Every now and then, before seeing the weekly Listener, I wonder who the setter might be. This week, I wondered if it might be Tiburon, Ferret or Shark. Imagine my surprise to see that it was none of those but instead Oxymoron. I wouldn’t have guessed that in a month of Sundays since that is the Sunday Enigmatic Variations pseudonym of our late departed Schadenfreude. I wondered if this was a present from the guys at EV where Oxymoron may have been scheduled to appear after the now-averted closure of that series.
Here we had a grid containing clashes in some cells that would give thematic items that would eventually need replacing. The replacement would be given by an extra word in some clues to non-clashing answers that had only one letter in common with their entry, a technique originated by this setter, I believe.
As usual, the clues were generally tricky but fair and the clashes were slowly eked out. Unlike some other puzzles, the clashes weren’t jumbles, but spelt out the thematic items in sequence of across/down or down/across letters. Thus, HEAVEN, STAR and GOSPEL were easily uncovered.
Unfortunately, none of those, nor SHINER, RANGER or RIVAL, gave me any inkling as to what the theme may be. With most of the grid complete, I decided some ODQing was required, and chose “gospel”. Luckily, there were only six entries, and the first gave “Four for the G. makers Anon 19:7”. (In an older edition, it was under Songs, spirituals, and shanties.) This is The Dilly Song featuring “Green grow the rushes O.” So Tears = Rushes as in speeds along!
With that, I could finish everything off. However, I was a bit concerned about 33ac Hard growth on west-facing tree (6). The wordplay seemed to give CORN + RE<, but surely the tree was CORNEL. The entry for corner didn’t help, so a bit of reverse engineering was required to see that under tree was “to drive into a tree, to corner (also fig)”. So CORNER it was. (Mrs B would also have helped.)
All done and dusted, with the extra words revealing that the number was to replace the thematic entries. In reverse order, 12–1: APOSTLE, HEAVEN, COMMANDMENT, SHINER, RANGER, STAR, WALKER, SYMBOL, GOSPEL, RIVAL, BOY, ONE.
Farewell again, Oxymoron. Enjoyable as always.