Enigmatic Variations 1662 (Hints)
Invaders by Vismut
Hints and tips by The Numpties
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This is Vismut’s twentieth EV crossword and in the seven years that she has been setting thematic cryptic crosswords, we have seen them in the IQ, EV, Listener and Magpie series. We still remember with delight her ‘Pretty Lights’ EV and know that her crosswords introduce us to activities and scenes from her home area and to literary themes.
Preamble: In 10 of the across clues an incorrect letter has pushed out the correct one; in 17 of the down clues a letter has walked away from the clue. In clue order, these incorrect and missing letters spell out some thematic names. The proliferation, unexpected appearance and (in one case) mutation of INVADERS must be dealt with so that four titular motifs and an associated thematic name can be seen (making new real-word crossing entries, including a city name). Unchecked letters in the perimeter, before any adjustments, might make CHAFF OR IDIOM. Chambers Dictionary (2016) is recommended.
This is a most unusual preamble prompting us that we will be looking for some thematic names and that these will be spelled out for us by incorrect letters in across clues and missing ones in down clues. The talk of INVADERS makes us wonder whether we are in the realms of science fiction. ‘Titular motifs’ suggests, maybe, motifs that will be appearing in the titles of works by those ‘thematic names’. Nothing to do but solve.
Across
11a Jack’s lead on condition that loud phrase played repeatedly (4)
There were three clue elements that we put together here: we needed a lead letter, a brief condition and ‘loud’ to give us that phrase played repeatedly. Remember, with many of the clues that we have chosen to give hints for, that they may be the ones where incorrect letters have pushed out the correct ones!
15a Fords way and evacuated leat close to path (7, two words)
Again we put together three clue elements: the way, the ‘evacuated leat’ and another letter.
19a Mexican descendant introducing name for gourde in windy city (7)
The ‘windy city’ comes to mind immediately but we were prompted that we had to make a letter change. The ‘gourde’ was surprising; we don’t often see it in crosswords but Chambers confirms it.
27a Incentive trapping young conservatives bare in this (8)
There were no naked young conservatives in our solution. We remembered that we were looking for those incorrect letters. The incentive might be a good one for a donkey and the young conservatives are abbreviated.
30a Inquire about rank despot (4)
We ‘back-solved’ from one of the many spellings of that despot. ‘Inquire’ had to be ‘about’.
31a A short playboy gets strong drink from Teddy (4)
We simply shortened ‘a playboy’ to get that drink.
Down
1d Surfacing with clods, fellow cad with code-breaker (7)
A reminder that in almost all of the down clues ‘a letter has walked away’. Here the ‘fellow’ was abbreviated and the ‘code-breaker’ was probably the best known of all time.
5d Allowed into river to get trike out (6)
This river appears frequently in crosswords, as does this word for ‘allowed’.
8d Ass I gain cycling around Sweden encouraging in one way (7)
‘I gain’ has to do the ‘cycling’ around Sweden to produce this somewhat one-sided type of encouraging.
13d Tense lad who cooks topped fungi clusters (5)
As in 1d, the person who cooks is a very well-known one who needed to be ‘topped’.
19d Ductile materials from Sri Lanka? Indeed so (5)
You need letters for Sri Lanka and two other clue elements to give these ‘ductile materials’.
26d Riding cop runs over delinquent’s top (3)
Just those three letters needed here and clearly that ‘running over’ gave us two of them.
29d First pars from the Abyssinian up to get some money (4)
‘Up’ told us what to do here after we had remembered that a letter was likely to have ‘walked away’.
33d All spades taken from tools potentially corrode (3)
We knew how we were going to remove more than one ‘spade’ from those ‘tools’. That suggested to us that there must be more than one spade there for starters, maybe giving us one of those 17 letters that had ‘walked away’.
Our initial assumptions were not too far off the mark but those ‘thematic names’ were unexpected and a surprise for us. Most of the perimeter of our grid wasn’t quite spelling familiar words until those ‘names’ gave the penny-drop moment and we were able to spot the ‘titular motifs’ and create a satisfactory grid with ‘new. real-word crossing entries’. As usual with a Vismut crossword, the solution produced a smile and taught us more about what had previously been just a name.
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Very enjoyable, the usurpers and absentees were often quite cunningly selected and as often as not, one “solved” the clue from its solution. The top line provided a strong hint to the theme reasonably quickly and confirmation followed as the perimeter filled. Having encountered all the invaders as a teenager the endgame motifs were straightforward – the only remaining task was to find how the thematic name slotted in and that was fairly well signalled with the City name a confirmation.
Thanks to Vismut and The Numpties.
Not only familiar with the invaders in my youth, but main subject and I born in the same place.