Shark is a setter I don't know personally, and I'm not sure where to find more Shark puzzles, though I know some have appeared in the Listener series… for which I haven't had enough time recently (that's my excuse). There was a relatively straightforward one in an earlier calendar and I imagined that this one – since the theme was striking us in the face, thanks to Graham Fox's atmospheric picture and the centenary – was going to turn out similar. In fact it turned out to be one of the most challenging of the year; also (for me) one of the most enjoyable. I will certainly choose infested waters for a future cryptic dip.
The comment I wrote on my calendar page while solving was 'this is an absolute beauty'. I have not changed my mind.
The pyramid grid – an anachronism we can surely forgive – worked really well. In the form Shark has chosen, it introduces some new characteristics and incidentally a very high proportion of active cells. The top layer gave way easily. The only typo I have yet seen in five years of these puzzles – a great achievement which future editors, whoever they might be, will do well to equal – was no block to the despatching of poor Maréchal Ney; and I do like that Hawaiian rock. The fascinating reformer AkHENaten (much more significant than his short-lived son) got back his erased place in history here also. It was perhaps on finding that lurking detail that I knew I was on to something special.
The second layer should have been straightforward also, but this solver took ages to find the solution to the very neat Pass the fish! and was wondering how exactly 9ac and 10to might work. TUDOR had very conveniently come up with a quite similar clue in a daily cryptic just before I solved this one – am I the only setter who hates it when that happens? – and therefore EGYPT was very tempting to enter at once: just couldn't bring myself quite to do it. So Level 2 stayed unfilled for the moment.
The fourth level was devised in such a way that some good variety in entry lengths was available. At this point may I say that, though in general practice I dislike bars, that did absolutely not apply to this puzzle, where they were (i) symmetrically placed, (ii) necessary and (iii) decorative! The colour scheme really helped as well, for which I suspect we must thank that vastly competent problem-solver Jolt.
ATHEISES was not hard to find, but didn't fit. WORKABLE (once I had overcome my terror at seeing the word bank, which like fish, river and girl give so many variables that they make you want to give up) was good but didn't fit either. The lovely BROCHETTE – thank you Frank Paul, the drawing with the calabrese – oh, all right, broccoli – and the collapsing teeth complemented the verbal clue and helped to find that one – and the complicated FOOTMAN (NAM + TOO reversed after F, plus an unusual definition for that word, which Shark must have been pleased to find) confirmed that the extra letter would have to go somewhere in the middle. ACIERATED and ATOM BOMBS had been among the first ones in.
Now let us go back a few hours to my first impression on seeing the grid. I had thought 'Well, if that had been me, I would have filled in the top level and made a central core light. Shark's missed a trick'. Oh, no Shark didn't. I had already thought 'WORKABLE – WORK TABLE' but when after a bit of thought TUT appeared down the centre, in the most robber-proof place, I wanted to echo the famous words of Mr H Carter – who spent much of his earlier life in a town not far from me. Is that unforgivable bathos? Swaffhamites won't think so.
And now we come to the third level. U can be a difficult letter to handle, but making BOND into BOUND and TAPE into TAUPE was superb. Of course Shark had a little more flexibility here, since my other questions during solving were now in play: 'Isn't level 3 a bit short of crossers? Why are those letters barred off? What is there to help? Can the rubric tell me something?' Then, on top of the TUT revelation, the 16-letter Easter Egg became clear. What a triumph! I think Shark's plan, for the solver to win but only after a struggle, was perfectly judged. And putting that phrase round the perimeter did so many things: it justified the bars, gave additional crossers to KABBALA, SLEEKLY etc. which were otherwise slightly deficient, and showed again how it is possible to use every level of a 3D grid to convey the theme.
I congratulate every solver who managed to crack the secret of the pyramid without recourse to sacred geometry or dynamite. I hope that you had as much enjoyment from it as I did, and would wish to be associated in my thanks and congratulations to the composer. Now just avoid those mosquito-bites.
AGC
Grid Solution
November 2022 solution continued ...
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