Clues by Vlad and Grid by Calluna
Enter the prize draw by 31 December.
The background for this puzzle is a Graham Fox montage depicting various, possibly Greek, scenes viewed as holes in a wall.
This puzzle by Vlad uses a conventional unnumbered 7x5x5 grid by Calluna in which eight letters have already been filled in highlighted cells. In this puzzle the ALPHABET plays an important role. Clues are presented in alphabetical order of their solutions, which must be entered in the grid where they will fit. Once the grid is filled, the absence of two items will become evident, and you must make up this deficit by supplying those items together with your entry.
This beautiful grid was part of Calluna’s winning entry in the 2022 World Championship. As you fill in your answers, look at levels two and four. You should detect a lovely pattern which will explain which two items are absent from these levels (though they appear elsewhere in the grid).
In order to start entering your answers in the grid, it is helpful to solve as many as possible of the 7-letter answers. We have included hints to the only two obscure 7-letter words. There are three 5-letter answers which begin and end with the same letter, meaning that their orientation may be undefined if there is no other information. All three of these answers are entered vertically. In two cases the orientation is determined by one of the pre-filled letters on levels 2 and 4. The answer to Day 4 does not pass through a pre-filled letter, but its orientation should be determined by the pattern on levels 2 and 4.
Vlad’s witty clues and Calluna’s abecedarian grid combine to make this a splendid end to the year!
Day 1
Jacket I lost in battle (5)
Take a general word for battle and lose one letter to give a word for a jacket. This jacket appears to be named after an area of London, but was in fact a stuffed jacket worn under a suit of armour. [NI]
Day 4
Java slightly different — around island it’s soulless (5)
Slightly different suggests we want an anagram of Java into which we insert a single letter for island to give a Sanskrit word for soulless from Jainist philosophy. [NI]
Day 5
One cracking CIA’s new code (5)
New indicates that we should insert a letter for one inside an anagram of CIA’s. The result is an acronym for a code (a precursor of Unicode) used by computers to represent text. [NI]
Day 7
Mentally alert unlike its guest of honour? (5)
This word means mentally alert, but by inserting a space you get two words representing a ceremony celebrating a guest of honour who would certainly not be mentally alert. [NI]
Day 8
Japanese tea ceremony on border of Chengdu (Chinese, you idiot!) (7)
Idiot serves here as an anagram indicator. Take one letter from border of Chengdu, a short word for the dominant ethnic group in China and an anagram of you. The answer is the Japanese tea ceremony. [NI]
Day 19
Borrower’s settlement for Marty and us? (7)
At first you think it must be a simple anagram of Marty and us, but no. It is an anagram, but u’s rather than us to give you the borrower’s settlement [JP]
Day 22
Some other snakes like to follow python — not half odd (5)
Odd suggests another anagram, this time of half of python. This should be followed by a short word for like to give a genus of rodent-eating colubrid snakes. [NI]
Day 28
Kinky sex without women, sport — this isn’t good for the reputation (5)
Two letters for kinky sex followed by another word for ‘sport’ without an abbreviation for women to give you something that will harm your reputation. [JP]
Day 32
Name of road — see reverse (5)
Start with an abbreviation for road then ‘see reverse’ in a different way — an episcopal see going backwards to give you another word for name [JP]
Day 33
Why question the writer about wine? (5)
Take a single-letter homophone of why followed by a two-letter abbreviation for question followed by the reverse of a two-letter word for the writer. The result is the chateau of a celebrated and expensive Sauternes wine. [NI]
I am grateful to the other members of the Hints & Tips team: Garry Stripling (Gin) and Jim Pennington (Philostrate).
Season’s greetings to all our readers!
Happy solving!
Nick Inglis (etc)
If you’re still struggling to complete the jigsaw, watch out for a directed version of the December 2024 puzzle to be published in the coming days.
A huge thank you to the Hints & Tips team for their excellent contributions throughout the year.