Puzzled

by David Astle

  20 Audience dumps jazz instrument (3)

  21 Exaggerate general kerfuffle (7)

  22 Reconciler half-turned to what’s left (5)

  24 That mess detailed London feature (6)

  25 Dope rolled in dope (6)

  Down

  1 Nullify spirit (6)

  2 Snitch rejected pitch (3)

  3 One politician with 25-acrosses almost makes jam (7)

  5 Yours truly penned hit play (5)

  6 Regular discourse couches praise for one toga drama (1,8)

  7 Blast each heavy breather (6)

  8 Big, elegant, wild predator, in conclusion! (6,5)

  12 A surgeon finally cuts into kneecap, earning cigar (9)

  15 Japanese warrior briefly disclosed about a retro spirit (7)

  16 Happy to be twice spent (6)

  17 Quietly left trade show, prepared to discuss missile (6)

  19 Help to put ball in play (5)

  23 Sound knowledge of court game? (3)

  Mini Puzzle 4

  Level: tricky

  Across

  1 Recant mixed juice (6)

  4 1-across ruined jog (6)

  9 Snake’s principal blood groups? (3)

  10 Cattle base, we hear, in Sweden (9)

  11 Crashing breakers wiped out a lunatic (7)

  12 United claimed a European final, then fizzled (5)

  14 Soldier, mid-fifties, can race poor hound (5–8)

  18 A cricket team with over-meek openers revealing truth (5)

  21 Porcelain saucer – a mica streak inlaid (7)

  23 During brief month, shade colour (4,5)

  24 Start off fascinated and fit (3)

  25 Spell 4-across wrongly (6)

  26 25-across struck Greek islander (6)

  Down

  1 Rich man of 19-down flipped an old coin (5)

  2 Greater extremes in range cause vexation (7)

  3 Sterile gold carried by outspoken pilot (7)

  5 Crooked quiz we backed (5)

  6 Plant’s ultimate sharp projection?! (5)

  7 Supremo delays part-renovation (7)

  8 Bugs Spooner’s band tutors, maybe (11)

  13 A shot in the past (3)

  14 Exclusive aircraft for king and I in Paris on time (4,3)

  15 Cheerleader loves affectionate sound (3)

  16 Above ridge-top, snare climbing companion (7)

  17 Collide into section of embankment (7)

  19 Elected to help up nation (5)

  20 Bewitching host clutches silver pin in centre (5)

  22 Interrupt prosecuting squad (3,2)

  Mini Puzzle 5

  Level: gnarly

  Across

  1 Past accomplishments suggesting song on album? (5,6)

  9 Engulfed in loathing, one Swiss city to crash for months (9)

  10 Tree remains (3)

  11 Traumas plagued Indonesian island (7)

  13 Poet’s concern mounted in cab? (5)

  14 After success, go cold (6)

  15 Journo sketch returned to boy (6)

  18 Is a fact unlimited for Newton? (5)

  20 Dealing with unknown quantities, say, left to regress in a couple of cups (7)

  21 Objective tip (3)

  22 Traveller to ruin Penny in fashionable circle (5,4)

  24 Feel very low, suffering this?! (6,5)

  Down

  2 Tease child initially from cradle (3)

  3 Heard staff judge museum head? (7)

  4 President touching on a profit one forfeited (6)

  5 Elite clobber (5)

  6 Nick eats Malta’s exotic meat dish (5,4)

  7 Soundly leaves more clichéd author under cover (5,6)

  8 Manic hoarder bent ace (3,3,5)

  12 Maul two German luminaries, it’s said (9)

  16 Pooch doomed rats! (7)

  17 Brickie’s helper in pub dispute (6)

  19 Humped one wheel component onto telly, evenly (5)

  23 Discovered greater mineral deposit (3)

  Mini Puzzle 6

  Level: gnarly

  Across

  1 Help to grab flightless bird for bozo (7)

  5 Dispatches fellows in auditorium (5)

  8 1-down spare field (3)

