Inquisitor 87

[RossR]

Can anybody help me out with 11D? "Privileged minister accepted revolutionary hands-on therapy" (5).
(the wordplay should throw up an extraneous letter S that is discarded)

I have _O_EN

I have solved pretty well everything else, though an explanation of 17D would be nice, too.

Can anybody help?

[mad max]

11d kohen, ok backwards plus shen , s etra letter
I would also like to understand the wordplay of 17d

[RossR]

Thanks very much, mad max. I had wondered about kohen, but I had never encountered "shen".

[cancross]

For those of us with no access to the Inqisitor, a posting of 17d and the answer could generate an explanation of the wordplay. Thx!

[Rollo]

The clue is

Cryptic style learnt when taking in back of paper - characteristic of puzzle? (10)

All clues have an extra letter thrown up by the wordplay.

The solution I had (which was the only word I could find that would fit into the grid) was SLATTERNLY.

SLATTERNLY is an anagram of "style learnt" with an extra E. But what the "when taking in back of paper " bit means I don't know.

[cancross]

Thank-you Rollo. I will give it some real thought.

[bathtub]

And why should the answer be slatternly, if 'characteristic of puzzle' is the definition part? I can't help thinking we're missing some information here. I can half make a case for COHEN rather than KOHEN for the other answer. What's the preamble to the crossword and what letters (and missing letters) did you have before you arrived at the answers?

[RossR]

I don't think knowing more of the preamble would help you, the extra information we have turns up in the crossword.
There is good reason for favouring the K of KOHEN - it comes at the end of an unclued word for which the best candidate is FIREWORK.
Certainly we do now have all the missing letters, and the one for ? SLATTERNLY ? is definitely an E. Taking out its unchecked letters we have _LA_TE_NL_

Any further thoughts? Anyone?

[Rollo]

I think it is either a very clever clue which I can't totally solve, or it's a very bad clue.

There is another possible ambiguity. The first letter of 27d, which is unclued, could equally well be an S or an L.

[RossR]

I hadn't spotted that - two words that really are equally RED. That does show carelessness on the part of the setter, so maybe we are cudgelling our brains over 17D in vain.

[RossR]

Or perhaps SLATTERNLY refers to the SETTER who has carelessly included an ambiguity?