EV 1683 (Hints)

Enigmatic Variations 1683 (Hints)
Parking Offence by Chalicea
Hints and tips by Gabriel

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Chalicea is another prolific setter encountered in all the usual places. For instance, in the Magpie series where she invariably sets at the A-grade level. This typically indicates fewer degrees of freedom and an accessible endgame that doesn’t suffer from GWIT (“guess what I’m thinking”). This puzzle is no exception.

In true Phibs style, I told Gemini: “in a thematic crossword puzzle, we are asked to identify a parking offence and the person performing it” to which they responded laconically with:
“Offence: OVERTIME
Person: METERFEEDER (someone adding money to extend time)”.
Was that helpful? You decide.

Preamble: Circling the perimeter from the top left is the description of an action related to the PARKING OFFENCE and the person performing it. The wordplay of 12 clues produces an extra letter in addition to those needed for the answer. These, read in order, give an instruction.

Chalicea always sets enjoyable puzzles to solve with reasonably-parseable clues. But this one has a 13×12 grid. Does that mean anything? Also, with only 12 clues with an extra letter, that makes it a little more difficult to identify possible mistakes. I will note that, even for a thematic cryptic, there is more than our fair share of unusual vocabulary but balanced by accessible wordplay,

Clues:

Across

9 Bursting into hollowed abdomen, almost like a shape-shifter (8)
The underlining will help you to find an adjectival form rather than nounal.  The wordplay has an anagram indicator, a post-fix “emptier” and a “detailing” modifier.  

11 Rock band‘s questionable identity? (6, two words)
Not a hard clue but ex post facto I realised this was thematically of the appropriate decade.

13 Hat‘s brim regularly once woven round first of ribbons (7)
Another example of somewhat obscure vocabulary.  The underlining emphasises the use of the apostrophe which can indicate either possession or elision.  In this case, elision.  Recall that “regularly” can be a “letter selection” operator (every nth letter of its operand).

19 Fast stream staff surrounding sick king (8)
I noted “obscure vocabulary” when I first solved this, but, since, I’ve encountered this definition in a couple of other places.  Wordplay is a 3-letter synonym for “sick” and one of the two typical single-letter abbreviations for “king” inside a common term for a “staff’.

22 Boy going round North American wood (4)
Another unusual definition.  The underlining doesn’t help much since the solution space is potentially large. The wordplay has the obvious abbreviation contained in something. Don’t forget that we can generate an extra letter.

35 Fully understand grand legendary bird (4)
I quickly solved this since I’m somewhat geekish and the technical term was very familiar to me from my programming milieu at the end of the last century.  The wordplay has two elements, the second is an alternate spelling.

Down
2 Lukewarm sheltered wife (3)
More unusual vocabulary and of course the usual reminder about a potentially extra letter. 

3 Scoop up Scott’s tips (5)
Find a synonym for scoop (going upwards) for a word a very specific Scot used.

5 Leaders of Northern University Council haven’t accepted base scruffs (6)
Another case of the “do the math” (and common single-letter abbreviation) and then check the result in the BRB.

20 Awful riot after French wine with lowered volume in glass (7, two words)
The underling of course shows that “in” is part of the definition though often it’s a connective link word.  Recall this is a down clue hinting at vertical movement.

23 The greatest possible defect, ordinary leucoma (6)
The wordplay is pretty accessible but unless you’re in the medical profession, you’ll need the BRB again.  And another reminder about a possible extra letter.

28 Foreign character‘s beer case in porch (5)
An apostrophe whose role is clarified by the underlining

30 Knot in tree raised large row (5)
The definition has an alternative spelling for a more familiar term

34 Oddly deadened do on Speyside (3)
I’m tempted to say this is an example of simple wordplay with an obscure definition.  But face it, Scots vocabulary is standard fare in advanced puzzles.

Definitions in clues are underlined

As per usual, keep track of extras.  The resulting message uses typical keywords that frequently occur in a cryptic message (like LETTER, HIGHLIGHT).  I mentioned Chalicean style above: it’s quite well-known for its diagonals as much as Nike is known for its swoosh which helped with the endgame.  Chalicea didn’t give us a lot of help with the 16 missing letters for the perimeter, but by now you should be able to figure out at least part of the name of the perpetrator. The theme emerged fairly quickly from the likely perimeter and was confirmed by the relevant diagonal.

Toughness: 1 out of 4 on the difficulty scale

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