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Clues by Arachne and Grid by Patch
Theme: Raining cats and dogs
The winner of the March puzzle was Robin Stephenson of London.
We were told that this puzzle marks no specific anniversary. The rubric read: five thematic solutions are undefined, one pair and one group of three. Solvers should submit with their entry a common unclued phrase (7,4,3,4) that aptly describes the overarching theme.
Well no clues as to the theme and so I have no idea where we are going. I found it quite hard to get into the puzzle with only a couple solved in the first run through, disappointing. As always a bit more effort yields up a few more answers which seems to lead to a dog linked theme with HOUND, HUSKY and PUG emerging.
However the first of the clues without a definition yields DELUGES. Where is this leading? Having drawn a blank earlier I switch back to the picture clue and, using a combination of the picture and the written clues, winkle out DOWNPOURS; also undefined. So we have dogs, downpours and deluges, nicely alliterative but I fail to fathom the connection. Next comes CATS but not so strongly evident. I suspect that by now, in your own solves, most of you will, in a flash of inspiration, have made a p - ounce to the lynx. Sorry, made a leap to the link. (Note to self: stick to the day job).
I manfully soldier on and approaching the end of the puzzle two obscure creatures, PI-DOG and OCICAT, complete the undefined solutions. So we have heavy rainy weather, cats and dogs and, at last, the penny drops: RAINING CATS AND DOGS.
This was a compact gem of a puzzle. Well constructed and excellently clued with a great PDM (penny drop moment). Patch and Arachne at their best. The theme was beautifully constructed and emerged slowly. In my case too slowly. Nevertheless I thoroughly enjoyed it from start to finish.
From the comments I see we have a few disappointed cat lovers sad that their favourites were under-represented in the grid. We’ll try and get that right next time. My favourite comment came from SC: We being animal lovers, we loved this one. The cat’s whiskers and the dog’s…..(cough)…!
Grid solution
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