Enigmatic Variations No. 1475: A Donation by Vismut

Vismut has presented a jigsaw for us this week, with ‘A DONATION’…

The preamble states that:

“15 clues have an extra word to be removed before solving. The first letter from each word spells out the last three words of a suggestion, the first two of which can be found at 1 down, which gives the shape of an idea to be drawn through 16 letters in the completed grid. The last letter of each extra word spells out, on reflection, who has made the suggestion. Clues are given in alphabetical order of their answers which must be entered where they fit. Only one clue number should be entered in the completed grid to show when A DONATION might be made. Chambers Dictionary (2016) is recommended.”

Only one way to go here – some (a lot of!) cold-solving, and some analysis of the frequency of word lengths in the grid and where any significant crossers might help. For example, there are only four 4s, and there are four cells where across and down clues start together, so they should be close to each other on the alphabetical list. And of course there is something significant about 1D, which is third in the clue list, so must start with a low value letter – probably A, or maybe B?

But first, I copy-n-pasted the clues from the online PDF copy into an Excel spreadsheet, and then added columns for the clue lengths, extra words and, of course, solutions. Partly because this would help with the blog, and also because I could then mock up a grid, with the solutions as Across and Down words, and do the trial-and-error stage of jigsaw-piece fitting electronically, with the option to ‘undo’ any blind alleys, rather than with a pencil and eraser… With the extra words, I also added two derived columns with their first and last letters, to make these easier to track.

Cold solving proceeded, with fairly slow progress, but progress nonetheless, and several extra words presented themselves along the way. And these led to the first (literal!) PDM, when I realised that the first letters seemed to end in ?OUGHT? and the first few seemed to be ?ORYO?. Given that 1D (two words) precedes these letters, and probably starts with A, this gave A??????ORYO????OUGHT?, and it wasn’t a huge leap to guess at ‘A PENNY FOR YOUR THOUGHTS’.

Extrapolating from this, it was possible to a) use the newly found letters to help identify extra words in unsolved clues, and b) to get a toehold in the grid, as 1D gives four starting letters for other entries. The P wasn’t too helpful, as there seemed to be four 5-letters Ps that could fit, but it helped me get NINNY, and eventually EVERSO and NEOMYCIN.

From here on in it was an iterative process of gradually solving more clues, trying likely options out in my electronic grid, and then using any new crossers to help solve outstanding clues, to try to place them in the grid – ad finitum, eventually!

On the extra words, I had gradually teased out LADY BADEN-POWELL as the last letters, ‘on reflection’, so reading upwards. And a little Wiki-oogling explained the title and the background to the theme. In the 1930s, Lady Baden-Powell used the phrase ‘a penny for your thoughts’ as a fund-raising concept – to encourage Girl Guides and Girl Scouts to donate a small amount to the Girl Guiding/Girl Scouting cause. In addition, the general Scout movement’s ‘Founder’s Day’, 22-February, which was coincidentally both Lord and Lady BP’s birthday (although she was 32 years younger than him), is also designated as ‘World Thinking Day’, when primarily Girl Guides and Girls Scouts, but also Scouts generally, worldwide are encouraged to think of their fellow members in other countries, and the impact of Scouting in general.

(I also found a story – maybe apocryphal – that when Lord and Lady B-P were married, in 1912, there was a penny-collection amongst all the Scouts and Guides of England, which was put towards buying them a car as a wedding gift!)

Which leads to the last couple of steps in the end game – the 16-letter phrase ‘WORLD THINKING DAY ‘can be found centrally in the grid, in the shape of said penny; and the clue answer FEBRUARY is located at what would be 22D, if numbers were added to the grid:

 

 

My electronic list of clues:

And my jigsaw workings:

 

As a former Scout myself, and father of two children who have spent many years in the Scouting movement, including fund-raising for and attending the 2019 World Scout Jamboree in West Virginia, I found this a wonderful theme – and (re-)learned a few things along the way! I actually solved most of this on the Monday after publication, 22-Feb itself, and at a couple of points in the day it was mentioned around the house that it was World Thinking Day – but unfortunately I wasn’t far enough along at that point to be helped by this information…

From a solving/grid construction point of view – yes it was a jigsaw, so lots of initial cold solving, but there was the extra help with 1D, once one had enough letters from the extra words to guess at the phrase, and there was the even spread of those extra words – every third clue – which didn’t really help me, as I only spotted it late on, but maybe it helped some people? I am always amazed at how setters manage to get hidden phrases into grids – diagonals, thematic shapes, etc. – but I think it was an even more impressive feat to ensure that FEBRUARY appeared at 22D. Kudos to Vismut!