  9 Truly deep vet, by all accounts (9)

  10 State outright … (5)

  11,12 … ‘You’re a sole ray of light’ and ‘You deserve top perch’? (4,3,11)

  12 See 11-across

  16 Give notion I scrapped to hooligan (4,3)

  17 Called old after limp ending (5)

  18 10-across SP_ _? (4,2,3)

  20 Life story blazes in our heads (3)

  21 Terrible line of monarchs, beyond the original couple (5)

  22 Vital actress Mae in Florida (3,4)

  Down

  1 Practically manipulate bull in data centre (3,3)

  2 Conservatives ring to disrupt certain reform sign (13)

  3 Brat ignoring his first sin (5)

  4 Swim in tzatziki? (3)

  5 Mum designed sites for painter (7)

  6 Relentless debate failing vagrant (13)

  7 Those who 10-across ‘Wit and writer, Dorothy?’ (6)

  11 Rock f-fluff? (5)

  13 Whiz-kid to snoop about intermittent coddling (7)

  14 Impartiality, perhaps, upheld inventor (6)

  15 Skilful commercial one observed amid drivel (6)

  17 Absurd heir apparent’s throne? (5)

  19 Endlessly saturates tree (3)

  Solutions

  Quizling Solutions

  Quizling lists run horizontally, not vertically, like this:

  A B

  C D

  E F

  Q1.1

  ASTOUNDING + T = OUTSTANDING

  Q1.2

  Niger, Nepal, China: reign, plane, chain

  Q1.3

  Mad/nuts, trim/neat, stir/tease

  Q2.1

  Alphabeticise them: BELOW, GHOST, FIRST, ADEPT

  Q2.2

  Far/close, deny/admit, loose/tight, holy/satanic

  Q2.3

  Harley-Davidson motorcycles

  Q3.1

  Restful, enormity, violence, funeral, adultery

  Q3.2

  Upsilon + eta = epsilon + tau

  Q3.3

  PANIC-STRICKEN

  Q4.1

  Sophie Dahl, Gisele Bündchen, Kate Moss, Linda

  Evangelista, Heidi Klum, Christy Turlington

  Q4.2

  Bemoans, canyons, funeral, needily, citizen, coyotes, inaptly, wraiths

  Q4.3

  Hate heat, cures curse, begin binge, green genre, plum lump, adobe abode, late tale, below elbow

  Q5.1

  Race/dash

  Q5.2

  Cap+one, Scarf+ace

  Q5.3

  St/ring, st/ash, st/ripe, st/ratify, st/itching, St/Eve, St/ Ella, st/ride, st/roll

  Q6.1

  Highlighter, accordion file, foolscap, felt tip, hole punch, staple gun

  Q6.2

  Tarot

  Q6.3

  NOTHING

  Q7.1

  Neck +tie

  Q7.2

  SON + ART + AD + SUM = NOSTRADAMUS

  Q7.3

  COUSCOUS and COS (lettuce)

  Q8.1

  Hurl earl, Ulster holster, axe hacks, armour harmer, harder ardour, anchoring hankering

  Q8.2

  Just+in+timber+lake

  Q8.3

  W/asp, f/ox, f/owl, b/ass, t/ern

  Q9.1

  VA(CAN)T

  Q9.2

  CamemBERT, gorGONZOla

  Q9.3

  Gone Baby Gone, Minority Report, Tomb Raider, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Clockwork Orange, Billy Elliot, Some Like it Hot, Eagle Eye, The Last Emperor, Educating Rita

  Q10.1

  Scarlet, carmine, carnation, caramel

  Q10.2

  Kenya (token/yam), Nepal (tone/palm), Peru (tope/rum)

  Q10.3 />
  National, scarab, retirees, available, excavate, embarrass, punster, clambake, mislays, bandannas. (Other words are possible.)

