I don’t know about you but there is something obscurely satisfying about having a puzzle where one of the longest clues consists entirely of the letter N. Not a very difficult puzzle, perhaps, but I think the concept deserved an airing. I wonder how I ever thought of it. I see that it is 2002’s representative of one of my rituals: that a puzzle should be finished on New Year’s Eve. (Oddly, I don’t make a point of starting a puzzle on New Year’s Day – that would just be silly, wouldn’t it?) However, it didn’t then appear until August, 2005, and my notes don’t explain the gap.
ACROSS
1 HIGHEST; anag. of EIGHT Hs
7 SHAW; anag. + w
10 ANIL; an il(l)
11 NON-HERO; H in no Nero
13 UNFORESTED; anag. of FOURTEEN Ds
14 LITHE; lit he
15 ELVES; (s)elves
16 IN-LAWS; l in anag.
19 INTENT; n ten in it
22 HONESTY; nest in Hoy
24 GENEVAN; Neva in gen
28 ANGLES; (t)angles
30 ISSUER; is su(p)er
31 USUAL; US (D)ual
32 LET GO; let + go
34 ENERVATION; cf. veneration
35 IGNITER; I g niter
36 CENT; n in tec (rev.)
37 ONCE; anag. of ONE C
38 VENUSES; anag. of SEVEN Us
DOWN
1 HAULING; U L I in hang!
2 INNING; (w)inning
3 GIFT; hidden & lit.
4 EIRE; Erie (rev.)
5 SNEESH; hidden rev.
6 ANTENNAS; Anne (rev.) in ants
7 SHELTER; anag. of THREE Ls
8 ARDENT; den in art
9 WORST; anag. of TWO Rs
12 OSSI; hidden
17 LONG; lo(ggi)ng
18 WAVELETS; anag. of TWELVE As
20 ESAU; hidden
21 MELANIE; elan I in me
23 Y-FRONTS; anag. of FORTY Ns
25 ENSIGN; anag. of NINE Gs
26 NIEVRE; anag.
27 BEGONE; beg one
28 AUDIO; Au Dio(r)
29 SORE; Eros (rev.)
32 LAWN; law n
33 TIES; ti(r)es
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Comments