A strange-looking (horned?) mostly-jigsaw of a grid, and clues laid out in a jumbled order in three different ‘groups’…certainly looks like a curved ball being thrown at us by Artix in THE BIG PICTURE. Might take a while to get it into focus…
The preamble states:
“Solvers must work out the locations of grid entries, but need not enter the missing asymmetric bars and clue numbers. Clues are split into three groups. Those in Group 1 are normal. Answers from Group 2 must each have one letter changed to give the thematic grid entry; in the order listed, the discarded letters spell out another thematic word to be written below the grid. Answers in group 3 are also thematic, and their clues consist of wordplay only. The unchecked letters of 13, 21, 22 and 29 together could give NO BAMAKO, a statement which is indeed true of the completed grid, but rather misses THE BIG PICTURE. Chambers Dictionary (2014) is recommended, and all accents should be ignored.”
So…where to start? We have a group of ‘normal’ clues in Group 1, so, clinging onto whatever normality I could get, I tried these…but only got GENOA on the first pass. Ho hum. Group two yielded RECIPE and RADON. So not much more to get the teeth into here… Then a mini/potential-PDM during Group 3, when I got ULM and OMSK. So far three place names, plus RECIPE needing a one-letter change, which could be RECIFE, and that reference to ‘no Bamoko’ in the pre-amble.
Not sure about RADON, but could they really all be place names? Would be an impressive achievement…and it was all I had to go on. So I put that mental filter on and ran through the clues again…concentrating on the four referenced in the preamble, with a) a grid position and b) a restriction/dependency on some of their letters.
Thing started to fall into place – but not in the grid yet! – with ISFAHAN, GIRONA and TURIN, plus ABHA and MAAN in the ‘no Bamako’ group, although these needed a bit of Wiki-oogling to confirm as places…(and, as it turned out, so did many others!)
It would have helped if I could have solved 1 or 2 earlier on, as these also had positions in the grid, but they eluded me for now, and the first real jigsaw-helper was DAR-ES-SALAAM… a place name I definitely knew, having lived there as a child, although it has been demoted in favour of Dodoma as the capital of Tanzania – thank me for that at your next pub quiz…
So Dar had to go across, and before 13, i.e. either second or third row, and I tried both, without much success until the ARCHANGEL pigeon came along, in a ‘road to Damascus’-style revelation.
Suffice to say that much e-atlas-searching went on before I could finally fill the grid, and along the way identify PAMPLONA as the word to go below the grid:
As mentioned earlier, a grid consisting entirely of place names would be an impressive achievement, and is very much so…made all the more dastardly by the jigsaw approach. I think I got there in the end – a grid filled up, NO BAMAKO in the unchecked squares and PAMPLONA below…but I can’t help thinking there is something missing, in that I can’t quite work out what THE BIG PICTURE is…I stared at the grid for a while, wondering if all these places were miraculously placed in correct geographical context, or if there was a hidden message giving us the picture…if there is, then I’m sure you’ll let me know.
Or maybe it is just that Artix was trying to make sure we used the BAMOKO hint to get to place names? I.e. ‘there is no ‘Bamako’ here, but everything else is a place name…’
Either way, a huge but satisfying (and geographically educational) challenge just to solve and fill this grid.
(One little hurdle in the parsing of TIMBUKTU – I can’t link ‘Ayurveda’ to ‘TIM’ – but I may be barking up the wrong Bodhi tree there…?
Correction – have just found the acronym TIM as ‘Traditional Indian Medicine, see Ayurveda’ – in Chambers)
| Group 1 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Clue No | Solution | Clue (definition underlined) / Logic/Parsing |
||
| 1 | MADRAS | Scarf mother lifted over head (6) / MAD (DAM, or mother, lifted) + RAS (headland) |
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| 3 | ABA | Camel hair cloth found inside Moroccan capital (3) / (R)ABA(T) – letters found inside Moroccan capital |
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| 4 | ARCHANGEL | Pigeon: a variety held in both hands (9) / A + R (right hand) + CHANGE (variety) + L (left hand) |
||
| 5 | TIMBUKTU | Ayurveda invigorated 2, some might say, some place far off (8) / TIM (Traditional Indian Medicine, linked to Ayurveda) + BUK TU (homophone – i.e. ‘some might say’ – sounds like ‘bucked two’, or ‘invigorated 2’ |
||
| 16 | SHANGHAI | Ozzie’s to have a shot at remarkable combo on board (8) / double defn – SHANGHAI can be Aussie slang for a shot with a catapult; and also a remarkable combination (combo) on a darts board – a single, double and treble of the same number in one set of three darts. |
||
| 17 | GENOA | Equivalent grade hoisted by boat-builder short of hard sail (5) / GE (EG, equivalent grade?, hoisted) + NOA(H) (boat-builder, short of H – hard) |
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| 18 | SUMY | Central Asian’s ready the whole year (4) / SUM (the whole) + Y (year) |
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| 22 | ORAL | This is workable only in prime positions, so it’s said (4) / wORkAbLe’ – 2nd, 3rd, 5th and 7th letters – ‘prime positions’ |
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| 23 | NAPA | Tip Australian kid (4) / NAP (tip, in betting) + A (Australian) |
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| Group 2 | ||||
| Clue No | Solution/Entry | Clue (definition underlined) / Logic/Parsing |
||
| 12 | RECIPE/RECIFE | Chef’s instruction excludes first one from retro Parisian grocer (6) / EPIC(I)ER – French grocer – excluding I (one) and reversed (retro) = RECIPE |
||
