Enigmatic Variations 1640 (Hints)
Diplomatic Ties by Check
Hints and tips by The Numpties
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This is Check’s fifth crossword in the EV series. We see his compilations in the Listener, the Inquisitor and the Magpie too.
Preamble: Clues to each of the four-letter entries must have a letter removed before solving. In clue order, these spell out the name of a composition involving five contributors (one of which is two words) to be highlighted in the grid (39 cells in total, in six straight lines). To preserve DIPLOMATIC TIES, an imposter must be removed from the completed grid (five cells leaving real words, ignoring spaces). Chambers Dictionary (2016) is recommended.
That’s an intriguing device with a difference – reminiscent of Ifor’s devices and a welcome change from misprints or simple ‘extra letters in wordplay’. We highlight those four-letter entries and soon realize that those letters can come out of the definition or wordplay part of the clues. We are intrigued by the ‘diplomatic ties’, ‘composition’ with ‘contributors’ and ‘imposter’. Clearly something cryptic is hidden here. Those extra letters will be our prompt. Nothing to do but solve.
Across
16a Long stale bread’s innermost flavour extremely deficient (4)
This was one of the four-letter solutions where we needed to remove a letter from somewhere in the clue (definition or wordplay). We decided to use the ‘innermost’ of that bread and a five letter word for the flavour that had to be ‘extremely deficient’ (lose its crust, say?)
19a Endlessly breathes bad air (6)
The convention of underlining the definition part of the clue on Big Dave’s site tells you what you need to know here. We used those two indicators ‘endlessly’ and ‘bad’.
22a Tara finally exhumes adult bones (4)
The usual crossword answer for those bones. This was another four-letter solution. Two letters were spelled out for us and we clearly needed to remove a letter from the remaining word to work out how to get our answer.
26a Attorney backing father leaves (5)
We used the attorney (in brief) and an even shorter word for father – who was doing the backing.
30a Rugged Scottish liner at sea around Italy (6)
The convention in the Big Dave hints of underlining the definition will help again since it suggests that we are looking for a Scottish word – ‘at sea’ tells us what to do with the liner and Italy is so useful when we need another letter.
34a Safari animals expressed pain when captured by member of Royal Society (5)
We put a brief sound expressing pain (or surprise or sorrow) into the other letters suggested by the clue.
41a Mishandled wages curbing US soldier vagrant down under (7)
Those letters that appear so often for a US soldier in crosswords have to be ‘curbed’ by the ‘mishandled wages’ to give the Australian vagrant. (Think Waltzing Matilda!)
46a Farce not quite embracing Siemens keynote(4)
Here was another four-letter answer so we needed to extract a letter. We had to ‘back-solve’ from the fairly unusual word for the keynote to work out how the wordplay worked (of course, ‘Siemens’ gave us part of the answer).
Down
4d Float spare room lacking walls? Stupid (7)
We guessed what ‘stupid’ was suggesting to us and how to get that ‘spare room’ with no walls – bit of a strange surface reading here – you really need imagination to picture it! However, when we checked our solution word in Chambers, we realized that Check had a tough word to clue.
25d Lumberjack props up second workhorse (7)
This is a down clue so the ‘second’ goes on top of that lumberjack to give the workhorse.
28d Covering riposte’s unconventional (7)
Here is another clue where fairly evident wordplay produces an unusual ‘covering’.
33d Key function embodies programming language (6)
Think of a mathematical function and put the short form of the programming language into it. Chambers will confirm that you have the key.
The contributors were subtly embedded in answers in the grid and we found them only after establishing what the composition was, by reading what the ‘removed’ letters spelled. We didn’t find the five-letter imposter easy to spot either but, since real words would clearly be left when we removed that imposter, only one candidate appeared.
Remember to highlight those 39 well-hidden 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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Great fun and very topical. Good mix of clues. I recall a “diplomatic incident” being in the public prints quite recently so the alleged impostor was easily identified. Narrowing down the composition to its absolute essentials was less easy. I spotted 4 of the 5, including the 2 worder but then spent a while on a wild goose chase involving a very convoluted route that clearly didn’t meet the guidelines. Then the penny dropped.
Thanks to Check and The Numpties.