Enigmatic Variations No. 1343: Hollywood by Artix

A complex and multi-layered EV this week, which I think I solved, and definitely submitted, but can’t fully explain…

The preamble states that:

“The puzzle’s theme is a six-word phrase. A word that could follow HOLLYWOOD must be treated thematically at 21 before entry. Twelve clues contain two (often non-adjacent) extra words that must be removed before solving. These will help to identify the line-up of an overlarge team that must be highlighted in a contiguous block of cells which covers exactly half the grid. Each member of the team is revealed by changing one letter from the initial grid fill; appropriately, several entries become non-words, but the traditional thematic victim remains intact. Chambers Dictionary (2016) is recommended, but does not contain the answer to 2dn. ”

I was a tad confused by the fact that the original version of the puzzle posted online – which was my working copy – had the title HOILLYWOOD, although the preamble refers to HOLLYWOOD – which led to some angst-ing as to whether that extra I was important…until I printed it again the following week for my submission copy.

Some early analysis of the grid might have helped – 12 by 11, so 132 squares, of which ‘exactly half’ (66) must be highlighted, and non-symmetrical bars – which often indicates a large amount of thematic material which just couldn’t be squeezed in symmetrically.

And all this talk of Hollywood and a ‘victim’ gave me initial leanings towards a murder/thriller – may be Ocean’s Twelve?

Anyway, enough of the preamble and pre-analysis – on with the solving and see if anything comes out in the wash. Some relatively quick solves – INDEX, LOCUST-FINCH (great Spoonerism!), IDOLA and CAUF came out pretty quickly. Others less so – SCHINDYLESES, LOY, YOKUL – all gettable from wordplay but needing some confirmation.

And some clues seemed a little too long/contrived for their solutions, so possible candidates for the extra word mechanism that was happening in parallel. A suspicious tickle at the back of the head with ‘General’s gin’ – both suggesting GORDON(‘s) and ‘Elgin incorrectly’ suggesting NIGEL, became a combined mini-PDM with ‘troubled back’ suggesting AILED <–> DELIA…so these all looked like first names of TV chefs? RAMSAY, SLATER and SMITH respectively, to be precise. And SAITH and TRAMWAY looked like they could be adjusted to make SMITH and (T)RAMSAY.

Suffice to say, lots of pencil- and eraser-work followed, not helped by the fact that I was ‘off-grid’ for 4 days in Far North Queensland, Australia, at the time, with no mobile or data signal at all (except by paying through the nose for hotel/camp-site wi-fi…!) For a while I convinced myself there was a chef called ‘DE LA BERRE’ in that sixth column, before I realised that 9 letters upset the averages and meant that a couple of 3-letter ones would be necessary to balance the ‘exactly half’ books..

So I sort of got there in the end – the phrase was ‘Too Many Cooks Spoil the Broth’; the ‘team’ were twelve TV chefs’ surnames (overlarge, as a team is often 11 participants), with their forenames given cryptically by those extra words…and the word following (Paul) HOLLYWOOD was HEART-THROBS, resolving to THE BROTH within R-AS, with THE BROTH being unchanged by all the chef name entries:

 

 

I think I have now explained 11 of the 12 sets of extra words/chefs (see comments below from ‘ub’ and ‘Cap’n P’ng’n’) – just not sure how ‘Jamie (Oliver) links to Walker – any assistance below gratefully received :

Clue	Words	Derivation	Chef
1A	Quite contrary	‘Mary, Mary quite contrary’ – children’s poem	Mary BERRY
9A	Queeney’s husband	The Eye’s nickname for Prince Philip is ‘Keith’	Keith FLOYD
17A	Mile Newmarket?	Newmarket racecourse has a Rowley Mile	Rowley LEIGH
31A	Pure reorganisation	Pure -> Prue	Prue LEITH
33A	General’s gin	General Gordon; Gordon’s gin	Gordon RAMSAY
1D	Troubled back	Ailed <–> Delia	Delia SMITH
3D	Partially fishy	Gar(r) + y	Gary RHODES
7D	Ragged lady	Plant – Nigella	Nigella LAWSOIN
8D	Stack shelves	Double defn – Rick	Rick STEIN
10D	Murray Walker	Jamie Murray? ?Jamie Walker?	Jamie OLIVER?
12D	Gaunt punter	Double defn; John	John TORODE
20D	Elgin incorrectly	Elgin -> Nigel	Nigel SLATER

Many thanks to Artix for a full two-week challenge – hard to say which took longer – the solve or the blog!

(NB.  This blog was started at Sydney airport, continued at Hong Kong airport and at 30,000 feet over large swathes of Eastern Europe, then polished off, jet-lagged and heavy-lidded, back in the comfort of my own study…hopefully nothing below has fallen off the luggage carousel…)

 

