Enigmatic Variations 1749 (Hints)
Connection by Ranunculus
Hints and tips by Gabriel
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Gemini was quite excited by the opportunity to search for an innovator and a connection and proposed several candidate innovations and inventors – the most promising were: “The Electric Battery”, Volta (5), symbols=”+,-”, and “The Electric Telegraph”, Morse (5), symbols = • (Dot) and – (Dash). Both are associated with CONNECTION. I thought this was a pretty good stab at the theme.
Preamble: Two answers will not fit in the space available, and each must be accommodated by using an appropriate symbol. In the initially completed grid, solvers must directly link these symbols using the name of the innovator who first made the CONNECTION, changing cell contents as necessary; all new crossing entries are real words. Finally, the invention itself (five cells in a straight line) must be highlighted. Numbers in brackets refer to available cells. Chambers Dictionary (2016) is recommended.
Well, it looks like all but 2 clues are normal. But nonetheless as you solve, in the back of your mind, you’ll have to consider whether the enumeration is incorrect – almost certainly those two exceptions will be too long for the grid.
Clues
Across
11 Not uncomfortable about dons eating noisily in absence of Master (8)
I got bamboozled by the double negative and I didn’t believe my answer. “Dons’ is a cryptic containment indicator (of a single letter abbreviation) and not its academic sense which is what the surface reading would have you believe.
19 Fever accompanied by red spots or a blue bum (7)
Just a note reminding Americans that this is what RJK Jr. wants you all to undergo.
20 One responsible for neat article about leaving show (7)
“Neat” often doesn’t mean “tidy” in crosswordland and can be a noun. The wordplay is the shortest grammatical article followed by a 8-letter synonym from which a common 2-letter synonym has been removed.
24 Eastern European’s not around to issue money in Azerbaijan (4)
I had to trawl Chambers for Azerbaijani money and it found something. But of the wrong length. Let this be a hint.
34 Forces duck to wear revolutionary trousers (6)
The wordplay uses two postfix “operators” that are responsible for reversal and containment where the contained fodder is a single letter abbreviation for a cricket term in the clue.
37 Dell singled out screens beginning to smoke (6)
I wasn’t familiar with this definitional synonym and I have to say that the removal of a single letter in the fodder is quite wordy – but works!.
Down
13 Right at the end, trick consumer (4)
You’ll notice something unusual about this answer given the previous clue’s answer. Don’t be put off.
16 Fathers and sons checking dance where uncles might be? (8)
The definition is a variant of a more familiar term of this kind of emporium which fortunately I’ve never had to use. The wordplay is a 3-letter American synonym, followed by the usual initials containing a 3-letter synonym (also, largely American).
18 Pioneering artist put out by assessment on Trustpilot? (8)
A jumble followed by a 2-letter abbreviation for a negative review – I had to google Trustpilot to learn it’s a rating site.
22 Receiving cheers, McIlroy perhaps turning round (6)
If you follow golf, you’ll know about McIlroy who has a simple containment job to do here.
25 Drove with head dropping, exhausted (4)
Again, symmetry will help solving this.
Definitions are underlined.
The two too long answers gave me a pretty strong indicator as to the relevant symbol fairly early on. Once I had used it, something quite obviously thematic (albeit a bit techie) struck me in the grid. And then, quite quickly, the most likely 5-letter invention occurred to me – ubiquitous now, but it wasn’t 40+ years ago when I started using it. Who would have dreamt then that Denmark would stop delivering letters in 2025! Symmetry will help you as well.
You can see that Gemini wasn’t a million miles away though it thought that the inventor should be (5) rather than the invention.
Overall, clues were on the easier end of the spectrum and the theme was very accessible.
Difficulty: 1.5 out of 5
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