EV 1664 (Hints)

Enigmatic Variations 1664 (Hints)

Downhill by Vagans

Hints and tips by The Numpties

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Dave Hennings’ Crossword Database tells us that this will be Vagans’ sixth EV crossword.  Solvers will also have met him as part of the Ovid team and maybe as part of Dash (in the Magpie). We know that we can expect clues that range through the media, music, religion, languages – in effect an immense cultural compass – and a grid that probably includes graphic features.

Preamble:  Some across answers must be entered in a thematic way to emulate a path DOWNHILL. Wordplay in each clue generates an extra letter not required for the answer; in clue order, these spell out an instruction affecting 27 cells. Chambers Dictionary (2016) is recommended. 

The preamble suggests that the theme may be my favourite sport (and I am not a mountain biker!) To create a downhill path on skis – how could the acrosses be entered in a way that might emulate the path I might take? We suspect that the instruction concerning 27 cells will be telling us that we must shade something; equipment or details of that hill? Only solving will confirm that.

Across

1a          Fancy chum at cabal offering underground wine cellar (10)
There’s an intriguing surface reading here (and, of course, the alcohol that crossword compilers almost invariably include in their clues). The word ‘fancy’ told us what to do with that ‘chum at cabal’.

14a          Scots insisted on it with nobleman held back by grip (8)
We struggled here, though the Scottish word was familiar. We combined the short words for the nobleman and the grip with ‘it’ and produced one letter too many even though we had extracted one letter for the message. Then we remembered that there are many short words that can become just a single letter.

15a        Dent missing from identikit returning image of ancestor (4)
The wordplay tells us what to do (remembering the extra letter, of course) but we had to also remember that ‘downhill path’ when we entered our answer.

17a         Frazzled hair and fur apt to be brought to life (8)
‘Frazzled’ told us what to do here and we added a word for a type of fur.

20a         Vagans has appointment with a nationalist from mountain in Crete (6)
We know that Vagans is going to be ‘I’ or maybe ‘me’. To that, remembering that extra letter, we add a short word for the appointment and the letters for a nationalist.

23a        Catfish mince smells according to Alastair  (7)
This clue was difficult for us. We didn’t know the term for this land-walking catfish or the Scottish word for a smell which the clue tells us it has (yes, Alastair prompted us that is was a Scottish word). For the ‘mince’ we used a familiar word for chopped up food.

29a         In old days bury book in wine case with front at back (6)
We were prompted that this was an old word for ‘bury’. The short word for the wine case had to be adjusted and to fit around the four-letter word for a book (this is a large, usually scholarly book according to Chambers).

33a         Deactivate surrounding nuclear discarded refuse (4)
We are told here that the word required for this ‘refuse’ is archaic (discarded).

38a         Depression in Perth: reformed Congregationalism rejecting “wicked” monstrance (6)
We need to decide which ‘Perth’ is giving us this answer, the Scottish one or the Aussie one. We usually opt for Perth, Australia as compilers have so many other potential Scottish indicators. We decide that this is a subtractive anagram.The shorter anagrammed word will be removed from the longer one (remembering that extra letter) to give us the depression. That’s a pretty complicated clue to give us just the six-letter depression!

39a         Turkish sailors look back after local girl with American child heading for Genoa (10)
Vagans gave himself a tough word to clue here! He had to reverse that short word for ‘look’ and it had to follow the ‘local girl’ and a US spelling of the offspring – and they were ‘heading for Genoa’ (yes, and the extra letter – quite a task!)

Down

2d           Amir Noah destroyed evil spirit in Persia (7)
‘Destroyed’ is a more conventional indicator than the ‘fancy’, ‘wicked’, and ‘frazzled’ already mentioned. Of course, it tells us what to do.

6d            Girl from Italy to remain with singer during afternoon (7)
We could already see a girl’s name appearing in our grid and decided that we could put it together using four small wordplay elements.

18d           Tsar with marina surprisingly at home on the Volga (9)
This answer refers to an old name for someone from that Volga region (or the Caucases or Danube areas).

19d           Old Nick aged badly lying in sun at first (5)
To produce this answer and that extra letter we needed to use the abbreviation for ‘aged’.

25d          That woman with poison that is found in raw silk (7)
We simply had to put together the usual crossword term for ‘that woman’ and a name for a poison to produce this unusual word.

36d         Maiden’s spirit is under Wisconsin lake (4)
The word for this ‘maiden’s spirit’ was new to us but Chambers tells us it comes from the ballet Giselle. The three wordplay elements told us how to put it together.

We found the wordplay of many of these clues difficult, so we have provided substantial hints. Hopefully they helped solvers to find that downhill path and to locate what they need to highlight.

Don’t forget to do what that message instructed us to do and 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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