Enigmatic Variations 1748 (Hints)
Martyrdom by Kcit
Hints and tips by Phibs
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Wondering just how many EV puzzles Kcit had set in his long career, I consulted Dave Hennings’ excellent xwdb.info site.
It turns out that this will be his 85th, the first having been ‘Layettes’ (EV 29 back in May 1993); if we add in the contribution of his alter ego Phi to the ‘Elementary’ series of puzzles which were the first EVs which I blogged, the total is 86. Since Phi has contributed a further 239 themed puzzles to other publications, I think it would be fair to describe him as ‘prolific’. Oh yes, he also set more than 600 Beelzebub puzzles (the Independent on Sunday’s answer to the Sunday Times‘ Mephisto) up until 2016 when the paper went fully online.
Preamble: All clues are normal. Eighteen lead to answers too long to fit into the space available (given by enumerations; indications such as ‘two words’ refer to the clue answers) without one to four (consecutive) letters being removed. The removed letters can be grouped into three sets according to the number removed: single letters; two letters; 3 and 4 letters. Treating the longer removals as blocks, each set can be arranged to give the same name to be written below the grid, thereby exemplifying the unusual MARTYRDOM involved, and resolving any ambiguities in the grid. 11 is usually preceded by an indefinite article. Chambers Dictionary (2016) is recommended.
All the clues are normal, but 18 answers need to be mutilated prior to entry, with the removal of between one and four letters. If we do the maths, we can see that the omissions must involve ten single letters, five pairs of letters, two groups of three letters, and one group of four consecutive letters – the name will therefore consist of ten letters. We are told that the omitted groups are to be treated as blocks, so if the name were ARTHUR DENT the five missing pairs, for example, would be AR, TH, UR, DE and NT.
Without crossing letters, it will be impossible to determine where the omissions occur, and we are told that even once we have all the available crossers a few ambiguities will remain. If the answer to the clue for a seven-letter entry is TOTALITY, and the crossers give us T?ALITY, the entry could be either TOALITY (T removed) or TTALITY (O removed). When listing the omitted letters, we would just have to add ‘O/T’ to our ‘single letters’ list; since the same ten letters will make up each list, we will be able to resolve ambiguities once the three collections start to take shape.
Across
1a Dreadful misstep with attire will do for fops (13, two words)
The answer (and entry) is an anagram (‘dreadful’) of two words in the clue, but being the plural of a (5,6) French phrase it is likely to defy electronic anagram solving tools.
15a The left side attracting confused Soviet (6)
A two-letter abbreviation for the left-hand page of a book is followed by (‘attracting’) a word meaning ‘confused’.
19a Surveys cut in Parliamentary time off after Conservative intervenes (6)
A single-letter abbreviation is contained by a familiar six-letter word from which the last letter has been ‘cut’.
24a Greens from Africa, greens brought over to Italy (3)
A five-letter word for a collection of edible greens (or vegetables/herbs, at least) is reversed ahead of a single-letter abbreviation. The ‘Greens’ at the start of the clue draws on the Chambers definition ‘money, esp dollar bills (slang)’.
32a Bard’s to force back source of sense in revolutionary American poetry (6)
A single letter is contained by a reversal of the American spelling of something in which poetry is usually written and which, by extension, can refer to poetry itself.
36a Classic American vineyard? Certainly kept in stock (7, two words)
A pair of capital letters which informally mean ‘certainly’ are contained by a five-letter word for the playing cards remaining after a deal is complete (the ‘stock’), which could also have been indicated by ‘claw’. The answer is (2,5).
Down
1d Supporting six to get very good qualification (7)
A 3+2+2 charade, the components answering to ‘supporting’, ‘six’ and ‘very good’.
6d Reduction in sickness only achieved after absorbing new turn for the worse? (11)
A six-letter ‘sickness’ reduced by the removal of its last letter is followed by a four-letter word for ‘only’ and a three-letter word meaning ‘achieved’ containing a single-letter abbreviation.
7d Clay minerals, poor things, lacking mass (6)
A three-letter word precedes a five-letter plural of a word for a small child, deprived of a single letter abbreviation.
20d Handles Southern and Northern European city? Not Northern (7)
Two abbreviations precede a six-letter European city from which one of those abbreviations is then removed.
22d Siberian tribe, still on island supporting King (6)
A four-letter word meaning ‘still’ (as in ‘better still’) or ‘flat’ is followed by two single-letter abbreviations, the island following the king. The answer is not in Chambers, but it appears in the online version of Collins.
25d Held notes clear up a lot of din on the Shakespearean stage (6)
A reversal (‘up’) of a word meaning ‘clear [of all deductions]’ precedes all but the last letter of a four-letter Shakespearean word for ‘din’
26d River dweller upset to receive current yellow pigment (6)
A six-letter word for someone who inhabits the banks of an extremely long African river is reversed (‘upset’) around a single-letter symbol.
28d Marine storage project having berth turned over (5)
A four-letter word meaning ‘[to] project’, which could also have been indicated by ‘glide smoothly along’, is followed by a reversal (‘turned over’) of a four-letter word meaning ‘[to] berth’.
34d A source of entertainment I found in the French country (4)
The ‘source of entertainment’ is a pair of capital letters which frequently stand in for a ten-letter word.
Definitions in clues are underlined
Of the five missing pairs, you will find that four are ‘definites’ (the other being a choice of three possibles), while the two three-letter groups are similarly unambiguous. Knowing that the letters in each of these groups are in the correct order, we can work out the name, and thus the remaining pair and the four-letter block. There’s a bit of a trap relating to that four-letter group – you might be tempted to think (as I was initially) that only two possible groups of four letters could be missing, but in reality there are four options. If you aren’t familiar with the name, looking it up will reveal the relevance of the three entry devices. All that remains is to carefully fill in the half-dozen blanks in the grid, and it’s job done.
A very neatly constructed puzzle with fair clues, albeit a couple of mutually crossing proper nouns (36a and 22d) were on the obscure side – thankfully, neither of these required modification prior to entry.
Phibs Toughness Rating : 🥾🥾🥾/🥾🥾🥾🥾 (Suitable for anyone who has completed a few EVs)
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