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| Title |
Painless |
| Setter |
Rasputin |
| Series |
The Listener |
| Number |
4188 |
| Date |
05/05/2012 |
| Grid |
Circular unbarred grid consisting of 6 rings. The outer three rings consist of 48 cells, the next two consist of 24 cells, and the inner ring consists of 12 cells. Eleven cells in ring 3 enclose ellipses. Radials are numbered 1-48. |
| Preamble |
Answers, all of six letters, are entered either from the outer edge to the inner circle or vice versa, 24 of each. Circles may read in either direction. Three questions, each with words missing, appear in circle 1 (the outermost) and in circle 5. In circle 3, cells with ellipses identify a location. In 24 clues the wordplay leads to the answer plus an extra letter not entered in the grid; in clue order these letters give instructions for changes that solvers must make in thematic positions before highlighting the 12 relevant cells. The Chambers Dictionary (2011) is the primary reference and justifies the coinage at 39. |
Solution Notes
(Hide Solution) | Circles 1 and 5 contain parts of the last lines of Rupert Brooke's The Old Vicarage, Grantchester, written in Berlin in May 1912:
"…to forget
The lies, and truths, and pain? ... oh! yet
Stands the Church clock at ten to three?
And is there honey still for tea?"
Extra letters from wordplay spell out "alter four cells to show poet", requiring solvers to change REVERT and BRONZE to RUPERT BROOKE, positioned at "ten to three" as if on a clock face. |
| Keywords | Rupert Brooke The Old Vicarage Grantchester Berlin to forget The lies and truths and pain oh yet Stands the Church clock at ten to three And is there honey still for tea clock face |
| Acknowledgements |
Preamble and solution notes © 2020 The Times. Reproduced with permission. |
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