EV 1693 (Hints)

Enigmatic Variations 1693 (Hints)
Press Release by Vagans
Hints and tips by Gabriel

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I gave Gemini (if nothing, I’m loyal – for now) the preamble.  And they proposed a promising tactic and one completely wrongheaded observation: “Two Unclued Entries: These are the key! They spell out PRESS RELEASE”. They don’t. The promising tactic: “Tackle the Wordplay-Only Clues: These might be easier to solve initially as they don’t have the extra layer of surplus letters.” Slightly helpful albeit a bit obvious.

Preamble: Two entries are unclued and indicate a PRESS RELEASE leading to a product. Eight further clues consist of wordplay only, and their thematic answers are to be entered after extracting the letters of the product (not leaving real words; enumerations give lengths of entries, not answers). All remaining clues contain a surplus letter to be extracted; in clue order, these letters indicate some consumers of the product and its effect. Chambers Dictionary (2016) is  recommended. 

As is typical of advanced cryptics, there is a degree of ambiguity when needing to assess clue type: 8 wordplay-only thematic clues with the remaining 33 having an “imposter” letter to be removed. Moreover, we’re told that we aren’t going to get real words when entering the thematics. This adds significant uncertainty since you need to solve a lot of “normal” clues first, and expect to see something helpful emerge. Identifying the wordplay-onlys is somewhat easier if you find the correct “obvious” answer to the clue but has an enumeration mismatch.

Clues:
Across
1 Find fault after reversing car won dangling fruit (9)
This fruit was unknown to me.  And you’ll find that the extra letter leads to a common shortening of a short word where the wordplay pattern is 4+1+4.

12 Very old friend rejected UK language zone German devised (7)
The wordplay is fairly straightforward as a 1+1+3+2 charade and the underlining will eventually lead you to something plausible once you’ve identified the extra – I needed the BRB confirm the capitalised answer.

16 Gloat, starring at last in Oscar-winning film (6)
Since the surface reading is fairly reasonable, the extra letter wasn’t obvious to me. It will help if you’re au fait with the most recent awards ceremony.

29 True revolutionary answer: returned word in Paris for nuclear co-operation (7)
The 3+1+3 wordplay actually led me to a candidate that sort of made sense and Chambers confirmed. Sometimes “revolutionary” is not Che or red.

31 Bank of Scotland brand (5)
There is a very common 4-letter Scots word for a “bank” and as such I was pretty sure that this wordplay-only (no underlining!) and indeed after appending a 4-letter synonym for “brand” I had something thematic. 

33 Soldiers with only half of service fee for ancient church? (7)
You might work out what the answer must be and then wonder a bit about the definition. The extra letter is surprisingly well-hidden since it leaves a very unusual word – hint: there are two options, only one is a valid word.

Down
2 Old letter from Gulf state slighted in Religious Studies (6)
The wordplay is the “usual” 4-letter Gulf state inside an acronym which I couldn’t justify in Chambers but Collins helped.

3 Seem to abandon study of fungi for that of muscles (7)
The underlining will reveal the nature of this clue.  The extra letter should become clear once you realise that “abandon” tells us to get rid of something.

10 Roam around while prophetic book is decaying (8)
We’re looking for an (unusual) adjective for the definition with the wordplay pattern 3+2+3 where the final 3 is an abbreviation of something biblical.

18 Gun for saluting father run out after least of entourage (8)
There are several variants of this kind of gun in Chambers – a touch of Latin will help to decode the wordplay which is 5+1+2. At very least, the extra is pretty obvious.

24 Christendom is in a state of confusion (6)
Recall some clues are wordplay-only (again no underlining!) and that frequently “state of confusion” hints at the most common cryptic device. This wordplay here encapsulates a key element of the theme.

 27 Attorney! Win large base for Java in US (5)
The surface reading didn’t make much sense to me but the wordplay is a 3-letter abbreviation inside two single-letter abbreviations. And I have a story about ordering one of these in Italy and having it interpreted literally.

30 Enterprise for instance taken in return (4)
Another thematic obviously given the absence of underlining. And “for instance”, while often indicating literal “eg”, here simply means “a specific example” (of something aquatic or celestial).

Definitions in clues are underlined

I guessed at the middle unclueds at some point inspired by the title and had some sense of who the product’s consumers might be. You might note that the verb “extract” is used twice in the preamble. I worked out the thematic connection between the wordplay-onlys pretty late – only once I had solved one or two of them. It will serve you well if you interpret “the letters of the product” literally.

In addition, I noticed some symmetry emerging in the grid.  I solved this over a few sessions and I had to re-establish context each time which slowed me down a bit.  Finally, once I had worked out the message, it didn’t really ring a bell (wrong generation?) but Google helped me find the reference and it all made sense ex post facto. 

Toughness: 3 out of 4 on the difficulty scale

 

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