Enigmatic Variations No. 1647: Happy Ending by Kcit

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The phrase ‘HAPPY ENDING’ can have several meanings…at least one of them being not very salubrious – let’s hope Kcit keeps it clean!…

The preamble states that:

“Eight clues are out of place, and the answer to each must be entered, after modification, at one of the other possible positions where it will fit. The modifications ensure the grid conforms to the HAPPY ENDING in the unclued shaded entry (in ODE, as are 25 and 37). Chambers Dictionary (2016) is recommended.”

So no fancy frills – extra letters, extra words, misprints, etc. – just eight ‘modifications’ and moves.

Nothing for it but to start solving and filling the grid, to get some crossers on that middle row, and hopefully some answers that maybe don’t fit their lights/crossers.

It took a while, and a slow, gradual gridfill, before I had my first candidate – 9D had to be THRASH, but was enumerated (7). One down, seven to go! I had originally wondered whether the ‘modification’ would be an anagrammatisation, but THRASH doesn’t have (m)any anagrams, and I had some crossing letters at 31D that might form GANNET – a bird, so THRASH could be THRUSH?

With this in mind, I pressed on and gradually started to find more birds – HARRIER at 9D, CHOUGH at 6A – and some crossers on the middle row started to suggest ‘A BOX OF BIRDS’. Not such a happy ending for the birds, if they end up in a box(?), but that helped to keep the focus on the outer edges of the grid, or box, as it had become.

A fair amount of work remained, with some reverse engineering of CHOUGH -> SHOUGH, HARRIER -> BARRI(ST)ER, etc., and the eventual realisation that 44A must be TANAGER, so GANNET became GANDER, from DANDER.

And eventually the box of birds was complete, the grid was complete, and a little research indicated that the phrase is a New Zealand colloquialism for feeling better after an illness – ‘I’ve been down with the flu, but now I’m a box of birds‘ (all chirpy and singing inside?!), hence the HAPPY ENDING (phew!):

 

Kcit/Phi/Pangakupu lives in his adopted New Zealand, and is known for a tendency to insert Maori/New Zealand words in his puzzles, so, with hindsight, maybe not too surprising to find a Kiwi phrase as the key.

Despite the lack of clueing tricks, this was still a fairly challenging solve, and contained a few new/obscure (to me) words – SEJM, FEIJO(AD)A, PAROXYTONES, HIBERNICISM, WEIGELA, SIMI, YAFF, BI-LAYER, KINGLET and MINNOCK/PINNOCK – maybe more than just a few! All were well clued and reasonably crossed, so just needed a few pattern-matches and/or Chambers-checks to confirm.

My thanks to Kcit for the challenge, and I trust all is clear below…

 

Across
Clue No Solution / Entry Clue (definition underlined)

Logic/Parsing
1 SHOUGH / PINNOCK Lapdog‘s first to steal ham (7)

S (first letter of Steal) + HOUGH (hock of ham)
6 MANAGER / CHOUGH A European cycling organiser (6)

A GERMAN (a European) cycling the first four letters to the back = MANAGER!
10 ADEEM Lawyer’s to cancel term in office secured by American Democrat (5)

A + DE_M (Democrat) around (securing) E (term, or end, of officE)
11 ARIANNA Italian woman offering a couple of notes in song (7)

ARI_A (song) around A + NN (a couple of notes!)
13 PESO Filipino’s ready to see odd bits of peepshow (4)

odd letters from PeEpShOw
15 RAT Fellow abandoning water transport – like me, proverbially? (3)

CD? proverbially, a RAT would leave a sinking ship
16 VARICELLAR Describing fever: very, very dry, endlessly needing a lot of drinks (10)

V (very) + ARI(D) (dry, endlessly) + CELLAR (storage space for a lot of drinks, and generic term for a collection of wine)
17 OLEARIA Old, old lesson is initially about Australian shrub (7)

O (old) + LEAR (obsolete, or old, for lesson/learning) + I (initial letter of Is) + A (about)
18 SIMI What runs through Africans? I’m it! (4)

&lit & hidden word in, i.e. running through, ‘africanS IM In’

[simi being an East African two-edged sword]
19 TERM Boundary indicated by edges of the room (4)

TE (edges of ThE) + RM (room)
21 CORN Military leader leading military force? That’s hackneyed stuff (4)

CO (Commanding Officer, military leader) + RN (Royal Navy, military force)
23 KNEE Longing to see movement of new joint (4)

KEE(N) (longing) with the N (new) moving can give KNEE
26 ISIS River couple, one of which has got on board ship (4)

II (Roman numerals, 2, or a couple), with one ‘boarding’ a ship (SS, steamship) could be I + S-I-S
27 YAFF Scottish bark extracted from Galloway afforestation (4)

hidden word in, i.e. extracted from, ‘gallowaY AFForestation’
29 AREG Lots of sand in Arkansas, say (4)

AR (Arkansas) + EG (say, for example)
32 NILS Perhaps lust returned when embracing Latin loves (4)

NI_S (sin, e.g. lust, returning) around (embracing) L (Latin)
35 WEIGELA A support that is weak knocked over deciduous shrub (7)

A + LEG (support) + IE (id est, that is) + W (weak), all around, or knocked over, gives WEIGELA
37 GLAMOURISE Add appeal to loch in our images after development (10)

