Look It This Way

Preamble 

All answers are six letters in length.  Some clues have a misprint in their definition, the correct letters for which, in clue order, indicate the new position for a specific entry.  An instruction in the completed grid leads to a further indication how this should be achieved.  The final positions of all other entries must follow the same method.  Three otherwise extraneous words confirm the direction of travel.  If we LOOK AT IT THIS WAY, all entries should be capable of conventional reading after compliance with all instructions.  Solvers are advised to use a pencil.  

Initial Grid

Final Grid

Corrections to misprints in odd clues spell “ONE ACROSS IS NINE DOWN”.  The completed grid provides the instruction “READ LAST LETTER OF EACH EVEN CLUE” which then gives “TURN THROUGH RIGHT ANGLE”.  Extraneous words are DEXTRORSE, LAEVOROTATORY and WITHERSHINS indicating the ANTICLOCKWISE rotation required, so that the grid should be turned such that NINE DOWN fills the ONE ACROSS slot.  The grid should therefore be re-written having been turned through 90 degrees and be able to be read from the right hand edge (else some entries will only be readable in reverse).

Across	LAST LETTER OF CLUES	MISPRINT CORRECTIONS		Down	LAST LETTER OF CLUES	MISPRINT CORRECTIONS
1 condos		O		1 Conrad		I
6 tsuris	T			2 oneyre	R
11 sheepo		N		3 Naples		S
12 nephew	U			4 O'Neill	I
13 etalon		E		5 saw set		N
14 stogie	R			6 tsetse	G
15 areole		A		7 shtoom		I
16 soever	N			8 relive	H
17 desalt		C		9 sonars		N
18 emeers	T			10 throat	T
20 captan	H			19 eerily		E
24 Shebat	R			20 collar	A
29 onside		R		21 pseudo		D
30 Caruso	O			22 adieus	N
31 aerial		O		23 nearly		O
32 louder	U			24 sclaff	G
33 all but		S		25 halloa		W
34 aidful	G			26 bumble	L
35 rootsy		S		27 asquat		N
36 facete	H			28 toetoe	E

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. 

Head to Head

Published in Crossword Club Magazine issue 210, October 2020.

Preamble

All solutions are of six letters.  Counting the rings from outmost inwards, the second ring provides a quotation (in ODQ) between two protagonists going head-to-head in ring four.  Half of the radial entries are entered inwards, half outwards.  Chambers does not include two proper nouns.

Ring 2 reads “I hae brocht ye to the ring, now see gif ye can dance” spoken by William Wallace to Edward I (who go ‘head-to-head’ in ring 4) before the Battle of Falkirk in 1298.

Battle of Falkirk 1298

Solvers' Comments

"Och ay, we can dance! - and we enjoyed the dancing.  The quote eluded us until we had almost completed the ring.  Well-crafted clues made this a pleasure to solve."

"Not having the ODQ7 I found it difficult to find the corrrect spelling of the Scots version of the quote.  Still enjoyable."

"Circulars are always welcome visitors.  Some easy starters gave a false sense of security until the difficult clues set, along with (for me) an inaccessible Burns' quote - despite a broad Scottish son-in-law.  The head to head was a neat touch."

"Quite a quick start, with Braveheart revealing himself early.  Progress was then much slower as I don't have the right ODQ.  Googled it when BROCHT appeared.  Quite slow solving after that, with tricky clues and obscure (to me) answers in the top left.  Never heard of 'garden woman'.  Then quarrelled with CYPRIS sounding like CYPRESS - the last answer to go in.

An enjoyable puzzle for which I thank you."

"A very entertaining and satisfying puzzle.  Many straightforward clues to get us  going, then some impossible-looking combinations of letters till the name Wallace appeared!  I had a struggle with some radials at the end but I think I cracked them all eventually.  Many thanks."

"An entertaining quotation, thanks."

"For a 'first' puzzle this was pretty straightforward, the only hold up was confirming the Scots dialect quotation.

Thanks for a neatly constructed puzzle."

"Not Eclogue's best.  No PD moment - just a search to find the archaic Scots quotation.  Very friendly clueing."

"Am I getting better or are they getting easier?!  This was enjoyable, aided by a relatively swift spotting of Wallace and knowledge of Scots dialect.

Initially snooty about 19, I forgave it on the basis that the two words have totally different etymologies.

I'm embarrassed at how long it took me to work out how 22 worked!"

"The quotation took some digging out, but that made it more of a challenge.

Many thanks."

"Good one.  All dropped into place once quotation identified - except for clue 40, which took too long."

