EV 1702 (Hints)

Enigmatic Variations 1702 (Hints)

Low Rider by Kolya

Hints and tips by Phibs

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Not that I pay any attention to TV ads, of course, but the name of our debutant setter immediately put me in mind of ‘the window to watch’ (that will make no sense whatsoever to younger readers), and the title of the puzzle has got me singing (sotto voce, thankfully for all concerned) the War song of that name (“All – my – friends – know the low rider” etc), used for several years as part of Marmite’s ‘Love it or Hate it’ campaign. Great to have a puzzle from a setter new to the EV series, this time perhaps with Russian connections or a fondness for The Brothers Karamazov. Demonstrating that setters are not unlike buses in their habits, another newcomer will be along in just two weeks’ time.

I asked Claude, “We are told that a themed crossword puzzle includes four notable examples of a ‘low rider’ and that one example must be illustrated ‘at a stretch’ in the completed grid? What might we be looking for?”

Claude’s response was typically swift:

“In crossword puzzle terminology, you’re looking for answers that literally sit “low” in the grid – words that extend downward rather than across.

The “low rider” theme likely refers to long vertical (DOWN) answers that span many rows of the puzzle. The phrase “at a stretch” is a clever hint suggesting these are extended, lengthy entries.

*paragraph redacted*

One of these would need to be illustrated “at a stretch” – meaning it’s placed as an exceptionally long vertical answer, possibly spanning the entire height of the grid or close to it. This creates a visual representation of the theme, with the answer literally stretching down the puzzle grid just as these “low riders” are elongated in real life.

The wordplay works on multiple levels: these are all things that ride low physically, and in the crossword they “ride low” by being placed as DOWN answers rather than ACROSS answers.”

For the first time I have felt it necessary to remove part of a chatbot’s suggestion on the grounds that it was way too helpful.

Preamble: Four notable examples of a LOW RIDER are given by initial letters of single redundant words in each across clue in alphabetical order of their answers. A thematic quotation and its originator runs clockwise around the perimeter starting at the top left cell. Solvers must highlight the LOW RIDER (nine contiguous cells) in the final grid, at a stretch illustrating one of the four examples in motion. Chambers Dictionary (2016) is recommended.

Down clues are normal, but every across clue contains an extra word. Note that, far from being redundant, these interfere with the clue to the extent that it cannot be solved until they have been removed. So in the clue “Setter is reformed alky, drinking nothing (5)” [ALKY* around O] for KOLYA, the word ‘is’ is redundant, and can be ignored, while the clue can be solved whether it is there or not. On the other hand, in “Setter is reformed alky, drinking nothing intoxicating”, the word ‘intoxicating’ must be removed before the clue can be satisfactorily solved, and it is thus the extra word. Note that these stowaways must be arranged in alphabetical order of the answers to the clues in which they appear before the four examples can be identified.

Across

11a  Lamb put lithium nitrate into regional river (4)
The ‘regional river’ leads to a 2-letter dialect word (comprising two vowels) for a river or drainage channel which has come to the aid of many a setter over the years. The pseudonym which forms the answer here was also very popular in cryptics ‘back in the day’, often as part of a wordplay.

14a  Tiny old mallet with used head replaced by learner (6)
The ‘mallet’ (6 letters) was often used for driving in a wedge, hence the association of the two in the name of a rather smart pub on the Thames not far from the equally smart Goring. One letter in the mallet word is replaced by another, the result being a term which is perhaps more old-fashioned than old.

18a  New leader in Russian eatery forced to return napkin holders (4)
When the surplus word occurs in the middle of a single clue element it can muddy the waters, as in eg ‘last day of June’ for E (‘day’ being the extra word). The bits that make up the wordplay here contribute 1, 1 and 2 letters, the last of these being an abbreviation from the world of classical music which is a rare visitor to the cruciverbal realm.

26a  Root also plays, missing six deliveries (4)
The cricketing theme is maintained to a degree in the cryptic wordplay, where a 4-letter word is removed from an 8-letter word, producing an answer which matches three headwords in Chambers. While the first of these will be very familiar, the one referenced here – the second – probably won’t be.

29a  Ghetto cop sinks attorney (6)
I’m wary of abbreviations for various ranks of police officer being indicated by ‘cop’ or the like; it seems acceptable when the abbreviation has a life of its own, eg ‘PC’ (‘They sent an officer round’ / ‘They sent a PC round’), but I’ve never heard the shortened form of ‘Police Sergeant’ being used on its own…in fact, I’m not sure I’ve ever come across it at all.

