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Clues and Grid by Curmudgeon
Theme: Pink Floyd, Dark Side of Moon (released March 1973)
The winners of the March puzzle are Diana & Trevor East of Bracknell.
The rockers have never had it so good. Hitherto they had been waiting — like the Hollies at their Bus Stop — then two came along at once. Your reviewer must confess to being even less of an expert at Pink Floyd than he was at George Harrison — and knows he’s on rocky ground, since those who have been long-term fans speak of Messrs Barrett, Waters et al with the greatest reverence. So comments will be confined strictly to the puzzle!
Curmudgeon is a kind and generous soul. Her grids are neat and her clues accessible. Could it be the climate and lovely food of France, which would surely be enough to mellow even the most demanding setter?
The grid does contain a few bars, but honestly I am not sure how that could be avoided, since the name of the band and several of the tracks in question here contain a lot of even-numbered-length words. I think Curmudgeon did well to incorporate MOON within OLD MOON, which gives no hint to the solver at that stage. And there are no snakes at all, since BRAIN FEVER — lovely clue — is definitely a two-word item occupying two lights. I must also say that the secret of the theme is guarded very effectively: it was solving the unusual SPINK, then noticing the further five-letter entry which had to be pink also, along with the guitar in the background — a mysterious picture this time from Graham Fox — which gave it away in the end.
The clueing was helpfully clear; it was also beautifully economical. The clues for FEDORAS and RIFLE, TRESS, DEFOE and AFOOT all come in at five words or fewer: there may be a lesson there for some of us who like to pile Pelion upon Ossa and expect nothing to collapse overnight.
Misdirections were still there and needed to be overcome: MODIOLI are axes, but not such as to demolish anything; MINED depends upon a homophone not of an object but to object.
I was glad that a sympathetic drawing by Frank Paul allowed the unusual SAYON to be solved with much less dictionary-searching than might have been the case. How exactly he calculated five-eighths of his Japanese lady I am not sure, but I was saying Sayonara even before I read the verbal clue, which is most unusual.
I will be expected to cavil, so I must just say that Chambers thinks that INOFF really ought to be IN-OFF and I would prefer under way as two words in their context. But those are tiny points.
March is a busy month — have I not been planting my potatoes this very day, and is the spring not commanding me to get busy in other ways? A gentler puzzle was very welcome.
AGC
Grid Solution
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