Arcadia provides this week’s IQ
The Preamble:
Normal clues are in alphabetical order of their answers. Eight clues of wordplay only have been inserted in alphabetical order of their thematic answers. Answers must be entered where they will fit.
This was quite a challenge! A blank grid, 46 alphabetical clues, some with no definition, multiple 6-letter entries…..
As usual, we have no option but to start solving as many clues as we can in the hope of finding some potential connections in the grid.
We noted that there is only one 13-letter entry, 2 with 10 letters, 2 with 9 letters and 2 with 8 letters – so we tried to concentrate on these to give us some potential crossing letters for the shorter entries.
Working through the clues, we found several words we had never come across before (but that’s part of the IQ experience!) – thank heavens for Chambers! After some little while, the only clue answers we had worked out that had no definition and were POLICE, LEATHER and UNDERSIGNS (which turned out to be wrong – all the right letters, but in the wrong order!). LEATHER was in the right place alphabetically, POLICE was between F and H and UNDERSIGNS was K – all very confusing! The only clue with more than 7 letters that we had solved was EGG PURSE.
We initially tried putting EGG PURSE at the top in the 10th column, but none of the answers we had solved fitted, (although some of the unsolved ones might have done). So we put EGG PURSE in the only other possible location – at the bottom of the 4th column, and found that some of the other solutions could successfully be fitted around it.
Meanwhile we tried to find a thematic connection between POLICE, LEATHER, and UNDERSIGNS – to no avail.
Finding the right location in the grid for EGG PURSE helped us solve and locate more of the 4, 5, 6 and 7-letter entries by giving us some crossing letters. With some more electronic assistance, we eventually realised that the theme must be the Cockney Alphabet – ‘G for Police’ (‘Chief of police’) and L for Leather – but K for ‘UNDERSIGNS’? The version of the alphabet that we both knew from our schooldays is K for (‘Cafe or’) Restaurant. Further electronic delving found that there is apparently an alternative version of the alphabet that has K for (‘Cave for’) UNDRESSING – an anagram of UNDERSIGNS. Once we had corrected that, the rest of the entries fell into place, and we managed to solve the other thematic clues. A for ‘ORSES was our last one in – the first clue alphabetically, with a thematic answer that is not in dictionaries and wordplay referring to an extremely unusual meaning of ‘arses’!
Many thanks to Arcadia for the challenge – we’ve learnt a lot of new words!
In the completed grid below the thematic entries are highlighted and in the parsings, the relevant phrase from the Cockney alphabet is in bold type
O (first letter or ‘suspicion’ of Otis) aRSES (lifts – in classical music) missing the first letter (‘failing to open’) – (h)AY FOR (h)ORSES
ARCh (principal) missing the last letter (‘before term’)
MUTT (dog) ON (leg – in cricket) – BEEF OR MUTTON
CAR (vehicle) round (‘limiting’) W (weight) after OLD (early)
First letters (‘overtures’) of Cratchit’s Uncertain Response To Scrooge’s Yuletide
EG (‘say’) + an anagram (‘churns’) of PURGES
E L (last or ‘final’ letters of Joe Stilwell) round (‘burying’) an anagram (‘absurd’) of LIES
Eg (for example) missing (‘leaving’) ‘g’ (golf in the phonetic alphabet) LANE (channel) T (first letter or ‘start’ of tournament)
SPAD (Signal Passed At Danger – ‘warning’) in (‘tapping’) EA (middle letters or ‘heart’ of toreador)
O (first letter or ‘head’ of Ophelia) ‘buried’ in FOSS (ditch) R (right)
PO (Italian river) LICE (vermin) – CHIEF OF POLICE
HISS (‘vocal audience disapproval’) round T (time)
Hidden (‘part’) and reversed (‘in revolution’) in tERMInated
KAlE (cabbage) missing (‘out’) ‘l’ (left) – an archaic (‘stale’) word
An anagram (‘shot’) of DING, RUiNS (‘missing the middle letter or ‘losing heart’), E (English) and S (first letter or ‘opening’ of snooker) – CAVE FOR UNDRESSING
LAT (latitude) round (‘inspiring’) VOL (volunteer) + A (first or ‘initial’ letter of attempting)
LET (allow) HER (‘that woman’)round (‘grasping’) A (advance) (h)ELL FOR LEATHER
A reversal (‘withdrawn’) of ALL (entirely) + MAS (masculine)
MINOR’S (child’s) CALl (name) missing the last letter (‘short’) E (base – in maths)
A reversal (‘climbing’) of PItON (support for mountaineer) with the ‘t’ (time’) replaced by N (new) S L (first and last letters or ‘coating’ of soil)
A reversal (‘reflecting’) of SPOON (3-wood – golf club)
T (middle letter or ‘crux’ of editors) HEW (cut) ALL (completely) round (‘obscuring’) GARDEN (plot) – OVER THE GARDEN WALL
dOILY (napkin) missing ‘d’ (last or ‘final’ letter of food)
OR (middle letters or ‘focus’ of work) + a homophone (‘on radio’) of DANE (Hamlet?)
UTE (pick-up – vehicle in Australia and NZ) in (‘wearing’) OR (gold)
ADApt (modify) missing (‘removing’) ‘pt’ (part) after PAN (basin)
P (first letter of passengers) SST (supersonic transport – ‘Concorde perhaps’)
BIDS (offers) round (‘engaging’) L (Latin) LIAR (storyteller) – CUE FOR BILLIARDS
gREEN (Scots word for ‘long’) missing the first letter (‘top off’)
RY (railway – lines’) L (liberal) E (European) – a reference to Gilbert Ryle, a British philosopher
SAR (marine fish) round (‘circling’) A
An anagram (‘about’) of TALES
A homophone (‘recorded’) of SEX (congress)
fERRY (‘boat service’) with the ‘f’ (first letter or ‘beginning’) replaced by SK (Saskatchewan)
An anagram (‘pound’) of CANTOS
SPOoNS (cutlery sets) missing (‘using up’) ‘o’ (old) + AL (aluminium)
An anagram (‘around’) of DRAPES
An anagram (‘somehow’) of SET + a reversal (‘turned’) of O’ER (archaic form – ‘previously’ – of ‘over’ – ‘to the other side’)
T (first letter or ‘bit’ of temper) in a reversal (‘reflecting’) of HARRIS
O (middle or ‘essential’ letter in grown) after TAR (sailor)
ROW (din) in (‘overwhelmed’ by) TONES (shades)
REE (sandpiper) in TIN (can) G (first letter of grate)
SUCKER (gull) with the first letter moved to the end
A reversal (‘from the east’) of W (women) + R (recipe – ‘take’) in O (old) GPU (Russian secret police, predecessors of the KGB)
A reversal (‘back’) of A CITRUs missing the last letter (‘cut back’)
FREAK (unusual) BAST (fibre) with the first letters (‘heads’) swapped (‘changed’) – EGGS FOR BREAKFAST
Gridfill completed, endgame a total mystery. Well done for working it aht and fanks for the blog.
Breakthrough moment for me was finding MUTTON appearing very near the start of the alphabet, at which point POLICE and LEATHER struck the necessary chord. In my memory of the Cockney alphabet, O is for the Wings of a Dove, and Q is for the Bus, but I had never met K for Undressing and think it’s feeble (though I understand Arcadia wanting to use it). If Norman above really entered ORSES without solving the theme, I am impressed; as BandJ indicate, it’s obscure wordplay for an arguably non-existent word. It was a difficult puzzle too, but I enjoyed it; thanks to Arcadia and Bertandjoyce.