Enigmatic Variations No. 1483: Mixed Feelings by Stick Insect

The first thing that struck me about this puzzle was the tiny font of the clue numbers in the grid! Just about at the limits of my already-aided eyesight – I suspect some solvers may have struggled to make them out? The second was the 12 x 14 grid…a rare-ish shape…and thirdly the asymmetry of some bars – both maybe suggestive of adaptations to fit in some elaborate thematic material? Will I have MIXED FEELINGS about this puzzle?…

The preamble states that:

“Before solving each clue, solvers must show MIXED FEELINGS, by either rejecting a letter that is not wanted or bringing in one that is missing, always leaving real words. In clue order, these two sets of letters indicate a work (in Oxford Dictionary of Quotations) and provide an instruction which solvers must follow to reveal it in the grid. The work must be highlighted. Chambers Dictionary (2016) is recommended; 5ac is in Collins.”

Knowing that every clue has to be tweaked, albeit in one of two ways, is at least better than only being told that ‘some’ need to change! And the only way to try and work out how they change was to dive into some clue-scanning and solving… I say ‘scanning’, rather than just straight in to cold solving, because with these types of devices it sometimes helps just to scan through and see if there are any clues where additions/subtractions seem more obvious, and also where contriving to impose the device has led to some compromise in surface-reading or scansion.

So, in 1A, ‘Sot’ might gain a ‘c’ to become ‘Scot’, as experience shows that EV setters do like to use Scottish variations of words! It could also become ‘Shot’, as an anagram indicator, or maybe ‘stable’ could become ‘sable’ or ‘table’, but my gut feel was for the Scottish route, and so it proved.

2A looks like an anagram (frisky) of OI BE MY, which is a letter short of the grid slot, so this is most likely an added letter – no immediate indication what though, unless you happened to know that YOHIMBE is an impotence remedy, so move on and wait for some crossing letters!

Similarly, 19A with ‘Bruce’s ma providing dairy products‘, ‘Bruce’s’ is often an indication of an Australian word, and that ‘ma’ is likely to turn into ‘man’…(I’m sure there are many female Australian ‘dairy delivery executives’, but ‘woma’ wouldn’t have worked so well in the clue…). The Aussies love to put an O at the end of words, so a MILKMAN might become a MILKO, which fits the bill here.

And so it continued – other likely-looking results from the initial scan included: ‘mathematical lines’ at 41?; Cape Kennedy at 1D?; the ‘frenzied cry’ at 18D being EUOI – an old cruciverbal favourite, along with ETUI!

A few fairly heavy sessions of solving and grid-filling ensued, with not too much attention being paid to what the extra/removed letters might be spelling out.

As things slowed up and then gradually ground to a halt, I turned to the letters, with a bit more rigour on whether they were a ‘+’ or a ‘-‘ and, with a bit of guesswork here and there to fill a few gaps, they gradually yielded two phrases:

Added letters spelled out: CHANGE ONE LETTER PER ROW

And removed letters gave: GAIUS VALERIUS CATULLUS, CARMEN LXXXV

The filled gaps then helped with some retro-fitting of amendments to the last few clues and got me to the initial grid-fill.

(Also, I hadn’t helped myself by solving 37D as TRIER (lawyer, one who tries?) – with the T of T-bar making ‘barn’ a subtraction of ‘N’ to ‘bar’. It took me a while to wheedle out BRIER as an alternative meaning for ‘lawyer’, with the O of ROW being added to ‘barn’ to make ‘baron’ for the B of BRIER.)

I was vaguely aware of the name CATULLUS, and those first names and Roman numerals point us back to the Roman Empire, but I was unsure whether he was an emperor, a philosopher, a writer, a soldier, or any combination of the aforementioned. So a quick bit of e-research was needed, and of course a check in the ODQ…all of which revealed that he was a first-century BC poet who produced a series of 100+ lyrical poems, ‘carmen’s, or carmina, of which the 85th reads:

“Odi et amo. Quare id faciam fortasse requiris.
Nescio, sed fieri sentio et excrucior.”

“I hate and I love. Why I do this, perhaps you ask.
I know not, but I feel it happening and I am tortured.”

The first sentence of which helps to explain the MIXED FEELINGS in the title of the puzzle…I hope not too many solvers found themselves identifying with the second and third sentences?!

And, with a small tweak of a letter in each row, the fourteen words can be found in the grid:

(The changes leave mostly non-words, which is sometimes indicated, but wasn’t explicitly mentioned in the instruction here, although I suspect it would have been nigh-on impossible to keep real words throughout?)

