Enigmatic Variations 1691 (Hints)
Column 1 by Shark
Hints and tips by Gabriel
+ – + – + – + – + – + – + – +
Shark is familiar to me as being at the harder end of the spectrum – he’s a frequent contributor to the Usual Cryptic Suspects. The title probably meant that something thematic was going to show up there and might be of some help while solving. Though I’ll admit I usually only manage to decode titles ex post facto. I didn’t bother consulting my Gemini advisor since I couldn’t imagine even him/her having anything useful to contribute given that particular title. Also, I didn’t wonder (though I should have!) whether Easter Sunday might be thematically relevant.
Preamble: 42 is unclued and five answers must be entered with blank cells. Solvers must add 16 symmetrical bars to isolate a thematic subject, which is to be shaded grey (ignoring these blank cells). At this point, three letters are then to be added to complete two relevant names. COLUMN 1 was integral to forming the result. Real words are formed in the final grid surrounding the subject. Clue lengths refer to the available space in the grid. Chambers Dictionary (2016) is recommended.
An explicit comment that clue lengths aren’t necessarily answer lengths meant in this case that some answers are shorter than the enumerated entry – probably because 5 answers need blanks. Which ones? Otherwise, clues are normal which means that you can make a lot of progress until things get weird (i.e. until you encounter answer/entry mismatches).
Clues:
Across
1 42 this masculine animation and check back (8)
The checked letters highly constrained the answer but I needed to cold solve the unclued 42a for it to make sense. The wordplay involves a reversal of 1+4+3 and there’s arguably a missing archaic indicator.
11 Preoccupy lot encircling Roman square (6)
The Roman square isn’t a piazza.
15 Heart cleared from blockage to reveal core? (4)
Removing the centre of something is signposted here but the definition requires transitive equivalence.
18 Diversity leader – he might play on this (5)
This required the amazing sleuthing (aka how to effectively use Google) skills of my solving partner that led eventually to the name of a (capitalised) band that was famous in Britain in 2007. And the clue type is basically &lit.
20 Aborigine fodder cooked on road (7)
The wordplay is clearly indicated. Don’t be discouraged by the enumeration.
29 University against student’s club (7)
Again don’t be discouraged by the enumeration. At this point in my solving journey, I started wondering about centrality.
30 Holiday in Whitby, Ontario? (5)
Basically a double definition as the underlining indicates – which includes the question-mark, which as I’ve noted before, suggests “an example thereof”. The first definition is a “N Eng” verb that I wasn’t familiar with.
37 Down half of fruit juice in front of king (4)
Wordplay is just 3+1 but I wish Shark would provide more archaic and slang indicators.
41 Tax office to press returns in this month (5)
The UK tax authority’s abbreviation is almost the same as the (defunded?) US version thereof. There’s more than one calendar in Chambers.
Down
1 Supplement fashion revealing Tudor piece (6)
Wordplay is 3+3 where the first 3 is an acronym that’s probably unfamiliar to non-Brits.
4 Practically terminate a joint channel (5)
“Practically” is a bit unusual as a shortening indicator with the pattern 3+1+1 for the wordplay.
8 Illness at sea, dropping Shark’s guts attached to fishing line (6)
The surface reads smoothly with the literal “Shark” but notice that it’s capitalised.
18 Bath’s to strengthen after return of Labour (7)
Note the careful underlining indicating “possession” and a rather unusual term.
22 Female donkey’s offspring, born inside (7)
The definition has an alternate spelling with the wordplay pattern 2 “inside” of 3.
32 African rhino in African city – no trickery here! (5)
The definition doesn’t refer to an animal. Wordplay subtracts a short word for trickery from a city in the north thereof.
Definitions in clues are underlined
The theme emerged very slowly for me and needed some Google jujitsu that combined indeed the contents of COLUMN 1 with a couple of potential names and the likely solution to 42a. The most difficult challenge will be wrangling the blanks that conveniently are symmetrically central. Adding the “three letters” is essential to completing the theme. The emerging image is appropriately suggestive rather than precise. I spent an inordinate amount of time again wiki-digging to learn about the theme which had its beginnings a century ago.
Toughness: 2.5 out of 4 on the difficulty scale
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The clues were certainly at the harder end; 18a and 30a took the longest to crack [the latter complicated by a focus on Whitby, Ontario!]. 22d’s variations also needed careful parsing. 1a and 42a provided a steer to the theme, centrality was duly noted along with part of one possibly relevant name. A bit of Googling revealed the relevance of Column 1 and the second name. Still not entirely sure what the shading represents but the real words probably confirm the boundaries.
Thanks to Shark and Gabriel.