PROMOTE | PROM (high-school dance)+OTE (or the equivalent) | ||
| 22 Lawyer’s duplicate bridge partner in request to change (7) | ESTREAT | E[n]TREAT (request with South instead of North) North and South are partners in bridge |
||
| 23 I make mashed potato with more butter after husband left (5) | RICER | RIC[h]ER (with more butter) minus Husband | ||
| 25 Grandmas and aunts oddly ignored (4) | NANS | [a]N[d] A[u]N[t]S (alternate letters) | ||
| 28 Strikes hard with penetrating policy changes (7) | THWACKS | Hard With inside TACKS (policy changes) | ||
| 30 Point out that jazz fan’s abandoned small record label (5) | INDIE | INDI[cat]E (point out) minus CAT (jazz fan) | ||
| 31 Some sportsmen hear tennis rally (9) | ENHEARTEN | sportsmEN HEAR TENnis (hidden: some) | ||
| 34 Earl’s next to open country home to old philosophers (4) | ELEA | Earl+LEA (open country) Elea |
||
| 35 Playing mahjong endlessly, I’m unlucky on board (5) | JONAH | [m]AHJON[g] (endlessly) | ||
| Down | ||||
| 1 Ed’s to follow nurse and put in stitches (5) | ENSEW | EN (nurse)+SEW (put in stitches) | ||
| 2 Summoned detective in charge to stand (5) | CITED | DETective+I/C (in charge) rev: to stand | ||
| 3 Beat poet Charles on the radio (3) | LAM | Sounds like (Charles) Lamb (poet) | ||
| 4 Pastry trimmed wrong (4) | TORT | TORT[e] (pastry; trimmed) | ||
| 5 Dance without a care, not very quietly (3) | HAY | HA[pp]Y (without a care) minus PP (very quiet: pianissimo) | ||
| 6 Like steel mines damaged in spite of blocks (8) | ENSIFORM | MINES (anag: damaged) around FOR (in spite of) | ||
| 7 Part of hip Scotsman’s shoe I lifted (5) | ILIUM | MUIL) (Scottish shoe)+I rev: lifted | ||
| 8 Wave meant as greeting to Indian (7) | NAMASTE | MEANT AS (anag: wave) | ||
| 13 Protest in Berlin that is nakedly unspiritual (6) | DHARNA | D.H. (das heisst; that is in German)+[c]ARNA[l] (unspiritual stripped) | ||
| 15 Sally’s avoiding French and Australian parties (5) | RORTS | R[et]ORTS (sally’s) minus ET (and in French) | ||
| 16 Nymph’s arousal interrupted by married man (6) | DAMIAN | NAIAD (nymph; rev: aroused) around Married | ||
| 17 High share price dropping shocks industry’s leaders, I proclaim (8) | PREACHER | [s]HARE PR[i]CE (minus Shock Industry (leaders); anag: high) | ||
| 18 Reflectively nibble a bit of sugar cane (5) | SPANK | KNAP (nibble)+S[ugar] (a bit) | ||
| 20 Hotel has renovated timeless area beneath fireplace (7) | ASH-HOLE | HO[t]EL HAS (minus T (timeless) anag: renovated | ||
| 24 Margin for error shortly rising well north of the border (5) | AWEEL | LEEWA[y] (margin for error; shortly) rev: rising | ||
| 26 Citizen of Yemen tucked into salade niçoise (5) | ADENI | salADE NIcoise (hidden: tucked into) | ||
| 27 Algerian counterpart to buck trend, finally, in autonomous region (5) | DINAR | [tren]D (fninally)+IN+AR (autonomous region) | ||
| 29 It’s used for frying in Ibrox stadium regularly (4) | SAIM | S[t]A[d]I[u]M (regularly) | ||
| 32 Couple closing Tinder to go on a meaningful date (3) | ERA | [tind]ER (couple closing)+A | ||
| 33 Uncovered capital letter in code (3) | TOC | [s]TOC[k] (capital; uncovered) |
Good puzzle. I interpreted the ‘parallels’ thing as that the letters to be changed in eighth row were the letters from equivalent positions in the parallel third row.
Thanks both.
Much enjoyed; many thanks to Apt and kenmac. I’ve probably read all the Miss Marple books and indeed guessed her and the Tuesday Night Club straight away from the use of “parallels” in the title and preamble. (I couldn’t remember any other club members except Marple’s nephew Something West, and there he was in the special clues.) Miss Marple’s detective technique typically involves drawing parallels between the present crime and some long-ago incident in her home village St Mary Mead. To make up an example, the secret of the seemingly unbreakable alibi is in fact just the same trick that the village butcher used to fool his wife in 1912. That sort of thing.
I have solved two previous puzzles by Apt and enjoyed them both. This one was rather different because the theme was not fully resolvable, although (as before) I very much liked the quality of the clues.
I only rarely indulge in ‘wild’ Internet searches (by which I mean bunging in likely theme words just to try and force a connection between them), but I felt that such a recourse was needed to kickstart the endgame of this puzzle. When I ‘bunged in’ LEMPRIERE, CLITHERING and PETHERICK I was duly presented with MARPLE, WEST and PENDER in a long and rambling article in Wikipedia on The Thirteen Problems. That was my partial success. But having two letters missing from 11a, and with only the Wiki article and the (unclear) hints in the preamble to help me, I decided to wait for the blog to see what I missed. Thanks to kenmac for solving the puzzle and for revealing what I can see is a very neat thematic construction, in a grid which I noted was symmetrical.
I know my Agatha Christie – indeed I was able to take down The Thirteen Problems from the shelf to verify the initial quote, and then pedantically note that it is spoken (by Raymond West) before the Tuesday Night Club was formally established. Once CLITHERING emerged around the perimeter the rest was fairly straightforward, though I agree with Ken that it’s not obvious what parallels are being restored by changing the letters in Row 11, (clever though it is to make the new words). And for once I parsed it all too, so satisfaction all round.
A neat challenge that turned out not to be as daunting as the preamble suggested. I quickly worked out that WEST was one of the literary circle, and spent some happy moments googling writers with that name and getting nowhere before starting on the grid proper. A further red herring was the possible emergence of PINTER – more fruitless googling – but when CLITHERING appeared the game was afoot, and filling in the names of the other circle members helped me complete a couple of overhanging entries. The use of parallel letters to find ST MARY MEAD was mercifully straightforward, and having neatly unravelled the mystery I have awarded myself a rare 10/10 this week. Thanks Ken for the blog, and Apt for a satisfying puzzle – and for some new words for my vocabulary. I’m looking forward to my next TRIDUAN RORT (I think).
Not a difficult gridfill, and I googled and found the theme, but I couldn’t find my way through the parallels endgame. Since you mention the Thursday Murder Club I have to say that we enjoy the books but found that the film – should have been a mini-series instead of cramming everything into a film – was a great disappointment, getting the overall tone and some of the characters wrong.