EV 1615 Hints

Enigmatic Variations 1615 (Hints)

First Born by Luxor

Hints and tips by Phibs

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I gather that Luxor is a new addition to the ranks of EV setters, so on behalf of all setters and solvers I welcome her to the fold. I asked Bard about the mysterious creature which we have been asked to find, and after a brief pause for thought he came up with the following:

“The creature that could be described as both like and unlike any other that had previously existed is the Ediacara biota. These organisms lived between 635 and 541 million years ago, during the Ediacaran Period. They were the first complex life forms on Earth, and they had a wide range of bizarre and unique shapes. Some Ediacara biota were flat and disc-shaped, like Dickinsonia. Others were frond-like, like Fractofusus. And still others were tube-shaped, like Charnia. Many of them were also much larger than any other animals that had lived before, with some specimens growing to be several metres long.”

Bard then went on to explain the ways in which they were like earlier creatures and the ways in which they were unlike any of them. So it could be EDIACARA BIOTA (13 letters) that we will be looking for in the grid, but you may wish to ask yourself whether if it were I would have put Bard’s response in these hints…

Preamble: Four unclued entries each describe the FIRST BORN, a creature which was both like and unlike any other that had previously existed. To resolve clashes in the grid four normally clued answers must each have one letter changed before entry, always making new words. Solvers must highlight the name of the creature in three straight lines (13 cells). Chambers Dictionary (2016) is recommended.

So all the clues are normal – I’m liking this setter already. It’s not entirely clear from the preamble whether the clashes occur between two clued answers or a clued answer and an unclued one, but the unusual phrasing suggests that it might be the latter. Anyway, unless you’ve got the Tipp-Ex® handy all entries should initially be made in pencil.

Across

15a    Fabulous hunter not active for a long time (4)
You might think that it was a familiar (in a cruciverbal context) one-letter abbreviation of a six-letter word that was to be removed from the name of a ‘fabulous hunter’, but in fact it is the less commonly seen three-letter abbreviation that is to be omitted.

34a    Arm spoilt delinquent (6)
A lot of adjectives can suggest rearrangement of the letters in another word or words, but the one used here is given by Chambers as ‘failing in duty’, which is perhaps a bit of a stretch.

35a    Initially spurned fairer maiden (5)
I’m willing to bet that quite a few solvers will seek a synonym for a word in the wordplay before getting a couple of checkers and looking up ‘maiden’ in Chambers. Of course, if you refer to Chambers first, or you already know the required meaning, then (unlike me) you won’t be one of them.

36a    Rivalry occasionally surrounding unknown pair this month in Tel Aviv (5)
The solver generally has to place a somewhat liberal interpretation on ‘select every other letter’ indicators, many of which are used in the real world only in a temporal sense (eg ‘now and then’). The ‘unknown pair’ is a pair of unknowns, and the ‘this’ should be ignored.

Down

3d    Named woman who wrote of five celebs in English national papers (4)
The wordplay is a 1+1+2 charade; four of the ‘celebs’ were juvenile and the other was canine.

4d    Existence without having succeeded at the end (3)
The three-letter abbreviation for a musical term of Italian origin has one letter changing its position.

6d    Damp squib in Edinburgh? Pity time wasted for nothing (4)
Here a single-letter abbreviation is replaced by the single-letter representation of ‘nothing’.

9d    Old Albanian gunners upset uniform in brown turned up (6)
There are two reversals involved here, the first of a two-letter abbreviation and the second of a three-letter word.

16d    Galloped over deserted moorland grass (4)
A reversal followed by a single-letter abbreviation produces a word that might not be familiar.

19d    Put cow-dung plaster on boil for some folk (4)
Almost certainly the hardest clue in the puzzle, one of those double definition clues where you may well not know either of the words which share a spelling (the second being confined to dialect, hence the ‘for some folk’). A possible cryptic wordplay would be ‘skin served up’.

24d    Teacher skipping meal consumes a second whisky after ale maybe (6)
A word which ultimately contributes four letters to the answer is in plain sight in the clue.

Definitions in clues are underlined

The question about where the clashes occur will be resolved once all the clued answers have been entered. Identifying letters in the crossing entries which could be changed while still leaving real words will then help in getting a handle on what the unclued entries might look like. Once these have been identified, locating the creature should not prove too difficult – don’t forget to highlight the 13 cells involved.

A nice set of clues, most of which were straightforward. Working out the unclued entries took a little thought, but the endgame was pleasingly unambiguous.

Phibs Toughness Rating : 🥾/🥾🥾 (Suitable for all solvers, including those new to themed puzzles)

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