There were a number of new/obscure (to me) words – the use of ‘MARILYN’ as a classification of British hills – i.e. ones that aren’t big enough to be a Munro, and the name deriving as a pun from Ms Monroe and her well-upholstered, ahem, ‘balconnette’…; that Scottish variation of scare – SCAUR; SAMFU; YOHIMBE; CHORIA; CRUCK; YIKE…and I could go on! As a result, lots of to-ing-and-fro-ing with my Chambers app – and the Collins app for 5A.

I’m afraid my 40-odd year-old Latin O-Level (A-grade) has rusted up too much to allow me to translate the original poem by myself. And going the other way I would probably have ended up with John Cleese looking over my shoulder and saying contemptuously:  ‘ROMANES EUNT DOMUS? People called the Romans, they go, the house?!?’

Many thanks to Stick Insect – a stiff challenge of a puzzle, with an educational end game…just what I, for one, look for in an EV. An extremely impressive bit of grid construction to get the whole poem in, and then render it into a fully-functional crossword with just one tweak per row.

Hopefully all is clear below.

 

Across
Clue No	Solution / Entry	Rejected (-) / ‘Brought in’ (+) letter	Clue (definition underlined, rejected letters in bold, brought in letters bold and underlined) / Logic/Parsing
1	SCAUR	+C	Scot’s panic about entering stable endlessly (5) / S_UR(E) (secure, stable, endlessly) around (entered by) CA (circa, about)
5	YOHIMBE / YODIMBE	+H	HOi, be my frisky impotence remedy (7) / anag, i.e. frisky, of HOI BE MY
10	GUIDER / GUIDET	-G	Gone conducting, removing length in old Dutch piece (6) / GUI(L)DER – old Dutch coin, or piece, removing L – length
13	ANEAR	-A	Missing starter for dinner, Andrea cooked pasta at hand (5) / anag, i.e. cooked, of AN(D)REA, missing D – starting letter of Dinner)
14	AMENTA / AMONTA	-I	Approve Tai flowers (6) / AMEN (say ‘Amen’, approve) + TA
15	CONQUER / CONQUAR	-U	Beaut against heartless cheat (7) / CON (against) + QU(E)ER (to cheat, or to queer, missing middle letter, or ‘heartless’)
16	NAIL	-S	Spin contents of saline in solution (4) / anag, i.e. in solution, of the contents, or middle letters, of ‘sALINe’
17	ESTEEM	+A	French art abound for high value (6) / ES (French for art, or are, as in ‘tu es…’) + TEEM (abound)
19	MILKO / MIDKO	+N	Bruce’s man providing dairy products and potassium in grain (5) / MIL_O (variety of grain) around K (potassium)
20	PURSUE	-V	SUV involved in clean chase (6) / PUR_E (clean) around (involving) SU
22	FACIA	-A	Aragon spies coming after frequency band (5) / F (frequency) + A (Argon) + CIA (American spies)
24	REFORM / REFORT	-L	Orle for mantling conceals alteration (6) / hidden word in, i.e. concealed by, ‘oRE FOR Mantling’
26	ASSES	-E	Fools almost seize up (5) / almost all of ASSES(S), or size up
27	REQUIRE / REQUIRI	-R	Taxman comes after rupee quarterly with baser need (7) / RE (rupee) + QU (quarterly) + IR (Inland Revenue, the taxman!) + E (logarithmic base, mathematics)
28	SMARM	-I	Creep’s harim involved in painful sexual practice (5) / S_M (S&M, painful sexual practice, m’lud) around MAR (harm)
31	TRINES	+G	Sets of three goes (6) / double defn. a TRINE can be a set of three; and to TRINE can mean to go (of Scandinavian origin?)
34	CHORIA / CIORIA	-U	Membranes could dance when iodine’s involved (6) / C (cold) + HOR_A (Romanian or Israeli dance) around (involving) I (iodine)
35	LAND	+E	Network initially disseminated German state (4) / LAN (Local Area Network) + D (initial letter of Disseminated)
38	SEINER / SEDNER	-S	One fishing without rules around Spain (6) / S_INER (SINE, Latin preposition, without, plus R (rule), around E (Espana, Spain)
39	DEFIER	+O	Flouter returning pipe’s tongue provided within (6) / RE-IF-ED (reed, organ pipe’s vibrating ‘tongue’, around IF – provided) – all returning
41	LOCI	+N	Mathematical lines mischievous god broadcast (4) / homophone, i.e. broadcast – depending on your accent/pronunciation, LOCI – lines, in mathematics – can sound like LOKI – Norse god of mischief. (In my head they are LOW-KY and LOW-KEE, respectively, but close enough!)
