The Australasian One (Fall Out)

Origially entitiled 'FALL OUT' this was renamed The Australasian One to conform to a theme in the Enigmatic Variations series relating to the continents.

Steve Bartlett writes:-

As you may be aware, John Henderson (editor of the Inquisitor series) is intending to run an all-female-setting July and I've been persuaded to do the same at the EV. However, I've asked the intended setters to follow an international theme, as a nod to the 'proposed' Tokyo Olympics (23 July - 8 August). There are ony four slots in July and only four female setters, but my idea requires six puzzles (based on continents), so I am two short. Your puzzle Fall-Out would be an ideal fit for one of these slots, which are as follows: 

July 4 — The Asian One by Chalicea

July 11 — The European One by Vismut

July 18 — The African One by Skylark

July 25 — The South/North American One by Sae-kale

Aug 1 — The Australasian one by Eclogue

Aug 8 — The South/North American One by proXimal (me)

 

The Preamble

A letter must FALL OUT wherever it occurs from a thematic solution in each column, dropping into the bottom row to provide a setting.  Chambers is recommended, but does not contain two thematic answers, two proper nouns or the bottom row.  Enumerations refer to grid entries.

Fall Out

This puzzle commemorates the ‘FALL-OUT’ of the British nuclear tests conducted at MARALINGA, Australia, a lesser known chapter in the war with GERMANY.  Operation BUFFALO in 1956 comprised four tests: ONE TREE, MARCOO, KITE and BREAKAWAY, while Operation ANTLER ran a year later.  VIXEN was an associated minor safety test programme.

Ransomware

 When read in clue order, the last letters of extraneous words in every clue provide a partial definition and visual context of a three word phrase indicating the change required to a number of clue answers before entry in the grid.  Solvers must complete and highlight the cryptic representation of that phrase in the completed grid (two words).  All final entries are real words, phrases or proper nouns.

The last letters of each extra word in clue order, provide “TO ALTER THE RULES OF THE GAME AFTER IT HAS BEGUN” and “RUGBY”.  This defines in part “MOVE THE GOALPOSTS” which in a rugby context are H-shaped.  Nine solutions had their H’s moved to provide alternative words.  The two word anagram of THE GOALPOSTS, HOSTAGE PLOTS was to be completed and highlighted.

Half and Half

 The CrOZworld magazine has a regular slot for what it calls half and half puzzles.  That is, puzzles where half of the clues are cryptic and half are plain or non-cryptic and these puzzles are generally on the easy side.  Taking note of feedback on some of our previous puzzles it became apparent that some CrOZworld solvers perceived Eclogue as a setter of difficult puzzles.  In order to rectify this, we decided to compose a half and half crossword and hope we could temper our "difficult" reputation.

Half and Half

The perimeter reads clockwise PLAIN, CRYPTIC, PLAIN, CRYPTIC

CrOZworld editor's report and solvers' comments

Entries: 100

Correct: 54

 

Slot 1: It would be a rare Eclogue puzzle that comes without one clue that bites, and this was no exception. 15 across is a tricky clue and COPS just about writes itself in as the solution. But the answer is PODS, being PLODS minus L. We had 37 COPS – enough for a small police force! The rainbows sought were I(RISE)S, rather than PRISMS. There was also a neat “plain / cryptic” Nina on the border of the grid, which must have gone unnoticed by those who joined the police.

 

June 1: Eclogue (Keith Williams & Eddie Looby)

• I loved the clever NINA. Brian Tickle
• As I was submitting my puzzle I noticed that the perimeter top and bottom had PLAIN reversed and the sides had CRYPTIC reversed. That would have made the puzzle so much harder to compile. David Procter
• Clever double Nina. Plain Cryptic x 2 Julie Leigh
• 15A; 2D Look easy or tricky ??? Gary Lemon
• I couldn’t work out the wordplay in PODS and HEIDI David Bennett
• Not quite PLAIN but still CRYPTIC enough. Good one. Andrew Patterson
• Nice Slot 1 start; liked TASMANIA. Joan Smith
• I laughed when I discovered the handy guide to which clues are plain and which cryptic. Circumscription? Kath Harper
• Thanks Eclogue for a double plain/cryptic start to the month. Ulla Axelsen
• Plain Cryptic x 2 indeed! Pat Garner
• Took me a while to figure out that 15 across was not COPS and still uncertain about HEIDI. ["heid" is a Scottish variant of "head" + Independence - Adj] I liked the clue for ALEC. Lynn Jarman
• Thanks Eclogue! Your clever Nina saved me from a few errors right at the last minute. I liked the clue for CLUE. Kathy Horadam
• A Nina in slot 1! Quite properly it’s both PLAIN and CRYPTIC (by two). Richard Skinner
• 27 Across: Hi! Is I (or am I) correct? Max Roddick
• A Nina “plain cryptic” forwards and backwards Marian Procter
• Not till just now have I discovered the perimeter CRYPTIC/PLAIN and vice versa. Very clever Doreen Jones

