EV 1642 (Hints)

Enigmatic Variations 1642 (Hints)

Conflict by Skylark

Hints and tips by The Numpties

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This is Skylark’s ninth crossword in the EV series. We have seen her work during the IQ and EV ladies’ months and in the Magpie and Listener.

Preamble:  28 clues contain a surplus word, which should be removed before solving. In clue order, the first letters give one person’s accusation, whilst the final letters spell out much of another’s rebuttal,  which is continued as pairs of surplus words in three other clues. In the remaining ten clues, an extra letter must be removed before solving (leaving real words): in clue order, these specify the final contents of the shaded cells. The CONFLICT has affected the initial grid, resulting in clashes in seven cells to be resolved in favour of the letters making real words and names. Chambers Dictionary (2016) is recommended.

This doesn’t sound like a lark! Skylark is giving us extra words of which we are going to use the first and last letters to produce an accusation and rebuttal, three other pairs of surplus words in three other clues, ten extra letters to be extracted, which will instruct us about three substantial shaded unclued lights and seven clashes. There’s a lot going on here – quite a challenge. Nothing to do but solve!

Across

9a          Outwardly athletic Yemen enters buning historic cab (6)
This is undoubtedly a crossword where the Big Dave convention of highlighting the definition part of the clue will be useful if you are consulting the hints. Consider here what ‘outwardly athletic’ tells you. That has to enter the ‘burning’ to give the historic word for the cab

15a         Reveal can almost name mineral (6)
The mineral was not familiar to us. We put together a familiar crossword word for a can and most of (almost) a word for ‘name’.

16a         Sesame and beet India used regularly (4)
‘Regularly’ tells us what to do in this clue. Of course, we remember that we are extracting either a letter or a word (or pair of words) from every clue.

17a         Game hiding heart of fair Greek Fate (5)
You must decide which of the three Greek Fates you need. We are still looking for a letter to extract (probably a letter we decide, here, when the clue is so succinct).

17a         Losing energy, received in rows extra disused blocks of gold (7)
Think of a word for ‘rows’ that has to lose ‘energy’. A short word for’ received goes into those ‘rows’ to give a ‘disused’ name for those ‘blocks of gold’.

21a         Urges polite rogue to relinquish old fossil (9)
‘Rogue’ suggests what we need to do here. The letters you have will give a fairly obscure word for the fossil (once the ‘old’ is relinquished).

30a         Copper and royal person, Isabella, regarding provincial senate (6)
Just two clue elements here; the first needs letters for copper, and the second a 4-letter ‘royal person’ – an obscure word.

Down

1d            English love story including feminine senior is expressible (7)
We were not sure about the ‘senior is’ in this clue but decided it was telling us that the word constructed from three wordplay elements was ‘senior’ or archaic.

3d           Elderly recognise Elizabethan drama (4)
As in the clue we examined above, we decided that the ‘elderly’ here was prompting us that the word we needed was very old.

14d          Haiti parish briefly power church’s portico (6)
To produce this portico, we needed to use a very brief ‘parish’ and an equally brief term for ‘power’.

22d         Friendlier lie’s welcomed by dim golfer finally (7)
Remembering again that we were extracting something (letter or word) from the clue, we put together three wordplay elements – ‘dim’ and the ‘golfer finally’ had to welcome the ‘lie’.

26d          Oldies that owned upright seat on elephant’s back (6)
Like the Numpties you will probably back-solve this clue from what you assume to be the answer. Chambers surprisingly confirms the first half of the word and we know that the second half will be ‘upright’.

22d         Dutch tub supporting instrument bard’s put in small bottle (5)
Remembering that we are probably removing a word helped again here. We needed a letter for Dutch and that had to ‘support’ the instrument to give that poetic word for ‘put in small bottles’. A word you are unlikely to use regularly.

Fortunately we were soon able to identify the accusation and rebuttal, which helped us to identify those surplus words (and produced a smile). We were then able to fill the unclued lights and we understood why those seven clashes had been selected.

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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