Enigmatic Variations 1252: The Van by Ifor

My old man said ‘Follow the van…’…but what kind of ‘van’ does Ifor have in mind?…Van Morrison? ‘The Van’, by Roddy Doyle? or maybe a White-Van Man’

The preamble in full states that:

“Four clues contain superfluous material in tune with the theme. Another six clues have answers that are too short for their spaces; solvers must insert real words inside these answers so as to form new entries, thus responding to a question also in tune with the theme. Two normally-clued answers must individually be rearranged to give a pair that might be found in THE VAN. Sixteen further clues contain a superfluous word; these must be knocked out from THE VAN, packaged into pairs and each pair shifted into a phrase to be written under the grid, and highlighted in an appropriate colour. Chambers Dictionary (2014) is recommended.”

Quite a ‘bitty’ preamble – worth a couple of reads before diving in to try and get a foothold of some sort…and not all clues are affected, so there are some ‘normals’ in there somewhere..

My first nibble at a thematic was ‘COMER’ at 9D, which seemed too short, so could possibly be COMPILER or COMPUTER – but the added bit needs to be a real word – not sure if PIL is a real word. Then FILED, which seemed to have a G in the middle – and NEIST which had an O in the middle – NEPOTIST?

None of this really made sense, but I pressed on, and started finding some likely extra words – ALTER, RETAINER, EARL, GREATER – lots of shared letters there, but without the full list, or at least most of it, or some indication of a length of the anagram, it was going to be tricky to match them up into pairs to anagram-ise. They all seemed to be the first words of their clues, which might help…

There was a combined PDM, on about day 3 of solving – NAG and PONY implied horses. I then got METE at 25A, which looked like it had to be MEGABYTE – but Gaby is a real name?…or is it…Chambers gives GABY as a ‘simpleton’ – and SKYE had DIV added to make SKYDIVE – with DIV being short for DIVVY, or a fool – so some fools and some horses… Around the same time a couple of extra words/phrases appeared – which didn’t seem to work with their clue wordplay, but also didn’t quite seem to fit wit the other  the possible anagrams, and also were not the first words of their clues…INCOME TAX, VAT, MONEY BACK…and something clicked into place – the theme tune of Only Fools and Horses…’no INCOME TAX, no VAT, no MONEYBACK, no GUARANTEE’! which left YONDER as RODNEY and BODLEY as DELBOY:

 

It still took a while to work out the anagrams as RELIANT REGAL – the trusty yellow VAN (at last!) – mainly because, as any non-devotee would probably say, ‘I always thought it was a Reliant Robin’…’

So:

ALL IN + GREATER

ALTER + REALIGN

etc., make up RELIANT REGAL – to be highlighted in yellow under the grid.

‘Cushty’, and ‘luvverly jubbly’, as Delboy Trotter himself might have put it! Great fun, and a little less high-brow than I originally anticipated, but no less enjoyable or challenging because of that. Thanks to Ifor, and I’m off to a car boot sale in the morning to offload some genuine merchandise wot fell off the back of a passing lorry…honest, guv!…

 

 