Across
Clue No	Extra Words / Name	Solution / Entry	Clue (definition underlined, extra words in bold) / Logic/Parsing
1	QUITE CONTRARY – MARY (BERRY)	ISLED	One’s quite light, set contrary in the main (5) / IS (one’s) + LED (light-emitting diode)
4		INCISOR	Fang is buried within hip – blimey! (7) / IN (hip, trendy) + C_OR (blimey) around (burying) IS
9	QUEENEY’S HUSBAND – KEITH (FLOYD)	LOSE / LOSO	Miss snubbed Queeney’s good-for-nothing husband (4) / LOSE(L) – good-for-nothng, wastrel, snubbed by last letter
11		WALLAH	One working with God … (6) / W (with) + ALLAH (god, Islam)
13		DECALOGUE / DACMLOGUE	… initially dictated poem about a set of His instructions (9) / D (initial letter of Dictated) + EC_LOGUE (poem) around A
15		ETUI	Case running in perpetuity (4) / hidden word, i.e. running in, in ‘perpETUIty’
16		ILL-FAUR’D / ILL-FAIR’D	Dull fair aggravated unseemly Scots (8) / anag, i.e. aggravated, of DULL FAIR
17	MILE NEWMARKET – ROWLEY (LEIGH)	ATLATL	Stick doubly close to Frankel after mile at Newmarket (6) / AT + L (closing letter of ‘frankeL’), twice, or doubly
21		R-THE BROTH-AS	See preamble (11) / Thematic deduction – Hollyvood HEART-THROBS
24		ENFIRE / ENEIRE	Kindle dramatist used, writing Norman French in country (6) / E_IRE (country) around NF (Norman French)
26		YOKUL / YOKWL	Yell ‘Yes’, playing lucky over that knocks out clubs (5) / anag, i.e. playing, of LU(C)KY + O (over), without (knocking out) C – clubs
29		MORASS / MDRASS	Does bog plant mostly surround this boundless marsh ground? (6) / MO_S(S) (bog plant, moss, mostly) around ORA (anag, i.e. ground, of (M)ARS(H), boundless
31	PURE REORGANISATION – PRUE (LEITH)	GENA	Pure cheek from big US company, backing a new reorganisation (4) / GE (General Electric, big US company) + NA (A + N – new – backing)
32		DR WHO / DR SHO	Nation made him into TV hero: how? (5, two words) / If you DR (doctor, jumble up) WHO you might get HOW; and Dr Who was created by Terry Nation.
33	GENERAL’S GIN – GORDON (RAMSAY)	HACK	General’s gin? Cough up, old chap! (4) / double defn. to HACK can mean to cough; and a HACK can be archaic for a chap on the skin
34		HEAT SINK / HYAT DINK	Cooler soil removed from Thessaloniki after eruption? (8, two words) / anag, i.e. eruption, of THE(S)SA(LO)N(I)KI, removing the letters of SOIL
35		SCHINDYLESES	Short man with list regularly seeks to control variable joints (12) / SCHIND_LE(R) (man with a famous list, short of last letter), around (controlling) Y (variable) + SES (regular, or alternate, letters of SeEkS)
Down
Clue No		Solution / Entry	Clue (definition underlined, extra words in bold) / Logic/Parsing
1	TROUBLED BACK – DELIA (SMITH)	INDEX	Troubled, directing point back behind extra covers (5) / hidden word in, i.e. covered by, ‘behIND Extra’
2		LOCUST FINCH / LOCU-STEIN-CH	Spooner’s kept Twin Peaks director on track: he’s flying! (11) / LOCUST FINCH = Spoonerism of FOCUSSED (kept on track) + LYNCH (David Lynch, director of Twin Peak’
3	PARTIALLY FISHY – GAR-Y (RHODES)	DELIVERED / D-OLIVER-ED	Set free partially gutted ‘fishy’ perhaps? (9) / if one had a liver removed, one might be DE-LIVERED, or gutted?
4		IDOLA	E.g. Billy’s American mind set that’s screwy (5) / IDOL (e.g. Billy Idol, 80s/90s pop star) + A (American)
5		CAUF	Cage Aberdonians use fishing, primarily (4) / primary letters of Cage Aberdonians Use Fishing
6		ILEA	Body parts from birds’ heads after decapitation (4) / (P)ILEA (parts of birds’ heads|) with first letter removed (decapitated)
7	RAGGED LADY – NIGELLA (LAWSON)	SLEUTH / S-LEITH	Ragged old dog upset lady in hustle (6) / anag, i.e. upset in, of HUSTLE
8	STACK SHELVES – RICK (STEIN)	OAK	A stack in middle of fine wood shelves (3) / O_K (fine) around A
10	MURRAY WALKER – JAMIE? (OLIVER)	SAITH / SMITH	Veteran Murray Walker talks about this game (5) / anag, i.e. game, of A (about) + THIS
12	GAUNT PUNTER – JOHN (TORODE)	HIDES / HODES	Gaunt punter wraps up hard day (5) / H (hard) + IDES (15th, or 13th, day, in Roman calendar)
14		ETERNE / ATER-NE	Peter Nero’s no pro, as has been repeated often (6) / subtractive ‘hidden’ word – (P)ETER NE(RO) without surrounding letters of PRO
18		TRAMWAY / T-RAMSAY	Board entertains most of Kiss track (7) / TRA_Y (board) around MWA(H) (most of mwah, or air-kiss…)
19		LOY	Spade trick? Penny’s dropped (3) / (P)LOY (trick) dropping P (penny)
20	ELGIN INCORRECTLY – NIGEL (SLATER)	WEIGHS / LEIGH-S	Elgin assesses dictator’s means incorrectly (6) / homophone, i.e. dictator’s – WEIGHS (assesses) sounds like WAYS (means)
22		TOROSE / TORODE	Bulging and Ripped gets rating internally (6) / TOR_E (ripped) around OS (Ordinary Seaman, or rating)
23		AUSONE / AWSON-E	O3 picked up in top-notch St.-Émilion (6) / homophone, i.e. picked up – AUSONE (St Emilion wine) sounds like OZONE (O3)
25		ERRED / ERRY-D	Passed on, abandoning man in black, and didn’t do well (5) / (REF)ERRED (passed on) without (abandoning) REF (man in black
27		KAZIS	Cans last character written over line in carpets (5) / KA(L)IS (carpets) with Z (last character) replacing (written over) L (line)
28		RAKI	Ingested by spy, this drink could lead to suicide (4) / If Mata HARI (spy) ingested RAKI (drink, spirit) the result could be HARA-KIRI (Japanese ritual suicide)
30		SAKS	NY store reducing beds by $100 (4) / SA(C)KS (beds) removing C (slang for $100) gives SAKS (US department store)