I didn’t think the clueing was particularly devious or hard – for an EV – although things were obviously complicated by the possible presence of an extra word in 15 of the clues. The alphabetical listing helped to narrow things down in some cases, once a few solutions had been got.

There were a few new to me/obscure words – NACARATS, HORN-MAD, NEOMYCIN – and I didn’t help myself by lazily putting down ULTRA instead of UTTER, and PERAI (from a in half of peri-peri, rather than piri-piri – PERAI being an alternative spelling for PIRAI, both linked to ‘piranha’). The latter also had me chuntering that the clue answers were not all alphabetically ordered, as PERAI should come before PERON, until I realised the error of my ways.

NB. I have to confess to neglecting to re-read the preamble fully before submitting – I was so pleased with myself for my spreadsheet manipulation and jigsaw filling, and my research on the theme, that I missed the bit about the hidden phrase and didn’t draw the shape on my submitted grid, just the number at 22D. So no £25 book-voucher for me this week! (;+<)

Many thanks to Vismut – and I hope all is clear below:

 

Clues
Clue No	Solution	Extra word	Clue (definition underlined, unwanted word in bold) / Logic/Parsing
*	ACORN	FOAL	Australian foal sniffs at peeled fruit (5) / A (Australian) + (S)CORN(S) (sniffs at, or scorns, peeled of its outer letters)
*	ALIZARI		It’s madder, occasionally manic, keeping Manx reptile (7) / A_I (occasional letters of ‘mAnIc’) around (keeping) LIZAR(D) (reptile – if a ‘Manx cat’ has no tail, then a ‘Manx reptile’ might have no tail – or last letter!)
*	A PENNY		1d (6, two words) / Thematic deduction
*	ARTAL	OFFICIAL	Checked material unwrapped has pound as official measure of weight (5) / (T)ARTA(N) (checked material, again losing its outer letters, or being unwrapped) + L (pound, in LSD notation)
*	ASPARAGUS		So far average sort of cow ignoring northern plant (9) / AS (so far) + PAR (average) + A(N)GUS (sort of cow, Aberdeen Angus, ignoring N – northern)
*	BABEE		Perhaps Queen Cleopatra’s soul’s leading prophet’s follower (5) / BA (Egyptian, hence Cleopatra’s, for soul) before (leading) BEE (queen, perhaps)
*	BRERE	RODE	Bishop rode about twice to find Ed’s rosebush (5) / B (bishop) + RERE (re, about, or concerning, twice)
*	CAPITANO		Headman’s function blocking bridge across island (8) / CAPI_O (CAPO – moveable bridge, in guitar playing, around, or across, I – island), all around, or blocked by, TAN (mathematical function, tangent)
*	CORE TIMES		Mister Coe arranged certain working hours (9, two words) / anag, i.e. arranged, of MISTER COE
*	DEID	YELLOW	Paisley’s gone yellow and faded in recess (4) / DIED, or faded, in reverse = DEID (Scottish, i.e. Paisley’s, for ‘dead’, or gone)
*	EVER SO		Jolly old verse in performance (6, two words) / anag, i.e. in performance, of O (old) + VERSE
22	FEBRUARY		March follows this fury bear’s tortured (8) / anag, i.e. tortured, of FURY BEAR
*	HORN-MAD	OREGANO	Stripped prickly oregano Mum pulled up, infuriated by entanglement (7) / (T)HORN(Y) (prickly, stripped, losing outer letters) + MAD (dam, or mother, pulled up)
*	HYMNED		Henry and uplifted duenna Maya regularly celebrated in song (6) / H (henry, SI unit of inductance) plus reversed regular letters from ‘DuEnNe MaYa’ = HYMNED
*	ILIUM		Troy’s part of a joint (5) / double defn. – capitalised, ILIUM can refer to Troy; and uncapitalised ILIUM is part of the hip bone/joint
*	MIDNOON	UP	Twelve not out, held up by fielder (7) / MID_ON (cricket fielding position) around (holding) NO (not out, also a cricketing term!)
*	MINIS		Notes excusing final marks for little ones (5) / MINI(M)S – notes, excusing, or removing, the final M – marks (as in former German currency)
