Enigmatic Variations No. 1527: Point of View by Karla

A debut EV for Karla, I believe, who according to this site seems to have one Grauniad Genius and one IQ to his name so far…nothing like jumping in at the deep end, eh?!

The preamble states that:

“In 12 clues the wordplay omits one letter of the answer; in number order they spell out a two-word observation associated with a thematic set formed by one superfluous noun in each of eight other clues. The unclued entry is a ninth member with cells to be coloured one way according to the observation. Single-letter clashes occur in six cells belonging to entries formed from 12 further clues. Pairs of letters in clashing cells can be jumbled to give a two-word phrase indicating how they should be connected to the central block with a curved line to form half a symmetrical pattern; solvers must complete the pattern running through cells symmetrically located in relation to the clashes revealing the POINT OF VIEW. The complete line should be coloured in the opposite way to the unclued entry.”

Pretty long and complicated! A small-ish number (12) of ‘extra letter’ clues, where the information they are imparting is not in clue order but clue number order; eight superfluous nouns – very specific that, not just superfluous words; and six clashes amongst twelve of the rest, so crossers can’t always be trusted; and one unclued entry! By my reckoning that leaves 13 ‘normal’ clues – and a bit of artwork/geometry needed in the end game…which didn’t fill me with much hope after my failed attempt at last week’s ’embellishment’.

As often happens, my eye drifted to the last clue to work my way back up, and I immediately spotted a possible superfluous noun, FIREWORKS, at 38D, which looked like a double definition of MET. This was soon joined by CIGAR and SOMBRERO, and it looked like we were heading towards some soft of Mexican celebration!

I pressed on with solving what I could, writing Acrosses in the top right of the cells, Downs in the bottom left, to allow for clashing letters.

After about an hour of effort, spread over a couple of sessions, I had most of the grid filling up, apart from the bottom right quadrant – not helped by that unclued answer not giving me any helping crossers. Some extra letters had started to fall out, and once arranged in clue number order I started to get something that looked like DOPPLER…effect? That would be 13 letters…so it turned out to be SHIFT.

The extra nouns had added TADPOLE, WHIRLPOOL, BUTTERFLY, NEEDLE and SUNFLOWER to CIGAR, FIREWORKS and SOMBRERO. A disparate group that made no sense to me, so I had to resort to a little e-research with Messrs Wikipedia and Go-ogle. It turns out they are all names of galaxies.

And the clashing cells contained S/G, P/A, I/L, R/A, A/X, L/Y – which resolved to SPIRAL GALAXY, and seemed to be shaping up as one half of said shape.

Somewhere around this point I made an educated guess at the unclued entry being ANDROMEDA, and managed to mop up the rest of the bottom right corner.

So far so good – but what about the rest of the preamble – the DOPPLER SHIFT, the ‘opposite colours’, and the completion of the ‘symmetrical’ line…and the POINT OF VIEW from the title? Further research suggested that the Doppler Shift causes blue and red shifts in galaxies, depending on whether they are moving towards you or away from you. And it seems that Andromeda is the only galaxy heading towards us. (Spoiler alert, it won’t be here for a few billion years!) However, this colour-blind, or more colour-ignorant, bear of little brain couldn’t really work out what was going on in terms of the colouring. But maybe it didn’t matter – depending on your POINT OF VIEW – either from somewhere on Earth, or sat in a booth at the Restaurant at the End of the Universe sipping an Intergalactic Gargle-Blaster, Andromeda and the generic spiral galaxy in the grid might be blue/red, or red/blue – they just have to be opposite?

So, I plumped for a blue Andromeda, and a red spiral:

 

And then went for a long lie down, after at least 2 hours (combined) of fairly tough mental effort!…

I thought this was certainly a challenging puzzle – educational and enjoyable, in equal measures… The clueing devices were rather devious, but the clueing itself was clear and fair, with not too many obscure/new (to me) words. ORGUE, YARR, ENDOLYMPH, SPARTERIE, MOOP, DUALIN…actually, come to think of it, maybe there were quite a few!

