Enigmatic Variations No. 1495: The African One by Skylark

Skylark seems to be transporting us to the African continent this week, unless the title is a deliberately cryptic mislead?…

(…the former would resonate nicely for me, as I was born in Zambia and spent most of my first ten years there, and in Tanzania and Malawi.)

The preamble states that:

“Information on four characters linked to a region (THE AFRICAN ONE) is given by extra single letters to be removed from 34 clues, read in clue order; four extra words to be removed from other clues give further information about one of these. Corrected letters of misprints in five further clues providing key entries name the region. Solvers must change key entries, each time using one or more letters of the region and highlight the four characters (28 cells in total). Chambers Dictionary (2016) is recommended; the final grid contains real words and names. ”

A quick bit of maths – there are 45 clues: 34 with letters to be removed; 4 with extra words; and 5 with misprints – leaving two ‘normal’ clues! So every clue could initially be one of four types – which will take a bit of mental agility, considering each possibility for each clue!

On an initial scan, I got as far as 42A before I struck my first blow – a four-letter relative was likely to be AUNT (or GRAN?), and to intrude upon could be to HAUNT, so it wanted to lose the H, meaning shoes probably had to lose its S. One down, 44 to go!

And so it proceeded, with much scanning and clue-type consideration. I gradually realised that the words NOBEL PRIZE and WINNER were all candidates for word removal, and it didn’t take long to find PEACE as well – so that was one category sorted. I’d also found 27D EUGLENA as a ‘normal’ clue, so only one other left to find.

The grid was slowly filling up, helped by HAIR-SPLITTING across the top, and an un-parsed MACADAMIA NUTS along the bottom.

I had also found N, Y and A as possible misprints, and for a while thought we were heading towards NYASA, with Nyasaland being the former name for Malawi…so maybe we were looking at Livingstone and Stanley on the shores of Lake Nyasa (erm…wasn’t that Lake Tanganyika? And those two probably pre-dated Alfred Nobel…my brain was pretty fried by this point!)

By the end of the Sunday of publication, I probably had a half-to-two-thirds filled grid, and an idea that we were looking for an African Nobel Peace Prize winner. But the extra letters/misprints weren’t complete enough to make educated guesses, and it took another stint, lying awake in the early hours of Monday morning, to really break the back of this. I eventually found the K and E of KE+NYA, to give the ‘region’, and the extra letters eventually spelled out ‘THREE SCIENTISTS AND A HOMINID’S REMAINS’.

The ‘hominid’s remains’ initially had me thinking of the Lucy (Australopithecus) skeleton, but she was found in Ethiopia. The obvious link for Kenya and palaeontology would be Richard Leakey, but I couldn’t find him in the grid. A search for African Nobel Peace Prize winners with links to Kenya threw up Wangari Maathai – who seemed to almost appear in the third row – just needing to change the P of PILED and PROW to A for AILED and AROW. That matched the preamble instruction of only using the letters K-E-N-Y-A for changes.

Much Wiki-oogling and grid-staring later I finally had a solution – Wangari MAATHAI is the Nobel Peace Prize (2004) winner, and also a Kenyan scientist. In 1984, Kamoya KIMEU, along with Maeve and Richard LEAKEY found the skeleton of the TURKANA BOY, on the shores of Lake Turkana, in Kenya. And these involved further changes to the five ‘key entries’, using the letters of K-E-N-Y-A (well, not N, as it turns out):

• PILED to AILED (with PROW to AROW as ‘collateral damage’)
• TURNING to TURKANA (with SEALINE to SEA LANE, and GROMA to AROMA)
• CIEL to KIEL
• MOUSING to MEUSING
• MERMEN to KEYMEN (with CRAN to CYAN)

 

 

Wow – that was hard work – a complex preamble; multi-dimensional clue-manipulation device; tough solve generally; impressive grid construction and manipulation; and a difficult end game – but fun along the way, and educational! I don’t think there is anything apart from the Kenya link between Maathai and the others – but happy to be enlightened.