Across
Clue No	Superfluous/inserted material	Solution / Final entry	Clue (definition underlined, superfluous material bolded in [brackets]) / Logic/Parsing
1		YONDER / RODNEY	On the old road, travelling to those seen some way off (6) / anag, i.e. travelling, of ON + YE (the, old) + RD (road)
5	RETAINER	TYRANT	[Retainer] succeeded in escape from right nasty criminal bully (6) / anag, i.e. criminal, of NA(S)TY (without S – succeeded) + RT (right)
10	ALTER	PALOVERDE	[Alter] municipal overdevelopment restricting growth in parts of Arizona (9) / hidden word in, i.e. restricted by, ‘municiPAL OVER DEvelopment’
11		DOUPS	Decorate head of submarine bases in Holy Loch (5) / DO UP (decorate) + S (first letter, or head, of Submarine)
12	EARL	POSEUR	[Earl] who affects opinions rose up in a huff (6) / anag, i.e. in a huff, of ROSE UP
13	(no) MONEY BACK	IMP	Perhaps Dennis the Menace won [money back] from softy? (3) / (W)IMP (softy, without W – won)
14	(no) INCOME TAX	DEMOTION	Brief protest into erroneous lowering of [income tax] rate (8) / DEMO (brief, or abbreviated, demonstration) + TION (anag, i.e. erroneous, of INTO)
16		OPEN	Obvious refusal, originally next to the finish (4) / (N)OPE(N) – nope, or refusal, with first letter at the end
17	NAG (horse)	FILED / FINAGLED	Logically arranged whenever returned under control (8) / FI (if, whenever, returned) + LED (under control)
19	REALIGN	HUMMUS	[Realign] starter’s marks as above after imposition (6) / HUM (imposition, hoax) + M (marks) + US (ut supra, latin, as above)
24	GREATER	MUSROL	[Greater] piece of harness has to swivel without bits at the end (6) / MUS(T) (has to) + ROL(L) (swivel) – both without end letters
25	GABY (fool)	METE / MEGABYTE	Boundary measure (8) / double def. METE can be both a boundary and a measure
26	ALTAR	ASTI	[Altar] wine casting shadows (4) / hidden word, i.e. shadowed by, ‘cASTIng’
29	GENERAL	REINDEER	[General] check to reportedly scarce animal (8) / REIN (check) + DEER (homophone, i.e. reportedly, of DEAR, scarce)
31	(no) GUARANTEE	TIV	Set [guarantee] retaining independent African means of communication (3) / T_V (set) around (retaining) I (independent)
32	ALL-IN	BONSAI	[All-in] unhealthy bias taking against low-growth culture (6) / B_SAI (anag, i.e. unhealthy, of BIAS) around (taking) ON (against)
33	REELING	NOISE	[Reeling] elderly band of musicians managed just the second half of symphonies (5) / anag, i.e. managed, of ONIES (second half of symphONIES)
34	INTEGRAL	INTERVEIN	[Integral] cut across with blood vessels through it never bursting (9) / IN (by, or through) + TERVEIN (anag, i.e. bursting, of IT NEVER)
35	LEGAL	STARVE	[Legal] rule stopping staff deteriorate in old age (6) / STA_VE (staff, music) around (stopped by) R (rule)
36		BODLEY / DELBOY	Doubly uneasy with base for university, he set up a library (6) / anag, i.e. uneasy, of DO(U)BLY + E (i.e. U – university – swapped out for E – base, logarithm)
Down
Clue No	Superfluous/inserted material	Solution / Final entry	Clue (definition underlined, superfluous material bolded in [brackets]) / Logic/Parsing
1	RETRAIN	RADIO HAM	[Retrain] amateur broadcaster caught from macho posturing after failure of raid (8, two words) / double/condsecutive anagrams – RADI (anag, i.e. failure, of RAID) + OHAM (anag, i.e. posturing, of MA(C)HO – without C – caught)
2		DRUPE	Fruit fool recipe included (5) / D_UPE (fool) including R (recipe, Latin, take…)
3		EASEFUL	Relaxing fees left a university bust (7) / anag, i.e. bust, of FEES + L (left) + A + U (universiy)
4		YLEM	Original substance tamely returned without thanks (4) / (TA)MELY ‘returned’, without TA (thanks)
5	PONY (horse)	TOM / TOPONYM	Big bell rings, for example, when lifted (7) / double defn. TOM can be a big bell; it can also be shoet for ‘tomfoolery’, referring to stolen jewellery – ‘rings, when lifted’
6		RESIGN	Commit anew or stand down (6) / if you commit anew, you might RE-SIGN a contract or agreement
7		AREOLAR	Polar bear struggling without lead regarding sunken spots (7) / anag, i.e. struggling, of (P)OLAR (B)EAR, without PB (Pb, lead)
8	REIGN	TERM	[Reign] limited period in the empty room (4) / TE (ThE, empty) + RM (room)
9	PUT (fool)	COMER / COMPUTER	Promising individual uncovered here going after company money (8) / Com (company) + M (money) + ER (hERe, uncovered)
15	POT (horse)	NEIST / NEPOTIST	Half-hearted tennis played next to locals (8) / anag, i.e. played, of TEN(N)IS, with core, or heart, NN, reduced by a half
18	(no) VAT	DELIVERY	One from over yonder, originally reviled for putting up [VAT] (8) / Y (original letter of Yonder) + REVILED – all put up
20	GALL	MAGENTA	[Gall] colour acting in case of melanoma (7) / M_A (case, or outer letters, of MelanomA) around AGENT (adjective, acting)
21	DIV (fool)	SKYE / SKYDIVE	Island in the Antipodes, cooler top to bottom (7) / (E)SKY(E) – cooler, or ice box, in Australia (Antipodes) – with top letter moving to the bottom
22		QUEENIE	Man’s shellfish occasionally given subsequently to female cat (7) / QUEEN (female cat) + IE (occasional letters of ‘gIvEn’
23		RAISER	One who increases wages is rare, unfortunately (6) / anag, i.e. unfortunately, of IS RARE
27	TRIAL	STILB	[Trial] measure of brightness reflected in transfers of electronic data (5) / BLITS – transfers of electronic data, reflected to give STILB
28	LATERAL	IBIS	[Lateral] visibility’s picked up, revealing this bird in hiding (4) / reversed hidden word, i.e. ‘picked up’, ‘revealing’ and ‘in hiding’, in ‘viSIBIlity’
30		EYED	Looked on lifeless brood, end to end (4) / (D)EYE(D) – D (dead, lifeless) + EYE (brood, of pheasants) – either reversed, or moving first letter to last (end to end?)