Enigmatic Variations No. 1172: Time by Augeas

To paraphrase the Monty Python ‘Australian Wine’ sketch (and I may have done this before, so apologies in advance): ‘…this is not a crossword for solving, this is a crossword for laying down and avoiding…’. The brave solver (and the blogger who has to continue because it is his turn) is presented with a set of un-numbered clues, with no enumeration and in ‘an order to be determined’ – the order to be deduced from a quotation round the perimeter…which, presumably, will only become clear once we solve and deduce the position and order of enough clues – a bit of a Catch-22 situation, if ever I saw one. In fact, given the ‘Augean’ name of the setter, it looks like a Herculean task awaits us… enter here all ye who dare…

My initial approach (the only one I could think of!) was to treat this as a ‘traditional’ jigsaw and not worry too much about that ‘undetermined order’ – although in retrospect I could have mulled over the possible orders – alphabetical? length of enumeration? forward? reverse? – a bit more.

So, cold solving was the order of the day – and a methodical jot down of all the permutations of four 3-letters, four 4-letters, etc. up to two 11-letters, which could be deduced from the kindly-provided bars. (Every little helps!)

…

Cue some footage of tumbleweed rolling by, and time-lapse photography of brain cells crumbling under pressure…

…

By a combination of luck and hard-earned jigsaw-crossword-fitting experience (i.e. guesswork!), I eventually gained a foothold among the 3- and 4- letter solutions – the B of ‘ABY’ seemed to fit with the B of ‘BEIN’ (these being among several obscure/obsolete/Spenserian/Shakespearean words that Augeas saw fit to put in our way)…and it sort of snowballed in a jigsaw-stylee from there on.

I didn’t help myself by making MATT a 4-letter word, rather than three (MAT), which meant I didn’t find BUTT for a while…but fortunately that didn’t stop me filling most of the grid and, eventually, working out the perimeter and the clue ‘order’.

So, the end result of a challenging, enjoyable and, ultimately, educational process was that a) the clues were simply presented in reverse order, which I guess could have been a theory I could have tested earlier, and b) the quotation was from one Wolcott GIBBS, an American critic and humorist (gah, humourist, shurely?!) who parodied ‘TIME’ magazine’s writing style, or SYNTAX, with the phrase ‘BACKWARD RAN SENTENCES UNTIL REELED THE MIND’:

 

(The perimeter actually has BACKWARDS, but the S is used to make SYNTAX with the circled letters.)

I can’t say I am a regular reader of ‘Time’, which I vaguely think of as their version of our Economist or Spectator(?), so I didn’t have much connection to the theme, but the quotation is there in ODQ and makes for the perfect crossword-y theme of reversal, albeit in a style and presentation that I haven’t encountered before. So to Augeas be thanks, and justice I hope I have to this puzzle done. (;+>)

 

NB. I think I have caveated a few recent blogs – e.g. on themes of ‘Allo Allo’ (EV1164) and ‘Blue Peter’ (1168) – with the feeling that they may have been a bit UK-centric, but the antidotes to these are wonderful puzzles like this, and the ‘Back to the Future’ theme of EV1148, which redress the balance in a more international direction.

NB. On a more parochial English-cricketing level, the surface reading of REPROVAL seems eerily prescient, given Kevin Pietersen’s (possibly last?) runs at the Oval this week, and the subsequent furore! Similarly that for CONSPUED, with echoes of last week’s UK election results…

 

