EV 1669 (Hints)

Enigmatic Variations 1669 (Hints)

Strip Tease by Kcit

Hints and tips by Phibs

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I asked ChatGPT, “Can you suggest some nine-letter words that might be linked to a theme of Strip Tease?”

The response (with a couple of the suggestions removed for the sake of brevity rather than decency) was:

“Here are some nine-letter words that could be linked to the theme of strip tease:

Burlesque – a form of entertainment that often includes striptease acts.
Nightclub – a common venue where striptease performances take place.
Seduction – an act closely tied to the theme of striptease.
Choreography – the planned movements in a striptease routine.
Revealing – an action that occurs during a striptease, as clothing is removed.

Each of these words ties into the environment, performance, or emotions connected to striptease.”

I’ll be a little surprised if Kcit’s ‘thematic nine-letter word’ turns out to be CHOREOGRAPHY, unless of course he got ChatGPT to produce this crossword.

Preamble: Only rows and columns with more than one bar have those bars indicated. Clues to these words are normal. All other rows and columns are STRIPs and contain one or two entries (an entry may be a two-word phrase) with a total length of thirteen letters. As a TEASE, these are clued in random order – where there are two entries their clues have been run together, with the leftmost or topmost coming first. Solvers must add bars so that the final grid retains 180° symmetry. Finally, solvers must highlight a thematic nine-letter word. Answers to clues in obelised strips not found in Chambers Dictionary (2016), which is recommended, are in Collins.

So we’ve got fourteen normal clues, the answers to which can go straight into the grid at their appointed locations. The rest of the grid is going to be populated using pairs of answers supplied by double clues. The two halves of these clues will not overlap, and they will have no superfluous words in the middle, so one half must be solved and (I would suggest) a vertical line drawn through the clue to identify what is left over for the other part. The setter has kindly arranged for the first half of each double clue to provide the first of the two grid entries. There is little to be gained by trying to guess where the break comes, because the setter, like Ernie Wise before him, will have tried his hardest to make sure that you can’t see the join.

If we can solve a good proportion of the normal clues, we will have checkers in some if not all of the ‘strips’, which means that even if we solve just one part of a strip we may be able to position the answer in the grid. Two things to bear in mind: if the answer to one half of a strip is n letters long, the length for the other half will be (13-n); and 180° rotational symmetry must be maintained, so if the answer to the first half of the top row is five letters long, you can put a bar after it in the grid along with a matching bar in the bottom row following the eighth cell, so a 5/8 split in the top row is matched by an 8/5 split in the bottom row (similarly for rows 2/12, 3/11 etc, with exactly the same principle applying to columns). Don’t forget also that some strips will have just a single clue, leading to a 13-letter word or a two-word phrase; the entry in the central column must be one of these, because any bar in the top half of that column would have had to be mirrored in the bottom half, thus producing three lights.

Across

5a  Line of hair, line displayed by second big shot (8)
The wordplay has a three-letter ‘line’ following a two-letter ‘second’ and a three-letter ‘big shot’, or person of high social rank.

11a  Reversing routine with favourite hospital purgative (7)
The routine is the tedious sort that it may be hard to break out of, while the ‘favourite’ is a cryptic staple.

Down

1d  Show quantity of light left on top (7)
One of those ‘missing comma’ clues, here between ‘light’ and ‘left’, since the second wordplay element is to be put on top of the first.

2d  Property once housing rook not combined (4)
The three-letter word with an obsolete meaning of ‘property’ is still very much with us in the sense of ‘the price paid for services’.

9d  Animal groupings excluding quiet tree frog (4)
A clue where neither the key wordplay element (which must be deprived of a single letter) nor the answer may be familiar, potentially making things tricky without any crossers. An alternative wordplay would be ‘happily vacated Californian city’.

13d  Carriage horse flicking tail up? (4)
It is a particularly graceful and speedy type of horse whose ‘tail’ must rise slightly.

Strips (the component parts of the double clues are referred to below as ‘first clue’ and ‘second clue’)

*  Again stir up and hinder river, French river, as in stirring Loire, ultimately
The key to the first clue here is establishing that ‘hinder’ is not a verb. The watercourse in that half  is more t’river than le fleuve.

*  Antique visor to survive atop a new Dutch furniture item
There’s only one definition to underline here, and a 6+4+1+1+1 charade involving two single-letter abbreviations. You may well not know the obsolete (‘antique’) word for a visor, but if you can get the last seven letters of the answer you should be able to work back to it.

*  British with ploy to have Italy investing in pound, start to report about Italy needing a source of increased concentration?
In the first clue, ‘to have Italy investing in’ simply indicates the insertion of a single letter; in the second, ‘about Italy’ yields the major wordplay element.

* Finished day with good deal in NY – American thermal underwear finally accepted in Carnegie’s offer and left where underwear was often dispensed with?
The first clue is a 2+1+4 charade leading to an answer which can be found in Collins but not Chambers. In the second clue, the four-letter element corresponding to “Carnegie’s offer” could also have been defined as ‘to portend’.

* Old Nick brooded – an idiot mostly runs from Nick to get support
The tricky bit here is identifying where the first clue ends – it might appear to finish with ‘an’ (and it would be a perfectly sound clue for a different word if it did), but it doesn’t. The first Nick is definitely the Devil; while the second could also be he, it could equally well be ‘nick’ as in “it’s just a little nick”.

* Post legislation, leading party member reckoning for Scots to adapt to Indian religion after one is in operation
The first word of the first clue can be ignored, and ‘leading party member’ should be interpreted as ‘member of the party in office’. Unlike that ‘Post’ in clue 1, the ‘after’ in clue 2 is essential to the wordplay, leading directly to a four-letter chunk of the answer.

Definitions in clues are underlined

Having slotted the ‘strips’ into place, a search for the thematic word will probably be required. When you find it, you will see that it’s been positioned in the best place to stop it emerging prematurely during the grid fill. Having highlighted the word, remember to check that all the bars have been added.

The meat of this puzzle lay in the ‘strip’ clues and the entry of their answers. I asked Gemini the same question as ChatGPT, but most of his suggestions were more than nine letters – I think I’ll have to include ‘exactly’ in similar future enquiries. I thought ChatGPT had a good stab at it, despite ultimately being defeated by Kcit’s facetiousness.

Phibs Toughness Rating : 🥾🥾🥾 (All the difficulty lies in solving the clues)

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