Sequence 5

This puzzle appeared in the May 2019 edition of 1 Across magazine as Crossword No 1902.

Sequence 5 by Eclogue

The preamble: 

Unclued lights provide the names of the ten most recent holders of an office to be deduced, two in combination, one performing double duty.

Solution

Explanation:
The unclued lights are the surnames of the ten most recent Masters of the Kings / Queens Music, starting from George Frederick ANDERSON and coming up to date with Judith WEIR.  DAVIES ‘performs’ double duty for Sir Walford DAVIES and Sir Peter MAXWELL DAVIES (the two entries used in combination).

Some solver feedback

Enjoyment

7 IIIII

8 III

8.4 I

8.5 I

9 III 

Favourite

TALLMEN: Last one finished: I didn’t know about the loaded dice. 

PARKI

DEBRA: It was neat and I learnt something new. Bet Hamish knew the answer! 

BRAILLE

SHISHKEBAB II Well constructed and required a bit of thought

DRYSHOD - sounds so weird!

LAYBY - LIKED THE CONTRUCTION

MOLTO - CLEVER DISGUISE of ’second’. Simple, neat and effective. 

ERRS Nice surface

HERO’ - it had me puzzled for ages until I saw the anagram of ‘CLUES’ - very clever.

This required looking up the list of MOQM. Couldn’t find a place for CUSINS; originally put down DAVIES as a second DAVIES. Theme easy once I had SWOB and SYRIA. 

As usual I enjoyed an Eclogue puzzle. It took a while to find the MoQM, which in itself was fun. Some very neat clues. 

Fine with the help of Google once I’d worked out what the office was!

Quite satisfying, though I’m not really into music. As so often nowadays, I don’t understand the title. Doubtless it’s my lack of musical knowledge. [No, just ’sequence x’…!] A lot of well hidden clues. Adult, Ingmar. They always tend to fool me! 

Educational! We had some trouble solving as our solutions seem to fit the definitions but sometimes we couldn’t understand the wordplay. 

Pretty straightforward but informative. Elgar was the giveaway that we were looking for composers so it was quite easy to track the others down

once this was known.

7,22,11

A new outlet has been found for some of Eclogue's Efforts in the form of the Australian Crossword Club's monthly magazine, Crozworld.

Our first enterprise here is a puzzle entitled 7,22,11 (in reference to those entries in the completed puzzle) and appears in the May edition of the magazine in Slot 5 of the presented order.  The allocation of the slot number is indicative of the puzzle's perceived level of difficulty, with slots 6 and 7 being the toughest.

Preamble

The otherwise undefined, 7,22,11 and 24,5 provide two lines to a song (in ODQ), features of which appear in other answers.

A CIGARETTE that bears a LIPSTICK’s TRACES

An AIRLINE TICKET to ROMANTIC PLACES

And still my heart has wings

THESE FOOLISH THINGS

REMIND ME OF YOU

Holt Marvell (Eric Maschwitz) 1935

Stats and Comments

Entries = 88

Correct = 73

Success% = 83

 

Adjudicator’s comments

 

Slot 5: AIRPOCKET caught a few who entered AIRROCKET. Excellent, AI, power P and ROCKET are needed to provide the answer. Not many other errors, AYURVEDA is a new one to me, how on earth can I work that into conversation? ERAB (ERAS) and EZAM (EXAM) look like failures to check, don't forget to give your entry a final once-over before you fire it off.

 

COTM: An excellent response, we had 34 nominations for 17 clues, spread over all five slots. PERMANENT WAVE in Slot 1 and CATSUITS in Slot 5 received 4 votes each, but the stand-out winner was HOLIDAY in Slot 3, with 8 votes. A great clue, would it were that easy. Congratulations Lexi Conner.

 

Solver comments

 

May 5-2019: 7,22,11 by Eclogue (Eddie Looby & Keith Williams)

• Tougher than the slot 7 for me this month. Being familiar with Eclogue via other sources over the past few years, I am not surprised that it was tough to complete. A very well composed puzzle. JUBILEES was the last one in, and I suspect it will be for several others. Ian Thompson

• These foolish things were well worth the time and effort it took to discover them. My favourite clue was the one for WHITES. Brian Tickle

• Thank you for bringing back lovely memories of my flapper days! Was singing it ad nauseam. Love Michael Bublé's version! Eileen O’Brien

• Got the lines from the anagrams and discovered the sad song. I thought WHITES COTM. Lot of good clues. Roy Taylor

• These foolish things! Michael Kennedy

• Phew! I feel I may be re-submitting some clues. They fit,but are they quite right? Max Roddick

• burn = cigarette? Should it be smoke? [Chambers has“burn” as a smoke and a cigarette (slang) – Adj] Mike Potts

• Foolish? Could have fooled me! Kath Harper

• Some great clues. I especially liked CATSUITS and COYOTE. Thank you! Ann Millard

• Unsure of 10ac. Clue for CATSUITS was very good. Anne Simons

• A very enjoyable solve despite not knowing the song even though it has been sung by some very famous singers.Ulla Axelsen

• A lot to think about. Liked AIRLINE, ASBESTOS, MOTOR, and loved CATSUITS! Max Roddick

• 4: Is 'response' necessary? George Rolfe

• I loved the song lines and couldn't stop singing the song after I found it! Robyn McKenzie

• A Golden Oldie! Richard Skinner

• Thank you Eclogue ... a good themed puzzle. Robyn Wimbush

• These foolish things remind me of you. Margaret Steinberger

• What an interesting concept with some very difficult clues.At first I thought all the answers may have been words from 'These Foolish Things' but soon discovered this was not the case. I'm still wondering what ODQ stands for. [Oxford Dictionary of Quotations – Adj] Lynn Jarman

• A lovely old song in a lovely puzzle. Doreen Jones