(NB. I thought the title was a bit strange – but enlightenment came in the setter’s blog for EV 1494 (The North American one): July is ‘Ladies’ Month’, and it seems each setter has been allocated a continent, as some sort of link to the Olympics. It would be interesting to know if Skylark created this puzzle ‘to order’, having been allocated Africa, or if she already had the ‘bones’ of the idea and the continents theme was a convenient coincidence?…)

Lots of obscure/new (to me) words: VOAR, BOYARS, UJAMAA, AGGRADE, HOUT-TOUT, GROMA, EUGLENA, KALMIAS to name but a few. These necessitated much thumbing through eChambers – including much pattern matching – and a frenzy of Wiki-oogle research was needed at the end.

My LOI (last one in) was TRIE, and my LOP (last one parsed) was MACADAMIA NUTS.

Many thanks to Skylark, and I hope all is clear above and below.

Across
Clue No	Solution / Entry	Extra letter/ Extra word/ Misprint	Clue (definition underlined, thematic material in bold) / Logic/Parsing
1	HAIR-SPLITTING	T	Loathing welcoming Irish trip making petty distinctions (13) / HA_TING (loathing) around (welcoming) IR (Irish) + SPLIT (rip)
10	ODEA	H	In neighbourhood heard Roman historic theatres (4) / hidden word in ‘neighbourhoOD (H)EArd’
11	CONURBIA	R	Clusters of neighbouring towns back trend stuffing fish (8) / CO_BIA (the sergeant fish) around (stuffed by) NUR (run, or tend, back)
12	UJAMAA	E	African village community’s cream filling united abstainers (6) / U_AA (U- united, plus AA – Alcoholics Anonymous, abstainers) around (filled by) JAM (cram)
13	PILED / AILED	K	State daughter went in crowds (5) / PILE (stake) + D (daughter)
15	VOAR	NOBEL	Briefly disagree about Ishiguro’s last Nobel in spring in Shetland (4) / V_AR(Y) (disagree, briefly, or short of a letter), around O (last letter of IshigurO)
18	TURNING / TURKANA	E	Now interrupts famous codebreaker deviating (7) / TUR_ING (Alan, famous codebreaker) around (interrupted by) N (new)
20	BOYARS	E	Former Russian aristocrats lead, American runs second (6) / BOY (lad) + A (American) + R (runs, cricket) + S (second)
21	ORDINAR	PEACE	Rector pursues service book without Latin peace, commonplace in Perth (7) / ORDINA(L) (service book, without L – Latin) plus (pursued by) R (rector)
22	FLOP	S	Collapse feminine shack (4) / F (feminine) + LOP (hack)
24	EYED	C	Will’s appeared on radio once, Penny (4) / EYE (homophone, i.e. on the radio, EYE could be I, or one?) + D (penny, from LSD notation)
26	TERM	I	Enid’s right in recalling metaphor (4) / TE_M (met, metaphor, recalled) around R (right)
28	TINE	E	Scots lose rural shute (4) / double defn. TINE can be Scottish for to lose; and TINE can be dialect, or rural, for to shut
30	MOUSING / MEUSING	N	Prowling cat entertains America, I dote (7) / MO_G (cat) around (entertaining) US (America) + I + N (note)
31	INCLIP	N	Nearly embrace, incorporated with kiss (6) / INC (incorporated) + LIP (kiss)
32	AGGRADE	–	Graduate’s in time to raise river bed, possibly by depositing detritus (7) / A_GE (time) around GRAD (graduate)
35	ETHE	T	European tour among friends? Ed’s easy (4) / E (European) + THE (our, informal/facetious?)
38	RAVEL	I	Entangle line, pursuing parity (5) / RAVE (party) plus (pursued by) L (line)
40	MERMEN	Y	Fantastic swimmers, jovial fellows, missing reefs on vacation (6) / MER(RY) MEN (jovial fellows, missing RY, or ReefY, on vacation)