Down

5d  Wolf raised local sow with struggle (6)
With wordplays of this general form (‘reversed A + B’), it is possible that A needs to be reversed before B is added, or that B needs to be added to A before the combination is reversed; here it is the latter. This is quite a tricky clue, the word for a young sow being shown by Chambers as ‘dialect’ (hence the ‘local’), the ‘struggle’ being the sort that might involve child custody or a long rope, and the definition being designed to misdirect (the answer is a verb).

8d  Incursions on Sweden take support (5)
If I had a pound for every clue I’ve seen that was missing a comma…well, I’d weigh quite a lot. Here there definitely needs to be one between ‘Sweden’ and ‘take’, because the first wordplay element is preceded in the answer by the two which follow.

16d  Dead body has freakishly hollowed-out eyes (5)
The wordplay is quite straightforward, but it seems wholly counterintuitive that the answer should have a figurative sense in which it refers to a corpse.

19d  Strengthening piece extended 2×20 poles (7)
Those who are familiar with carpentry may be at an advantage for this 3+4 charade, the ‘strengthening piece’ being a strip of timber nailed on top of a rafter or joist which has bowed downwards in order to make its upper surface straight again; the word could also have been indicated by ‘animal hair’. ‘Extended’ should be interpreted as ‘extended in time’ or ‘extended in space’.

22d  Lee’s cider-drinking companion switching right to initially bowl wrong’un to Zampa? (5)
The splendid first volume of Laurie Lee’s autobiography was first published in 1959 and is still in print. His 5-letter drinking companion (and seducer) needs to have one letter changed in order to produce the answer, which has nothing to do with Oscar Wilde and everything to do with the father of a famous presenter of ITV’s News at Ten (who, perhaps surprisingly. is not commemorated by the “wrong ‘un”). Adam Zampa is an Australian cricketer, and the word is shown by Chambers as ‘Aust’ (though I’m pretty sure he would call it a ‘googly’ like the rest of us).

23d  Hot sandwich maker’s one of Leah’s sons (6)
A clue of two definitions, the first being the sort which you either know or you don’t (I didn’t); it’s a relatively recent addition to Chambers, and it is the full name of the sandwich which is listed rather than just the putative name of its maker. Leah had six sons, but only two of them had six letters.

25d  Plant from South Africa found in Australian meadow (6)
The IVR code for South Africa isn’t a frequent visitor to crosswords, but here it’s caught between a single-letter abbreviation and a word which should be familiar to regular solvers.

28d  Tracks Max’s constant idleness (5)
‘Max’ is Max Planck, but the tricky bit of the wordplay is the word answering to ‘tracks’; it is a singular noun, somewhat akin to ‘spoor’, and is also the name of a Dutchman currently much loved by Liverpool fans.

Definitions in clues are underlined

Having entered all the answers, I wasn’t immediately able to make much of the quotation, but the third and fourth examples from the extra words seemed to ring a distant bell, and googling the pair came up trumps. I was then able to confirm that the other examples did indeed fit the pattern, which prompted me to seek out a particular (small) word in the perimeter. That enabled me to work out the quotation, but I couldn’t verify it in ODQ or any other reference book on my shelves, while in the online Treasury of Humorous Quotations it is unhelpfully attributed to ‘Unknown’. Doing an exact web search for the first five (or more) words will lead you to the author’s surname and initials, if not his first name, but that can be readily found. The expressions ‘at a stretch’ and ‘in motion’ give strong hints towards the particular example that the setter has in mind, and the fact that we are looking for nine contiguous cells makes it pretty clear what the word is; this contains two instances of a relatively uncommon letter, not far apart, so I looked for a couple of these letters in close proximity in the grid. This guided me straight to the nine cells which were to be highlighted.

An entertaining debut puzzle with some nice ideas. The clues were in general quite soft-centred, despite the inclusion of a few obscurities, and the fact that every across clue contained an extra word made those words easier to identify. Theme-wise, I would have struggled without the help of the web; however, apart from the reference in the final step to something I still possess, it was a long way from being one of my specialist subjects. But hats off to Claude! The missing paragraph, with one line still omitted, was

Four notable examples might be:

LIMOUSINE (9 letters) – literally a long, low vehicle

SKATEBOARD (10 letters) – rides low to the ground

SUBMARINE (9 letters) – travels low beneath the surface

Having solved the puzzle, you can probably guess what completed this set.

Phibs Toughness Rating : 🥾🥾🥾 (Suitable for anyone except barred puzzle novices)

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