Enigmatic Variations No. 1519: Satisfaction 2 by proXimal

I’ve certainly had plenty of SATISFACTION from 2021’s EV puzzles. Maybe our esteemed EV editor, proXimal, is asking whether you have had SATISFACTION 2?…

The preamble states that:

“The answers to 30 clues must be entered with a single-letter misprint, always occurring in a cell checked by a crossing entry; correct letters spell out a proverb about SATISFACTION. In every other clue, a string of consecutive letters must be removed from one word before solving; these removals hint at an alternative version of the proverb. Finally, one appropriate entry should be replaced with the final word of the alternative version. Chambers Dictionary (2016) is recommended; the grid contains all real words and phrases at each stage.”

NB. I thought that second sentence was a a little ambiguous – does it mean ‘every other clue’, i.e. alternate clues, regardless of the 30 mentioned before? Or does it refer to the ‘other’ 8 clues not in the 30? I plumped for the latter, as having 19 sets of removed letters sounded like a bit of a stretch.

And then, armed with a printed-from-PDF-and-slightly-magnified copy of the puzzle, I started solving and entering Across solutions in the top right corners of cells, Downs in the bottom left, and circling any where clashes occurred. Knowing that every one of those 30 solutions would have a misprint/changed letter meant a lot of cold solving/not trusting crossers, but I made reasonable progress.

e.g. 5A BROACH seemed to clash with 7D EMPUSE, which meant the more likely misprint would be BREACH. And this was confirmed when PLATES at 21A meant that EMPUSE could change to EMPUSA (both words that were new to me and needed checking!). And so it continued, with a reasonably steady grid-fill and selection of candidates for clashes.

In the meantime, the extra letter clues all seemed to have fishy connotations – EEL from frEELance at 1A; DAB from riDABle at 13A, etc.

And at some point the proverb started to take shape – neatly ‘punctuated’ by the extra fishy letters – and with a bit of extrapolation and space-filling I got: ONE MAN’S MEAT IS ANOTHER MAN’S POISON. This helped with mopping up some of the remaining misprints, and the punctuation helped to find the last couple of fish – EEL, DAB, TUNA, SOLE, GAR, CHAR, IDE and PIKE.

On to the final part of the instructions: my initial thought, given all those extra letters, was that the alternative version would be ‘One man’s meat is another man’s FISH’, so I looked to replace one of the four-letter entries with FISH. But nothing seemed to leave real words/phrases. It was only after a little wiki-oogling on the phrase that I came up with ‘One man’s FISH is another man’s POISSON’ – and the SURGEON fish at 19D gave way very kindly to allow POISSON to slot into its place:

 

And there you have it – an entertaining challenge to use up some of the inter-festivity break time between Christmas and New Year. Quite a few new/obscure (to me) words – such as  TUMULAR, CLEM, GALLIES, SLUMPY and ASPERS, as well as the aforementioned EMPUSE/EMPUSA. That pairing was only bettered, in my eyes, by HAGBOLTS/RAGBOLTS – what a pair of words to manage to get both in a puzzle! However, for all those obscure words, I thought the clueing was reasonably accessible and, as mentioned above, it was a helpful touch to punctuate the phrase with the fishy material, rather than distributing these randomly.

I have to admit, I only spotted the ‘2’ in the title once I’d finished and my mind was moving towards the blog. A quick search of this site came up with EV 1486 – Satisfaction, earlier in 2021, and also by proXimal, where a similar trans-Manche food-themed pun was used to replace ‘ONE EGG’ with ‘UN OEUF’. So, what can we expect for SATISFACTION 3? Maybe some Inspector Clouseau-isms: “A ‘beurme’? Were we expecting wan?”; or maybe something ‘Allo Allo’-ish? Time will tell…

Many thanks to proXimal, a Happy (and safe) New Year to all, and I hope all is clear below.

 

