EV 1659 (Hints)

Enigmatic Variations 1659 (Hints)

Problem by Eclogue

Hints and tips by Phibs

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Keen to offer ChatGPT a chance for redemption, I asked, “Can you suggest some problems from literature to which the answers have ten letters?”

The response was confident, and began thus:

Certainly! Here are some problems from literature where the answer has ten letters:

Treasure Island – The main problem: Where is the treasure?
Answer: Skeleton

Frankenstein – The problem: Who is the real monster?
Answer: Frankenstein

Moby-Dick – The problem: What is Ahab hunting?
Answer: Whale Hunt

Hamlet – The problem: Who is responsible for the ghost’s murder?
Answer: Claudius

…and so on, but you’re probably getting the idea by now. All ten suggestions contained between 7 and 12 letters, but not one had exactly 10, which made ChatGPT’s assertion that “These answers have exactly ten letters and are central to the problems in the respective works of literature” seem like a slight stretch.

Preamble: Reading clockwise from the top left corner is the first line of a PROBLEM (in ODQ, with a change of article) followed by the ‘setter’, the solution to which is the unclued entry. Unchecked letters in the perimeter could provide FRAN FRONTS BLUFFS. Clues are provided in alphabetical order of their answers, which should be entered wherever they will fit. Eight clues each contain an extra word. The length of each answer in this group will provide the index to use when extracting a letter from its extra word. In clue order these letters spell out the source of the theme. Chambers Dictionary (2016) is recommended.

We have a jigsaw to assemble, but with the benefit of bars and answer lengths. We also have four ten-letter words, and they intersect at the centre of the grid in a way that means that if we can get just two of them we have a good chance of being able to position them with reasonable confidence, and if we can get all three of the clued entries we should be able to place each one with certainty. The clues being presented in alphabetical order of solutions is always a help – not only does it mean that the early answers will begin with early letters of the alphabet and so on, but also that if, say, the answer to the seventh clue is CHIPS and the ninth is COD, the eighth answer lies alphabetically within the small range between them. Make sure to write all the answers against the clues, even if you can put them straight into the grid, because they may help you with a nearby clue. Eight clues contain an extra word; if the extra word were REDUNDANT and the length of the answer to the clue were four letters, then we would extract the fourth letter of REDUNDANT, giving us a U to put towards the source of the theme. Note that if you think you have found, for instance, an extra six-letter word in a clue for a seven-letter answer, you need to think again.

Having solved the puzzle, I will make two observations. Firstly, in puzzles where there are no across or down clues (such as Eightsome Reels), convention suggests that all clues should be treated horizontally (ie they produce an answer, and that answer is then deployed in the grid); in this puzzle, however, indicators specific to down entries have been used – where they occur, you therefore know that the answer is to be entered vertically in the grid. Secondly, I usually stress that the extra words are such that they must be removed before the ‘extra word’ clues can be solved; technically, this is true here, but you might find yourself wondering on a couple of occasions whether the clue could be solved as it stands.

Clues

*  Comedian Ed securing one old Scottish breastplate (6)
Regular solvers may have come to expect that ‘Ed’ will be the name given to Edmund Spenser by his Elizabethan chums rather than – as here – that of a modern-day Irish actor, writer and comedian.

*  Short, sharp head of guards lifting creep (4)
‘Short, sharp’ indicates a word meaning ‘sharp’ (as a blade might be) which has been deprived of its last letter. This is one of those answers whose orientation in the grid can be immediately established.

*  Medicine for women to give birth in theatre to young on vacation, then coming round (5)
The ‘in theatre’ here indicates that the word (of three letters) meaning ‘to give birth’ is attributed by Chambers to the Bard (although in fact it is a derivative, meaning a young lamb, which seems to owe its existence to him). You might think that the word ‘then’ must be removed, and it is indeed best ignored, but since it only has four letters and the answer is five letters long it cannot be an ‘extra’ word as such.

*  Harry, say and Henry timing Hebrew measure (5)
Another present-day celebrity pops up at the start of this clue, a UK citizen currently plying his trade in Germany; ‘Henry’ is deceptively capitalized, since in the cryptic reading it must be interpreted as ‘henry’.

*  Southpaw, perhaps, almost dropped in return match (6)
‘Almost dropped in return’ means that a word meaning ‘dropped’ must have its last letter omitted and then be reversed. Here the ‘perhaps’ might seem to be an extra word candidate, given the Chambers definitions of ‘southpaw’ and the answer, but it isn’t.

*  Overturned menagerie that is starting to rot is more leaky (6)
Three elements in a 3+2+1 pattern contribute to the answer, the last rather surprisingly using ‘starting to’ as a cryptic expression meaning ‘the first letter of’.

*  Lear, for instance, above docked navy (4)
The capital required at the start of a sentence conceals the fact that we are not looking at a Shakespearean king or a Limerick writer, in fact not at a proper noun at all – if you don’t know the word, Chambers will help you.

*  Remarkable mobile phone marks indicating passage in retrospect (10)
One word doesn’t belong in this clue that involves wordplay elements of 5, 1 and 4 letters respectively.

*  Unconventional system that’s wrong (6)
You should ignore “that’s” and focus on the other two words in the wordplay, each of which leads to a three-letter synonym.

Definitions in clues are underlined

Two of the ten-letter answers were the result of straightforward anagrams, and the third (hinted above) was not too difficult. I started by getting just the two anagrams and being able to enter the answers straight into the grid (in pencil, as always) with a high degree of confidence. Generally speaking, the other clues were pretty tractable, and the grid fill proceeded steadily. The first thing I worked out was the unclued answer, which was of no help whatsoever. The ‘source’ proved equally disobliging, but I could guess the first few words of the message and, most importantly, the name of the ‘setter’ at the end. A quick bit of googling then enabled me to sort everything out to my satisfaction.

A grid (and clues) without numbers can be a little daunting, but as long as the clues are not too chewy and there is a way to get started on the grid fill, then the gimmick is more likely to slow you down a bit than to stop you in your tracks. This was a puzzle where part way through I was asking myself, “That’s the answer, now what’s the question?”, with the complete question being the last piece to fall into place. Strangely, none of ChatGPT’s suggested answers turned out to be correct.

Phibs Toughness Rating : 🥾🥾🥾 (The ‘jigsaw’ construction adds to the difficulty, but all except perhaps beginners should find it doable)

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