Enigmatic Variations No. 1283: Coastline Clashes by Oxymoron

Hmm…what sort of ‘COASTLINE CLASHES’ is Oxymoron testing us with this week? I’m not so good on history, so if it is sea battles I might struggle…

The preamble states:

“Each of the six 42 must be represented by a 39 inscribed with its first and last 11s, and the 39s must be joined by five straight or slightly curved lines. Numbers in brackets refer to entry lengths, and Chambers Dictionary (2016) is recommended.”

So, highlight those unclued entries at 42, 39 and 11 in my working copy – and then focus on the phrase ‘numbers in brackets refer to entry lengths’ – which means that we can’t necessarily trust (some of/any of?) the enumerations given. Also, that phrase ‘first and last 11s’ kind of looks like it might be ‘first and last LETTERs?…

Enough preamble analysis – on with the solving… and after a few passes through there seemed to be plenty of answers that did fit their enumeration – plus a couple that didn’t – like UNTRUENESS, BOMBAY MIX (or MIXTURE?), and EASY STREET. But nothing obvious jumped out at me at this stage, so I pressed on – picking this up in between other puzzles and chipping away for a few days.

My (partial) PDM came as I walked down the hill from the station one evening – staring at the grid and not really concentrating on my surroundings – the crossing letters seemed to force the ‘DUNG’ of BEDUNGED to ‘CLASH’ with the ‘ENESS’ of UNTRUENESS – giving DUNG/ENESS – which every fule nose is a nuclear power STATION on the Kentish coast. Other crossing letters meant that 42 must then be STATIONS, and we are looking at coastal power stations, whose names will be found in clashes…Ta Dah!

Except we are not! Because I couldn’t find any obvious SIZE/WELLs, HINCK/LEYs or DOUN/REAYs – and Kent is in the SE corner of the UK, whereas in the grid DUNGENESS was SW-ish…back to work then…

After a bit more digging I came up with ANDYS/SERMON from cANDYStore and SERMONise, and BAYM/ASYSTR from BomBAY Mix(ture) and eASY STReet…so either I was lucky with DUNGENESS with the clash making a sensible-looking thematic, or DUNGENESS was wrong? And then came the second PDM, mixing up the letters of ANDYS/SERMON I found ROMNEY – which is also in Kent, and near DUNGENESS – and Mr Go-ogle helped me realise that ROMNEY SANDS and ST MARY’S BAY are STATIONS on the Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch Railway – the RH&DR – a steam enthusiasts’ recreation of a small piece of the golden days of rail travel – i.e. pre-Southern Rail!

So we aren’t nuclear, we are steam-powered – and after a bit more grunt work I came up with the following:

Across	Down	Station
beDUNGed	untruENESS	DUNGENESS
cANDYStore	SERMONise	ROMNEY SANDS
pYRENEite	toWMONt	NEW ROMNEY
bomBAYMix	eASYSTReet	ST MARY’S BAY
rhinopHYMa	aRCHDUChess	DYMCHURCH
tHYrse	THEreat	HYTHE

 

Following the preamble, mixed with the title (those CLASHES, which I should have twigged much earlier), the STATIONS need to be represented by a CIRCLE containing the first and last LETTERs, and then we need to draw some sort of ‘line’ between them – those hints are jumping out at me now!…

 

So the ‘line’ is top-and-tailed with clashes that lead directly to the answers (DUNG/ENESS and HY/THE), but anyone who stumbled across one of the others first might have had to work a bit harder…

A few solving notes from my working copy: I hadn’t come across the spelling of 24D CURACOA before – it is normally CURACAO, but Chambers does give the alternative. As a physics nerd from far off schooldays, and a computer nerd from not long after that, I had a laugh-out-loud moment when I got PASCAL as ‘unit of language’ at 21D…although my first job was as a COBOL programmer(!). IBADAT was new to me, but gettable from the wordplay, and the usage of BATS/SPEEDS was also not familiar…but also gettable. TOWMONT was also new to me, and complicated by being involved in a clash.

