XIMENES CROSSWORD No. 223

MELODRAME

1.  F. E. Newlove (SE9): Popular play with surprise ending—the lost earldom comes to ME! (anag. + me, & lit.; i.e. not melodraMA).

2.  L. E. Eyres (York): One could easily be made out of a Romance about Rommel (anag. of a de Rommel, & lit.; de = about in Romance (= Fr.)).

3.  T. E. Bell (Gainsborough): Sensation for the Gallery—Most Excellent Model destroyed—Artist involved (ME + RA in anag.; ref. to recent incident, possibly Rauschenberg’s ‘Erased de Kooning Drawing’).

H.C.

E. S. Ainley (Harrow): You may find me out of date, complicated, and strongly flavoured (very), with a comfortable ending (me + anag. of old + ram + e, & lit. [see comments]).

W. C. Cartner (Middlesbrough): Lay exposed rather scantily attired, on the stage, in the old days (melod(y) ramé).

C. E. Gates (Kettering): Don’t finish the cucumber! You’ll be having a bad dream next, and that would be a minor tragedy! (melo(n) + anag.).

S. B. Green (NW10): Air cut off—but the heroine’s bound! (melod(y) + ram + e, & lit.; but = butt, bound = end).

D. Hawson (Malton): This play’s the same in French, all about a lord’s entanglement (anag. in même (Fr.), & lit.).

P. Hobby (Bude): The pain returns with force—they cut me open—sensation in the theatre! (dole (rev.) + ram, all in me).

C. Koop (Ferring): A piece of ham? Not for a song nowadays! (cryptic def.; ham acting; ref. high meat prices).

D. P. M. Michael (Whitchurch): Let the Tragic Muse have her head and push in a song! (Mel(pomele) + ram in ode, & lit.).

C. J. Morse (Norwich): For a romantic play, give me the old mixture dressed in the old grand style (me + anag. + ramé).

E. R. Prentice (Clifton): Drunk as a lord, you’ll see two of me about. Hardly a sober performance! (anag. in me, me; double vision).

E. J. Rackham (Totton): This play gets me right at the start—model goes wrong and embraces the artist (me + RA in anag.).

W. K. M. Slimmings (New Malden): Mal de mer? Shocking—I’ve nothing left inside … I had the really fat part of the ham! (0 in anag.; ham acting).

J. F. N. Wedge (Surbiton): Mal-de-mer? Sick with love?—Overdoing the anguish, I suggest! (anag. incl. 0).

J. S. Young (Beckenham): ’Old me tight—’e’s finishing off the butter what my grandad queued for (anag. + ram + e).

RUNNERS-UP

C. Allen Baker, A. J. Bisset, R. N. Chignell, B. G. H. Clegg, W. J. Duffin, Brig W. E. Duncan, Mrs W. Fearon, J. A. Fincken, Mrs N. Fisher, Maj A. H. Giles, R. M. Grace, C. P. Grant, C. R. Haigh, V. W. D. Hale, Mrs M. Henderson, H. C. Hills, F. E. Humpage, F. G. Illingworth, L. Johnson, D. A. Kidd, W. L. Miron, A. P. O’Leary, R. Postill, C. P. Rea, A. Robins, Miss B. M. Rose, F. L. Usher, J. D. Wallace, R. Wells, M. Winterbottom.
 

COMMENTS—133 correct and not many mistakes. This puzzle was the answer to many requests over a long period for a really snorting “Plain.” I deliberately set out when composing it to include as few words as I possibly could that anyone might have heard of—I don’t normally do that! I did not try to make this clues more difficult than usual, and I don’t think they were; but there proved to be at least two plausible red herrings—“linnet” and “thill”—and one less plausible, which ought not to have been seriously considered for long—“batswing” for CAPSICUM. I can’t find any justification for the “bat” part: “batting an eyelid” doesn’t work without extremely loose wording. The number of correct solutions is a high tribute to solvers’ skill and proves svitat I have always thought, that it is quite impossible to defeat them, as long as the clues are not unfair and the words in Chambers’s (or, if proper names, reasonably traceable). In answer (not for the first time) to queries, the atlas I use is the “Handy Reference Atlas” volume of “Everyman’s Encyclopaedia,” 1941 edition. I also occasionally use “Philips’ Universal Atlas,” chiefly for the British Isles. It was hard luck for solvers that, in a puzzle already so difficult, NOCHEL is only given by C. under “notchel” and GROO-GROO under “gru-gru” (in the Supplement). Many congratulations to the 133!
 
Finally one small point of “cluemanship.” Mr. Ainley would have had a prize this time but for “a comfortable ending” = “the ending of comfortable,” which is, I think, not quite sound wording. I may be guilty of a precedent for it—I don’t know; but I don’t think I would do it now, whatever I may have done, it is a very good clue otherwise. Mr. Newlove’s double meaning of “surprise ending” was the point I liked best in the entry.