Sabre needs no introduction. A top-class puzzle is to be expected – but get out your survival kit…
So why is it ‘Two in One III’? A look at Dave Hennings’ Crossword database reveals that there were two previous puzzles with the name – but neither was by Sabre: Listener 2963 by Alcuin in 1988 and EV 666 by Jophu in 2005; nor was either set up in the same way, so no help there. However, it seems that the two precursor “Two in One”s appeared in May 73 and August 76! Those precede Dave’s database! Sabre, we remember, spoke at the Listener 50th anniversary three years ago and has been setting from the start.
Thankfully the preamble is short and clear: all clues include an extra word or phrase that specifies how to change the entry; it turns out to be a definition of a new word that shares the vowels of the first. (The long diagonal in the initial grid spells out RETAIN VOWELS.) All the new entries mesh together to create the submission grid.
The initial entries were:
Across: AESIR, AT COST, ANKOLE, ASDIC, THEWLIS, PLODS, PLEADER, EXPEND, HAVEN, ILK, PARIS, TESLA, OKS, NEARBY, STYLES, NANSEN, VALSES, DISMAY, TATTOO, R MONTH, RATTED, JUNKET
Down: RAPPEN, MEAL-MAN, NICADS, HOSES, ALTHAEA, TOKAY, ESKER, DISNEY, STEENKIRKS, DOVER SOLES, ELASTIN, BETITLE, ALPINE, LOW-KEY, SISTAS, MALAX, TILDE, THUGS
The across entries were not given clue numbers but were presented in alpha order of their final entries: which made things harder at first (well, it is a Sabre), but easier later (when the alpha order could help verify the new entries).
The gird was nearly split into 4 by the bars and we found that we solved it pretty much quadrant by quadrant (NE, SW, NW, SE), each one opening up once a couple of entries had gone in – and even more so when the entry method of the final entries became clear and each half of the pair could help solve the other. And to our surprise the final difficulty level and time taken was mid-range rather than severe – so thanks to Sabre for giving us a bit of time to enjoy a fine weekend.
The construction was of course masterly and something of a miracle. We can see that the wordsearch tools of compiling programme would have helped a bit in the transformation process, but short of a huge coding exercise there must have been a very great deal of handcrafted trial and error as dead end were encountered, and the fill had to be adjusted etc. And the vocabulary was necessarily pretty outré as a result, with a few proper names thrown in to baffle our own wordsearchers – as well as VIBS which is there in Chambers as a subheading but didn’t show in the app’s search facility. (We just remembered in time that our walking boots once had VIBRAM soles but had never heard the colloquialism for them.)
Making the clues as good as they were and with a fair degree of difficulty meant that our torturer was often adventurous or misleading. “Canton money” was Swiss not Chinese; “left Belarus” was NEAR BY (cf near-side: cunning for a setter who lives in the States); “pain area by massage” MAL A X; “partners on dance floor” defined VALSES; and “tangle once working at loom” clued ENMESH. And to quibble slightly, in 2d “Mace”, uncapitalised, defined TEAR GAS (was it at the beginning of the clue in an earlier draft?). But in a very complex set of clues that was only slip of the guard we saw, if it is such.
So, a very fine puzzle indeed, and not of course lacking in the Oenophile department, even if the wine temperature is never right (6d.) Cheers Sabre! And we look forward as always to more puzzles to come.