EV 1633 (Hints)

Enigmatic Variations 1633 (Hints)

18dn by Botox

Hints and tips by Phibs

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My favourite children’s comic ‘back in the day’ was Wham!, and unfortunately for those around me I still recall many of the jokes which were printed at the bottom of its pages (eg Q: What did the greengrocer say when he sold his last onion? A: That shallot!). The first few issues were largely the work of Leo Baxendale, whose creations included the memorable Grimly Feendish. Where am I going with this? Well, a mad (as they invariably were) scientist who appeared in an early strip was called Professor Botulinus Toxin, a name which stuck firmly in my mind. Are our setters (for Botox is bicephalous) also Wham! fans, I wonder, and just how feendish will this puzzle turn out to be?

Preamble: 18dn hints at the theme in different ways. “Joint” clues contain a definition of the entry plus wordplay that leads to an answer that differs by one letter. The letters to be used in the grid anagram to a collaborator of the (unclued) person, initially named in a string of cells touring just over half of the perimeter from 2. To create the final grid, the name must be changed to its new four-word form, a bar added in the bottom row and one answer replaced by a thematic two-word synonym which must be highlighted in the colour spelled out by the six unused letters from the Joint clues. In the process, 60 per cent of the clued answers become new entries (including one proper noun). Chambers Dictionary (2016) is recommended

Quite a lot to take in there, but as far as the grid fill goes all we need to concern ourselves with is the ‘Joint’ clues, each of which produces two separate words. So in the clue ‘Halt square dance (4)’, the wordplay would lead to SHOP [S + HOP] and the definition to STOP [‘halt’]; the grid entry would be STOP, the letter forming part of the anagrammed collaborator would be T, and the letter contributing to the colour would be H.

We can see that there are 30 clued answers in total, so 18 are going to undergo some sort of change during the endgame.

Joint

5    Cut off Member of Parliament cycling (3)
The first and third words in the wordplay are deceptively capitalized, and while the required sense of ‘parliament’ is described by Chambers as ‘little-used’ it will probably be known to most solvers.

Across

6a    Bairn with skin not right on toes? It’s swelling (10)
A two-letter form of the Scots word for a grandchild is followed by a [5-1] element and an anagram, indicated by ‘on’ with its meaning of ‘on the way to being drunk’.

12a    Force one to get fruit to cover tree, putting foot in it (9)
The fruit leads to a generic four-letter term, while the four-letter tree is an Indian one which may not be familiar – note that the foot isn’t put in the tree, it’s put after it. The presence of an object in the definition suggests that the answer is an intransitive verb, but it is actually transitive, a possible synonym being ‘mollycoddle’. Don’t forget that in barred puzzles hyphenated solutions are treated as single words for enumeration purposes, so KNIFE-EDGE would be shown as ‘(9)’.

16a    Outstanding tenor joins Domingo & Pavarotti? (4)
A 3+1 charade (the ‘joins’ after ‘tenor’ has the same effect as ‘joined by’ would have before it). The question mark indicates a definition by example.

17a    Like 14 old dons collectively, one goes far (9)
This charade comprises elements of 2, 4 and 3 letters, the last being the abbreviated name of a trade union which was dissolved in 2006 (hence the ‘old’).

23a    In the past, discharge two thirds of hiccup (4)
The ‘hiccup’ here is of the sort which might affect a piece of technology, being a term which was originally applied to a momentary variation in voltage.

26a    Ancient Italian family’s sign on beach at Monaco? (6)
The whimsical wordplay in this clue leads to a (3,3) phrase, of which the first word is English, informal, and the second is French, basic.

29a    Potentially the second or fourth man (4)
The anagram fodder here includes an single-letter abbreviation.

Down

1d    Heartlessly attempt to secure surplus rope (8)
The attempt and the surplus both lead to nouns, of five and four letters respectively.

3d    Old-timer’s wonderful child understands a lot of illicit drugs (6)
In the interests of his own wordplays, Shakespeare did use ‘understand’ to mean ‘stand under’, but these days a ‘separate and swap’ operation is necessary to achieve the sense required here.

10d    Go, then with jets (when stripped) use this? (5)
This is a clue of the type which Ximenes termed an ‘offshoot &lit’, where the whole of the clue stands as a definition of the answer while only part of it constitutes the wordplay, his example being ‘What a bishop may have had before getting a crook’ for PREBEND (PRE + BEND). Here the first six words provide the two elements (in a 3+2 pattern) that make up the answer.

13d    Hand over church bunting? (5)
The definition in this two-element charade might not satisfy an expert in the relevant sphere, but the Chambers entry will reassure you that you’ve got the correct answer.

20d    Error to board primitive locomotive at terminus of Paddington? (6)
The components of this clue are craftily disguised, although the underlining should help when breaking it down. The two-letter fragment indicated by ‘primitive’ is a prefix rather than a word, and ‘terminus’ should be interpreted as ‘end’.

Definitions in clues are underlined

The ‘touring’ person’s name has over half its letters checked, and offers one way into the endgame; the anagram of the six ‘Joint’ clue letters that weren’t provided by the wordplay supplies another potential route (it was fortunate that 23 was included or the remaining five could have given us a very different collaborator). Having established the subject, the required changes (don’t forget the extra bar) are likely to prove straightforward, and you should be able to count 18 new words, including the one formed by the addition of the bar. The end of the road is reached by highlighting that ‘two-word synonym’ in the requisite colour.

A puzzle with generous dollops of thematic material that demanded no giant mental leaps at any point.

Phibs Toughness Rating : 🥾🥾🥾 (Some tricky clues, but suitable for all except barred puzzle novices)

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