A couple of parsings/references I am not completely sure of are: ZENA as ‘woman’ in 12A – it isn’t explicitly in any of my e-or-paper-versions of Chambers, and isn’t a woman’s name I am familiar with, but I think I just assumed she was some biblical figure and carried on….and what ‘concealment’ is indicating in 3D?…any enlightenment welcomed below…

This feels like a real labour of love from Oxymoron – who I presume has some sort of affiliation with this particular line? Or maybe he/she just happened to visit it one holiday and found the route map amongst a pile of stuff later and thought it might make a good puzzle? Who knows, but it is a lovely idea, a fine piece of grid construction/denouement – many thanks to Oxymoron…TOOT TOOT! – and hopefully the enthusiasts, volunteers and members of the RH&DR line are aware of this tribute…

(NB. I have just noticed I am missing an N from a couple of clashes in the animated grid, but life is too short to go back and re-do that – sorry!)

 

Across
Clue No	Initial solution	Entry	Clue (definition underlined) / Logic/Parsing
1		PANCREAS	A large gland can freely take in nutritious seeds (8) / P_EAS (nutritious seeds) around ANC (anag, i.e. freely, of CAN) + R (recipe, latin, take)
6	T(HY)RSE	T( )RSE	Younger son entertained by the staff (5) / TH_E around (entertaining) YR (younger) + S (son)
10	RHINOP(HYM)A	RHINOP( )A	Nasal growth (soft and hard) may spread on large ungulate (8) / RHINO (large ungulate) + P (soft, piano) + H (hard) + YMA (anag, i.e. spread, of MAY)
12		OZAENA	Old woman concealing a nasal discharge (6) / O (old) + Z_ENA (woman?) around (concealing) A
14		HIREAGE	Henry and I agree to change rental charge (7) / H (Henry) + IREAGE (anag, i.e. to change, of I AGREE)
15	BOM(BAY M)IX	BOM( )IX	Before mingling Amy and Bob cooked a snack (6, two words) / BOMBAY (anag, i.e. cooked, of AMY + BOB) + MIX (mingling)
16		IBADAT	One poor at services (6) / I (one) + BAD (poor) + AT
18		SCOTIST	Medieval theologian’s follower to stay in Perth keeping small boat (7) / S_IST (stay, stop, Scottish, i.e. in Perth) around (keeping) COT (small boat)
19		DODECASTYLES	Unusually odd English fortress enclosing 150 square colonnades (12) / DOD (anag, i.e. unusually, of ODD) + CAST_LE (fortress) around (enclosing) y (150, Medieval Roman numeral) + S (square)
21	P(YRENE)ITE	P( )ITE	Black garnet we once regularly found in yellow mineral (5) / PYR_ITE (yellow mineral) around ENE (regular letters of ‘wE oNcE’)
23		LAC	Insect’s secretion deficiency reduced (3) / LAC(K) (deficiency, reduced by one letter)
25		SEFER	Prophet penning fine religious book (5) / SE_ER (prophet) around (penning) F (fine)
27		TUMMY BUTTONS	Abdominal features as reflected by marks on my page (12, two words) / TU (ut, as, reflected) + M (marks) + MY + BUTTONS (page, in pantomime)
31		SONDELI	Mouselike animal provided by new food shop (7) / SO (provided) + N (new) + DELI (food shop)
35	C(ANDYS)TORE	C( )TORE	Shop next to Sri Lankan city, reportedly one selling sweets (6, two words) / CANDY (homophone, i.e. reportedly, sounds like KANDY, Sri Lankan city) + STORE (shop)
37		AT EASE	A kid standing with feet apart (6, 2 words) / A + TEASE (kid)
38		AIR RAGE	Aggression on board accepted by Irish newspaper close to collapse (7, two words) / A (accepted) + IR (Irish) + RAG (newspaper) + E (closing letter of ‘collapsE’)
39		CIRCLE	Thematic deduction (6) / Thematic deduction
