Listen With Others

Hare we go… “Cheesy” will take its place alongside Poat’s no. 4422 in 2016 when we had to find the Golden Hare of the puzzle book Masquerade “in the search area” according to the preamble. And “search area” was indeed the only place where it was to be found and highlighted. Great was the consternation among the cruciverbalists, and not a few all-correct sequences were jugged as a result.

The extended photo (left) shows that this time we had to look even further afield to “find and highlight some types [of quark]”. As with the harw, which smugboots here did find, it was a matter of looking with unaccustomed care over all the puzzle until the required letter string DOWN (to go with UP and CHARM, the three quark flavours – NB this is nothing to do with German yoghurty cheese) was found. It was clear what we were looking for and this was the only place it was to be found in a “standard crossword direction” so fair enough, but we will see what the communal staurological reaction is. IMHO it all adds to the mix, and a spot of innovation and slightly cheesy fun is fine.

Apart from all that the puzzle was nicely put together. I studied Finnegans Wake at university so the quotation FOR MUSTER MARK from James JOYCE was familiar. SPIN HALF from the other extra letters was more obscure, but as I knew that the Muster Mark was being served quarks (quarts in a seagull-ish sort of way; and yes Ulysses does do weird things with your head) and that (in an equally weird way) it was picked up as the name for some newly discovered elementary particles one of whose defining features was SPIN, it all came together quite quickly. The eight relevant clue answers had clearly been jumbled on closer inspection in each case half of the answer had been spin round Seemples.

Thanks Deuce: happy memories of Ulysses and my pre-medieval days and of Masqerade too, which I also failed to fully solve. At least your puzzle was crackable once we had thought outside the box.  (And apologies for late posting of this. Somehow I missed the boat last Friday.)