43	SENTIMENTAL / SENTIOENTAL	-C	Rose-pink scent treated ailment (11) / SENT + IMENTAL (anag, i.e. treated, of AILMENT)
45	PORGIE	+E	German one entering passage produces fish (6) / POR__E (small passage, e.g. in the skin), around G (German) + I (one)
46	FRIARY / TRIARY	+L	Normal drowned valley surrounded by young brothers’ house (6) / F_RY (young, e.g. of fish) around RIA (a normal dried valley)
47	APEX	-A	Cresta run avoided by athletic American president (4) / A (athletic) + P(R)EX (US slang, abbreviation for the president of a college, removing, or avoiding, R – run)
48	CRUCK / CRUCI	-T	Trent university replaces a roof support (5) / CR(A)CK (rent, or tear) with U (university) replacing A = CRUCK (supporting timber for a roof)
Down
Clue No	Solution / Entry	Rejected (-) / ‘Brought in’ (+) letter	Clue (definition underlined, rejected letters in bold, brought in letters underlined) / Logic/Parsing
1	SPACEPORT	+E	Cape Kennedy maybe left behind Bath church (9) / SPA (e.g. the city of Bath) + CE (Church of England) + PORT (nautical – left)
2	CYNOSURE	-U	Doug’s tail is thing admired (8) / double defn. CYNOSURE can be the Dog’s Tail, or lesser Bear, constellation; and CYNOSURE can also mean something to be admired
3	AVENTRE	-L	Ed’s shovel engineers an opening first (7) / A VENT (an opening) + RE (Royal Engineers)
4	RURU	+T	TWin game for mopoke (4) / twin copies of RU (Rugby Union, game) = RURU
5	YIKE / YIKA	-L	In itinerary I kept Oz flight (4) / hidden word in, ‘itinerarY I KEpt’
6	HEME / DEME	-U	In crash, emu exsanguinated blood pigment (4) / hidden word in ‘crasH EM Exsanguinated’
7	IRENICS / ITONICS	-S	Promotion of peace disturbed in crises (7) / anag, i.e. disturbed, of IN CRIES
8	MONA LISA / MONA DISA	-C	Notable example of cart is held by US city following critic reportedly (8, two words) / MONA (homophone, i.e. reportedly, of MOANER, or critic) + L__A (US city) around (holding) IS
9	BATIK	+T	TAlly comes up with silk regularly in fabric design (5) / BAT (tab, or tally, coming up) + IK (regular letters from sIlK)
11	DARAF	+E	Note excellent, returning unit (5) / FA (note, in sol-fa notation) + RAD (excellent) – all returning = DARAF
12	GALOPS / GALOMS	-A	OAPs following local girl in dances (6) / GAL (dialect, or local, for girl) followed by OPS
18	EUOI	-R	Frenzied cry in game, ergo involving head of umpires (4) / E_O (18th century gambling game) around (involving) U (first letter, or head, of Umpires), plus I (ego, me)
21	ERRS	-M	Domes wrong in one part are used occasionally (4) / occasional letters, every third one, of ‘onE paRt aRe uSed’
23	AERIE	+R	REmote setting a country up (5) / A + ERIE (Eire, poetic for Ireland, set up)
25	FUNDING	+P	Providing money to sport Doctor of Engineering (7) / FUN (sport) + DING (Doctor Ingeniariae, Doctor of Engineering)
26	ASHE / ASIE	-E	Tennis champ once, so fear him (4) / AS (in so fa asr) + HE (him)
29	MOIL / MODL	+E	Sick, gutted after second old steep (4) / MO (moment, or second, short period of time) + I(L)L (sick, gutted)
30	MARILYN	-N	Lynn follows a rim travelling British hill (7) / MARI (anag, i.e. travelling, of A RIM) + LYN
32	INFERE	-L	Thrice quilts get in the way once together (6) / IN(TER)FERE (get in the way) without TER (thrice, quits!)
33	EMETIC	+R	Encountered opening for intaglio in Europe: it produces retching (6) / E_C (European Community) around MET (encountered) + I (opening letter of Intaglio)
35	L-DOPA	+R	Drug up a school student (5) / A POD (a school, e.g. of whales) + L (learner driver, student) – all up = L-DOPA
36	AESOP	-X	A sext sent back for storyteller (5) / A + ESOP (pose, or set, sent back)
37	BRIER	+O	Perhaps lawyer in baron taking diamonds from jockey (5) / B (baron) + RI(D)ER (jockey, without D – diamonds)
38	SAMFU / SIOTU	-X	Boxy fur cut for outfit (5) / SAM (boy’s name) + FU(R) (fur, cut short)
40	MERC	-X	Maxine with Catholic soldier (4) / ME (Maine, US state) + RC (Roman Catholic)
42	CARR	-V	Carver loses end of shoe in boggy ground (4) / CAR(E)R losing E – end letter of shoE
44	TAO	+W	Tanzania’s first two start to obtain proper conduct (3) / TA (Tanzania’s first two letters) + O (start to Obtain)