EV 1674 (Hints)

Enigmatic Variations 1674 (Hints)

Bang! by Chiffchaff

Hints and tips by Phibs

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Firstly, I would like to wish all EV solvers a very happy Christmas. ‘Tis the season when the sort of ‘jokes’ that I tell all year round are briefly back in fashion (of a sort). Oh yes, I know that Good King Wenceslas likes his pizzas deep pan, crisp and even; that snowmen go to the greengrocer’s to pick their noses; and that when Santa tried to sell Dancer and Prancer on eBay there were no takers because they were two deer…

I asked both ChatGPT and Gemini, “What is the best Christmas cracker joke you know?” ChatGPT replied:

Why was the turkey at the Christmas party so tired?
Because it was stuffed!

Classic cracker humor! [sic] 🎄

There’s a Two Ronnies sketch where Ronnie Barker remarks, “Just one of my little jokes. I wish I could think of a big one.” Indeed.

Gemini had an alternative suggestion:

Here’s a classic Christmas cracker joke:

What do you call a lazy kangaroo?
… A pouch potato!

Want another one?

No thanks, but that’s actually not bad. Ladies and gentlemen, I think we have a winner.

Preamble: Clues are in alphabetical order of their answers, to be entered where they will fit: some entries require one of their cells to contain two letters. Three clues yield entries which answer a question, and three others (clued by wordplay only) yield entries which are possible prizes. Remaining clues have an extra word (of four or more letters, to be removed before solving): second and penultimate letters of these yield respectively another question and a wordplay-only clue to another prize, answers to both of which also form entries. The completed grid must be (theoretically) pulled, by drawing a continuous zigzag line so that letters sharing a cell are on either side. The final prize can be seen going to the traditional winner of this seasonal contest; solvers must create their own version by colouring it in, as well as the column to its left. Enumerations give answer lengths. Chiffchaff hopes the puzzle goes with a BANG!

Well, that was quite a preramble. Three clues take the form of questions, and three others consist of wordplay only; when we solve these, we should mark them, perhaps with Q for question or P for prize. Every other clue has an extra word, which we need to note. What’s more, we need to write each answer next to its clue even if we can fit it straight into the grid , because the alphabetical sequence of the answers may help us with a neighbouring clue – if clue 5 leads to DANCER and clue 7 to DASHER, we know that the answer to clue 6 is alphabetically between the two.

Before starting on the clues, it’s worth taking a look at the grid. If it represents what we think it does (Frank Carson would have put his finger on it immediately), the theoretical pulling is going to affect the middle section, so it’s probably safe to say that the ‘wings’ can be filled in normally There are two five-cell lights, but just one five-letter answer and one six-letter answer; we can assume that the five-letter answer goes into the five-cell light to the right side of the grid and that two letters of the the six-letter answer will share a cell of the light that is largely within the central section. Since there are no two-cell lights, all of the the three-letter answers will be entered normally.

One more thing: as the solve progresses, even before we can guess at the complete messages we may be able to filter out some extra words from unsolved clues. If the second letters of a series of extra words give us SLE?GH, we can be pretty sure that the extra word in the remaining clue will have an ‘I’ in position two, which should enable us to identify it.

Clues (numbered for reference only)

2  Contracts Libby to lead short Christmas revelling (8)
The words ‘to lead’ simply indicate that another diminutive of the name Elizabeth precedes the second wordplay element. ‘Revel’ can mean ‘to make merry in a riotous manner’, which suggests disturbance.

3  Flipping upset with duck, rook and robin abandoning saveloys in excavated hole (9, two words)
The first word of the wordplay describes a manipulation to be applied to elements of 3, 1, 1, 1 and (5 minus 2) letters, all grouped together. With ‘extra word’ clues it’s a good plan to look for words which rarely appear in cryptic clues, and there’s one here that I that can’t recall ever coming across before.