  Q11.1

  Singin’ in the Rain

  Q11.2

  Monica Seles, Chris Evert

  Q11.3

  Musical lass; metal compound; sacred order; base, vile; tempest or monsoon; swimmer’s ingress. (Other definitions are possible.)

  Q12.1

  SELECTED, REJECTED

  Q12.2

  Häagen-Dazs has a hidden agenda.

  Q12.3

  Look for a smaller word hiding inside the paired numbers when spelt: WOO (seduce), EVENT(contest), NET (clear) and REEF (gold, knot OR coral).

  Q13.1

  Drive, chip, hacker

  Q13.2

  Mushroom, boom, snowball, flourish, blossom and bloom

  Q13.3

  ‘Button up’ is the same as ‘pipe down’.

  Q14.1

  Rolling pin

  Q14.2

  Clip

  Q14.3

  Peer, affected, rider, entertain, steer, convention: SCRAPE

  Q15.1

  Kevin Spacey, Jacques Villeneuve, George Eliot, River Phoenix, Sandra Bullock, Corazon Aquino

  Q15.2

  Ale/ail

  Q15.3

  Assent/dissent (ascent/descent)

  Q16.1

  Spa spar, bury berry, laud Lord, your yore, whirled world, principal principle, needing kneading, peak pique, sauce source

  Q16.2

  Therefore (three/four)

  Q16.3

  Leek/pea

  Q17.1

  UK-‘raine’

  Q17.2

  The list includes awe/or, eye/I, you/ewe, a/eh, auk/orc – and arguably quay/ki (life energy of Chinese philosophy) and eau/oh.

  Q17.3

  Lax, lacks, slack

  Q18.1

  A/bridge

  Q18.2

  Scarab, hornet, cicada, EARWIG

  Q18.3

  C/raven

  Q19.1

  Floridly and scabbarded

  Q19.2

  SQUEAKY (You can also create the rarer IMAGOES, CAESIUM, SEQUOIA, CAIQUES and SOMEWAY.)

  Q19.3

  Claire Danes (car/sedan)

  Q20.1

  GRANT (Harding, Carter, Obama, Clinton, Roosevelt); and HAYES (Bush, Obama, Kennedy, Coolidge, Adams). (Other combinations may be possible.)

  Q20.2

  What’s Eating Gilbert Grape?

  Q20.3

  A capsized calculator holds the key. The animals are DOE, BEE, EEL, DOG, IBIS, GOOSE, HEDGEHOG. Three can fly.

  Q21.1

  Jenga

  Q21.2

  Apathy/voluntatis defectio, casino/aleatorium, dancing/ludus saltatorius, flirt/amor levis, gateau/placenta farta, shampoo/capitilavium

  Q21.3

  Baht + teak = batik

  Q22.1

  Eat (ate)

  Q22.2

  EMBRYO-HOMBRE-MOTHER-OTHERS-FOSTER-FOETUS. (Other gestations are possible.)

  Q22.3

  TIER (TILER)

  Q23.1

  What book do you buy a saucy grammarian? COMMA SUTRA

  Q23.2

  Colin Firth (colic/mirth)

  Q23.3

  Ticklish, fix

  Q24.1

  Boycott, Atlas, propaganda, autocue, inspector, sauterne, superficial

  Q24.2

  Under the weather; smashed, wrecked, hammered; stuffed, had a skinful; tanked, bombed, shot. (Other states of intoxication could apply.)

  Q24.3

  Would Zen electricians chant ohm?

  Q25.1

  Slapdash (sad pals)

  Q25.2

  Fuzz (or ZZUF) is the most common tail-ender.

  Q25.3

  Fifty (L) in 09 reversed (ENINO) spells El Niño.

  Q26.1

  Redder

  Q26.2

  The full palindrome is ANNE, I VOTE MORE CARS RACE ROME TO VIENNA.

