Theme: Gustav Holst (born 21st September 1874) and The Planets (premiered 29th September 1918)
The winner of the September puzzle is Heather Haigh of Oxfordshire.
For the second month in a row, we were treated to a Seven Dials grid (thank you to ‘etc’), which not only creates space for more clues (49) than usual, but also, since those clues were not in alphabetical order, adds a level of challenge for the solver.
Moreover, the Seven Dials grid allows for deeper exploitation of a theme, and this was certainly the case here. Gustav Holst and the Planets theme emerged early in the solving process, thanks in no small measure to Graham Fox’s photograph. What a brilliant contribution he has made to the calendar over the years and we express our deep gratitude to him.
All seven planets were clued along with appropriate epithets — the only one of the latter I could not detect was for Mercury, the Winged Messenger, but this did not affect completing the grid, so I am looking forward to reading the solution notes.
I was introduced to the Planets Suite at primary school by an enlightened teacher in the days when the curriculum was not constrained by a fixation with subordinating connectives. One of the most fulfilling aspects of 3D crosswords is the incentive to explore themes more widely. Who knew, for example, that guitarist Tony Iommi reworked the opening passage of Mars on the first track of the seminal album Black Sabbath in 1970? Gustav Holst as hard rock pioneer — fascinating.
Paul is a prolific and prominent Guardian setter who also sets puzzles in the Financial Times, the Telegraph, the Times and elsewhere as Mara, Mudd, Punk and Dada. Back in 2011, the Guardian Crossword Blog editor said: “I think of Paul's as one of the cheekier crosswords — sometimes risqué, bang-up-to-date with its references and often splutter-out-loud funny.” It is remarkable that he has sustained these qualities throughout the last two decades.
Any puzzle from Paul promises a feast of inventive and humorous clueing, and this offering was no exception. In particular, he is a master of brevity: of the 48 written clues, well over half (30) are of six words or fewer. That is quite a feat. Favourite clues were: “Bar in Slough failing to close” (MARS), “Metal that’s loaded with loaded metal” (MERCURY), “Partner of quiet wizard at gym?” (PEACE), “Car’s big end?” (BUMPER). Many of the clues elicited a smile of acknowledgment of the setter’s skill from this reviewer and there were some splendid examples of cryptic definitions: “Eau de Cologne” for RHEIN, “Mailer” referring to Postman Pat in Clue 45, “Dish for bachelors?” for (BABA) GANOUSH, “This one’s on the house” for TILER.
Altogether, then, to sum up this excellent puzzle, look no further than clues 39 and 46: “Humour, a creative technique” and “Fun really covers it”. Thank you, Paul.
