I haven’t put up any of my Beelzebub puzzles yet, but they weren’t my first venture into the plain blocked puzzle. What we have below is a puzzle from Games and Puzzles issue no. 79, dated Winter 1980. Games and Puzzles was a monthly magazine catering to players of board and strategy games, as well as to fans of crosswords and number and logic puzzles. No doubt today its remit would extend to electronic games, but issue 79 was about its last hurrah. The puzzle element resurfaced in Top Puzzles and, all being well, I should be able to put up some of my contributions there in due course.
I must note that I have not been able to determine the copyright holder for this puzzle – both G&P and its successor folded back in the 1980s, and I haven’t been able to trace the ownership of the material at this remove. I’d be happy to make due acknowledgement if anyone can tell me.
You should note that the magazine ran a clue-writing contest. As with the monthly Azed contest, this took the form of identifying the word to be clued with an asterisk, and giving it a definition-only clue. This was done after submission by the editor (the late Mike Laws), so I probably did write a clue for 28 across originally, but it hasn’t survived.
ACROSS
1 Moths flutter in Ayr, eating into tattered plaid with energy (9)
11 Homer, enthralled by one form of Latin God, shows the right procedure (7)
12 Old giant lands in middle of street – result of messing with tar (but not Jack?) (6)
13 B_____ old giant again! There’s no end to that brute (4)
14 Nothing in strength like these smells (6)
15 Believer in God – if he picks up a second he’ll be made to stop (5)
16 Top class, economically, could find their altitude from this (12, 2 words)
17 Shortened form of script scribe ultimately gets rewritten (6)
20 Shoot in, getting trapped by endless marriage (4)
21 I’m a dilettante; it ____ tendency to be ____ (4)
23 It’s filled with water. Drug it – see what could develop (6)
25 “Twirling, he and I cross as when entering last part of dance” – descriptive of this? (12)
28* A hard crust (5)
29 Preacher’s to clutch at love, employing out-of-the-way words (6)
31 Being attacked by insects, dreamer loses heart (4)
32 Remove outlawed one from fold? Or just remove the fold? (6)
33 Hardy greeting, as it were? Such language (7)
34 Slacking about a measure of superficial restraint (9)
DOWN
1 City with a line in Brazil’s gazetteer entry, perhaps (4)
2 Unknown sound together with that old feeling? (5)
3 Sickly American? One’s right to get this! (6)
4 You’ve cut nail badly? Makes you mad, doesn’t it? (7)
5 It’ll take a siege to capture useless walkie-talkie (7)
6 Endless piece of wood in one little tree (5)
7 The others I leave clustered about one in some matter that’s deceitful (11)
8 Old women have some sort of fool on (6)
9 Ugly rumours could be spread crazily about me wanting poise (7)
10 Weaselly type with gun covering all of one shop (11, 2 words)
17 Small type gets damage this time – result of messing with tar (still not Jack?) (7)
18 You’ll get underground almost without seizing one living in a volcano (7)
19 Old promise in part of the Koran? It’s divine, if one’s ignored (7)
22 God’s greatest fan? One in the grip of liquor – keep it quiet above all (6)
24 Awful beast cutting of horse’s head (6)
26 It was sweet getting smut ultimately blue (5)
27 Aborigine is climbing over some of Australia’s capital (5)
30 Those closing moments knock you reeling in the darkness (4)
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