I can't move for this apple in my room

Sabre usually means nearly empty grid for me (and in the case of "A Paradox, A Paradox", TWO completely empty grids!), but I got a few pointers last year on how to tackle a Sabre crossword and I was waiting for a crack at this one.

This was the first Listener grid I printed from the new Times Crossword club, and I was a little concerned, because it put a huge gap between the across and down clues which meant it printed on three pages. It also used a font that choked up my printer (if you squint closely at the preamble or click on the image to see the full-size at flickr, you can see what my printer did to it). These were all resolved by the next week and I not happily print things on two pages.

Back to Au Contraire. There's one cell in each row where things clash, and they have 180 degree symmetry, which means column 7 has no clashes. Lots o checking letters! A first solving session and I'm starting to see more of these clues and tricks, I can see the aim is to get a few columns and rows where I know both words and piecemeal the grid together from that.

My first solving session (bar) was an amusing one - I've become a regular Friday fixture at a local brewpub, and the bar people get a laugh over me staring at a crossword and doodling while I stretch the limits of what my day job will allow me for lunch. There was genuine concern when an hour had passed and nothing at all was entered in the grid. At the end of the first session I had two rows (2 and 8), one column, and what eventually turned out to be three completely wrong answers - a guess of CHAUD for the second clue in 5 across, and a pretty confident CONSEN(t)SUS which now makes no sense at all, but did at the time, and I was bummed later on to find that 6 was more complicated than just PA(la)CE. And in column 7, the only one I had was the wonderfully clued ENEMA (AMENE reversed). I wrote the words I knew along the columns and rows hoping that something would come to light, which didn't happen.

Over the next few days I pieced together one or two more clues - anagram-checker gave me ROSE-HUED for the other half of column 11, and hunting around for 9 or 10 letter rodents turned up SPRINGHASE to give me the rest of row 1.

To put together the grid (I've gone over my original pencilling with pen to make the scanning easier), I started with row 2, seeing that ARENA fit nicely between columns 5 and 9, and there were lots of S's in 12 and 23. If I was right with that, then NARRE at 9 provides my N for SPRINGHASE and I'm in action. Enter in all the rows and columns that I could. Some guesswork involved here, I initially had ASOCIAL in the wrong spot, and it was now that I figured CONGRESS was definitely a no-go.

I suspected the misprints were along or close to along the diagnoal, and the first one I found was between the C of ASOCIAL and the I of RUSSKIES, so I took a punt and circled where I thought misprints would be.

At this point column 7 looked like RENEMA-RI--- and RENE MAGRITTE came to mind. The hint about ignoring accents. GRITTER turns out to be the answer to the other half of 7 (and adding PARALYTIC and MISERERES to the grid). That fits the theme - Magritte's paintings of pipes and things.



And my clash of CI fits in (I also had the PA from the intersection of 5s). CECI N'EST PAS UNE PIPE doesn't have enough letters. Is there a French word for crossword or Listener? Altavista Babel Fish translator has MOTS CROISE, which is still one letter too short.

However now I'm armed with ammunition to find the last few answers - thanks for all those checking letters, Sabre! The last few were some rather amazing words...

There really is a wingless insect called an ERGATANER!
A LWEI is a unit of currency
OVERSAILS are projections
CONGREE was the word for of our own accord
and the lucky last in was TRAPROCK.

So it looks like CROISE has two S's (it wouldn't be CROISES, that would be plural, so I guess it's CROISSE) and the phrase is CECI N'EST PAS UN MOT CROISSE and RENE MAGRITTE is highlighted.

Wow! That's some mighty fine gridwork, Sabre, and a lot of fun, even the hunt and pecking at the end was cool. And even better I've finally gotten a Sabre Listener (I've been told there's one I should get in the book of Listener crosswords, which I haven't started yet, waiting for a few long plane trips coming up in the next few months for that).

2009 tally: George 5, Listner 0. Current streak: George 5 (equalling my record)

I'm going to put another piece of shameless self-promotion up to finish out this week's blog. I write for a lot of short films, but I rarely act in them, I'm a horrible actor. But last summer Drew McDermott came up with an idea that he thought I'd be good in. So I worked on the script, got into some horrible clothes, put on an accent that was meant to sound creepy but came out kind of French, and put together this little film that we debuted last August - Vending Love. See you next week!