Enigmatic Variations 948 – Tradition by Samuel

We were told that twenty-five clues contained a superfluous letter or word that needed to be removed before solving and that these would give, in clue order, an abridged definition of a TRADITION. This, in turn, suggested the way in which a further eight answers were to be entered into the grid. The remaining five clues, connected with the theme, did not have a definition.

As I am again standing in at short notice, and my memory of what I solved yesterday, yet alone nearly two weeks ago, is sparse to say the least, there will not be many comments from me, simply an analysis of the puzzle.

The superfluous letters and words in the clues, identified in blue in the analysis below, spelt out:

FIRST PERSON TO ENTER HOUSE AFTER BEGINNING OF NEW YEAR

This is a definition of ‘first-foot‘ and the eight modified answers had FT (foot) moved to the start of the word before entry into the grid. Presumably as eight feet had to be moved this first-foot was an arachnid. Perhaps Samuel was thinking of his fellow setter Scorpion (Arachne would be considered unlucky in most places because of her gender).

The undefined answers were BREAD, DRINK, MONEY, SALT and AULD LANG, the first four being items that a first-foot might bring (oddly ‘coal’ is missing, I thought this was the most well known item) and the fifth is two-thirds of a song that might be being sung at the time. The remaining third, SYNE, was to be written beneath the grid.

Unless my parsing is totally wrong (I’m happy to be corrected!), there is an error in 8dn, something not exactly uncommon in the EV in recent months though usually it is just a case of faulty enumeration.