EV 1644 (Hints)

Enigmatic Variations 1644 (Hints)

Clubs by Eclogue

Hints and tips by The Numpties

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Eclogue set crosswords for all the thematic crossword outlets. This is their nineteenth in the EV series. We know that we’ll be faced with a carefully crafted set of clues with some unfamiliar words as solutions and a theme that may well surprise us.

Preamble: The wordplay in 38 clues yields an extra letter not required by the defined answer. In clue order these letters provide the names of two CLUBS and the game being played. One clued answer suggests a general location. The specific location, which lies between two unclued extremes (each of two words), must be highlighted, together with two pieces of essential equipment (23 contiguous cells in total). Chambers Dictionary (2016) is recommended.

A clue count told us that we had 43 clues. 38 of those would yield an extra letter in the wordplay and that letter would NOT be required by the answer. That device caused some head-scratching but became easier as those clubs and the game they played appeared. Knowing of the usual mastery of Eclogue, we guessed that the remaining five clues (those with no extra letter) would split the ‘message’ into six words. We saw that the ‘extremes’ (the unclued lights) were at the top and bottom of the grid and were told that the ‘specific location’ was between those. ‘Contiguous’, of course, allowed cells that were only touching at their corners for the final highlighting.

Across

7a         Diving gear to check in South Australia (5)
If, like us, you haven’t truly taken on board what the preamble is telling you to do, this answer will make it very clear. We guessed at once what the 5-letter diving equipment was and recognised that we had two wordplay elements, ‘South Australia’ and ‘to check’. How was a word for ‘check’ going to give us the three letters we needed? Of course, we had to extract one letter which gave us the start of one of the two clubs.

11a         Edward’s unknown wins out unduly (6)
I’m not sure what the surface reading of this clue says but Eclogue have given us a very generous clue, probably because they recognise that Spenserian words are not familiar to many solvers. ‘Unduly’ told us what to do and after the first letter the above clue had given us, we clearly needed to extract a vowel here.

14a         Test holding over clear assessment in Edinburgh (5)
We had to back-solve here from the Scottish word. From a 3-letter test, we extracted the letter that made sense in the word that was appearing in the highlighted strip down the side of our clues. We needed three more letters and they came from a word for ‘clear’ that had to be ‘over’.

17a        Book with short question for searcher of smuggled goods, perhaps (7)
We had never encountered this word before (and suspected, briefly, that Eclogue were aiming at a pangrammatic grid with two of those rare letters [J, Q, V, X, Z] appearing in a single word). ‘Book’ suggested to us a book of the Bible (but there are a lot of those!) and we followed that abbreviated name with a shortened word for a question.

33a        Stringlike structures engaging local father in a job of work (7)
A very short dialect word for ‘father’ went into the word for the ‘job of work’ giving us a zoological word of Greek origin.

37a        Has run back round Caledonian racetrack for red wine grape (5)
After we had smiled at the comical picture of someone running back round a racetrack for grapes, we saw which grapes were fitting into our grid and after doing the ‘has’ running back, needed to think of a short name for a racetrack in Scotland from which we could extract a letter.

40a        Design in weight for that which sifts grain in the highlands? (5)
Yet another Scots word – one we didn’t know – but we could use the letters in our grid and ‘back-solve’ from the letter needed in our highlighted strip, to produce a 4-letter word for ‘design’ that would give us the letters that went into a short form of ‘weight’.

Down

1d           Shanty on Iowa rodent (5)
Chambers gives two definitions of ‘shanty’. There’s the ramshackle dwelling, or the seaman’s song. Surface reading suggests the song but we opted for a short word for that dwelling, and added that to Iowa, to give us the poor rodent that must have been crushed by the weight of the shack! To us it’s a new name for that rodent.

3d          Large cities found in great Welsh county (5)
The word for large cities that has to go into a short form of ‘great’ is another that has more than one meaning in Chambers and its other meanings are probably more familiar. We remember that we are looking for an extra letter.

10d          Squeeze together Lovelace, perhaps, with iron (7)
The ‘perhaps’ suggests to us that we are looking for someone whose other name was Lovelace, and a very famous one comes to mind. When you add a word for ‘iron’ (not the metal) to her name, you get an unusual word for ‘squeeze together’.

23d          Small capitals to assume garb of office? That’s in the groove (6)
After a 2-letter printing abbreviation, we needed a word for ‘to assume garb of office’ to give us yet another obscure word.

25d         Unrevealed bogeys in Russia having American promissory note absent (5)
‘Absent’ produces the usual abbreviation and the American spelling of that paper promissory note had to precede it. The ‘bogeys’ is slang usage here, and made us think of the KGB.

31d          Account hangs over poor Tony farther away from up North (5)
There’s a fair smattering of Scots in this crossword! Put together the ‘account’ and ‘poor Tony’ remembering that we are extracting letters from most of the crossword’s wordplay, and you’ll get that Scottish word for ‘farther away’.

32d         Give up US casualty for Hamish’s ear of corn (5)
Yes, one last word from north of the border. The letters appearing for that game suggested here which one we needed to remove from a word for ‘give up’ (think of drugs!) To that we added a familiar term for the US casualty ( a programme we used to watch!)

The unusual device was challenging but rewarding once we had understood what we were doing. One of the Numpties knew of the fascinating situation – the game these two clubs play. Eclogue do bring us some unusual themes and our highlighting (don’t forget it!) graphically illustrated it in our completed grid.

Do please send in your entry and add your comments here and to the setters’ blogs that are appearing on Big Dave’s site on Thursdays and to the detailed blogs that also appear on Thursdays on  fifteensquared.

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