Listener 4253: All Change by Dilwitch
Posted by Dave Hennings on 23 August 2013
Following on from the previous week’s puzzle from Lavatch, it had me wondering whether Dilwich was a joint effort between Piccadilly, Wiglaf and Lavatch! Unlikely I suppose, so here we had Dilwitch’s second solo effort. It involved lots of money changing hands, and I suspected that Mrs B’s entry for coin, with a bit of help from money, might prove helpful.
1ac was a good start, being an anagram of ‘ten cars meet’. However, having played around with words ending -MENTS, I needed Mrs B to provide METACENTRES, enetered as METAMILRES. 5dn and 6dn came next with IGNOBLE (although I couldn’t see what part of ‘quintessentailly’ might provide the replacement) and RISEN, with the more obvious OBANG hidden in ‘swingboat’. 12ac RASURES/REUROURES soon enabled me to see that 5dn was entered as IGUNITE. I felt that an easy week lay ahead. As usual I was wrong!
The clues themselves were fine, with very good surface readings. I wasn’t initially happy with 8dn [Typecast] founder of triune? (6;5) being UNITER. I felt that ‘of’ as an anagram indicator was a bit weak, although Chambers gives one definition as ‘made from’, so it’s probably just something I’ll have to live with in future. Dilwitch did invoke some interesting manipulative techniques though. I liked 15ac Liner [waiting] in Solent before noon (6;4) where INSOLE was just the letters of ‘in Solent’ before the second n. Even more tricky was 29ac Gin and rum are liquor—ID’s required, or [query] expressed (7;3) where LIQUIDS was LIQUOR + ID – OR, with expressed = forced out.
Sometimes it was the replacement that I spotted first, such as SEQUIN in ‘inquests’ and TENNER in ‘internet’. However, the lack of effective cross-checking for the answer (as opposed to entry) soon squashed my initial optimism, and progress was slow…very slow.
I must say that I found it a bit of a slog towards the end but I eventually finished. I think it took me in excess of 5 hours. However, I dreaded to think how long it must have taken Dilwitch to devise the grid for this puzzle. Having every entry with a currency replacing one from the same country must have been a nightmare.
As I popped my submission envelope in the postbox, I prayed that Dilwitch wasn’t hard at work on a crossword of weights and measures.
For those who want a complete breakdown of the currencies, with places of origin, in this puzzle, here you are. Verification is from Chambers with the exception of POUND/DINAR at 3dn which required a lot of help from Google to track down Sudan and Libya.
Across
Clue | Answer’s currency |
from | Entry’s currency |
from |
---|---|---|---|---|
1 | CENT | Europe | MIL | Cyprus |
10 | PISTOLET | Spain | PESO | Spain |
11 | PIE | India | PICE | India |
12 | AS | Italy (Rome) | EURO | Europe |
13 | FIN | USA | RED | North America |
14 | QUID | £ | BOB | £ |
15 | INTI | Peru | SOL | Peru |
18 | BUCK | North America | TENNER | $ |
20 | WING | £ | ANGEL | UK |
25 | AFGHANI | Afghanistan | PUL | Afghanistan |
26 | POUND | £ | RIAL (=ryal) | £ |
27 | SKILLING | Scandinavia | ORE | Scandinavia |
28 | URE | UK | WINN | £ |
29 | QUID | £ | URE | UK |
30 | BAN | Romania-Moldova | LEY | Romania-Moldova |
31 | MANAT | Turkmenistan | TENGE | Turkmenistan |
Down
Clue | Answer’s currency |
from | Entry’s currency |
from |
---|---|---|---|---|
2 | PICE | India | PIE | India |
3 | POUND | Sudan/Libya | DINAR | Sudan/Libya |
4 | CENT (see Rand) | South Africa | RAND | South Africa |
5 | NOBLE | £ | UNITE | £ |
6 | SEN | Asia | OBANG | Japan |
7 | CENT | Europe | ECU | Europe |
8 | UNITE | £ | SCEAT | UK |
9 | AS | Italy (Rome) | SEQUIN | Italy |
10 | SEN (see Riel) | Cambodia | RIEL | Cambodia |
16 | BAR | £ | TESTON | £ |
17 | AS | Italy (Rome) | JANE | Italy (Genoa) |
19 | AT | Laos | KIP | Laos |
21 | URE | UK | WIN | £ |
22 | TALA | Samoa | SENE | Samoa |
23 | ASPER | Turkey | PARA | Turkey |
24 | CENT | USA | FIN | USA |
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