Across
Clue No	Solution / Entry	Correct / Removed letters	Clue (definition underlined, removed letters in bold) / Logic/Parsing
1	SAFELY	EEL	Freelance for good, wisely and without risk (6) / SA(G)ELY (wisely) swapping G (good) for F (France) = SAFELY
5	BROACH / BREACH	O	Open up bass before carp (6) / B (bass) + ROACH (carp)
10	NAIRAS / TAIRAS	N	Having changed hands, fastening that tin for Nigerian (6) / NAI(L)(R) (nail, or fastening, changing hands R – right – to L – left) + AS (that)
12	AMENE / AMINE	E	Rarely pleasant males in discontented audience (5) / A_E (AudiencE, dis-content-ed!) around MEN (males)
13	EMBROIL	DAB	Distract mob with ridable buggy (7) / anag, i.e. buggy, of MOB + RILE
16	TUMULAR / TUBULAR	M	Belly for all to see, mostly fat like mound (7) / TUM (belly) + U (for all to see, film classification) + LAR(D) (most of lard, or fat)
17	SNAPPER / SNIPPER	A	Person on fryers turned fish (7) / SNAP (pans, or fryers, turned) + PER (person)
19	NILL / SILL / PILL	N	Old refuse close to station harmful (4) / N (closing letter of statioN) + ILL (harmful)
21	PLATES / PLATEN	S	Feet fixed beside high mountain to the west (6) / SET (fixed) + ALP (high mountain), all to the west, or reversed = PLATES
22	USAGES / OSAGES	TUNA	Dodgy Sue with fags fortunate to dodge customs (6) / anag, i.e dodgy, of SUE + (F)AGS (dodging F – forte)
25	CLEM / CLEG	M	Member of Spice Girls about to starve (4) / MEL C (one of the Spice Girls) about = CLEM!
27	TUSKERS / TUSKARS	E	Boars, perhaps, American’s bagged in exotic treks (7) / T_KERS (anag, i.e. exotic, of TREKS) around (bagging) US (American)
29	GALLIES / GILLIES / SILLIES	A	When whaling, scares group of friends (7) / G (group of, as in G7, G20) + ALLIES (friends)
32	REGRATE / REGRADE	T	Historically, manipulate price of case of ribeye, wonderful to hear (7) / RE (case, or outer letters, of RibeyE) + GRATE (homophone, i.e. to hear – GRATE can sound like GREAT – wonderful)
33	OTTER	SOLE	Brown fur insole not terrible (5) / hidden word in ‘nOT TERRible’
34	DINGLE / DONGLE	I	Dell covered in gleaming snares (6) / hidden word in, i.e. snared by, ‘covereD IN GLEaming’
35	SEEDER / NEEDER	S	Notice colour like blood around fish about to spawn (6) / SEE (notice) + DER (red, colour like blood, around)
36	ENSEAR	GAR	Will’s to dry up space right beside margarine (6) / EN (space, printing) + SEA (marine) + R (right)
Down
Clue No	Solution / Entry	Correct / Removed letters	Clue (definition underlined, removed letters in bold) / Logic/Parsing
1	STAWS / STEWS	A	Elgin’s surfeits of marble carried by ship (5) / S_S (steamship) around (carrying) TAW (marble)
2	FIBRIN / FIBRIL	N	Tell lie, content of drink provides protein (6) / FIB (tell lie) + RIN (contents of dRINk)
3	EROS / ERRS	O	Really concerning to upset deity (4) / SO (really) + RE (concerning), all reversed, or up-set)
4	LATS / LAOS	T	Muscles hold out with tonnes to lift (4) / LAST (hold out) with T (tons) lifted can give LATS
6	HAGBOLTS / RAGBOLTS	H	Seabirds both lag flying south (8) / HAGBOLT (anag, i.e. flying, of BOTH LAG) + S (south)
7	EMPUSE / EMPUSA	E	Spectre back to scare politician on purpose (6) / E (back letter of scarE) + MP (politician) + USE (purpose)
8	AIGRET / AIGLET	R	Heron had habitat reduced in small island (6) / AI_T (small island) around GRE(W) (grew, had a habitat, reduced)
9	HERRING	CHAR	That charwoman’s sound swimmer (7) / Her (that woman) + RING (sound)
11	SLUMPY / SLURPY	M	Marshy squalid neighbourhood, pity dismissing it (6) / SLUM (squalid neighbourhood) + P(IT)Y (pity, dismissing it)
14	MONASTIC / MONISTIC	A	Rum main cost for religious man (8) / anag, i.e. rum, of MAIN COST
15	CAREENED / CAREERED	N	Tilted vehicle on earth climbing valley (8) / CAR (vehicle) + E (earth) + ENED (dene, or valley, climbing)
18	PREMIERS / PREMIERE	S	Nosy people nabbing unprotected memo for chiefs (8) / PR_IERS (nosy people) around (nabbing) (M)EM(O) (memo, unprotected by outer letters)
19	SURGEON / POISSON	IDE	Doctor presides, interrupting disciple (7) / S_ON (disciple) around (interrupted by) URGE (press)
20	ASPERS / ASTERS	P	Old Turkish bread by feeding equine (6) / AS_S (equine) around (fed by) PER (by)
23	OBLATE / ABLATE	O	Once dedicated old boy out of office (6) / OB (old boy) + LATE (out of office)
24	GUILED / GULLED	I	No longer treacherous, earl accepted by corporation (6) / GUIL_D (corporation) around (accepting) E (earl)
26	SAVAGE / LAVAGE	S	Ferociously attack keep in brief period (6) / SAV(E) (keep, in brief) + AGE (period)
28	ONE-ER / SNEER	O	Unique person against revelry regularly ignored (5) / ON (against) + EER (occasional leters of ‘rEvElRy’, i.e. regularly ignored)
30	ANON / AGON	N	Immediately rule after ousting leader (4) / (C)ANON – rule, ousting leading letter
31	URNS	PIKE	Turnpike’s unopened repositories (4) / (T)URNS, unopened – losing first letter, again!