First of all, I see the word 16 16 9 17 9
near the top right. Words starting with double letters are rare, and the only English word which fits this is LLAMA. That gives us:
Then in the upper middle we have a 3-letter word 16 11 11
, which must be either LEE or LOO. There are no 6-letter words beginning with AO and ending with A, so it must be LEE, giving:
Now we have 13 9 7 9
near the top right and 9 13 9 11
on the right-hand side, leading me to the conclusion that these are RAMA and ARAE. So:
The word A R 6
in the top left must be ART or ARC or ARK (since E and M are taken). The relative frequency of 6, as well as the words 12 6 E M
and 6 R A 21
in the lower right and E R A 6 7
in the upper right, suggests that:
Then E R A 6 7
must be ERATO (and 7 6 7
in the middle is OTO), giving:
And 12 T E M
in the lower right must be STEM, giving:
The combination of S E 3 S E
at the top and M A 3 3 E R
at the bottom right makes me quite sure that:
Now the combination of 23 E N N 5
at the bottom and T R O 5
in the middle makes me quite sure that:
The words R 2 M
in the middle and 10 20 N 20 R
on the right tell me that 2 and 20 are both vowels, so they must be I and U in some order. The word T 8 A 20 N
on the right, as well as the relative frequencies of 2 and 20, gives:
At this stage I finally solved the cryptic clue:
Amusing key glues crazy = FUNKY (FUN+KY ~ crazy), so
Mopping up several in quick succession: 22 E F F E R S O N
is obviously JEFFERSON, F R E U 19
is obviously FREUD, E I F F E L T O 8 E R
is obviously EIFFEL TOWER; 10 R I E F
could be either BRIEF or GRIEF, but T U R I N 10
makes clear which one. So:
8 = W
10 = G
19 = D
22 = J
Now A G N E S A R 14 E R
must be AGNES ARBER and D I 18 K E N S
must be DICKENS and F L I 21
must be FLIP and A G A T 23 A
must be AGATHA, so:
14 = B
18 = C
21 = P
23 = H
Finally, 15 O C A L P O P
must be VOCAL POP, so:
And the final solution is:
A G N E S A R B E R V
R A L E E E R A T O
T U R I N G L M A C
T S I L L A M A
D I C K E N S A L
E L A E F L I P
G R I E F O T O N O
O F I R A R U M P
J E F F E R S O N T
I D F U N K Y T O W N
M E D I A A R A E
B A E L C G I N I R
A G A T H A N A N O
B D O E S T E M
B R O W N A R E V E
O W E N M A N N E R
E N R Y E P A T E R
with the letters appearing in the following numerical order:
F U N K Y T O W A G E S R B V L M C D I P J H (with Q, X, Z not present).