Across
Clue No	Solution	Clue (definition underlined) / Logic/Parsing
*	NYS	“Heartless noonday Sun” is not in The Faerie Queene / NY (NoondaY, heartless) + S (sun)
*	ETEN	Giant teen reformed / anag, i.e. reformed, of TEEN
*	BEIN	Some describe incarceration as good for criminals / hidden word (i.e. some) in ‘descriBE INcarceration’
*	ALMOST	Street at end of Swedish city (not capital) nearly / (M)ALMO (Swedish city without its capital letter) + ST (street)
*	LOOSEN	John has space, relax / LOO (john, toilet) + ‘S (contraction of HAS) + EN (space)
*	GRACILE	Slender colt in cherished ambition – leading in Epsom / GRA_IL (cherished ambition, Holy Grail) around C (colt), plus E (first letter of Epsom)
*	CREPY	Hotspur mounts with foot in the right place, like lines displayed by Auden? / PERCY Hotspur ‘mounting’ might be ‘YCREP’, and with his last letter, or ‘foot’ returned to the correct place gives CREPY
*	MUREX	Source of dye from wild ox once in 1010 / M_X (M = 1000, X = 10) around URE (urus, extinct wild ox)
*	REINCARNATE	Perhaps Marie Antoinette embraces executioner without condition except at being born again / REIN_E (Marie Antoinette was ‘La Reine’) around (embracing) CARN(IFEX) (carn-if-ex, executioner, without IF – condition – and EX – except) + AT
*	ILIA	Parts of body irritating at first upset of trouble / I (first letter of ‘Irritating) + LIA (ail, or trouble, upset)
*	DASYPODIDAE	Daddy, I pose excitedly around a family of armadillos / anag (i.e. excitedly) of DADDY I POSE, around A
*	GHESSE	German writer follows good conjecture from Ed / G (good) + HESSE (German writer)
*	BACK OUT	Evade obligation to suppress news without fail ultimately (two words) / B(L)ACK OUT (suppress news, without L – last letter of faiL)
*	BOR	Bishop starts to orate religious form of address in Ely / B (bishop) + OR (first letters of Orate and Religious)
*	BUTT	Very large barrel bottom in Seattle / double defn. BUTT can be a large barrel; and US term for ‘bottom’
*	ARANEA	Webmasters are groggy near start of audit / A (are) + RANE (anag, i.e. groggy, of NEAR) + A (start of Audit)
*	SISTERLY	Kind reply, animated but heartless, follows stay in Scotland / SIST (stay, Scottish) + ERLY (anag, i.e. animated, of RE(P)LY, heartless)
*	FASCINATOR	Satanic deviant in for a fancy hat / F_OR around ASCINAT (anag, i.e. deviant, of SATANIC)
*	ACADEME	Rebel breaks soul for world of scholarship / A_ME (soul) broken into by CADE (Jack Cade, English rebel of 15th C)
*	ABY	Pay the penalty once for active past / A (active) + BY (past)
*	REPROVAL	It was a shame about Pietersen’s first runs at test ground / RE (about) + P (first letter of Pietersen) + R (runs, in a cricket sense) + OVAL (cricket test ground)
*	IDEAL	Subring from inside a larger / hidden word in (i.e. from) ‘insIDE A Larger’
*	STEALT	Bird wears fringes of smart stole in St Andrews / S_T (fringe letters of SmarT) around (worn by) TEAL (bird)
*	GEORGE	King Titan’s mother or grandmother? / The Titans were either the offspring of Uranus and Gaea (Ge), or any of their offspring, so a Titan’s mother could be GE, or its grandmother could be GE, hence GE OR GE
*	DARCY	Chap filmed in wet shirt gives a measure of penetration? / double defn. Colin Firth, as Mr DARCY, was filmed emerging from a lake in a wet shirt in a UK TV adaptation of ‘Pride & Prejudice’; and the DARCY is a unit expressing the permeability of rock, or a ‘measure of penetration’
*	CONSPUED	Despised Conservative Society whined when ejecting Liberal / CON (Conservative) + S (society) + PU(L)ED (whined, ejecting L – Liberal) (very topical!?)
*	MAT	Roughened mass of brushwood / double defn. MAT can mean roughened, of a surface; or a mass of brushwood
*	ANTICKE	Old, old, old one captures moment / AN_E (obsolete, or old, version of ONE) around (capturing) TICK (a moment)
*	WATERCRESS	Class croissants missing central salad item / WATER (class, quality, excellence) + CRESS (CRES-cent-S, shape of croissants, missing cent, central)
*	OATHABLE	The bard’s able to swear at hot tar lake (in Old English) / O_E (Old English) around AT + H (hot) + AB (Able Bodied seaman, sailor or tar) + L (lake)