My LOP (last one parsed) was REAP, which I only figured out while writing the blog. I enjoyed the TEN TIER wedding cake! The ‘progressive’ letters making up HUES was also quite novel – I have seen clues referring to ‘prime positions’ where the letters are in the prime number positions, but I don’t think I’ve seen ‘progressively’ before’…

My thanks (and a warm welcome) to Karla – looking forward to the next one already – and I hope all is clear above and below…

Across
Clue No	Solution	Omitted letters / Superfluous nouns	Clue (definition underlined, superfluous nouns in bold) Logic/Parsing (omitted letters shown as _)
2	MISADVENTURE	D	Accident exposed Tower residents in fog by river (12) / MIS_T (fog) around (R)A_VEN(S) (ravens, or Tower of London residents, exposed by removing outer letters) + URE (river)
10	MEDIATOR		Thinker essentially vacated chair in debate (8) / MEDI(T)ATOR (thinker) with its middle letter, or essence, ‘vacated’ = MEDIATOR
12	LOGE		Fifth row perhaps on record as being expensive seats? (4) / LOG (record) + E (e.g. row E in a theatre, or sports stadium) [a LOGE is box in a theatre, i.e. the expensive seats]
14	PEART	P	Attention given time makes local lively (5) / _EAR (attention) + T (time)
15	BEGIRT		Bound old German imprisoned by wild tribe (6) / BE_IRT (anag, i.e. wild, of TRIBE) around (imprisoning) G (German)
17	ENDOLYMPH	L	Fluid close to jelly finally with measure of speed added (9) / END (close) + O_Y (final letters of ‘tO jellY’) + MPH (measure of speed) [ENDOLYMPH is the fluid within the membranous labyrinth of the ear]
18	ESPARTOS		Grasses in Sargasso trap seals going West (8) / reversed hidden word, i.e. ‘in’ and ‘going west’, in ‘sargasSO TRAP SEals’
20	EMMA	TADPOLE	Novel enzyme mutated tadpole initially by degree (4) / EM (initial letters of ‘Enzyme Mutated’) + MA (Master of Arts, degree) [the ‘novel’ being EMMA, by Jane Austen]
22	SHAH		Ditch nearly finished by second ruler (4) / S (second) + HAH(A) (ditch, not quite finished)
23	UNISEX		Oxford Union maybe suitable for Guys and Dolls? (6) / UNI (Oxford, example of a university) + SEX (union)
25	AORTAE	NEEDLE	They carry blood waste to needle area (6) / anag, i.e. waste, of TO AREA
26	ORCHID	SUNFLOWER	Monster sunflower obscured flowering plant (6) / ORC (monster, ogre, in works of JRR Tolkien) + HID (concealed)
28	UTGARD	R	Fabulous home urbanist excavated with chisel (6) / UT (UrbanisT excavated, i.e. middle letters removed) + GA_D (miner’s wedge, or chisel) [UTGARD being the abode of the giants, in Norse mythology, so ‘fabulous home’]
31	YARR		Yokel’s weed from Yemen beginning to rot (4) / YAR (Yemen Arab Republic, International Vehicle Registration – IVR – abbreviation) + R (beginning letter of Rot) [yokel’ indicating a dialect word; YARR being the corn spurrey, a common weed]
32	ILEA		Nordic giant with fifty (not a thousand) intestinal parts (4) / I(K)EA (Nordic retail giant) with L (50, Roman numeral) replacing K (kilo-, a thousand) = ILEA
33	SUBBUTEO	S	Game black American buzzard on gnu’s tail (8) / _U (tail, or last letter, of gnU) + B (black) + BUTEO (American buzzard) [SUBBUTEO being a ‘digital’ but non-electronic table football game! (Currently gathering dust in my attic…)]
34	MARCH HARE		Supposedly mad animal master, cunning Edinburgh killer (9, two words) / M (master) + ARCH (cunning) + HARE (William Hare, of ‘Burke & Hare’ infamy) [Burke and Hare being serial killers in Edinburgh in the 1820s]
37	OBIMEN	I	Some job mentoring witch doctors (6) / hidden word in, i.e. some of, ‘jOB _MENtoring’
39	ORGUE		Ancient weapon knave’s first to move back (5) / ROGUE (knave) with first letter moving back one place = ORGUE
40	BEEB		Auntie rustling large ox from Nick (4) / BEE(L)(ZEBU)B (the devil, old Nick) losing (rustling) L – Large and ZEBU – humped domestic ox
