Enigmatic Variations 1699 (Hints)
Busy Bees by Skylark
Hints and tips by Gabriel
+ – + – + – + – + – + – + – +
According to my “sources”, Skylark is supposedly on the easier end of the solving spectrum. Perhaps that is the case, but I managed to over-complicate things unnecessarily as you’ll see below. Had I not done so, the process would have been a lot less fractious. Incidentally, Gemini wasn’t very helpful, it simply reminded me that “busy bees” are hardworking and industrious. You could argue in retrospect that the second adjective is tangentially relevant.
Preamble: An extra letter in each clue should be removed before solving. When read in clue order these spell out a message about which 38 cells to highlight, perhaps resulting in BUSY BEES? Chambers Dictionary (2016) is recommended.
Don’t be like me! Remember the first instruction. It’s very helpful when you know you need to modify each clue – and of course, once you have an inkling of the message you can often quickly determine the imposter. A personal quirk (failing?) I have is that, as I’m solving a puzzle, I can muddle up the gimmicks – so an extra letter from wordplay might become a missing letter in the definition, and I end up reaching all kinds of dead-ends. The only advice I can offer is that when things seem implausible, maybe they really are and refer back to the preamble.
Clues:
Across
12 Birdy ate small delicacy (6)
Not a hard clue whose wordplay is a charade of two 3-letter synonyms. I only mention it because the American version of the answer is a bit precious due to cultural prudishness.
17 Ornate boats carrying eminent scientists turned up (8)
This was the first case of misleading myself into thinking that the instructions were telling us to generate an extra letter from the wordplay so this clue got very hard. Of course, this won’t happen to you. In the event, it’s “just” a two-letter acronym for a Brit society inside an anagram. With that it’ll be easy to work out the anagram indicator.
22 Newly assembled thatching cut by genius (9)
The next instance in which I had forgotten the instructions and vainly looked for an extra letter generated by wordplay. The imposter isn’t that hard to find in fact.
26 Crush protecting Australian, accepted woollen outer garment (5)
Another misinterpreted clue that had a plausible solution for “extra letter from wordplay”. So I struggled unnecessarily generating the message.
31 Bard’s enough skinned hake currently (4)
Bard frequently refers to Shakespeare of course. But there are a couple of other common crossword poets – one of whom is Spenser. Not this time though. Wordplay is a charade of a single letter followed by a 3-letter synonym.
Down
3 Stokers blocking Bird’s custody (6)
The wordplay is just a one-letter abbreviation in a synonym for a “bird”. Why it’s capitalised is unnecessarily misleading in my layman’s opinion but does make the surface slightly more plausible – assuming we’re talking about Sue or Larry Bird (shout out to American sports fans!).
6 Ian’s spouted teapot’s top ejected (6)
I was misled by a Scots word that actually could mean “spouted teapot” until the crossing letters disproved that hypothesis. And anyway, I needed to find an imposter in the clue.
9 Bases beneath brown material used to make leather (7)
Extra letter from wordplay confusion struck again! Wordplay is a charade of a 3-letter synonym of “brown” followed by word that is the 3rd entry in Chambers of a synonym of the second part. The definition also required some Chambers confirmation.
14 Once my solids slop from time to time (4)
Ambiguity alert! I needed to understand most of the message to resolve this. “From time to time” is a regular letter selector. Actually, false alarm! Letter removal leaves real words so I didn’t need to wait until the message emerged.
21 Mourns, having endlessly rued entering burial sites (7)
Answer is an unusual spelling and also happens to name a 1966 World Cup participant. Wordplay is a single letter inserted into a synonym.
Definitions in clues are underlined
I made this puzzle a lot harder than it should have been by forgetting the instructions and inventing letters generated from the wordplay. As a result, I found the NW corner quite hard, not to mention the message – though the last 3 words emerged fairly early. There were several extra final letters that just changed the tense/number of a verb/noun which I felt detracted from the puzzle’s quality.
Once the message had emerged, there were a couple of options to resolve the first part of the message. I guessed the obvious at first but it led me nowhere. Staring at the grid, I saw something Chalicean that helped. Finally, I read the entire thematic wikipedia article and managed to interpret the second part of the message.
Toughness: 2 out of 4 on the difficulty scale
the Welcome post and the FAQ before posting comments or asking questions about the site.
As this is a Prize crossword, please don’t put any ANSWERS, whether WHOLE, PARTIAL or INCORRECT, or any ALTERNATIVE CLUES in your comment.
Please read these instructions carefully – they are not subject to debate or discussion. Offending comments may be redacted or, in extreme cases, deleted. In all cases the administrator’s decision is final.
Not too tricky and for once the letters extracted made sense. I agree with Gabriel’s caveat about a few of them and there were also a couple of ambiguous extractions. I had spotted a couple of the items to be highlighted, which helped speed up the endgame.
Thanks to Skylark and Gabriel.
Another EV requiring me to remember what was considered so important during my GCE O-levels over half a century ago. I really struggled with the extra letters and the message until I saw the Chalicean entry when everything fell into place. I could then revise the extra letters and make sense of the message.
Thx to Skylark and Gabriel