Enigmatic Variations 1652
Disappearing by Piccadilly
Hints and tips by The Numpties
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It is a pleasure to solve a crossword by Piccadilly who has been setting them for 35 years and EVs since 1995. Of course he sets for the Listener and Magpie too. We can be sure that his clues will be fair and generous and that we will smile now and then, and learn something new as we solve.
Preamble: From each answer one letter must be omitted wherever it occurs. The DISAPPEARING letters, in clue order form an appropriate quotation (in ODQ). Numbers in brackets refer to grid entries; Chambers Dictionary (2016) is recommended.
Of course the need to enter each answer with a letter (or even two or three letters) missing gives the solver difficulty, since real words are not appearing in the grid to help with progress and we need to intersect potential answers to work out which letter is omitted. Sometimes, the difference between the clue answer and space in the grid will prompt us that two or even three letters are omitted. We hope that a quotation about some form of disappearing will appear as we solve and help us on our way. Nothing to do but solve.
Across
6a Guide Roman orator to centre of Annecy (6)
The name of a Roman orator and what is evidently at the heart of Annecy went together to produce a word for a guide that we didn’t know.
14a Rock cavities regularly seen in caves during a visit (3)
The solver is faced with a problem here. The answer is spelled out but we need to ‘get’ the quotation in order to see which letter to enter in the unclued light.
15a One in Berlin conceals shelter for woman (3)
We are suspicious here. We need far more than three letters to put a familiar short word for ‘shelter’ within a German ‘one’ to produce what must be her name.
32a Ancient minstrel and son followed by police officer (3)
Crossword solvers are undoubtedly familiar with this term for a minstrel. The wordplay spells it out.
34a Give pound to behold sculptor (7)
Mrs Bradford’s Crossword Solver’s Dictionary includes this sculptor’s name. We used a word for ‘give’, an abbreviation for ‘pound’, and a short word for ‘behold’.
35a Toolmaker shows collection of data on motor launch (9)
We added together the word for that ‘collection of data’ and the one for a ‘motor-launch’. That gave us a hyphenated word for the ‘toolmaker’.
Down
2d Old money keeps university lecturer in luxury (7)
What a fine clue – even if a university lecturer would question its veracity. We put a pair of letters for him into an abbreviation for ‘old’ and a word for money (not much, sadly!)
3d Young woman reserves vehicle for oriental sailors (5)
A very familiar word for the young woman has to ‘reserve’ the most familiar word for a vehicle.
4d Nothing cryptic clues included lead to locating eye-spot (6)
Rather odd clue grammar here! We broke it up into ‘nothing’, a cryptic form of ‘clues’ and the ‘lead to locating’.
9d Secured 25% of gamblers’ money (4)
This word for money is a slang term. We used a short term for ‘secured’ and added 25% of gamblers to it.
10d Flair getting a new mineral (5)
Three wordplay elements; a short word for ‘flair’ followed by ‘a’ and ‘new’.
19d Have sex with priest, singer in cathedral (7, two words)
Really! We smiled at this. A couple of familiar words for ‘have sex with’ and ‘priest’ were put together.
21d The old reveal value in exercising (6)
The underlining of the definition prompts that you are looking for an out-dated word for ‘reveal’, not just healthy advice from oldies but a prompt about the ‘exercising’ needed to produce the answer.
24d Pondered initially difficult Enigmatic Variations leisurely on counter (6)
‘Counter’ suggests what we will do when we have collected some initial letters and a word for ‘on’.
29d Young horse attached to edges of exterior part of Scottish plough (5)
Here’s another unusual technical term. We used a term for the young horse and the ‘edges’ of ‘exterior’.
Spotting a significant word in the quotation that was appearing was the ‘break-through’ moment for us. It was well-worth focussing on that quotation and we needed it to tell us which letter to put in some of the cells.
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Nice to have a straightforward EV with such carefully written clue surface reading. Clever too how one needed a number of answers before any letters could be entered into the grid.
Now back to the climax of Tour de France.
Thx to Piccadilly and the Numpties.
A straight-forward brief, but deceptively tricky. Tackled it in the end and I learnt something new with the quote. Always happy to acquire ever more obscure knowledge. Thank you Piccadilly and for hints courtesy of The Numpties. 👍
I really enjoyed the jigsaw element of slotting everything in the grid. A rare occasion when I didn’t need the hints to get going. Some of the clues were fiendish and very clever. Last one in was 33a…just couldn’t see it.
Not a fan of grid gibberish but I enjoyed this. A great boon that the clues overall were so generous and included a lot of anagrams, compensating for the missing letters. I’m sure we did the quotation’s source for Eng Lit O-level but I had no memory of it.
Thanks to Piccadilly and The Numpties, especially for the parsing of 24d which defeated me.