The Last of Sheila
Kevin Wald
There are eight kinds of footwear depicted. Each is seen in one photo as a left shoe and in another as a right shoe. Each is also "depicted" punnily by the shoe-shaped chair in yet another photo, using a word for the footwear in a different sense, a sense which is referred to by the term clued cryptic-style on one of the cards. These are:
- Chair hissing, with fangs and a cotton mouth: MOCCASIN, a poisonous snake, which is a VENOM-SPEWER = "mop Wes never repaired" (anagram of MOP WES NEVER).
- Chair with a stocking over its head, and a bag of swag: SNEAKER, a burglar, who is a HOUSEBREAKER = "beer mixed into rice wine within sixty minutes" (anagram of BEER inside SAKE, all inside HOUR).
- Chair chomping on a fish: SKATE, a carnivorous fish, which is a FISH-KILLER = "quiet king I surrounded with useless verbiage" (SH + K + I, surrounded by FILLER).
- Chair with a sharp stabby point: STILETTO, a dagger, which is a BACKSTABBER = "redesign of Babs' bracket" (anagram of BABS' BRACKET).
- Chair with an anti-French insignia, cursing Napoleon: WELLINGTON, the man who defeated Napoleon, who is a FRENCH-HATER = "new church hat that's donned with more ease" (N + CH + HAT that has donned FREER).
- Chair that has fallen, near a banana peel, saying "Oops!": SLIPPER, a person who slips, who is a ROYAL KLUTZ = "Lazy ol' Turk, dancing" (anagram of LAZY OL' TURK).
- Chair with its head on a pillow, snoring: LOAFER, a lazy person, who is a SLUGGARD = "galoot in Odin's realm, topless" (LUG in ASGARD with its "top" missing).
- Chair being plunged by a plunger: CLOG, a blockage, which is an OBSTRUCTOR = "fungus touching short, short Ms. Derek, upsettingly" (ROT + CURT + S + BO, reversed).
Each photo thus depicts three items of footwear: left, chair, and right. If you use the numbers below each photo (L for the left, big for the chair, R for the right) as indexes into the cryptic-clued terms corresponding to those items, you get the following sets of three letters:
| Left | Chair | Right | Numbers | Letters |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Clog | Moccasin | Skate | 8 1 4 | TVH |
| Slipper | Sneaker | Wellington | 2 4 9 | OST |
| Moccasin | Skate | Clog | 9 6 4 | WIT |
| Sneaker | Stiletto | Loafer | 1 2 7 | HAR |
| Stiletto | Wellington | Slipper | 10 8 7 | EAL |
| Loafer | Slipper | Stiletto | 2 3 1 | LYB |
| Skate | Loafer | Moccasin | 2 4 6 | IGS |
| Wellington | Clog | Sneaker | 6 1 8 | HOE |
These spell out TV HOST WITH A REALLY BIG SHOE; the answer is thus the television host who was noted for pronouncing "really big show" like that, ED SULLIVAN.