EV 1620 (Hints)

Enigmatic Variations 1620

Land Race by Kruger

Hints and tips by The Numpties

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There is no need to introduce Kruger whose very first EV crossword appeared on this day (December 10th) 28 years ago – quite an achievement! We always find his crosswords tough and this one was no exception but, as usual, we had to admire the skill of the setter.

Preamble:  Wordplay in every clue yields an extra letter not to be entered in the grid. Taken in clue order, these letters give an event involving a LAND RACE and when it occurred. Losses suffered in the LAND RACE are represented in the grid in two ways. Solvers must delete the contents of ten cells (in two lines showing relevant names) and eight further individual cells; one letter in a name does double thematic duty. Ignoring the amended cells, the final grid contains only real words, proper nouns or phrases. Chambers Dictionary (2016) is recommended.

We were, of course, intrigued by and suspicious of that LAND RACE and that it led to losses. We though back to Formula One events and to Malcolm and Donald Campbell (I remember watching him with Bluebird on Coniston Water over fifty years ago – but, of course that was the race to beat the water speed record – and he and Bluebird were ‘lost’ there). However, the preamble’s requirement for thematic deletions suggests that there were eleven losses. Clearly we had to find that message to identify the event and its date. Nothing to do but solve.

Across

5a           Superficially nourishing iberis upset stomachs of Victorians (7)
That ‘Victorians’ is always tricky. Are we looking for a word my granny used or one they would understand in Melbourne? ‘Superficially’ tells us how to use the word ‘nourishing’ and we had to ‘upset’ the iberis and remember to extract an extra letter. I don’t think my rather stiff-backed granny would have appreciated the word.

14a           Teddy boys from Perth finding silver in trunks (7)
As above, and like East London, Perth produces ambiguity that crossword setters love to exploit. The trunks, here, are not large wooden cases full of that silver (two letters) and I don’t think many Scots would recognise this lovely evocative word for the teds.

17a          Squash and spoil Chinese dish (6)
It is convenient that there are no unches in this solution – the unusual word appears in the grid. We needed to back-solve to recognise the word for ‘squash’ remembering that extra letters are extracted. Chambers, in its second definition of the other part of the answer, gave us a word that came originally from US slang.

23a        Lord contacts place near Harrow for banquet (6)
Kruger needed that ‘place near Harrow’ to produce his extra letter. A banquet is a fairly prestigious version of the solution.

36a         Judge told to clean and maintain area of dock perhaps (7, two words)
‘Told’, here, is a homophone indicator. We thought of cleaning and maintaining horses to give us the second word of the solution.

39a        Without money, simple entertainment provides mirth for bard (6)
We are told that the ‘money’ has to go and we know that we need to extract another letter from the wordplay. We were surprised when Chambers confirmed that a word that was left could be ‘entertainment’ for the bard.

Down

1d           Catacomb displayed no ordinary mix of metals (6)
The convention of underlining the definition in crossword hints is sure to help many solvers who may well never have encountered this curious answer word. Where does Kruger find such gems? ‘Displayed’ tells us what to do in the wordplay and we remember that we need an extra letter in the clue (no ordinary letter!).

2d          Turk vandalised Mona Lisa (7)
The comment on the above clue applies here except that it’s ‘vandalised’ that tells us what to do.

8d         Way to save non-OU splendid academic introductions (8)
This was a tough clue. We needed three letters for a ‘way to save’, then an eight-letter synonym of ‘splendid’ has to produce an extra letter and become ‘non-OU’.

20d         Not strictly belonging, one local saucy call-girl’s apprehended (8)
The wordplay here was tough too. We are used to the ‘one local’ but needed a rather ‘non-U’ set of three letters for the ‘call-girl’ and that term was ‘apprehended’ by a word for ‘saucy’ from which we had to cull that extra letter.

25d         Clean ruler regularly dirtied in desk (7)
‘Dirtied’ is the word that guides us in this clue and, again remembering to extract a letter, we are instructed how to get the seven letters of the desk.

27d        Briefly suffering, friend erected a shelter from sun (6)
It is the friend we ‘erect’ here rather than the shelter. The extra letter has to come from that ‘brief’ suffering.

The preamble had suggested to us that we might be looking for two (probably five-letter) names and that one of these would contain that letter doing ‘double duty’ – giving a total of eleven thematic deletions. Thematically these eleven deletions were to represent losses. We needed the message produced by the extra letters to decipher for us the LAND RACE and ‘when it occurred’. Of course, when we had done the deleting, we were pleased to see those real words that were left. The mark of a master.

Do please send in your entry and add your comments here and to the setters’ blogs that are appearing on Big Dave’s site on Thursdays and to the detailed blogs that also appear on Thursdays on  fifteensquared.

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