Not the Saturday Prize Puzzle – 009
Spot the Links by Tilsit
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Foreword
Welcome to the ninth in our series of weekly puzzles.
Ages ago, before the start of this series, Tilsit promised to write a puzzle for the blog. Well, at long last here it is!
There is a theme and you must read the preamble before starting – if you don’t you may finish up scratching your head for quite a while.
Setter’s Notes
This started out life as a puzzle on the old Enigmatist website a few years ago, but I have redesigned and rewritten most of the clues so that most visitors to this site can try something a little different, but should still be within your solving capabilities. Thanks to Big Dave for road-testing it and making a few helpful suggestions.
I am happy to receive all feedback and hope that you won’t be too put off by the preamble! As the puzzle unwinds, it should make sense.
Hopefully, this will be the first of many for the site. It’s nice to have been bitten by the compiling bug once again.
The puzzle
Spot the Links by Tilsit
If you prefer your puzzles on paper, click on the grid to download a pdf of the puzzle.
Additionally there is an interactive version of the puzzle here
20a, 4d, 7d, 19d, 21d, 23d and 24d are all 14 down; as, it could be argued are 17a, 1d, 3d and 5d. Most have no definition.
Each clue (except 14 down) contains an extra word, the initial letters of which spell out three names associated with the theme.
| Across | Down | ||
| 8 | Savage creature stirred near tame newborn (3-5) | 1 | Found on beach, heartless hag’s about (8) |
| 9 | One leaves one who leaves; ideally whence one leaves! (6) | 2 | Release the little French gentleman (3,3) |
| 10 | Sit alongside Little Woman in causing a commotion (6) | 3 | Turn sternwards, not having a right to young Prince William’s old haunt (2,7) |
| 11 | Swallows most cash spent knowingly (8) | 4 | Theoretically difficult start to suffer Rabies (7) |
| 12 | Stunned, as Malcolm Nash was famously half-a-dozen times! (3 3, 3) | 5 | Unfit or ideally not (5) |
| 13 | Amazingly tender topless chest (5) | 6 | Peacemakers left appalling General without authority (8) |
| 15 | Title of Liberal opposition work studies? (7) | 7 | Dish of potato pie’s evidently not soft. (6) |
| 17 | Olive deliberately stuffed into fish… (7) | 14 | See preamble (4-5) |
| 20 | …often quietly in a timely fashion (5) | 16 | Maybe deacon is responsible for relating to cleric’s patch? (8) |
| 22 | It’s unusual that Juno became shy when Psyche replaced Queen (9) | 18 | Play family witnessing regal disaster (4,4) |
| 25 | From here the reality often appeared heavenly (8) | 19 | To beat one comprehensively, after obscure point (7) |
| 26 | Dire happenings found somewhere in California casually (6) | 21 | Speak after start of operatic performance (6) |
| 27 | Author and film director Lee collaborated naturally in this Asian city (6) | 23 | Dexter’s detective followed impulse (6) |
| 28 | This form of diesel transport turned out practicable after losing broken tip (5,3) | 24 | Woman’s satin skirt (5) |