A good slot one; thanks. Barbara Ibbot

Waves

Appearing in the May 2001 issue of Crossword Club, the preamble states: "Solvers should wave goodbye to a single letter in all but two clues prior to solving.  When read in clue order these letters provide an instruction which solvers must complete."

 

Waves

Extraneous characters in clues provide “SHADE TWO SINUSOIDAL PATHS OF ISS, MODULE and FIRM.

Solvers are therefore required to highlight SPACE STATION, DRAGON and SPACEX to illustrate possible orbits as they would appear on a flat surface.

International Space Station

Solver Feedback

"Understanding the instruction and finding finding the waves was more difficult than solving the crossword!"

"Really brilliant puzzle, but a nightmare to construct and solve!"

"These single-entry extras can be very annoying, and sometimess ambiguous, e.g. in clue 12 ac the clue works equally well if R or D is removed.  I enjoyed solving the clues none the less, and saw that two sine waves were needed, though I couldn't make sense of the message after that.  A certain amount of grid-staring ensued, then I saw the (light) waves!  Very neat.  Many thanks."

"Well, that was different and certainly new to me.  I didn't even recognise the abbreviation ISS and was trying to find an issue!  That made it all the more satisfying when the elusive coin finally dropped. Many thanks, Eclogue." 

"Good puzzle. Hard to guess the instruction but rewarding once solved. Not sure about 23A and 12A suggests wave goodbye to R not D." 

"Very clever use of theme. 

I don't think 23ac is clue to give NGO ... is it?

Are the checkers giving their blessing to clues like 5dn now? We had another one last time." 

"The clue to 23 across didn't quite work as the strict answer would have been GNONI. 

Otherwise, very clever." 

"I found the most challenging part of this puzzle was deciphering the instruction - an unfamiliar long word and an unfamiliar acronym. 

But worth it in the end." 

"A challenging puzzle with enjoyable clues that made me laugh as the penny dropped." 

"A difficult crossword. 

How cleverly Eclogue has included his two 'lines' to be shaded." 

"I'm so glad Chambers gives ISS!

I'm also glad that my wife has a scientific bent and so could explain the sinusoidal paths to me.

I felt I'd done enough just solving the difficult clues, but going the extra mile was very rewarding. 

A real and enjoyable challenge." 

"Clue 23ac seems to give GNONI, not NGONI." 

"A lot of easy clues, but an unfamiliar theme for me." 

"Where a letter has to be removed from the clue I prefer a real word to be left that clues the answer or part of it rather than a non-word whose letters go straight into the answer (as in 16D and elsewhere).

Does 23A clue the letters in the required order? And can 'page' be defined by 'message' (ID)? 

I groaned when I saw Chambers' unenlightening definition of sinusoid, but with the help of the title it wasn't difficult to find the wavy path."

"Largely a case of solving anagrams.

The extra letter is 12 is surely R, not the D of GUARD." 

"As always with Eclogue, a novel theme, neatly addressed with a pleasing pay-off.

Thanks!" 

"Tracing the paths is beyond me. I expect I knew about sinusoids when I did A level maths, but that was more than 50 years ago. I have had to make room in my head for a lot of other stuff since then. The internet would probably help but at present I need to book a appointment at the library to get access." 

"Very satisfying. The clues were well-constructed (although we couldn't quite understand the wordplay for 23Ac), and there was a nice PDM without too much grid-staring. Sinusoidal paths were new to us." 

"I did enjoy this crossword, found it easier than crossword 2, but unfortunately cannot figure out the construction. Looking forward to the correct solution!" 

"The word sinusoidal came as a bit of shock! Off to Google again." 

