Enigmatic Variations No. 1496: The European One by Vismut

Hi all.  Thanks to Vismut for another fun puzzle with a theme I enjoyed finding – and finding out about.

 

The preamble reads:

The 24 unnumbered clues contain an extra translated word thematic to their clue number, to be removed before solving, (except the first, which has two to be treated as one). The position of these words in each clue indexes the letter to be selected from that word and in the order presented they spell out an invention. The remaining six from the group run around the perimeter of the grid and the group’s name in the source language (THE EUROPEAN ONE) is given by the circled letters when they are read in the conventional way from the grid.

Something, read in a straight line within the completed grid, was destroyed prior to this invention and must be restored to complete a description of the one from the group that should be highlighted (four letters). Unchecked letters in the perimeter might make YOU CRACKING VERBS. The final grid contains real words and phrases; Chambers Dictionary (2016) is recommended.

 

Quite a lot to the rubric this week.  I solved some of the normal clues then started to scan the starred ones looking for the low-hanging fruit.  Low-hanging vegetables, as it turned out, because the clue with the extra shallot caught my attention very early on, followed swiftly by the onion in the very next one.  I solved a little cluster of the starred clues and could place DENOTE in the grid because I had checkers, from the numbered entries, for all of the other 6-letter answers.

It became apparent that the extra words featured lots of plants, a few animals … and one or two mysteries.  I got to the point where I could fill in the blanks in my generated letters by guessing at some likely extra words and got as far as …EPUBLICANCALENDAR.  With 30 clues in total that were either “thematic to their clue number” or one of the “remaining six” things were starting to make sense.  It was tempting to start some online research at this point but I resisted the temptation and continued looking at known and likely extra words.  Out came:

FRENCH REPUBLICAN CALENDAR

Well, the question now was whether to look this up immediately to find the information that would give me all the grid positions, or to carry on with the jigsaw and see how much further I could get on my own.  I do often like to make things difficult for myself, but in this case opted to skip any more jigsaw puzzling in favour of pure crossword puzzling.  In the end I found enough challenge remaining to be happy with that decision.

What I learned about the French Republican Calendar calendar is all contained in one handy web page: unsurprisingly, it’s this one.  Finally, the strange list of thematic words made sense!  We have the English translations of the names given in this calendar to each of the days in the month of:

MESSIDOR

… which appears in the circled squares.  I was a little premature in fitting the remaining six day names in the perimeter, messing up the order slightly and having to change a couple around as I finished the puzzle.  I should have been diligent and checked YOU CRACKING VERBS!

The last task was to restore the something which had been destroyed.  In one of those oft-fruitful diagonals we can change four letters (leaving real words) and “restore” BASTILLE to give:

BASTILLE DAY

… which is 14 July – or, in the French Republican Calendar, SAGE – our word to be highlighted.

 

 