  Q26.3

  HIAWATHA

  Q27.1

  Star jump (jar/stump)

  Q27.2

  Food court (cooed/fought)

  Q27.3

  Two of Clubs (clue of tubs), Ace of Spades (space of aides), Six of Clubs (clicks of subs), Ten of Hearts (hen of tarts)

  Q28.1

  Put your money where your mouth is

  Q28.2

  The Quiet American, The End of the Affair, Brighton Rock, The Heart of the Matter, Our Man in Havana

  Q28.3

  NILE, CLOVER, CANADA, PHOENIX, SASQUATCH, MARZIPAN

  Q29.1

  Mole + ST = MOLEST (Badger)

  Q29.2

  Scurvy

  Q29.3

  capital letters; cross out; pacifist (no fist); bold type; no ‘eye’ in blind; spaced out

  Q30.1

  Lay Lady Lay; Layla (by Eric Clapton)

  Q30.2

  Rhone (roan/heron)

  Q30.3

  Minnesota (Estonian)

  Q31.1

  Glass slipper, joss stick, class struggle, business school, chess set, cross-stitch, stainless steel, press stud, Bass Strait, brass section, process-server, witness stand

  Q31.2

  Genoa (A-one)

  Q31.3

  Change E to D, and you’ll find Liberia/Chad.

  Q32.1

  Since all the surnames contain their first name from left to right, the gang’s two favourites are Anna Karenina and Toy Story.

  Q32.2

  Medication (NO TIME around ACID)

  Q32.3

  Bull shark (HULLS mixed in BARK)

  Q33.1

  Cordelia, Goneril (one girl)

  Q33.2

  LAMPSHADES: Lamps (PSALM) + Hades

  Q33.3

  BREATHTAKING (THAT jumbled inside BREAKING)

  Mini Puzzle Solutions

  Mini Puzzle 1: Solution

  Across

  1 Sesame (pun) 4 Squeal (hidden) 9 Vegetarianism (anagram &lit) 10 Gremlin (manipulation) 11 Lemon (anagram) 12 Breathalyse (anagram) 17 Livid (charade of Roman numerals) 19 Orbital (container) 21 Carlos Santana (anagram/container) 22 Diesel (charade/deletion) 23 Intact(charade)

  Down

  1 Savage (charade/anagram) 2 Segue (hidden) 3 Matilda (charade/anagram) 5 Quail (double meaning) 6 Enigmas (subtractive anagram) 7 Lament (container) 8 French toast (anagram) 13 Reverse (lateral thinking) 14 Lebanon (container) 15 Placid (charade/reversal) 16 Pliant (container) 18 Drone (charade) 20 Tiara (code)

  Mini Puzzle 2: Solution

  Across

  1 Oranges (charade) 5 Judas (deletion/charade) 8 Blitzen (deletion/charade) 9 Koala (charade) 10 Shoots through (double meaning) 11 Nephew (deletion/charade) 13 Oxtail (anagram) 17 Preoccupation (anagram) 20 Treat (double meaning) 21 Vainest (anagram) 22 Patsy (charade) 23 Regimen (charade)

  Down

  1 Orbison (charade) 2 Amigo (charade) 3 Gazette (charade/deletion) 4 Senate (hidden) 5 Joker (double meaning) 6 Dracula (anagram/alternation) 7 Slash (triple meaning) 12 Prefect (manipulation) 14 X-rating (charade/deletion) 15 Long Tan (double meaning) 16 Quiver (double meaning) 17 Put up (palindrome) 18 Catty (deletion) 19 I-beam (hidden)

  Mini Puzzle 3: Solution

  Across

  1 Sordid (homophone/charade) 4 Edging (Cockneyism) 9 On tap (hidden) 10 Enables (reversal/exotic) 11 Cap (double meaning) 13 Signature (reversal/charade) 14 Unrealistic (anagram) 18 Potassium (subtractive anagram) 20 Sax (homophone) 21 Enlarge (anagram) 22 Relic (reverse/hidden) 24 Thames (deletion) 25 Nitwit (reverse/charade)