4 Tot stabs dancing host – it could make a point (8)
The ‘tot’ in the wordplay needs to be interpreted as ‘a very small quantity of liquid’, and the ‘make’ in the definition as ‘gain’ or ‘score’. Don’t forget that in puzzles like the EV hyphenated answers are enumerated as single words, so PLUM-PUDDING would be shown as ‘(11)’.

7  Noel’s last pollock feeds bouncy sea lion for Joy (4)
My goodness, a blast from the past – in the 1960s, Friederike Victoria Adamson was known as Joy to the world, but I suspect it’s only those ‘of a certain age’ who will know the name of the lion cub that she raised.

9  Eruptions may come from this panto’s content: English soloist keeled over! (4)
I’m not convinced about the validity of ‘content’ (rather than ‘contents’) to indicate that all but the first and last letter of a word should be selected, but that’s what happens to produce the main element of the wordplay here.

16  One thanks star briefly ascending for Greek offerings from ancient Rome (8)
Those who know what the trois Rois mages were following will be at an advantage when it comes to the word which must be shown ‘briefly’ (ie without its last letter) and ‘ascending’ after a couple of smaller elements. The underlining of the definition leaves the extra word somewhat exposed.

25  Lowers gas lamplight, Mary sleeping, finally dropping off (4)
I knew that ‘Mary’ wasn’t the extra word (nor the name of Father Christmas’s wife, no matter what you may have heard), but even after concluding that it must be there to provide just a single letter it took me a while to establish that two letters were ‘dropping off’ (or ‘dropping out of’) a six-letter word. The definition is of the ‘flower = river’ kind.

31  Tall soul perhaps painted Archangel lady (9)
Two definitions, both referring to physical attributes, albeit of very different species. Again, the enumeration of hyphenated answers as a single number makes the clue a little harder.

33  The way saint’s left ermine stocking on the counter (3)
The cryptic reading suggests that the manipulation which follows the five-letter ‘ermine’ in the clue should be applied before the one which precedes it, but in fact they must be carried out in the order in which they appear.

35  Slight rising darkness disturbs passing angel’s heart (4)
Here it is a five-letter word which must undergo two modifications in order to produce the answer.

38  Old-time Silent Night’s opening forgotten by little Leonard (7)
The first two words of the wordplay contribute five letters to the answer, with ‘old-time’ indicating that the adjective meaning ‘silent’ is shown by Chambers as ‘archaic’, although the interjection (‘Silence!) is not; it’s also a game. The absence of any underlining tells a story.

41  I win these debugging devices, perhaps after arranging prize swap in Osaka (7)
This is a composite anagram, where the first two words of the clue plus the answer (ie ‘these debugging devices’) are a rearrangement (‘perhaps after arranging’) of three further consecutive words.

Definitions in clues are underlined

I solved almost all of the clues, thus revealing the fourth question and the extra clue; any questions which proved tricky could easily be answered with a little help from Google. I started filling in the grid from the sides, moving on to the centre. All the words, including the four prizes, need to be used. It’s important to note that while the preamble says that ‘some entries require one of their cells to contain two letters’, it doesn’t mention any entries that intersect the bi-filled cells – if you’re to avoid problems, you need to imagine a vertical line dividing each of these cells, just while the grid is being filled. If you’ve used all the available words and have a completely full (indeed, slightly over-stuffed) grid, then all is well. There are two ways to draw the zigzag line, with either of the mirror images being valid. When it comes to the colouring, you can use any shade you like (though I suspect everyone has their own favourite) before taking a sideways view at what has been produced.

While a few clues were quite chewy, there were plenty of soft centres as well. Once the messages started to emerge, identifying the remaining extra words made solving the last few clues easier (though I had to pass on number 31). The hard part of the grid fill was working out how those double-letter cells were meant to work, but the final steps were pleasingly straightforward. I trust that it did indeed all go with a BANG, or if, like Margo Leadbetter, you prefer a ‘more pertinent word’, a CRACK.

Phibs Toughness Rating : 🎅🎅🎅/🎅🎅🎅🎅 (Tricky but not impenetrable)

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