| 26 | AIS/NIS | Fish that are easiest in even slices (3) / alternate letters (‘even slices’) of ‘eAsIeSt’ |
||
| 9 | MANO/KANO | Mexicans use this to grind conquistador’s hand (4) / double defn. – MANO = a stone roller for grinding maize in Mexico; and is also Spanish (i.e. conquistador’s) for hand |
||
| 10 | TAIPAN/TAINAN | Head imported into China demonstrates Byzantine patina (6) / anag (i.e. byzantine) of PATINA |
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| 7 | LARI/BARI | Two-thirds of drug bill accepted in Georgia (4) / LARI(AM) – two thirds of drug |
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| 24 | MOORS/MOERS | Ties up wife who’s hidden rings (5) / M_RS (wife) around (hiding) OO (rings) |
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| 20 | RADON/RADOM | Bustle amid senior service element (5) / R_N (Royal Navy, ‘senior service’) around ADO (bustle) |
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| 27 | YULAN/JULIN | Chinese plant investing 50,000 in renminbi (5) / YU_AN (renminbi, Chinese currency) around (invested in by) L (Roman numeral for 50,000) |
||
| Group 3 | ||||
| Clue No | Solution | Clue / Logic/Parsing |
||
| 2 | MUMBAI | Quiet Bachelor of Engineering (6) / MUM (quiet, keep mum) + BAI (Baccalaureus in Arte Ingeniaria, Latin for Bachelor of Engineering) |
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| 6 | ISAFHAN | Rebel Afghanis sacking government (7) / anag, i.e. rebel, of AF(G)HANIS without G (‘sacking’ government) |
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| 8 | ULM | Muslim’s oddly overlooked (3) / odd letters overlooked in ‘mUsLiM’ |
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| 11 | DAR ES SALAAM | Face girl returning with American in the morning (11, three words) / DARE (face up to) + SSAL (lass, girl, returning) + A (American) + AM (in the morning) |
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| 13 | BAHA | Bass harmonica originally used in Hawaiian rock (4) / B (bass) + A_A (volcanic rock, i.e. Hawaiian) around H (first letter of harmonica) |
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| 14 | GIRONA | Dole payment’s not available (6) / GIRO (dole payment) + NA (not available) |
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| 14 | GANZHOU | Islander’s fiddle involving a kiwi house (7) / G_U (Scottish island, Shetland, for viol, or fiddle), around (involving) A + NZ (New Zealand, kiwi) + HO (house) |
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| 15 | GAROUA | Promoted students’ horseplay that’s regularly popular (6) / GAR (rag, student’s horseplay, promoted) + OUA (regular letters of ‘pOpUlAr’) |
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| 18 | SANTANDER | Swimmer with lightish brown midriff (9) / SAN_DER (fish, or swimmer) around TAN (with lightish brown ‘midriff’) |
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| 19 | TURIN | Independence gained by revolution (5) / TUR_N (revolution) around (gaining) I (independence) |
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| 21 | MAAN | Mamma Mia’s closing number (4) / MA (mamma) + A (closing letter of Mia) + N (number) |
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| 25 | HRODNA | Magnetic field strength extended by AND-OR-Invert (6) / H (Henry, measure of inductance, or magnetic field strength?) + RODNA (and/or, inverted) |
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| 28 | BARNAUL | A new way, but not forward, for Ulan Bator (7) / anag, i.e. a new way, of ULAN BA(TO)R without TO (forward) |
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| 29 | OMSK | Right outside Marks & Spencer? (4) / O_K (right, affirmative) outside M&S (Marks & Spencer) |
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Thanks, mc and Artix: an excellent blog of a really tough puzzle. Although you mention Dar es Salaam as the ex-capital of Tanzania, all the entries are capitals or ex-capitals of countries, states, regions, etc, hence The Big Picture. I think Artix must have thought that since it was a tough one to set, he’d make it tough to solve, both clues and ‘grid’!
I am quite new to the Enigmatic Variations crossword and found this the toughest I have solved so far. It is certainly an achievement by the setter to fill a grid with only names of cities even though some were pretty obscure.
I wondered if the title of the puzzle was a reference to the fact that the grid looks a bit like a citadel or fortress (with a turret sticking up at either side. The word CITADEL would be in keeping with the theme.
I thought that the grid looked like the façade of the cathedral in Bamako, but I concluded that that was a red herring.
Excellent challenge. As for the blogger, Dar-Es-Salaam was my way into the grid.
It’s always nice to see a novel grid and unconventional method of entry. I didn’t know all the places so I had to search for them up and for once I found it better to use a book (a gazetteer) rather than the internet. So good that the old ways haven’t disappeared yet. I’m surprised that Chambers doesn’t list “the big picture” as it’s a fairly common phrase and I thought it might explain the title.
Congratulations to 15^2’s own Dave Hennings for winning this one!
Congrats to Dave Hennings. The solution today also explains the grid is a ‘citadel’ with all the answers cities.
Thanks for the various comments and feedback – I’ve been away all weekend and fairly incommunicado, but I think you’ve all got it covered! And congrats to DH (if it is indeed him?!) on the win…
Thanks for the congrats on my win. However, I must apologise for my comment @1 above: subsequent investigation has shown that only about 70% of the cities are capitals. Not that that diminishes the feat achieved by Artix.
I’m not sure I’ve previously seen an EV, Listener or IQ where every entry is thematic. Am I correct in this? It’s certainly a great achievement by Artix.