Enigmatic Variations 1765 (Hints)
THE SEVENTH NOTE by CHALICEA
Hints and tips by Gabriel
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At first, I didn’t bother asking AI since the preamble was pretty laconic and unrevealing. We know where to look for extra letters from the wordplay which reduces ambiguity considerably – namely, either the even or odd clues and it just takes a single clue to figure out the pattern.
OK having just written that, I did nonetheless consult with Gemini and he/she/they did observe (possibly helpfully) note that there are “types of ‘The Seventh Note’ (e.g., regional, dialect, or specialized terms for a specific musical note or a concept related to ti / si / locrian / etc.).”
Preamble: Three entries, clued by wordplay only, are local names for types of 1, 25 (unclued): THE SEVENTH NOTE. An extra letter, not needed for the answer, is produced by the wordplay of alternate clues. Those, in clue order, give an instruction. Chambers (2016) is recommended.
THE SEVENTH NOTE had me obsessing about Ingmar Bergman until I realised that he only cared about seals. This is, at the very least, forced me to wiki-read to understand Bergman’s title. Total red-herring. The preamble does however mention Chambers which is de rigueur but in this case I found myself frequently opening it up to confirm definitions which added somewhat to the difficulty.
Clues
Across
23 One night in Marseille for person from the north (5)
The only hint I can think of that might be helpful here is that you really don’t need a hint.
29 Aged fellow could not oddly peg out (5)
LWPWO (last wordplay worked out) so deserves some attention. The wordplay is 2 alternate letters from a 5-letter word in the clue followed by a 3-letter synonym of the final two-word phrasal verb.
44 Swindles reflected in bygone conveyances (4)
The answer appeared in the grid fully checked and I still didn’t understand it. Chambers helped me again. The wordplay is a reversal of a 5-letter synonym.
45 Brahmin mobs go wild (13, 3 words)
Thematic and an anagram but struggled to untangle. The (lack of) underlining gives the game away.
Down
3 Regularly using fabrics, fit pieces for Trump’s waterproof overshoes (7)
I hope that sometime in the not too distant future Trump will cease to indicate Americanisms. The wordplay involves alternating letters.
5 Angry; bigoted intermittently about strike-breaker (5)
I reverse engineered the extra letter from the by now obvious message. Our strike-breaker isn’t a scab this time but a 3-letter synonym which is inside alternate letters.
12 Regularly keep originally rare old gold coin for type of shrub (6)
Another unfamiliar definition – the world of botany has a multitude of terms that I only encounter on these pages – wordplay is 2 selected single letters followed by another single letter and a 4-letter synonym for a money that’s both historic and current but we want the former.
24 Place type of stone in salmon trap (7)
The wordplay is a charade of a familiar 3-letter synonym followed by a 5-letter synonym. Both the latter synonym and the definition were unfamiliar to me.
26 My loan reorganised (6)
Another thematic similar in style to 45a.
Definitions are underlined.
Once the unclueds (1a, 25a) started to emerge, it was pretty easy to resolve them (though I “foot-gunned” myself for a while by misreading a lower-case “n” for “h” in the second letter of 25a).
Chalicea is well-known for her penchant for the diagonal – this case is an exception. She’s gone straight! The title is a nice two-part “encoding” of the 4-letter theme which Gemini kind of sort of flirted with.
Nonetheless, overall the endgame was pretty straightforward but there was (for me) relatively a high fraction of unfamiliar vocabulary with accessible wordplay thus the grade.
Difficulty 1.5 / 5
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Thanks, Gabriel. I was hoping ‘The Seventh Note’ would mislead solvers for a while, but not too long, in this bit of fun. I appreciated the enjoyment factor you awarded it – it was indeed a shift from my usual diagonal.