41	FILLIPED	F	Edge into retro store to be stimulated (8) / _IL_ED (deli, or store, retro, or reversed) around LIP (edge)
42	PATTERN RACES	T	Father canters off missing start of the equestrian events (12, two words) / PAT_ER (father) + N RACES (anag, i.e. off, of CAN(T)ERS, missing T – start of The)
Down
Clue No	Solution	Omitted letters / Superfluous nouns	Clue (definition underlined, superfluous nouns in bold) Logic/Parsing (omitted letters shown as _)
1	IMPRESARI		Emperor on garment of Asian managers (9) / IMP (Imperator, Latin, Emperor) + RE (on, regarding) + SARi (germent of Asian)
2	MEEK	BUTTERFLY	I’m scared holding up male butterfly that’s gentle (4) / M (male) above (held up by) EEK (I’m scared)
3	SIRRAH		Previous address: Hebridean location to the north (6) / HARRIS (Hebridean island) reversed (to the north) = SIRRAH (old-fashioned form of Sir)
4	APTERIA		Fitting age to hide one bird’s bald patches (7) / APT (fitting) + ER_A (age) around (hiding) I (one)
5	VOUDOU	O	Magic verse rotund guy periodically needed (6) / V (verse) + OUD_U (periodic letters of ‘rOtUnD gUy’
6	NIELLI		Setter stops majority of elephant impressions (6) / N_ELLI(E) (most of elephant, from the song ‘Nellie the Elephant’) around (stopped by) I (the setter)
7	TOG	WHIRLPOOL	Unit in Whirlpool had rotated (3) / GOT (had) rotated) = TOG (unit, of thermal insulation of fabrics, e.g. duvets, quilts)
8	REAP		Collect regional flower in manner of speaking (4) / R_P (Received Pronunciation, manner of speaking) around EA (ea, dialect, or regional, for funning water, a drainage channel – hence flow-er)
9	EATH		Making the world heartless is easy for bard (4) / If you make EA(R)TH heartless, you end up with EATH (poetic for easy)
11	TENTIER		Glaswegian more wary of very tall wedding cake? (7) / a TEN TIER wedding cake would be very tall!
13	GIMME HATS		US caps money held in dodgy Thai gems (9, two words) / GIM_E HATS (anag, i.e. dodgy, of THAI GEMS) around M (holding) (money, as in M0, M1, economics notation) [usually a peaked hat with a logo, given away as advertising]
16	SPARTERIE	P	25 cycling for articles made from 18 (9) / The answer to 25A was AORTAE, or arteries, and if you cycle the last letter to the front you get S_ARTERIE [SPARTERIE are items made from ESPARTO]
19	GHOUL		Hearing Yorkshire town’s spirit (5) / homophone, i.e. hearing – the town of GOOLE in Yorkshire can sound like GHOUL (demon spirit, ghost)
21	MAIRE		French official broadcast in space recollected (5) / M_E (em, printing, space, reversed, or recollected) around AIR (broadcast) [the French (civic) official being a ‘maire’, or mayor]
24	NOMBRIL		Drawn limb on right point of shield (7) / anag, i.e. drawn, of LIMB ON R (right)
27	RUBEOLA	E	Massage oil was regularly used for infection (7) / RUB (massage) + _OLA (regular letters used from ‘OiL wAs’)
29	ACHEBE	SOMBRERO	Silly beach sombrero on English writer (6) / ACHEB (anag, i.e. silly) of BEACH + E (English) [Chinua Achebe, Nigerian writer]
30	DUALIN	CIGAR	Praise about popular cigar that delivers explosive (6) / DUAL (laud, or praise, about, or reversed) + IN (popular)
31	LUBRIC		Slippery once in lake with director naked (6) / L (lake) + (K)UBRIC(K) (Stanley Kubrick, film director, naked – with outer letters removed!)
34	MOOP		Love sitting in Barnet to have Scottish nibble (4) / MO_P (hair, barnet, in Cockney Rhyming Slang – Barnet Fair = hair) around O (love, zero score in e.g. tennis)
35	ABBA		Father Ali maybe with head down (4) / (Ali) BABA (literary character) with head, or first letter, moved down, could be ABBA
36	HUES	H	Tones up leg muscle progressively (4) / _UES – the first, second and third letters, i.e. progressively, of ‘Up lEg muScle’
38	MET	FIREWORKS	Force came face-to-face with fireworks (3) / double defn. the MET can be the Metropolitan Police, or force; and MET can mean came face-to-face with