41	INKBERRY	PRIZE	Mistake in colour on prize fruit of some American shrubs (8) / INK (colour) + B_Y (on) around ERR (mistake, as verb, rather than noun)
42	AUNT	S	Forgetting shoes at first intrude upon relative (4) / (H)AUNT – intrude upon, forgetting H (first letter of Hoes)
43	MACADAMIA NUTS	T	Male Cajun perhaps tuts receiving American snacks (13, two words) / M (male) + ACAD_IAN (Cajun) around (receiving) AM (American), plus UTS
Down
Clue No	Solution / Entry	Extra letter/ Extra word/ Misprint	Clue (definition underlined, thematic material in bold) / Logic/Parsing
1	HOUT-TOUT	S	Shot in the field watch Jock’s expression of anger (8) / H (hot) + OUT (in the field) + TOUT (watch, or spy, on)
2	ADJOURNING	A	Postponing trouble concealing joint smouldering, skipping ahead (10) / AD_O (trouble) around (concealing) J (joint) + (B)URNING (smouldering, skipping first letter, or head)
3	RAMP	N	Hint, pastor’s swindle (4) / RAM (hit) + P (pastor)
4	SEALINE / SEA LANE	D	Ancient bard’s amidst secure eastern coastal boundary (7) / SEAL (secure) + E (Eastern), around IN (obsolete, for inn, or bar)
5	LOTO	A	Look, oaf is game rarely (4) / LO (look) + TO (of, as in time, in the US – ‘a quarter of five’)
6	INHABIT	H	Occupy trendy hotel and start to have brief snack (7) / IN (trendy) + H (hotel, phonetic alphabet) + A (start to Ave) + BIT(E) (snack, briefly, or short of a letter)
7	TRIE	O	Old soap, band receives recipe (4) / T_IE (band) around (receiving) R (recipe, Latin – take)
8	NIE	M	Leader of mill divides, born nearby some time ago (3) / N_E (born, masculine) around (divided by) I (first letter, or leader, of Ill)
9	GADE	I	Aged baits for fish (4) / anag, i.e. bats, of AGED
13	PROW / AROW	N	Formerly valiant prince rang (4) / P (prince) + ROW (archaic – to rab, or assail)
14	ARDENCY	I	Topless liar caught entering to reject enthusiasm (7) / AR (topless I-AR) + DEN_Y (Reject) around (entered by) C (caught, cricket)
16	KALMIAS	D	Wellington’s medal which bears borders of ledum shrubs (7) / KA_I (Maori, i.e. New Zealand, or Wellington, for meal) around LM (bordering letters of LeduM) + AS (which, pronoun?)
17	GROUND RENT	S	Landlord’s annual income wild gentry mostly seizes fast (10, two words) / G_RENT (anag, i.e. wild, of most of GENTR(Y)) around (seizing) ROUND (fat)
19	GROMA / AROMA	R	Historic surveying instrument’s rare, girl in countryside speaking at last brought up (5) / A (are, metric unit of land area) + MOR (dialect, i.e. countryside, for girl) + G (last letter of speakinG), all brought up = GROMA
23	PAGEANTS	E	Displays decline in poets capturing Troy (8) / P_AN_S (pots) around AGE (decline) and T (Troy)
25	DIPTERA	M	Fly damp monstrosity, no saint (7) / DIP (dap, dip gently into water) + TERA(S) (monstrosity, without S – saint)
27	EUGLENA	–	Aquatic organism genus intermittently Lange reordered (7) / EU (gEnUs, intermittently) + GLENA (anag, i.e. reordered, of LANGE)
29	CIEL / KIEL	A	Cubs elevated the French international line (4) / C (Cuba, IVR) + IEL (LE – French, the, plus I – international, all elevated)
33	GRIM	A	Ghastly German boarder (4) / G (German) + RIM (border)
34	PEBA	I	Dali’s embracing black armadillo (4) / PE_A (dal, pigeon pea) around (embracing) B (black)
36	HARM	N	Damage hard ring (4) / H (hard) + ARM (rig, equip?)
37	CRAN / CYAN	WINNER	Top provisions winner getting quantity of herrings (4) / (S)CRAN, topped, i.e. removing top letter
39	ANA	S	Finally sangrias in Scotland, not in equal quantities (3) / A (final letter of sangriA) + NA (not, in Scotland)