  Down

  1 Scotch (double meaning) 2 Rat (reversal) 3 Impasse (charade/deletion) 5 Drama (container) 6 I Claudius (alternation/container/anagram) 7 Gasper (charade) 8 Bengal tiger (anagram &lit) 12 Panatella (container) 15 Samurai (deletion/container/reversal) 16 Upbeat (double meaning) 17 Exocet (deletion/homophone) 19 Serve (double meaning) 23 Law (homophone)

  Mini Puzzle 4: Solution

  Across

  1
Nectar (anagram) 4 Canter (anagram) 9 Boa (charade of blood groups) 10 Stockholm (charade/homophone) 11 Berserk (subtractive anagram) 12 Waned (container) 14 Lance corporal (container/anagram) 18 Axiom (charade) 21 Ceramic (hidden) 23 Jade green (container) 24 Apt (deletion) 25 Trance (anagram) 26 Cretan (anagram)

  Down

  1 Nabob (reversal/charade) 2 Chagrin (container) 3 Austere (charade/homophone) 5 Askew (charade/reversal) 6 Thorn (charade &lit) 7 Remodel (hidden) 8 Cockroaches (spoonerism) 13 Ago (charade) 14 Lear jet (exotic/charade) 15 Coo (charade) 16 Partner (reversal) 17 Rampart (charade) 19 India (charade/reversal) 20 Magic (container) 22 Cut in (hidden)

  Mini Puzzle 5: Solution

  Across

  1 Track record (double meaning) 9 Hibernate (container) 10 Ash (double meaning) 11 Sumatra (anagram) 13 Meter (double meaning) 14 Wintry (charade) 15 Edward (charade/reversal) 18 Isaac (deletion) 20 Algebra (charade/reversal/container) 21 End (double meaning) 22 Marco Polo (charade/container) 24 Yellow fever (anagram &lit)

  Down

  2 Rib (deletion) 3 Curator (homophone) 4 Reagan (charade/deletion) 5 Cream (double meaning) 6 Roast lamb (container/anagram) 7 Ghostwriter (homophone) 8 The Red Baron (anagram) 12 Manhandle (homophone) 16 Doggone (charade) 17 Barrow (charade) 19 Camel (charade/deletion) 23 Ore (deletion)

  Mini Puzzle 6: Solution

  Across

  1 Airhead (container) 5 Mails (homophone) 8 Lea (deletion) 9 Reputedly (anagram) 10 Utter (double meaning) 11,12 Fish for compliments (pun) 16 Deal out (deletion/charade) 17 Paged (charade) 18 Spit it out (rebus) 20 Bio (code) 21 Nasty (deletion) 22 Key West (double meaning)

  Down

  1 All but (anagram/container) 2 Reactionaries (compound anagram/charade) 3 Error (deletion) 4 Dip (double meaning) 5 Matisse (charade/anagram) 6 Indefatigable (anagram) 7 Sayers (double meaning) 11 Flint (charade) 13 Prodigy (container/alternation) 14 Edison (reversal) 15 Adroit (charade/container) 17 Potty (double meaning) 19 Oak (deletion)

  A Word of Thanks

  Between 1-Across and Chapter 33, a lot of different minds have helped to realise this book. First I’d like to thank Sophie Cunningham, the Meanjin editor, who wanted to hear the noise inside my head. Teasing the essay into a book, I was ably guided by my two simpatico agents – Jenny Darling and Donica Bettanin.

  Publisher Sue Hines encouraged the story to reach its potential, even if that meant a few more pages. And when it came to fine-tuning the jam, I was blessed by the best in editors – Ann Lennox and Annette Sayers – plus proofreader Lisa Foulis.

  At the Sydney Morning Herald, I cherish the humour and wisdom of Harriet Veitch, Lynne Cairncross, Susan Wyndham, Jack Ames, Ron Nichols, Deb Shaw, the Taylor clan and every other vigilante to occupy the puzzle desk. And of course, I remain in the debt of Lindsey Browne, and his erudite other, Elspeth.