"23 Across - GNONI or GONNI, not NGONI?" 

"Although I've completed the puzzle, I cannot find the two sinusoidal paths.

Frustrating!" 

"One of those puzzles that teaches you something new. Couldn't have got there without the Internet though. Clever construction to achieve two parallel curves." 

"A nice grid, and clues which I found mostly simple." 

"Beautifully intricate. I had solved all clues before I had any idea what completing the challenge would involve. I did then see 'Space Station' quite quickly but was half expecting the waves to intersect each other so could not see how the 'DRAGON' which I saw going upwards could continue or help. It took a sharper-eyed daughter and a better-informed son-in-law on a fortuitous birthday visit to point out that the dragon's tail went down from the G as well as up and that the parallel wave thus formed was a thing. Curiously, although the latter came up as soon as I looked for 

it, it was not revealed by any searches involving the I.S.S. itself.

Pedantically I wonder whether a U-is really a trap 'for' water- is it not a trap for more undesirable substances since water flows through it?" 

"I found SPACEX in the SE, but only SPACE in the NW. That could be continues with ST and perhaps USA but can't find any justification for that. SP ACEX is not strictly speaking a 'module' firm.

11a. 'Northern' appears superfluous.

23a. Wordplay seems to give GNONI or GONNI.

2dn. 'Digging' as anagrind?

14dn. En = space, as decried by the clue-setting judge. Soul= creature!" 

Eclogue write 

Waves was perhaps unsurprisingly conceived around the time of the first successful SpaceX Dragon mission to the International Space Station and was pleasingly published around the time of the second. The creation of sinusoidal paths to depict orbits on a flat surface was too good an opportunity to miss, and even if solvers weren't glued to the NASA online streams for this mission, similar depictions have occurred frequently in a great many space-themed movies wherever some sort of large scale map adorns the main backdrop of a Mission Control setting.

Apologies for the erroneous construct for NGONI (which, as the notes show, was supposed to be NO(N)G in IN, all reversed, but something

got lost in the various iterations.  We believe the message deals with the 12a ambiguity, as SHARE TWO ... wouldn't lead to an actionable instruction.  We do however generally agree with the sentiment expressed by the solver concerned about the word used in 5d (although the instance last month, was arguably worse) and will endeavour to avoid such in future. Hopefully all other queries are resolved by the accompanying notes.

As part of the novelty of the SpaceX mission is a certain amount of "recycling", Eclogue may feel similarly inspired in this direction in the future. As they say, watch this 'space' ... 

Many thanks and regards. 

Jigsaw

Submitted to 1 Across 4/7/20

Clues are presented in alphabetical order of their solutions, which may assist solvers in placing them in the grid wherever they will fit.

Jigsaw

All across entries begin with A, all down entries with D

One, Two ...

 Appearing on the Indian 1ACross blog April 2021

One, Two ...

