Every Friday at 1300 hours, Tally-Ho Corner’s cleverest clogs come together to solve a ‘foxer’ handcrafted by my sadistic chum and colleague, Roman. A complete ‘defoxing’ sometimes takes several days and usually involves the little grey cells of many readers. Don’t be shy. All are welcome to participate.
The honeycomb below is a fancy form of wordsearch in which every cell is used, and words can curl and zigzag but never overlap. Each hive foxer has a theme (some past ones: elephants, earthquakes, Egypt…). Identifying the theme is a vital part of the defoxing process. Today’s puzzle is composed of 19 answers.
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SOLUTIONS
Last week’s defoxing party exited the chronodungeon with 73 jewels and 36 HP.
Pathfinders: Colonel_K and Viscount
Mapmakers:
v66 ylla
v67 Colonel_K
v68 Aergistal
v69 Colonel_K
v70 Viscount
w66 Colonel_K
w67 Colonel_K
w68 Colonel_K
w69 Colonel_K
w70 Nutfield, gusdownnup, ylla
x66 gusdownnup
x67 Aergistal
x68 Phlebas
x69 Aergistal, Colonel_K
x70 Nutfield
y66 Aergistal
y67 Aergistal
y68 AFKAMC
y69 Phlebas
y70 Colonel_K
z66 Colonel_K
z67 Colonel_K
z68 Colonel_K
z69 Colonel_K
z70 gusdownnup, Colonel_K
I9 SPLICE
Some opening bids
B2 – HITLER
B1 – MAIMED
J1 – HAREM
M6 – CLEAN
C7 – ZORRO
I’m struggling even to get random small words out of this one!
I’m seeing lots of Greeky/science bits, but nothing that quite adds up:
G4. PHYLLO…
C9. Diarhodon, but it should have double R (I was guessing wrongly that it’d be a dinosaur)
MONO-, PROTO-, -OID…
I’ve been trying to break up the clusters of Os and Ts, but no luck so far
I1. OKAPI
J1. HYDRA – both use the same A
J8 – ALIEN
F12 – RAID
G11 – GHEE
I8 – HALL
Nothing jumping out yet – still haven’t got one of those 8 letter words where you just know that’s right.
Anyway – work Xmas lunch for me this afternoon – hopefully some progress (but not all the progress) will have happened by the time I have another look tomorrow.
That sounds like the right sort of lunch!
D6 FRONTMAN
J3: RADIOTHERAPY
Oooh
J1 HOTLINE
I2 KISS
No idea what they have to do with radiotherapy, though!
J1 HOTLINE MIAMI?
F4 PHANTOM (or even PHANTOM OF… but no opera)
I’m wrong.
F4 PHANTOM OF THE OPERA, finishing at J2 (and ruling out RADIOTHERAPY)
Let’s not rule out RADIOTHERAPY completely, it does fit with masks: https://www.macmillan.org.uk/cancer-information-and-support/treatment/types-of-treatment/radiotherapy/masks-for-radiotherapy
IMO, with PHANTOM… on the board the bottom left corner looks distinctly unappealing
F2 DUSTMAN
Zorro, Phantom of the Opera, Hotline Miami – MASKS!
L7: LUCHADOR
ETA: Haven’t checked it fits with what’s been suggested so far.
Thought I’ve had a few, only to run foul of obviously more likely entries by others. I’ve had I9 – SPILLANE and E1 – MEDUSA.
If Phantom of the opera, luchador and hotline miami are correct, it leaves an odd bunch of
YDIM
PROT
AEH
…in the bottom left corner.
Phantom of the Opera and Radiotherapy both look too good to give up, really…
ETA: Actually H7. STANLEY IPKISS
isolates H4. V (as in V for Vendetta)
I2: Stanley IPKISS from The Mask
And shorten Phlebas’s F2. Dustman to plain DUST
But it also leaves a stray ST and L. Is the phantom an enormous red herring after all? (Still, he gave us the theme!)
Could just be PHANTOM starting at G4 and ending at F5?
It could. Still champion level sneakiness from Roman! 😀
D5: ROMAN also fits the theme
I9 – STANLEY IPKISS
G10 FACE
Might in fact be G11. GHOSTFACE – masked villain from Scream
Leaving H9 THALIA to go with Melpomene.
K4 MELPOMENE
H9 THALIA
(which means that Colonel_K is correct in starting STANLEY IPKISS at H7 rather than I9)
I9 – SPLICER (from Bioshock)
Means ylla’s and the first answer to the Hive Foxer was so close, and yet so far.
Story of my life 🙂
I was thinking of mainbraces, if anything!
E9. NOH ? – Japanese drama form
D9. DOMINO
B8 – IDIA https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benin_ivory_mask
A4. ERIK ? – the title character from Le Fantome de l’Opera
C4: VOLTO the Venetian mask
D2. DEATH
G4: PHANTO from Super Mario?
which with E9: NOH leaves G11: GHOST and G10: FACE
And I think it’s completely defoxed.
Colonel K suggested a Scream character GHOSTFACE – I think we’d have to count the answers to figure out which, and I can’t be bothered 🙂
Frontman still seems to be in there?
Yes, it must be GHOSTFACE so we have 19:
1. V
2. NOH
3. DUST
4. ERIK
5. IDIA
6. DEATH
7. THALIA
8. VOLTO
9. ZORRO
10. SPLICER
11. DOMINO
12. PHANTO
13. FRONTMAN
14. LUCHADOR
15. GHOSTFACE
16. MELPOMENE
17. HOTLINE MIAMI
18. STANLEY IPKISS
19. RADIOTHERAPY
Front Man is an antagonist in this The Squid Game thing, which is currently popular vis a vis the zeitgeist, Your Honour.
I’m moderately disappointed that Roman made no references to The Masked Singer/Dancer.