Enigmatic Variations No. 1387: Wonderful Ghoul by Kcit

I thought this was a ‘blinking’ hard puzzle from Kcit (aka Phi)…educational and challenging…just how I like ’em…

The preamble states that:

“Wordplay in eleven clues varies from the entered answer by one letter. In clue order, the letters in the grid identify a scientific principle, while those in wordplay, starting at a different point, spell an example of what it governs. Solvers should resolve clashes in squares where clue answers are longer than the lengths indicated by inserting an appropriate symbol. Correct interpretation of the clashes will enable completion of the unclued entries to reveal the WONDERFUL GHOUL. Chambers Dictionary (2016) is recommended.”

Quite a lot to digest, but we are into the realm of ‘scientific principles’ and ‘appropriate symbols’, so presumably a bit of physics, chemistry or maths to come?…

Not a lot happened in the first couple of passes through the clues – I could see PATETTE/PALETTE as an example of the wordplay vs. definition type of clue, and EXACHED/EXACTED soon followed. But that was only two out of eleven!

Time passed, with a few more of these being ‘wink’led out – CRROWS/ARROWS and SALEAGE/SALVAGE – before I had a first PDM with the top left corner. 1A looked like SARTORIAL, 1D could be SATRAPY (helped by the fact that I had seen ANICUT in a recent puzzle). So that top left corner must contain the clashing letters SART/SATR – and given the number of Brian Cox documentaries I have half-watched recently the ‘appropriate symbol’ is probably going to be a STAR!

Buoyed by this discovery, I pressed on and found STARs in AFTERTASTE/WARTS AND ALL and RAMPARTS/BARSTOOL, but I was briefly held up by putting REICHSTAG as the ‘parliament’ in 20D.

At some point I remembered the two unclued entries, which probably had to be MIRA and ALGOL, to continue the STAR theme and from their crossing letters.

So STAR so good, but it took a bit more rigour (and Wiki-oogling) to tease the rest of the letter change combinations, and discover that the two sequences were LEAVITT’S LAW and DELTA CEPHEI. And also to discover that ALGOL loosely means ‘head of the ogre, or ghoul’ in Arabic, and is also referred to as the ‘demon star’ – wicked! So it is a ‘wonderful (star) ghoul (demon)’.

LEAVITT’S LAW applies to DELTA CEPHEI  – as an example of a Cepheid Variable, to you and me a ‘blinking star’, of which ALGOL and MIRA are also examples. I assume the relative positions of MIRA, ALGOL and the four blinking stars are relevant to a map of the heavens, but by this time my brain had exploded…

 

 

I failed to parse SPLEN/SILEN at 22A – having got SILEN as the (great?) Satyr. I eventually reverse-engineered the P from Cephei, but just couldn’t get SPLEN from the wordplay – any blinking obvious explanations welcomed!

I think that is it – thanks to Kcit for the challenge, and hopefully the grid above and the explanations below are of use.

NB. I have just searched through my back-catalogue to re-discover that I blogged Kcit’s ‘STAR QUALITY’ in EV 1212 in Feb 2016 – those innocent pre-Brexit days! – which was along the same lines, but an even more mind-blowing feat of astronomical mapping!…well worth a (re-)visit…)

 

