Enigmatic Variations No. 1683: Parking Offence by Chalicea

Has Chalicea been naughty and parked her car somewhere she shouldn’t have, committing a PARKING OFFENCE?…

The preamble states that: “Circling the perimeter from the top left is the description of an action related to the PARKING OFFENCE and the person performing it. The wordplay of 12 clues produces an extra letter in addition to those needed for the answer. These, read in order, give an instruction. Chambers Dictionary (2016) is recommended.

A 13 x 12 grid from Chalicea this week, but still maintaining beautiful symmetry, and some perimetral material to divine – with a short and sweet preamble to point us on our way.

With ‘only’ 12 ‘extra letter in wordplay’ clues out of 37, one can approach them knowing most will be ‘normal’. And the key will be in the crossers around the perimeter…which can only be got by solving some clues!

The grid filled up fairly steadily, albeit with a few new/obscure (to me) words like NUCHAE, GROK, SHAMBA…and DOIN, which I couldn’t find in any of my slightly older e/paper Chambers, but could verify online.

[I did know SHAMBA subliminally, as I spent a large part of my early childhood living in Southern Africa – Zambia, Tanzania, Malawi – and the only Swahili phrase I remember – phonetically – is ‘Umtu moja kwende, kwende lima shamba’, which we were taught as the equivalent of ‘One man went to mow, went to mow a meadow’… or smallholding!]

The perimeter was not very promising when followed from top left, but the PDM came when I realised the left-hand side (upwards) had to be LOVELY RITA, with RITA provided by four crossers.

This triggered an earworm of said Beatles song, although I do confess to resorting to a little wiki-ogling to confirm the lyrics, and the instruction to SHADE HER ROLE had been taking shape, leading to the slightly offset leading diagonal containing METER MAID:

 

One very minor quibble is that the lyrics I found online had ‘the ticket’ rather than ‘a ticket’, which could have stretched the grid to 13×13, but might have made filling the grid and fitting the ‘role’ in harder? (As a non-setter, I have no idea what the ramifications might be, or even how our wonderful setters get from some crazy idea in their heads to the finished product we enjoy so much, so I will stop this quibble here…)

Chalicea continues her ‘modus operandi’ of creating puzzles around scientifically and/or culturally significant female characters, albeit a fictional one here, but one based on many a real ‘meter maid’ the pre-Beatles Beatles would have seen, known, been ticketed by, developed crushes on… My thanks to her, and I hope I have done justice to it above and below.

 

Across
Clue No Extra letter Solution Clue (definition underlined)

Logic/Parsing (ext(R)A letters in brackets and bold)

9 AMEBOID Bursting into hollowed abdomen, almost like a shape-shifter (8)

anag, i.e. bursting, of I(NT)O (into, hollowed) + ABDOME(N) (abdomen, almost)

10 S UDON Sample of curious donuts; Japanese culinary item (4)

hidden word in, i.e. sample of, ‘curioU(S) DONuts’

11 THE WHO Rock band‘s questionable identity? (6, two words)

CD, charade, or punning double defn.?! – rock band THE WHO could be said to have a questionable identity!

13 BICORNE Hat‘s brim regularly once woven round first of ribbons (7)

BI (regular letters of BrIm) + CO_NE (anag, i.e. woven, of ONCE) around R (first letter of Ribbons)

14 INSTEPS Arches by stages (7)

double defn. (ignoring punctuation) – the arches of ones feet are also called INSTEPS; and if you take something by stages, you might take it IN STEPS

16 H RASP Horribly sharp, grating sound (4)

anag, i.e. horribly, of S(H)ARP

18 TATAMI Rubbish on French friend’s floor covering (6)

TAT (rubbish) + AMI (French, friend)

19 MILLRACE Fast stream staff surrounding sick king (8)

M_ACE (ceremonial staff, or rod) around ILL (sick) + R (rex, king)

21 A EDEN Garden some egghead engineered (4)

hidden word in, i.e. some of, ‘egghE(A)D ENgineered’

22 D LANA Boy going round North American wood (4)

L_A(D) boy around NA (North American)

24 ALMSDEED Charitable act – Middle East sadly abandoning it (8)

subtractive anag., i.e. sadly, of M(I)DDLE EAS(T) without IT, so abandoning it!