*	NACARATS		Unwrapped snack before celebrity turned over colourful fabrics (8) / (S)NAC(K) (snack, unwrapped of outer letters, again!) + A (ante, Latin, before) + RATS (star, or celebrity, turned over)
*	NEOMYCIN	RUSSIAN	It’s to treat skin on my nice Russian mongrel (8) / anag, i.e. mongrel, of ON MY NICE
*	NINNY		Simpleton new in city (5) / N (new) + IN + NY (New York, city)
*	ONE-MAN		Working handle rotated for single person (6) / ON (working) + E-NAM (name, or handle, rotated)
*	OUTREIGNS	TAP-DANCE	Has power for longer than fantastic German tap-dance routines (9) / anag, i.e. fantastic, of G (German) + ROUTINES
*	PASSED OFF		Disappeared gradually from Dad’s farewell party on leaving navy (9, two words) / PAS (Pa’s, or Dad’s) + SE(N)D OFF (farewell party, leaving out N – navy)
*	PATOIS		Now and again comics post with fluency in local dialect (6) / PAT (with fluency, i.e. off pat) preceding OIS (now and again letters of ‘cOmIcS’)
*	PERON	HELD	Former president held quiet topless bird (5) / P (piano, music, quiet) + (H)ERON (topless bird)
*	PILAU		Paul nervously consuming international spicy dish (5) / P_LAU (anag, i.e. nervously, of PAUL) around (consuming) I (international)
*	PIRAI		Half of very hot sauce covers a fish (5) / PIR_I (-PIRI) (half of piri-piri, or very hot sauce) around (covering) A
*	PODIATRY	OEDEMA	Assistance at oedema operation rejected; attempt might be sole treatment (8) / PODIA (AID – assistance – and OP – operation, all reversed, or rejected) + TRY (attempt)
*	PRENOTION		Presumption soldier in planning ahead becomes negative (9) / PRE(PARA)TION (planning ahead) losing PARA (paratrooper, soldier) and gaining NO (negative) = PRENOTION
*	PROGESTIN		Brief advance in development can later rule out hormone (9) / PROG(R)ES(S) (advance in development, briefly, i.e. short of a letter, and dropping R – rule, i.e. ‘rule out’), followed by TIN (can, later)
*	PUMA	UNDERSCRUB	William upset flipping underscrub hides climbing cat (4) / reversed, hidden word, i.e. ‘flipping’ and ‘hides’, in ‘williAM UPset’
*	RAMBLES		Rabbits overlooking opening in blackberry bushes (7) / (B)RAMBLES – blackberry bushes, overlooking opening letter
*	REVIEWER		King up and down securing conviction for judge (8) / RE_ER (ER – Edwardus Rex, King Edward – backwards and forwards, i.e. up and down) around (securing) VIEW (conviction)
*	SENSATE	GUILTY	Maybe has guilty feeling and posts a note ignoring date (7) / SEN(D)S (posts, ignoring D – date) + A + TE (note, sol-fa scale)
*	SERF		Picked up rollers perhaps for slave (4) / homophone – SERF (slave, feudal vassal) can sound like SURF (waves, or rollers)
*	SNOWCAP		Stokes instantly one selected for mountain-top feature (7) / S (stokes, SI unit of kinematic viscosity) + NOW (instantly) + CAP (one selected, e.g. for a cricket team)
*	SPAMS	HORRID	Sends out rubbish and horrid meats (5) / double defn. to SPAM can be to send out junk e-mails, or rubbish; and SPAM is a kind of canned luncheon meat – maybe horrid to some, but horrid is not being used as a description here!
*	THALERS		Aluminium found in the scientific body’s silver coins (7) / TH_E around AL (aluminium) + RS (Royal Society, scientific body)
*	TOKING		Couple losing with Billie Jean possibly drawing on grass (6) / T(W)O (couple, losing W – with) + KING (Bille Jean, possibly)
*	TOMTITS	TRAUMA	Cat attacks heartlessly; trauma for birds (7) / TOM (cat) + TI(L)TS (tilts at, attacks, heartlessly)
*	TREK		Very French abrupt king makes arduous journey (4) / TRE(S) (very, French, abruptly, i.e. losing last letter) + K (king)
*	UTTER		Extreme lunatic beheaded (5) / (N)UTTER – lunatic, beheaded!
*	VIZIR	SPECIAL	Iran following special, namely Muslim minister (5) / VIZ (abbreviation of videlicet, Latin, to wit, or namely) + IR (Iran)