Across
Clue No	Clashing solution/ Wordplay	Entry	Clue (definition underlined) / Logic/Parsing
1	(SART)ORIAL	(*)ORIAL	Very much recalled old snazzily-dressed Aussie accepting skill of the tailor (6) / S_O (very much) around (accepting) ART (skill) + RIAL (lair, obsolete Aussie slang, flashily dressed, recalled)
5		TURACO	Brightly-coloured bird forcibly circling vehicle that’s in retreat (6) / O_UT (forcibly, 54th of 55 entries under ‘out’ in Chambers!) around (circling) CAR (vehicle), all in retreat, = TU-RAC-O
10		ANICUT	Dam I situated in a Northern channel (6) / A + N (northern) + CUT (channel), around I
11		NAMED	Produced term for ‘lay staff off from, in recession’ (5) / NAMED could be DE-MAN., or ‘lay off staff’, backwards, or in recession
12	PA-T-ETTE	PA-L-ETTE	Head taking in festival’s range of colours (7) / PA_TE (head) around (taking in) TET (Vietnamese Lunar New Year festival)
xx		MIRA	unclued (4) / unclued – thematic deduction
14	GRAPN-A-L	GRAPN-E-L	One laying hold of backsliding convict receiving charge (new) (7) / G_AL (lag, or convict, backsliding), around (receiving) RAP (charge) + N (new)
15	C-RROWS	A-RROWS	No longer shoots Native Americans after Republican taken hostage (6) / CR_OWS (Native Americans, the Crow tribe) around (taking hostage) R (Republican)
17	B(ARST)OOL	B(*)OOL	Glaswegian jokes with idiot where one drinks … (5) / BARS (Scottish, joke or amusing story) + TOOL (idiot)
18	SAL-E-AGE	SAL-V-AGE	… beer during intelligent recovery (7) / S_AGE (wise, intelligent) around ALE (beer)
19	AFTE(RTAS)TE	AFTE(*)TE	Minimal hint of this being accommodated by grossly fast eater? (7) / &lit-ish? anag, i.e. grossly, of FAST EATER + T (first letter, or minimal hint, of This)
22	S-P-LEN	S-I-LEN	Worked at escaping great satyr (5) / Still can’t parse this – I reverse-engineered the P!
24		SDEINS	Fails to acknowledge old crimes involving Duke and Earl (6) / S_INS (crimes) around (involving) D (duke) + E (earl)
25		AWARDED	Adjudged a number of people killed in conflict after last one dispatched (7) / A + WAR DE(A)D (a number of people killed in conflict, losing, or dispatching, last letter A – or one)
28		GIRR	How to get a Scottish band? ‘Run’ + ‘rig’, on reflection (4) / R (run) + RIG = RRIG, reflecting to give GIRR
29	EXAC-H-ED	EXAC-T-ED	Longed to follow after old lover forced out (7) / EX (old lover) + ACHED (longed)
xx		ALGOL	unclued (6) / unclued – thematic deduction
30		UNHEAL	Ed’s to disclose daughter abandoned by top Liberal (6) / UNHEA(D) (top, or behead, abandoned by D – daughter) + L (Liberal)
31		SWELLS	Ocean movements ship absorbs successfully (6) / S_S (steamship) around (absorbing) WELL (successfully)
32	VE(RSAT)ILE	VE(*)ILE	All-round individual once holding it back before end of game (6) / VERSA_L (obsolete, i.e. once, for individual) around (holding) TI (IT, back), plus E (end letter of gamE)
Down
Clue No	Clashing solution/ Wordplay	Entry	Clue (definition underlined) / Logic/Parsing
1	(SATR)APY	(*)APY	Comment covering lock for governor’s office (4) / SA_Y (comment) around (covering) TRAP (lock)
2		ONAGRA	Men trapping badger about to do for old flowers (6) / O_R (Other Ranks, the ‘men’) around (trapping) NAG (badger), plus A (about)
3		ICEBOX	Cold storage that is black and neat, filled with cold (6) / I_E (id est, that is) arpound (filled with) C (cold), plus B (black) + OX (steer, neat)
4		AUTO	A respectful address to Inquisition tactic (4) / A + U (respectful title, Burma/Myanmar) + TO
5	E-HERMAE	T-HERMAE	Baths constructed here, constructed without depth (7) / EHER (anag, i.e. constructed, of HERE) + MA(D)E (constructed, without D – depth)
6		UNFABLED	Injured faun lost blood for real (8) / UNFA (anag, i.e. injured, of FAUN) + BLED (lost blood)
7	RAMP(ARTS)	RAMP(*)	They defend questionable view of graffiti where you join the motorway? (5) / RAMP_S (slip roads, where you might join a motorway) around ART (graffiti – questionable as ‘art’?!)
8		AMINO ACID	A concern to limit oxygen and carbon in superior organic compound (9, two words) / A + MIN_D (concern) around O (oxygen) + A_I (superior), itself around C (carbon)
9	ODALLER-I	ODALLER-S	Old laird upset about the French estate holders in Scotland (8) / ODAL_RI (anag, i.e. upset, of O – old + LAIRD), around LE (the, in French)
13	WRIT D-ARGE	WRIT L-ARGE	Welsh service keeping successful student up big-time (9, two words) / W (Welsh) + RIT_E (service, ceremony) around DARG (grad, successful student, up)
15		AGA SAGAS	A light chat about a decline in middlebrow literature (8, two words) / A + G_AS (light chat) around A + SAG (decline)
16	WA(RTS A)ND ALL	WA (*) ND ALL	Hostile and tense over footwear line revealed in full (8, three words) / WAR (hostile?) + T (tense) + S AND AL (footwear) + L (line)
18		STREETS	About to block instructions to restore highways (7) / ST_ETS (stet, Latin, instruction to restore an edit, plurally), around RE (about, regarding)
20	REICH(RAST)	REICH(*)	Charter is revived in parliament once (6) / anag, i.e. revived, of CHARTER IS
21	UNRE-E-L	UNRE-A-L	Mysterious fish at bottom of a French river (6) / UN (a, in French) + R (river) + EEL (fish)
23		ERROL	Romantic Hollywood star picked up knowledge to capture Romeo (5) / ER_OL (lore, knowledge, picked up) around R (Romeo)
26	L-ANE	W-ANE	Aircraft losing power to go down (4) / (P)LANE (aircraft losing P – power)
27		IDLE	British avoiding scornful response – it’s unedifying (4) / (BR)IDLE (scornful response, losing, or being avoided by, BR – British)