26 E ELVISH Self-willed, slippery character; very independent second husband (6)

E(E)L (slippery character) + V (very) + I (independent) + S (second) + H (husband)

29 SKYE Scottish island‘s weather reportedly (4)

homophone, i.e. reportedly – the Scottish island SKYE usually sounds like SKY, or the weather

31 H ALIENOR One who transfers property dubiously in Lahore (7)

dubiously, of IN LA(H)ORE

32 OUTBARS Excludes unfashionable public houses (7)

OUT (unfashionable, not in) + BARS (public houses)

33 ENDALL Ultimate goal, spend all or three quarters of it (6)

three quarters, or six letters, of (SP)END ALL

35 GROK Fully understand grand legendary bird (4)

G (grand, usually monetary) + ROK (variation on roc, legendary bird)

36 SEPHARDI Curiously I phrased type of Hebrew pronunciation (8)

anag, i.e. curiously, of I PHRASED

Down
Clue No Extra letter Solution Clue (definition underlined)

Logic/Parsing (ext(R)A letters in brackets and bold)

1 LOESS Minor circling old windblown loamy deposit (5)

L_ESS (minor) around (circling) O (old)

2 E LEW Lukewarm sheltered wife (3)

LE(E) (sheltered) + W (wife)

3 NOOPS Scoop up Scott’s tips (5)

SPOON, or scoop, up = NOOPS

[noop – Walter Scott, knob or tip, e.g. of the elbow]

4 R IDIOT Afflicted with folly, partly veto ridicule on the rise (5)

reversed hidden word, i.e. partly and on the rise, in ‘veTO (R)IDIcule’

5 NUCHAE Leaders of Northern University Council haven’t accepted base scruffs (6)

NUCHA (leaders, or first letters, of ‘Northern University Council Haven’t Accepted’) + E (logarithmic base)

6 R ADOPTEES Fuss over originally parasitic trees, those accepted as one’s own (8)

ADO (fuss) + P (original letter of parasitic) + T(R)EES

7 O TORNADE Poet’s windy outburst recalling part of Mohammedan orotundity (7)

reversed hidden word in, i.e. recalling and part of, ‘mohammEDAN (O)ROTunity’

8 IN NAME By repute hostelry with soul (6, two words)

IN_N (hostelry) + AME (French, a soul)

12 HEEL List despicable person (4)

double defn. – to HEEL can be to lean, or list; and a HEEL can be a despicable fellow

15 SHAMBA Bogus and mostly worthless East African smallholding (6)

SHAM (bogus) + BA(D) (most of bad, or worthless)

17 PLAIN BOB Modest nod for description of bell-ringing changes (8, two words)

PLAIN (modest) + BOB (nod)

20 IN VITRO Awful riot after French wine with lowered volume in glass (7, two words)

IN_V (vin, or wine, in French, with V – volume – lowered to the end, for a Down clue) + ITRO (anag, i.e. awful, of RIOT

23 L ALBUGO The greatest possible defect, ordinary leucoma (6)

AL(L) (the greatest possible, e.g. in all haste) + BUG (defect in software) + O (ordinary)

24 ASHAKE Like gadoid food fish in shivery state once (6)

AS (like) + HAKE (gadoid fish)

25 DOIN Not fully performing therapeutic massage (4)

DOIN(G) – not fully doing, or performing

27 HURST Wood found in Arthur’s table (5)

hidden word found in ‘artHURS Table’

28 ALEPH Foreign character‘s beer case in porch (5)

ALE (beer) + P(ORC)H (outer letters, or case, of porch)

30 KNARL Knot in tree raised large row (5)

L (large) + RANK (row), all raised to give KNARL

34 E DAE Oddly deadened do on Speyside (3)

odd letters from ‘DeAdEn(E)d’

4 comments on “Enigmatic Variations No. 1683: Parking Offence by Chalicea”

  1. I’d always remembered it as ‘a ticket’, but if you listen carefully he definitely sings ‘the ticket’. They did come up with some very silly songs, didn’t they?

  2. Really lovely blog, thank you mc.

    I enjoyed this one, yet again learning something new from a Chalicea puzzle. I’d never heard or heard of this song. The Beatles form an enormous gap in my cultural knowledge, rather embarrassingly. So it took a while for the perimeter to be complete for me.

    Thanks to Chalicea for the entertainment and education

  3. TonyG – indeed: octopus’s gardens; yellow submarines; eggmen/walruses…ob-la-di ob-la-da…I guess they were off their heads on psychedelic drugs a lot of the time…

    Phil R – glad to hear you have been culturally enlightened!

  4. mc_rapper

    The original notes show it was “a ticket”. Don’t know why it was changed. Thanks to you and Chalicea for comments and puzzle.

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