Enigmatic Variations 1244: 3 Down by Serpent

In a crescendo of coincidence, or a planned plethora(?), Serpent/Jack has had four puzzles out in the last month or so, across four different outlets – a Saturday Indie, which I also had the pleasure of blogging, an Inquisitor in the ‘i’, the Grauniad September Genius (blog due on Sunday?), and now this EV. For all I know, he might have had a Listener out as well, but I don’t venture there too often…anyway, I think the man needs a rest – I certainly do!…

The preamble to EV1244 states that:

“The perimeter of the puzzle, from which bars have been omitted, contains nine words which must be entered where they will fit; clues to these entries are listed in alphabetical order of their answers, and each contains a single misprint that must be corrected before solving. When read in clockwise order of their respective grid entries, the correct letters, along with the perimeter, will assist solvers in identifying the puzzle’s true 3 DOWN (19, two words); this must be written beneath the grid. Chambers Dictionary (2014) is recommended.”

My initial approach was to attack the ‘normal’/non-perimeter clues, as there wasn’t going to be any jiggery-pokery going on – just normal cryptic clues. I made good progress here, and after a few runs through had most of the interior mapped out, with a fair number of crossing letters in the perimeter.

On to the perimeter clues – in alphabetic order of solutions, which might help later on…the first to jump out on reading through – fairly obvious? – misprint had to be Colossus for Molossus, which I initially thought was a made up word, but actually turns out to be ‘a metrical foot, of three long syllables’. But that is by-the-by, the answer surely had to be GIANT/Colossus. After a few more perimeter clues yielded, I started trying to put them in place – but had some trouble working out if they were clockwise or anticlockwise – and MAC/CAM added to that confusion, as I was pencilling what I thought was their corrected-misprint letters around the edge as I went along, to see if anything jumped out at me.

The PDM was when I fitted in GIANT MICE and CAM IGNITE, and realised that they were both composite anagrams of ENIGMATIC!

So, the perimeter is made up of variations of the letters E-N-I-G-M-A-T-I-C, not clockwise or anticlockwise, but horizontal and vertical, and the corrected letters also spell (this time clockwise!) ENIGMATIC – again:

(My animated grid misses the final step of writing the true TITLE (3D) under the grid as ‘ENIGMATIC VARIATIONS’, but I think you get the idea.)

My notes indicate that this was a relatively quick EV solve for me – with the thematic material concentrated around the perimeter, and some relatively gentle clueing (IMHO), but overall it was a clever piece of construction to get those composite anagrams and the corrected letters all matching up, in a touching homage to the EV oeuvre. (Try saying that three times very quickly…)

Thanks, Serpent, and look forward to blogging your work again soon…

(Incidentally, that Inquisitor also involved thematic work around the perimeter – seems that Serpent really likes to think outside the box!)

(And lastly – I have a nagging feeling that I have seen something a bit like this before – with composite anagrams of the same word or phrase around a perimeter – but my memory eludes me, and not sure how I would search for it in the rest of the site or on t’internet…can anybody corroborate or dispel my feeling on this?…)