Friday Foxer #81

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 ‘cluster foxer’ is regarded by some as the most demanding form. Solving one involves identifying 25 pictures and five hidden themes. The enlargeable mosaic below consists of five interlocked picture clusters (some possible cluster arrangements are shown above) each with its own theme. Themes have nothing in common with each other. Don’t be surprised to find, for example, “Crocodiles”, “The Spanish Armada”, “Words beginning with “ter””, “1948” and “Fictional policemen” sharing a puzzle. A picture’s connection to a particular theme won’t always be literal. An image of the Brandenburg Gate is just as likely to be part of a “Bach” cluster as a “Berlin” one.

* * *

SOLUTIONS

Last week’s manhunt foxer:

1. A bronze Honda (AbyssUK) (Electric Dragon)

2. A speedboat next to a triangular conifer plantation (Phlebas)

3. ‘1643’ painted on a wall (Roman)

4. A triskelion on an aircraft’s vertical stabiliser (Electric Dragon, Phlebas)

5. A pub with a corvid on its sign (ylla)

6. A ‘FOR SALE’ sign erected by Quayles Estate Agency (Viscount)

7. A Station Road moggy (Phlebas) (Roman)

8. A white Rolls-Royce a stone’s throw from a golf course (Roman)

9. A Chinese restaurant with a junk on its sign (Colonel_K)

10. The words “St. Brevin Les Pins” (Roman)

11. Two lambs relaxing on the grassless verge of a hairpin bend (Colonel_K)

12. A view that includes a dog, a ride-on mower, and a prison (Roman)

13. A corpse dumped close to an industrial ruin (Phlebas)

55 Comments

  1. Sorry. I’m having to post this earlier than usual because the scheduler is on the blink. Please refrain from proffering answers until 1300 hrs BST.

  4. I thought I’d been all round the prison before I gave up on it last week, but obviously not! I didn’t think of ‘established’ dates, either – phlebas and I were both looking for something connected to the arrival of the Earl of Derby.

  9. The starting gun appears to have been jumped early so may as well weigh in (seeing as I am eating my lunch so it is lunchtime)

    Possible link for D2 and D3 – the School of Salamanca, founded by Francisco de Vitoria.

    • Loch Insh is located in Badenoch and Strathspey, so this is a group of Tory leadership candidates along with Tugdenhat.

  14. A2. (MAC’S ?) JET AIR CAR from JOE 90

    C5. I’ve found it with the text:
    “A female officer in charge of the range at the Hen women’s corps camp near Tel Aviv, Palestine, gives a demonstration in the handling of a Sten gun on June 15, 1948 in the Arab-Israeli War. (AP Photo/Public Domain)”
    so…
    ARAB-ISRAELI WAR ? / 1948 ? / STEN?

  16. B2. PENDLE PRINCESS
    (Picture on Tom Varley’s (collector of steam engines) Wikipedia page)
    1919 Garrett Steam Tractor now at Bandai’s museum in Japan

  21. E3 is some kind of equipment from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution – possibly a close-up of HOV Alvin? They work with whales.

    edit: Ah, it’s Jason rather than Alvin. Good work, ED!

  25. C1. Japanese Type-90 MBT

    completes the ’90’ group (probably) with
    A1. I-90
    A2. Joe 90
    A3. FN P90
    B1. Italia ’90

  26. Possible connection – Tasmania. Derwent is a river and Launceston is a town there.

    ETA – Salamanca Place is a neighbourhood of Hobart noted for its street market. This is more tentative because D3 is in the way and I haven’t found a Tassie connection there yet.

  27. Re: E5.
    I think this might be from a Jacob Abbott novel, Beechnut (Chapter 6 – Embellishment, part of some Franconia series). The quote would run
    “He first got a long line and a cask, and he fastened the end of the long line to the cask, and then threw the cask overboard.”
    The title character is recounting how the captain of a run-aground boat went about getting them to shore.

    • Unless D1 turns out to be yet another 90…

      E5 doesn’t really seem to fit with anything, though.

  29. Connection – John Wilkes Booth/Lincoln assassination
    After the assassination, Booth and his accomplice David Herold stopped at the house of Dr Samuel Mudd to treat the leg he injured escaping Ford’s Theater. The next day they went to the home of Samuel Cox.
    Booth was eventually tracked down and killed at the farm of one Richard H. Garrett.

  30. The way I’m seeing it at the moment, we’ve got five Tasmanian answers, but they can’t all be right without stranding C2 or D1.

    Good Clusters:

    Cluster 1 – 90s
    A1 – I-90 in Seattle
    A2 – car from Joe 90
    A3 – FN P-90 gun
    B1 – Italian 90 mascot
    C1 – Type 90 MBT

    Cluster 2 – Lincoln’s assassination
    B2 – Richard H. GARRETT
    B3 – Potomac River
    A4 – Samuel MUDD
    B4 – Samuel COX
    A5 – SURRATT HOUSE

    Unfinished/doubtful clusters:

    Cluster 3 – fabulous voyages:
    E1 – MOBY DICK
    E2 – ST BRENDAN
    E3 – JASON
    E4 – SINBAD
    Either D1 or E5

    Cluster 4 – Tasmania
    D2 – SALAMANCA rack and pinion train
    D3 – HSC Francisco – built in HOBART
    D4 – DERWENT River

    ONE OF:
    D5 – LAUNCESTON and E5 – ?Beechnut
    C3 – MONA and C2 – ?
    D1 – ? and C2 – ?

    Cluster 5 – ??Conservative candidates
    C4 – Loch Insh/BADENOCH
    B5 – Villa TUGENDHAT
    C5 – Haganah officer/Arab-Israeli War/1948

    ONE OF:
    D5 – Berkeley/Kallisto/Launceston and E5 – ?Beechnut
    C3 – Mona Monkey and D5 – Berkeley/Kallisto/Launceston
    C3 – Mona Monkey and C2 – ?

    Hopefully I’ve got the permutations right!

    • I think the two groups (90 and John Wilkes Booth’s Escape Route) are as you have them. B3. could’ve been Flight 90, but probably isn’t.

      D1 indeed finishes off the fantastic maritime journeys: ULYSSES
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulysses_%28spacecraft%29

      However, throwing things into disarray, E5. the planned sabotage of a ship is by MORDAUNT in the Dumas novel ‘Twenty Years After’

          • C2. ERROL FLYNN – film poster for The Dawn Patrol (1938), born in Hobart

            Reckoned to complete the Hobart, Tasmania group with:
            D2. Salamanca Market
            C3. MONA – Museum of Old and New Art
            D3. Incat – catamaran manufacturers
            D4. River Derwent

            Leaves (2022 Conservative Party leadership election (UK)):
            B5. Villa TUGENDHAT
            C4. Loch Insh, BADENOCH and Strathspey
            C5. Haganah officer/Arab-Israeli War/1948 <— specific link unidentified
            D5. HUNT-class mine countermeasures vessel
            E5. MORDAUNT

  31. So we need to tie in C5 to a Tory candidate.

    If she doesn’t fire the gun correctly she risks getting captured and TRUSSed up as a prisoner?
    She wouldn’t need a gun if a BRAVER MAN had taken up arms?

    I can’t even make jokey answers out of Zahawi or Sunak.

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