Seven across entries contain triple letters that spell TRIPLES

Feedback:-

1. Great effort
2. Sadly I didn’t enjoy the puzzle all that much. Too many obscure and/or British references with uninspired clueing. Nebbisher for instance, an arcane word clued using neb and bish with a surface that made no sense(to me atleast) is one among the lot. I plodded on awaiting a penny drop or a grand theme reveal which unfortunately never materialized. Maybe it’s just me being grumpy or dense.
3. Very enjoyable puzzle.
4. Unknown bonus answers
5. Interesting puzzle
6. Excellent puzzle, though a bit more straightforward than a barred puzzle with a twist I was expecting from Eclogue. Nice mix of clues, some crafty (Utensil and Sash in particular), but the long anagrams made solving rather less strenuous than one is used to. Very enjoyable. Theme word of course could easily be identified with the enumeration, but ‘What is the theme?’ gave me pause – could potentially be answered in a number of ways. Unless there is another theme that I’ve missed!
7. happy easter
8. Very well constructed with a good mix of well-known words and more obscure words. Very easy to get the theme after a couple of answers, but the theme word took some careful observation. Thank you for a fun puzzle!
9. Nice to have a quick solve after last month’s!
10. challenging but a lot of fun. Great grid. Kudos
11. good fun
12. A nice idea, though BRRRS and LEOIII were rather giveaways. 17D Italian is usually IT not IL. 19D surely SPEW and OOZE are not synonymous.
13. Neither too easy nor too difficult. Creative theme.
    “14. A lot of the surfaces just don’t make sense. 22a, 26a, 27a, 2d, 6d, 10d, 17d, 18d, 24d, to be specific.
    I also never thought I would see something like BRRRB in a crossword puzzle (assuming it is right). It’s understandable that it was done for the RRR, but I wonder if it’s kosher.
    The theme was evident after getting two of the triplets, and the word triples after the third. Save for the fact I knew there had to be an RRR sequence, I would never have considered BRRRB.
    To add to this, many definitions were vague. How are wasps malevolent ‘people’? Human interest = content of news story? AB = God? The connections once made are understandable, but they are either redundant or vague.
    I also have no idea how to annotate TYPHOON, SALT EEL, NEBBISHER, and UTENSIL either partially of completely, assuming of course that they are right.”
14. nice, simple theme. good fun
15. Many Obscure words, otherwise a nice grid with reasonable degree of difficulty
16. Couldn’t parse a couple of clues (10d and 17d), but otherwise found this fairly smooth. The theme is nice, but it did limit the kind of words that could be used, leading to some weird solution words like 9a and 11a. Overall – didn’t enjoy this one as much as I’ve enjoyed the last few puzzles on this site
17. Wonderful theme. Arrangement of themed words in the rows in a sequential order made it easy to spot the theme word. Brilliant idea.
18. Fun solving the puzzle.
19. Nice and simple grid.
20. Really enjoyable, clever use of the theme letters to spell a relevant word
21. Good fun…found some of the definitions a little vague..otherwise very entertaining
22. Nice Puzzle
23. Nice Puzzle
24. Not as fond of this one as some others. I feel like there may be some regional conventions that I’m missing in the word play because I’m Canadian.
25. Complicated by enjoyable.
26. A fun and inventive theme. Mostly good and challenging clues; a few seemed stretchy (25a WASPS=malevolent people? 2d HO=stop? 23d LANG is not a verb in Scots per an online dictionary, and the currency is actually Ban Liang). Clues for the 4 longest words were all anagrams; would have preferred more variety.
27. Tough puzzle but satisfying to solve
28. Superb
29. Easy theme to spot and fun solve.
30. Many surfaces are not plausible
31. Nice puzzle and theme! Found some of the clues difficult, especially the ones that use slang, and haven’t managed to anno a couple even after looking things up.
32. good one!
33. Good puzzle. Well constructed but some surfaces don’t mean much
34. Interesting
35. EXCELLENT

Back to the Future

Back to the Future

This puzzle celebrates the “one hit wonders”, ZAGER & EVANS (the unclued entries) who topped the UK singles chart in 1968 with “In the Year 2525” (hence, back to the future).  Solvers were required to highlight the central bars which read 2525.

Back to the Future by Eclogue - Solvers' Comments

 

I found a few of the 13-letter down answers early on which helped me get started with filling the grid, but it took me a little while to realise that the 5-letter down entries didn't end in the bottom row. I also made a little trouble for myself by entering INTERNAL ANGLE (not in Chambers). When I had solved most of the clues I thought the first unclued entry could be EVANS but I had no idea about the other one. I spent quite a while trying to make sense of the central column before I decided that I might as well insert all of the horizontal bars in that column and then the theme was immediately clear. I suppose Zager and Evans status as one-hit wonders means I am probably not alone in knowing nothing about them beyond this song.

An enjoyable puzzle about this strange one-hit wonder. It took quite a while to spot the 'central thematic material' after filling the grid - neatly concealed by Eclogue!

I'd never heard of any of this (I assume that puts me in the majority) but it was clear enough what to do. Highlighting bars isn't easy in a small submission grid; hope the marking is suitably lenient.

Zager & Evans jumped out pretty quickly. Good Lord. 51 years ago! I used to like that track. == For a welcome change, a theme I did not need to research, though not a fan of protest-type songs then in vogue. By 1969 pop was already in decline and has continued thus ever since.   ==   Does not seem like a B puzzle to me, though that may be because it has a very obvious theme that I have missed or am not familiar with. I solved all the clues, and searched for plausible themes with EVANS and LAGER, or reversals involving KNAVE and JAGER or REGAL. Seeing nothing sensible in the central area, I highlighted the central column and gave my best guess for the unclued entries.