Clue No	ANSWER (FINAL ENTRY)	Clue with definition underlined
		Explanation, with quoted indicators in italics and letters appearing in the ANSWER capitalised and emboldened
Across
7	SRI	Murray perhaps has international moved back to secure Indian Men’s Title (3)
		SIR (Murray perhaps) with I (international) moved to the end (moved back)
10	KAE	Scottish jackdaw starts to keep an egg (3)
		First letters of (starts to) Keep An Egg
19	IMPLORE	Beg for stories with naughty child in the van (7)
		LORE (stories) with IMP (naughty child) first (in the van)
26	AEDILES	Advanced diesel adapted for ancient magistrates (7)
		A (advanced) + DIESEL anagrammed (adapted)
Down
6	MAELID	Priest possessed by crazy, fabulous nymph (6)
		ELI (priest) in (possessed by) MAD (crazy)
14	KNEES-UP	Drink follows joint in riotous party (7)
		SUP (drink) follows KNEE (joint)
Unnumbered (now numbered for ease of reference)
*25	AESIR	Inhabitants of Asgard talk about keeping [guinea Fowl] eggs on vacation (5)	F
		AIR (talk about) containing (keeping) EggS with the middle letters removed (on vacation)
*28	LAO	Without German [taRe], load’s problematic for Asian citizen (3)	R
		Without D (German), LOA[d] is anagrammed (problematic)
*5	CARE (CART)	Have affection for [mulE] caught on short piece of ground (4)	E
		C (caught) + all but the last letter of (short) AREa (piece of ground)
*21	INDENE	Perhaps need [miNt] harvest seen first, it’s used to make resins (6)	N
		An anagram of (perhaps) NEED, with IN (harvest) seen first
*16	SONIA (IONIA)	Independent American pursuing native [tobaCco] label for girl (5)	C
		I (Independent) and A (American) after (pursuing) SON (native)
*12	OBELISE	Mark word suspect, old country [articHoke] spelt with s instead of z (7)	H
		O (old) + BELI[z]E (country) spelt with S instead of Z
*1	CRIME	[Rye] cargo fiddle supported by European iniquity (5)	R
		C (C-, cargo) + RIM (fiddle: A raised rim round a table to keep dishes from sliding off it (nautical)) + E (European)
*18	LINEAR	Zero [vEtchling] coming up before plough gets straight (6)	E
		NIL (zero) reversed (coming up) + EAR (plough).  (Ear meaning plough is marked as obsolete in Chambers)
*4	UMAR	Man’s [sPeedwell] given name of Blue Arum (4)	P
		An anagram of (blue) ARUM
*17	ORDERER	Gold [cUrrant] more expensive, without one customer possibly (7)	U
		OR (gold) + DE[a]RER (more expensive) without A (one)
*23	TIRE (EIRE)	[Bean] can Neymar’s first dropped about to get whacked (4)	B
		TI[n] (can) without N (Neymar’s first dropped) + RE (about)
*8	IRONIST	Irish peeled long [shaLlot] before it’s stewed for satire’s employer (7)	L
		IR (Irish) + lONg without outer letters (peeled …) + an anagram of (… stewed) IT’S
*3	ETH	Character used [onIon] in Old English fete, topped and tailed by husband (3)	I
		fETe without first or last letters (topped and tailed) + H (husband)
*15	DENOTE	[Chamois] mark off territory in arousal of ten doe (6)	C
		An anagram (arousal) of TEN DOE
*30	PAS	Not Parisian [shAwm] for French dance (3)	A
		A double definition
*22	NIZAM	Turkish soldier adding variable [cumiN] to staple from the South (5)	N
		Z (variable) added to the middle of MAIN (staple) reversed (from the South)
*13	EMOTE	[Clove] head picked from outside to go on with heat (5)	C
		The first letter (head) is removed from (picked from) rEMOTE (outside)
*20	EISEL	Fish [pArk] encircling island it previously preserved (5)	A
		EEL (fish) around (encircling) IS (island)
*27	SHY	Second couple of [garLic] mushrooms gets Yankee nervous (3)	L
		The second pair of letters in (second couple of) muSHrooms + Y (Yankee)
*29	RACHE	Amidst amber [whEat] a Cherokee’s former hunting dog (5)	E
		Inside (amidst) ambeR A CHErokee is our answer
*24	BLAH	Insipid bleach taking off [alkaNet] base and colour, primarily (4)	N
		BL[e]A[c]Hx without (taking off) E (base) and C (Colour primarily)
*9	ETYMA	Original roots of alien unknown before Matilda [WormwooD] initially taken aboard (5)	D
		ET (alien) + Y (unknown) + A (= ante, before), with the first letter of (… initially) Matilda inserted (taken aboard)
*2	LEPTOME	Botanist’s [oAt] transporter’s record volume covering Spain (7)	A
		LP (record) and TOME (volume) around (covering) E (Spain)
*11	HOARIER (HOARSER)	Much older [coRiander] collector exchanging dinar for one (7)	R
		HOAR[d]ER (collector) exchanging D (dinar) for I (one)