40		SCOLECID	A worm uncomfortably close to detectives (8) / SCOLE (anag, i.e. uncomfotably, of CLOSE) + CID (Criminal Investigation Department, detectives)
41	BE(DUNG)ED	BE( )ED	European antelope died turning into plot enriched with fertilizer (5) / BE_D (plot) around DUNGE (E, European + GNU , antelope + D, died, all turning)
42		STATIONS	Thematic deduction (8) / Thematic deduction
Down
Clue No	Initial solution	Entry	Clue (definition underlined) / Logic/Parsing
1		PROBED	Searched for somewhere to sleep (6) / PRO (for) + BED (somewhere to sleep)
2		NIAMH	Irish girl leading back hearts (5) / NIAM (main, or leading, backwards) + H (hearts, cards)
3		RONIN	Japanese warrior runs forward into concealment (5) / R (runs, cricket) + ON (forward) + IN (into) – not sure what ‘concealment’ does here?
4		EPAXIAL	Flabby imitator turned up nursing start of irritation above a neck bone (7) / EPAX_AL (LAX – flabby – APE – imitatoir, all turned up) around (nursing) I (first letter of Irritaiton)
5	A(RCHDUC)HESS	A( )HESS	Princess about to participate in awfully hard university game (6) / AR_HD (anag, i.e. awfully, of HARD), around C (circa, about), plus U (university) + CHESS (game)
6		TARBOYS	Shearers’ assistants play with us outside sleazy bar (7) / T_OY (play with) around (outside) ARB (anag, i.e. sleaxy, of BAR) plus S (contraction of ‘us’, as in ‘let’s go’)
7	(THE)REAT	( )REAT	Warning involving end of guarantee on that account (5) / TH_REAT (warning) around (involving) E (last letter of guaranteE)
8		ROADIE	Group’s crew member upset men about to stop work (6) / RO (OR, Other Ranks, ‘men’, upset) + A (about) + DIE (stop working)
9		SAGA	Cloaks hang down over one (4) / SAG (hang down) + A (one)
11		LETTER	Thematic deduction (6) / Thematic deduction
13	E(ASYSTR)EET	E( )EET	A comfortable situation sees treaty collapsing (5, two words) / anag, i.e. collapsing, of SEES TREATY
17	TO(WMON)T	TO( )T	A year up north for women getting drunk in Montana (4) / TO (for) + W (women) + M_T (Montana) around ON (drunk)
20		SEND	Society to terminate grant (4) / S (society) + END (to terminate)
21		PASCAL	Language unit (6) / double defn. PASCAL (in lower case) is an SI unit (of pressure) in physics; and (in upper case) a computing language
22		EMERALD	Green space with real ground depth (7) / EM (space, in printing) + ERAL (anag, i.e. ground, of REAL) + D (depth)
24		CURACOA	Scoundrel with fleeced coat consuming a cold liqueur (7) / CUR (scoundrel) + A + C (cold) + OA (cOAt, fleeced of its outer letters)
26		ETHER	Medium one of two, not independent (5) / E(I)THER (one of two, without I – independent)
28	UNTRU(ENESS)	UNTRU( )	Female relative (not active) perversely ensures disloyalty (6) / (A)UNT (female relative, without A – active) + RUENESS (anag, i.e, perversely, of ENSURES)
29		BISECT	Halve piece about secretary (6) / BI_T (poiece) around SEC (secretary)
30		SPEEDS	Bats race south across Portugal (6) / S_EED (race, nation, people) around P (Portugal) + S (south)
32		DORSE	Small cod portion limiting recipe (5) / DO_SE (portion) around (limiting) R (recipe, Latin, take)
33		ATILT	Australian hut on a slope (5) / A (Australian) + TILT (hut)
34		BACCO	Virginia perhaps accompanied into branch office (5) / B_O (branch office) around ACC (accompanied)
36	(SERMON)ISE	( )ISE	Research raised in some complex lecture (4) / SER (res, research, raised) + MONISE (anag, i.e. complex, of IN SOME)