Enigmatic Variations 1769 (Hints)
DAY JOB by ARTIX
Hints and tips by Gabriel
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AI is getting good. Very very good. Claude took about 30 seconds to figure out the theme and most of the clues. But you’ll want to untangle it yourselves. There are some helpful hints in the preamble – e.g. “only one in English” – and “accessory”.
Right now I feel pretty humbled. When will they start sending me my UBI (universal basic income) payments once I’ve become completely redundant? But now that I think about it, we are in the same state as chess: computers are far better than humans. The chess world has adapted – we need to as well. Why not introduce an ELO-like ranking system to assess solving skills? I’ll ask Claude to design one.
Update: Gemini 4 Argon figured out the entire puzzle blazingly fast. My own view is that I will continue to hand solve for the sheer enjoyment and challenge. I suppose some people will try to set puzzles that can’t be solved by an LLM. Yet.
Preamble: A DAY JOB must be re-enacted. In the initial gridfill, (i) three cells each contain two or three letters, written in two diagonally connected lines; and (ii) a string of five cells is to be left empty. The unclued perimeter entries (only one of which is in English) consist of three locations in a city and a set of objects. Solvers must fill the empty cells and take away eight out of nine members of the set, leaving behind only the accessory. The final grid contains real words and proper nouns including one abbreviation. Numbers in brackets indicate available spaces. Chambers (2016) is recommended; 32 may be confirmed in Webster’s and online.
The good news is that most of the clues are normal – with some exceptions since we’re going to have some entries that are too long for the enumeration. There is some ambiguity about the directionality of the string of empty cells. My initial instinct is that it will be diagonal thus we should expect some answers to be (N – 1) But this is just educated guessing. The title will get you thinking about crime of course…
Clues
Across
12 Uncle Sam, endlessly flying, departs as Virgin peaks (8)
Misleading capitalization in the definition. Our beloved Uncle Sam is just there to provide jumble fodder.
14 E.g. Nvidia chips Chinese desire (4)
“Nvidia chips” is a good example of “lift and separate”.
17 Put middle of fork into pickle bowl (3)
You’ll end up with a 5-letter word if you follow the cryptic instructions from left to right. The preamble told us this would happen
23 Tramps over millet (6)
Now you’ll end up with a gap since the answer is (5).
25 Under 20 or roughly 30 (4)
20 is just a number but 30 refers to a clue.
27 Ruskin’s source and these, his misfortunes, could generate thrills (6)
These/this in a clue often refers to the answer itself – so here we need to take the answer, add a letter, jumble to get another term in the clue,
30 Retired giant from Waltham Forest? (4)
I had to look up a postal code,
31 Ruin Ferrari’s monocoque? (8)
Answer is (7).
33 Rackets where Roy principally overrides odds in sports? (5)
For “odds” use a two-letter acronym and replace it with a single letter.
Down
2 Nurse and surgeon prepare for old-timer’s entrance (5)
Answer is (7), wordplay is just a charade of a 2-letter acronym, a 2-letter abbreviation and a 3-letter synonym.
5 In the name of God, direct from R&J’s prologue (5)
My LOI – a 3-letter Latin acronym followed by a 2 letter synonym. R&J is just a Shak. indicator.
7 They climb and, after climbing, secure French art (6)
“French art” is often “es”, the 2nd person singular conjugation of être.
9 Name port in Senegal (not the same in Othello) (9)
IVR abbreviations are a very popular tool for setters but in this you need to remove a 4-letter Shakespearean synonym from the actual country and place a 6-letter port inside.
15 Shy towards ceiling overturned rodent (4)
A charade of a 3-letter synonym followed by a 2-letter reversal. You’ll note this yields (5),
8 Welcome governor opening Alaskan haven (7)
A 3-part charade. Alaskan could just as well have been Alabaman or Georgian. Answer is (9).
23 Fruit to pierce top-to-bottom (6)
Answer is (5).
24 In a stew you may see noxious offal (6)
Answer is (5) here as well.
Goodness, that’s a lot of annotation. The clues were challenging and solving was made that much harder due to the unknown clue lengths. The left hand column emerged fairly quickly and named a well-known location in a well-known foreign city.
Note that there is an ambiguity in the bottom-right corner wrt gaps – but the preamble refers to a “string” (implying a straight line) which solves the problem. You’ll make good progress from this point since the theme should be clear by now – you’ll need to reintroduce the “accessory” which is appropriately positioned vis a vis the perimeter, and remove the appropriate number of items [letters]. And the “diagonally connected lines” comment will make sense of the cells containing 2 or 3 letters.
And yes it’s definitely a case of daylight robbery. Which is hardly a spoiler given the title.
Difficulty 3 / 5
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