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Posts Tagged ‘Hide-and-Seek’

Listener No 4468: Hide-and-Seek by Charybdis

Posted by Dave Hennings on 6 Oct 2017

Charybdis’s last Listener was three years ago with No 4310 Net Book Agreement and its theme of The L-Shaped Room. Towards the end of my blog for that puzzle, I had the words “I breathed a sigh of relief that my all-correct run for this year was still intact.” Well it wasn’t! It was down to my misunderstanding of how the “net” of the rooms was to be drawn. Hopefully, this week’s puzzle wouldn’t give me a problem.

As I read the preamble, it seemed possible that it would. My heart must’ve skipped a couple of beats as I was told how we had to identify who Mark, Francis and Robert were together with some of their relations, find two proverbs, “uncover” one, amend the other, find a title, and finish it all off with some highlighting. There was an isolated cell near the bottom right corner, and that would obviously need filling, and 15 clues needed a letter to be restored.

I started off fairly well, with 7ac RENEGER (good old Magritte helping) and a flurry of down entries in the top right corner. Working my way down to the bottom right soon had me see •A•GHT•• unclued at 28ac, and a daughter seemed to be one of the relations we had to identify.

The top left and then the bottom left were soon looking healthy, and it didn’t take too long to see TRUTH IS (28ac) STRANGER (column 4) THAN FICTION (row 9). The restored letters meanwhile were spelling out Twain and Bacon (Mark and Francis), but it needed me to solve all the clues before Wyatt popped up. Robert Wyatt then needed some googling to find his album Ruth is Stranger than Richard.

I didn’t get to the final highlighting by trying to work out what went into the isolated square. My eye was casually looking at the finished grid and saw CAR PARK in row 3. Looking in the row above it, LEICESTER made me break out in a broad smile, what I have recently started calling my BGM — Big Grin Moment. Of course, slotting an I into the isolated square revealed RICHARD III, whose bones were recently discovered beneath a car park in Leicester, although I’m pretty sure they didn’t use a bulldozer to uncover them!

In summary, these are the steps in the endgame:

  • TRUTH IS STRANGER THAN FICTION: Mark Twain
  • TRUTH IS THE DAUGHTER OF TIME: Francis Bacon & Josephine TEY
  • RUTH IS THE DAUGHTER OF TIM
  • RUTH IS THE DAUGHTER OF RICHARD: Robert Wyatt
  • LEICESTER CAR PARK & RICHARD III

What a wonderfully roundabout journey it was. Great fun, thanks Charybdis.
 

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Listener 4468 Hide-and-Seek by Charybdis

Posted by Encota on 6 Oct 2017

aka Ruth Is Stranger Than Robin, or something like that …

Thank you Charybdis for a superb puzzle with a great Cultural Crossover!  I wonder how many people knew all angles covered in this puzzle – quotes from Twain and Bacon, books from Josephine Tey and albums from Robert Wyatt!

As ever, do read Shirley’s and Dave’s blogs for some more insight.

[You are now entering Twilight Zone mode…]

Or, alternatively … in this puzzle we were asked to help seek ‘three hiders’.

So what other musicians are hiding on Robert Wyatt’s brilliantly titled mid-Seventies album, ‘Ruth Is Stranger Than Richard’?   Aside: the only album (I know) that has a Side Richard and a Side Ruth.

Wyatt-Ruth-cover

And in what way is it connected to that other mid-seventies album, ‘Night Moves’ by Bob Seger, I hear you ask?  [Eh?? Ed.]  Clearly SEGER is jumbled in both the first and last rows.  Is it referring to Knight’s Moves to find the missing musicians, perhaps?

And yes, there they are, all three from the Robert Wyatt album:

[to be added]

Top left, the ubiquitous Brian ENO, who played guitar and synthesiser on the Offenbach rearrangement; top right Nisar Ahmad KHAN, saxophonist on two tracks, and mid-right Fred FRITH, piano on those three tracks on Side Richard.

And, of course, the two erased letters – which might be read as NO TE – appear to have a musical theme.

The Preamble said something about (presumably) other musicians: Mark – Knopfler? Ronson? and Francis – Rossi?  RENE of Rene and Renata made an appearance on Row 1, Jim REEVES in Col 14 and Lou REED on Row 10.  There was some bluff about a King, a novel, some proverbs and a place to leave the tour bus in the Midlands but I gave that bit a miss.

cheers all,

Tim / Encota

PS As I type I am listening to Morow.com, the Prog Rock radio station (they are playing ‘Luminol’ by Steven Wilson, thanks for asking), so if I can’t solve a puzzle featuring Robert Wyatt then I am not sure who can!

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