XIMENES CROSSWORD No. 147

GATHER

1.  C. Koop (Ferring): It’s vital to get harvests—waistcoats off! (anag. of get har(vests); [see comments]).

2.  S. B. Green (NW10): Her bearing close to gun shows pluck (gat + her; bear = be situated).

3.  L. W. Jenkinson (Bristol): Reap what one has sewn, maybe (2 mngs.; gather (n.) = pleat or fold sewn in cloth; ref. Galatians 6:7).

H.C.

G. W. Bain (Repton): Plait that Annie got back to front (her gat with halves swapped; ref. musical “A. Get Your Gun”).

Maj P. S. Baines (BAOR): Increase Goliath? (cryptic def.; G. of Gath, i.e. Gath-er (cf. Londoner)).

Mrs L. Jarman (Brough): Increase the geyser’s ends: make pie with the heat inside (anag. of heat in g(eyse)r; pie²).

D. P. M. Michael (Whitchurch): Swell the crowd! Gate closing within hour (gate with last letter inside hr).

W. L. Miron (Nottingham): The Cloth may be retrograde but still includes the collect (the in rag (rev.); The Cloth = clergy; collect = short prayer).

Rev E. B. Peel (Fleetwood): Being half senile and not quite all there, I’m always taken in (ga(-ga) + ther(e); gather (n) = fold or pleat).

E. W. Richart (Thornton Heath): An Elgar finale, plainly written about the Harvest (the in (El)gar; ref. E.’s harvest anthem “Fear Not O Land”).

T. E. Sanders (Walsall): Pluck is an essential attribute in tilting at heroes (hidden).

COMMENTS—243 correct and very few errors. The puzzle was easier, but the entry was still on the small side and the general standard of clues submitted was low: August is never a good month. I have never, I think, had such a big crop of loose and inaccurate clues to read. Obtrusive words were the worst feature. Things like “One may infer,” “We understand,” “We learn that” are hopelessly unfair: a clue must make, with syntactical accuracy, the sense which the writer secretly intends, not only a misleading sense. Similarly “The matter has come to a head” is no way of indicating a verb meaning “suppurate.” Nor is “Many found in the kilt” a definition of “gather”: it might be one of “gathers.” Again, we had “Might be tight” with the note “tight = gathers drawn up tightly”: I ask you! Perhaps the entry furthest removed from being a clue at all was a fifteen-word sentence with four words underlined and the note “Underlined words are synonyms,” the other eleven words being entirely irrelevant. But perhaps this wasn’t intended seriously.
 
While on the subject of relevance, I will repeat my view on “hidden” clues. These, to my mind, lose merit in proportion to the number of words irrelevant to the hiding. It is sometimes difficult to make them read naturally with no irrelevant words (except a harmless “a” or “the”): it is almost always extremely easy to do so when no limits are set, and such a clue cannot fairly be compared as an achievement with a properly restricted “hidden” clue or with sound clues of other types. One example may be quoted:—“Pluck of a girl Channel swimmer landing at her last gasp.” Admirable sense, neatly worded, not too long, topical: but there are no fewer than five irrelevant words in the writer’s secret sense (excluding the article), and this, to my mind, completely annuls the achievement, though the clue is, I suppose, technically fair.
 
I will conclude this lecture (!) by saying that no sort of offence is meant to the authors quoted and that their clues were chosen at random to illustrate my points, and by analysing the first prize clue, as an example of what I do consider good and accurate. This clue presents two satisfying senses with no irrelevant words. First there is the literal indication “It’s vital to get harvests—waistcoats off! [therefore, and gather those harvests]”: the whole clue is equivalent to a reasoned command to gather. Secondly, there is the anagrammatic indication “It [gather] is vital to get harvests—waistcoats off! [i.e., to ‘get-har’]. Every word relevant (relevant, in fact, twice) and the whole thing syntactically correct. So don’t be put off by these strictures but be accurate!
 
RUNNERS-UP—E. W. Blishen, Maj H. L. Carter, Rev B. Chapman, J. Coleby, Cdr H. H. L. Dickson, Maj A. J. Douch, H. H. Elliott, J. A. Flood, R. W. Hawes, D. Hawson, G. G. Lawrance, C. J. Morse, I. J. Nicholas, B. G. Pearce, I. W. Phillips, R. Postill, H. Ingram Rees, Mrs J. Robertson, E. O. Seymour, S. P. Shanahan, W. K. M. Slimmings, Mrs A. L. Stevenson, J. O. Tomlin, H. S. Tribe, J. F. N. Wedge, J. S. Young.