Eclogue's response

Many thanks to all solvers who passed comment with the vast majority offering a single malt rather than sharpening their skean-dhu.  The observant solver will have noticed the presence of the word “ring” in the quote which led to the circular treatment of this puzzle. By 1298, King Edward was the only monarch of that name, of course, so we latched onto this small piece of historical licence by omitting his regnal number in the grid, allowing everything to fit rather neatly.  For Club puzzles, we will always try to offer a book reference where possible (here ODQ7), so while Eclogue have access to a couple of ODQ editions, the quotation (which may well appear in other editions too) was equally supported through the usual internet sources.  Are we getting easier?  This charge has been levelled at us on a couple of recent occasions, but we’d like to think that we can provide puzzles across the spectrum of solving abilities and hope that every solver picking up an Eclogue crossword will find something to interest or challenge them.  Haste ye back (as they apparently say north of the border). 

Sixes and Sevens III

Appeared in the June 2020 issue Crossword Club magazine as the First Puzzle.

Eight otherwise unconnected lights are unclued.  Eight extra words in clues provide anagrams of words connected one way or another by a six-letter word.  Their number and the connection, when considered with the words of the title allude to which and how many adjacent cells solvers must highlight (the start point of which is also thematic). 

 

Solution Grid

The EIGHT extra words anagram to words meaning or connected to SQUARE, indicating the form of the EIGHT cells to be highlighted, spelling DISORDER clockwise from cell 36 (being six-SQUAREd), linking back to (at) SIXES AND SEVENS.

(4 x 6) LASHER = ASHLER, LANOSE = SLOANE, RISQUE = SQUIER/SQUIRE, CREDIT = DIRECT,

(4 x 7) ASSUAGE = SAUSAGE, EXTINES = SIXTEEN, PREFECT = PERFECT, HOOTERS = SHOOTER

Solvers' comments

“I can’t see the significance of the unclued lights.” 

“Made rather easy to solve by the very open grid. Difficult for the compiler.” 

“Amazingly few bar lines! Not too difficult.” 

“An enjoyable puzzle The gridfill was easier than I expected, mainly because of the generous amount of checkability. The endgame was much harder. First I had to hunt through the clues for extra words previously unnoticed. I found more than eight words which seemed to me to be unnecessary for the clues to wor . This can be a pain with extra words. Then some had more than one anagram. Eventually it occurred to me that some of them had a more or less vague connection with the word SQUARE, and after a frit amount of grid-staring spotted DISORDER. Many thanks.” 

“You can’t get a more traditional square crossword than this. Squares everywhere, in the diagram and the clues. Even unclued lights are squared. Very clever to have ‘disorder’ start on a square — and of 6 too! Four (another square!) sets of challenges to complete and very satisfying to complete. Than you, Eclogue.” 

“We found this an interesting and enjoyable challenge. It was very impressive to fill the grid solely with 6– or 7-letter words. We didn’t manage to ma e all the connections and loo forward to seeing the solution to fill in the gaps.” 

“Quite a feat of construction. 13 × 13 free of unches offering some new words/ meanings but strangely, fairly easy to solve — than goodness!” “For a long time I had DILUTED, but it suddenly came together. I never got more than seven ‘extra’ words, and oddly enough it was ASHLER that made me think of SQUARE. I’m not entirely sure what the rest of the preamble is on about, but there are eight cells in a square around the bloc in the middle that spell DISORDER from 36, which is six– and seven-y enough.” 

“A fairly straightforward solve, although I don’t thin it is necessary to identify the six-letter word. Even so, the highlighted word doesn’t take much spotting.” 

“One of those you just plod through. Couldn’t see the point of the unclued lights and didn’t feel inclined to search 

very hard. A bit square!” 

“It must be difficult to create an entirely unchless grid, but I am at a loss to understand why that method was chosen here and what it achieved. Is there some significance to the four cells in unclued entries? EIGHT-SQUARE in Chambers suggests we should be expecting an octagon: does a square with internal as well as external sides count? To cap it all, I’ve no idea what the connection to SQUARE is in 36dn.” 

“If highlighting DISORDER is all that is required the preamble is a very convoluted way of telling us to do that.” 

“All round excellent. I claim that I have solved all the intricate niceties — although I’m not sure why I bothered since I don’t seem to have to demonstrate it! Should we not at least have had to write the word SQUARE under the finished grid? And why unclued lights if (as appears to be the case) they are indeed unconnected?! Many lovely and witty clues.” 

“I have the solution, but am not totally confident of the path to it. What is the function of the unclued entries!” 

“Don’t see 4D, 6D and 10D. Cross checks say there are right but never happy when I can’t see why.” 

“Enjoyable puzzle but not clear why there are unclued lights. Spotted DISORDER before the connection of the anagrams of SQUARE.”