G_AMOURISE (anag, i.e. after development, of OUR IMAGES around l (loch)
38 HEN What’s lining the next layer? (3)

hidden word in, i.e. lining of, ‘tHE Next’
40 SEJM Polish politicians appear to get justice for latest European (4)

SE(E)M (appear) with latest E (European) changed to J (justice)

[the sejm being the lower house of the Polish parliament]
41 EXEGETE Senior official mostly to understand English interpreter (7)

EXE(C) (most of senior official, executive) + GET (understand) + E (English)
42 BONCE Head boy’s head no longer (5)

B (head, or first letter, of Boy) + ONCE (no longer)
43 SINGLET / THRUSH Wrong answer about line, spectroscopic line (6)

SIN (wrong) + G_ET (answer, as in get the door) around L (line)
44 CARROT / TANAGER Allotment product arrived in bed (7)

C_OT (bed) around ARR (arrived)
Down
Clue No Solution / Entry Clue (definition underlined)

Logic/Parsing
1 BARRIER / PARROT Legal counsel dropping stone block (6)

BARRI(ST)ER (legal counsel) dropping ST (stone)
2 IDEA I passed on truncated suggestion (4)

I + DEA(D) (passed on, truncated)
3 NEUTER Fix recent German row with departure of Italy (6)

NEU (new, or recent, in German) + T(I)ER (tier, or row, losing I – Italy)

[fix as in have a cat/dog fixed, or neutered]
4 NERVA Roman emperor hiding in inner vaults (5)

hidden word in ‘inNER VAults’
5 CLERIC Conservative leader in loss? Heath dismissing a minister (6)

C (Conservative) + L leading letter of Loss) + ERIC(A) (heath genus, dismissing a)
6 CROCK Nonsense surrounding Republican and pot (5)

C_OCK (nonsense, slang) around (surrounding) R (Republican)
7 HIBERNICISM One book penned by wild lrishmen also carrying college comment from Dublin (11)

H_ERNI_ISM (anag, i.e. wild, or IRISHMEN) around (penning IB (I, one, B, book) and also around (carrying) C (college)
8 UNBLIND Free to embrace lecturer with vision (7)

UNB_IND (free) around (embracing) L (lecturer)
9 THRASH / HARRIER Husband brought in riff-raff for party (7)

T_RASH (riff-raff) around (bringing in) H (husband)
12 AWLS Regulations showing shift in latitude? They’re boring (4)

(L)AWS (regulations) shifting L (latitude) could give AWLS
13 PAROXYTONES Snoopy extra funny: things stressed near the end (11)

anag, i.e. funny, of SNOOPY EXTRA

[not ‘paroxynotes’, as I originally entered it!]
14 CAMESE Setter, apparently to be on the safe side, producing Arab garment (6)

ME (the setter) IN CA_SE (on the safe side!)
20 EASILY Current passing through each covert without difficulty (6)

EA (each) + S_LY (covert) around (passed through by) I (electrical current)
22 OFF Cricket side coming from France? (3)

OF (coming from) + F (France)
24 DANDER / KINGLET Republican, upset, having come round with passion (7)

D_ER (red, Republican party colour, upset) around AND (with)
25 BI-LAYER Chemical film I barely reconstructed (7)

anag, i.e. reconstructed, of I BARELY
28 FEIJOA Fruit dish from Portugal missing a date (6)

FEIJO(AD)A (Portuguese dish) missing A and D (date)

[Chambers has FEIJOADA as Brazilian, but they do speak Portuguese there!)]
30 REHANG That woman’s twisted in English exhibit in a new way (6)

REH (her, that woman, twisted round) + ANG (English)
31 MINNOCK / GANDER Affected sort against twirling in fur (6)

MIN_K (fur) around NOC (con, against, twirling)
33 SMOG Murky atmosphere regularly seen in some orgy (4)

regular letters from ‘SoMe OrGy’
34 MUSTH Temperature in rubbish producing frenzy in animals (5)

MUS_H (rubbish, pulp) around T (temperature)
36 GENOA Sail’s good? Excellent when raised (5)

G (good) + ENOA (A1, A-ONE, excellent, raised)
39 ECCE See computer language repeatedly used in middle of week (4)

E_E (middle of wEEk) around CC (computer language C, repeatedly)

 

3 comments on “Enigmatic Variations No. 1647: Happy Ending by Kcit”

  3. This was great fun. I solved most of the bottom half first, leaving only the clues to the four ‘border’ answers. Naturally, I assumed that these were four of the eight ‘special’ clues with the displaced answers. I then solved most of the top half, again leaving the four clues to the four border answers, plus two or three other clues that I was not able to solve. Across the middle I had ‘A BOX OF’ plus the letter ‘I’.

    I got the idea of the clues to the misplaced answers from those that gave me MANAGER, CARROT, BARRIER and THRUSH. The best moment was discovering PARROT, THRUSH, TANAGER and HARRIER, along with A BOX OF BIRDS, which was the most interesting discovery of all. I had no idea that it was an antipodean phrase with a meaning reflecting the title. The rest of the puzzle, naturally, yielded more easily.

    I liked the way that the wordplay in 44a (‘… arrived in bed’) might have pointed to either MANAGER or CARROT. I also liked the fact that the enumerations of all eight of the special clues were wrong!

    Thanks to Kcit and mc_rapper.

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