I must have been a bit slow because the endgame for this puzzle took longer than the solve. I didn't enter the horizontal bars down the middle of the grid in case words appeared. Of course, no words appeared, so once I had entered the bars, the penny dropped and I remembered the song.

I find the absence of wordlengths makes a clue much harder to solve. Slow to start, therefore, but 1a and the four 13-letter words eventually locked everything into place. Then plain sailing to the end except for the unclued words and the theme. EVANS seems likely, or is it KNAVE (BACKwards) and maybe REGAL. Can't make any sense of the central letters. But stare at the grid long enough and 2525 eventually becomes so obvious that one wonders how one could possibly have missed it for so long. Google does the rest.

A very nice puzzle about the role of bars in a piece of music.

Oh dear - we remembered this! Fell into place quite easily once we realised that a lot of the down answers were the full length of the grid.

Clever to use the bars themselves as thematic objects! I'd never seen that before. Thanks for the puzzle.

One-hit wonders Zager and Evans required some recollecting..... In the year 2525, if man is still alive If woman can survive, they may find...... cheerful stuff!

Very enjoyable puzzle - a song I remember hearing in my youth. I’m hoping the reference to “central thematic material” means just the bar pattern and that I’ve not missed anything else!

One of two really neat B-grades this month. It took me an awfully long time to spot the 2525…

Filling the grid wasn’t too hard but I then spent most of the month trying to work out what to highlight before the penny dropped with an almighty clang. Cleverly done, even if I should have got there sooner. Favourite clues were those to nief and hili.

Although only a B grade, this took me a long time in sorting out the end game. I spent ages listening to that bloody song, hoping to find something that was buried in the grid. It might have been helpful to specify the number of cells involved and to make it clear that the thematic material was all part of a contiguous whole. I did wonder about also highlighting the word "in" a couple of rows above, but decided that it was included inside "decline".

Ah, good old Google - Evans was pretty obvious so typing in 26 -AGER's until, "Yes, of course, I really meant ZAGER" did the trick.

After much cold solving I was stuck, until I used an anagram solver from the internet for 3 of the down clues (which I am ashamed to admit) and then everything fell into place. Favourite clues: Stray remains... for MISGO and Understands that... for REMINERALISES.

Not quite as fiendish as it first appeared, but it did show me just how much I depend on answer lengths... Anyway, not too much grid-staring at the end, and I'll always enjoy a puzzle which uses the bars in an imaginative way. Thanks, Eclogue.

I hadn't heard this song before, and now I can't get it out of my head. That's a shame, because I don't think the song is particularly great, but I can see why it was a huge hit. If they didn't have those super melodramatic slow parts, I'd actually really like it. Maybe I can leave those bits out when I sing it. I'm confused by the "central thematic material" in the preamble. I THINK this means the bars spelling 2525, but I spent a while looking for "exodium" or "terminus" somewhere. And I wasn't sure how to highlight bars, so I just highlighted the whole central area. If the thematic material _is_ the bars, then I don't see why we'd need to highlight it. So most likely I've just missed something. After solving, I wondered whether additional bars in the outer columns might have helped reduce obscurities in the fill, at the expense of worsening the visual effect. Since I've never set a crossword and you've set, I think, hundreds or thousands, I must defer to your judgment :)

This had a wonderful PDM. I kept staring at the center column of letters, as well as the letters around the center of the grid, but when I finally just pulled back a bit and looked at the grid as a whole, there it was. Beautiful payoff.

Looked like a very tricky C grade at first glance but then saw GREENFINGERED and realised there must be a whole host of long down answers and then it came together quite quickly. Nice construction using all those 13 letter answers.

Another straightforward fill followed by a bit of a struggle at the death. I did manage to twig Zager and Evans but then spent ages carving the whole grid into quarters ans trying to represent a number in each quarter. Of course the various letter combos I tried made no sense. I finally remembered that I had not added the grid lines to that central column and immediately realised what was going to happen. A nice teaser, thank you

Not often you see six thirteen-letter words in a 13x9 grid! Such a cute construction. I was originally reluctant to put the central bars in, thinking the middle column might spell something out. When I did, it all fell into place. Very cute. (By happy coincidence, this came out on the same day as Phi's '8x8' with another numerical sixties song. They were fun to do together.)