And now for something completely different…
Posted by Encota on 11 August 2017
OK. We’ve done the sums. The answer could be either 4 1/2 or 72.
Inspect the grid. There are only five pairs of unambiguous letters B (hereafter known as Bs, or Bees) in the grid not separated by a Bar. Convert these pairs of Bs from Bs to five Bees. [And obviously 72 is way too big so can be ignored 🙂 ]
That leave minus Half A Bee to be found. The Preamble talks about one ambiguity: clearly this is the possibility of the third letter of 25 across – is it an O or an E?
Use your favourite means for picking O(dd) or E(ven). I keep a six foot insect-carved version of the 18th Century gambling game known as E-O in the billiard room for exactly this purpose. The ball falls in Even, so E it is. Row 7 now contains ERIC (the half a bee). For those that need reminding, try https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MlrsqGal64w
Finally subtract half a bee using the usual accounting convention of placing it in brackets. We now have five bees, less half a bee: 4 1/2 bees now found. Simples.
Tim / Encota
P.S. And the ‘Eric The Half A Bee’ Python song’s lyrics include, if I heard them right:
Half a bee, cruciverbally
Must either sail, or rival 3…
[Good grief! Ed.]
shirleycurran said
Good grief, indeed! You are certainly confusing your poets. It was much earlier – Tennyson, I believe;
Half a bee, half a bee, half a bee onward, into the valley of death flowed the six hundred etc.