EV 1631 (Hints)

Enigmatic Variations 1631 (Hints)

Missing by Eclogue

Hints and tips by The Numpties

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Eclogue set crosswords for all the thematic crossword outlets. This is their sixteenth in the EV series.

Preamble: Four answers must be modified before entry to reflect an historic event. In 28 other clues there is a letter MISSING in the definition; in clue order, these letters provide a similarly thematic name (two words) and an object (three words). Once the grid is filled solvers must draw a line through 12 contiguous cells to loosely indicate the resting place of a thematic name (15 cell block which must be highlighted). Enumerations and word counts relate to grid entries. Chambers Dictionary (2016) is recommended.

We suspect that something will be ‘missing’ from four answers since that is the title and we are told that the device also uses letters ‘missing’ from definitions in 28 clues. The late Roddy Forman who guided so many of us during our setting debuts would have applauded that use of a theme in the device. We suspect that the object that we must highlight will also be somehow ‘missing’ since we are told it has a ‘resting place’. Because of that comment about enumerations, we note that some entries are going to be of a different length from the clued words (missing something?)

Across

11a         Prising trouble being surrounded by asafoetida (7)
There were two clue elements here; a short word for ‘trouble’ included in a short word for ‘asafoetida’. Remember that almost all the clues have a letter missing from the definition.

14a         Describing red plus corrupt Tory tailing vehicle (7)
Remember what ‘corrupt’ can mean (not a political opinion here!) and put that corrupt Tory behind a short word for the most common vehicle.

16a         Tooth mostly on revolutionary drawing substance (6)
Think of a word for an animal tooth and use it ‘mostly’ with the usual crossword word for a ‘revolutionary’.

18a        Get higher than in jet perhaps, as in ordinary plane (not new but ramshackle) (7)
The ‘perhaps’ tells us that the ‘jet’ here is a type of situation in which we might ‘get higher than’. The wordplay is complicated: use ‘ordinary’ and that ‘ramshackle’ plane (not new) then put a short word for ‘as’ into it.

29a        Cored then filled with black line dealt askew (9)
The convention in the Big Dave hints of underlining the definition will help here since it spells out how to use the wordplay to solve this clue. Looking up the word that is produced will possibly surprise you. It surprised the Numpties and told us what might be a missing letter,

31a        Elderly Egyptian canon’s reviewing Indian people with money (7)
Eclogue have not found it easy to get those missing letters. We struggled here to get the definition but ‘reviewed’ a short word for money and the name of Indian people from the Kerala region.

Down

1d           Part of pips to sing to troops (7)
Here we put together a word for ‘sing’ and letters for those soldiers.

3d           Blend it with prose for rection (7)
‘Blend’ told us how to deal with the wordplay of this clue.

4d            What may rout mildly in his flying across Ireland (5)
The usual letters for Ireland needed ‘his’ flying across. We needed to work out the relevance of the definition to the word this produced.

7d          Riverside cat to twist over time (7)
This kind of ‘twist’ is what you may do with your ankle and the ‘time’ is the usual crossword time. Again, we needed Chambers to explain how the answer we had fitted the definition.

19d         A number of stars upset ale cart (7)
Again the convention of underlining the definition will guide solvers to the answer.

21d         They once worked on the lad, unknown one in sulks (7)
The extra letter jumps out at the solver but the word produced by three clue elements is less obvious. You need to put together the ‘sulks’ the ‘unknown’ and ‘one’.

We found these clues challenging because of that device of a letter missing from the definitions of 28 of them. That was certainly not an easy device for the setters to use and it was surprising that most of those ‘surface readings’ of the clues were plausible. The two-word thematic object appeared quickly for us but we needed Wikipedia to give us details of the other ‘similar’ historic event.

Remember to draw that line through 12 cells and to highlight the thematic name in its block of 15 cells. 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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