Enigmatic Variations No. 1771: L-to-R by Stick Insect

Hands up all those who thought Stick Insect was going to get us to do a bit of ‘simple’ Left to Right (L-to-R) manipulation of letters to create something thematic in the grid?!…

…yep, thought so, and my hand is up as well!

The preamble states that:

“Working L-TO-R, nine answers – clued by wordplay only – must be thematically modified before entry. All other clues contain a misprint which must be corrected before solving. In clue order, misprinted and corrected letters spell, respectively, a related series of examples and their thematic modifications. Numbers in brackets refer to the lengths of grid entries. Chambers (2016) is recommended.”

On with the solving then, to try and make sense of the above – hopefully some obvious ‘wordplay-only’ clues will stand out. After a few passes through I started to make some headway in the grid, but couldn’t see any definite candidates for the nine clues, or for any left-to-right movement of letters.

Progress was fairly slow, especially with those pesky misprints preying on my mind. It seemed that 5D could be BAIKAL – the largest freshwater lake, and the deepest, in the world – but it already had ‘NGA’ among the crossers – so maybe something going on there?… And 11D looked like it might be YANGTSE, but that didn’t seem to match the clue, so again a little alarm bell that something might be going on here.

And eventually the first PDM came when 25A looked like it had to be SAINT LAWRENCE – another river. So I had one lake (L) and two rivers (R), and maybe L-to-R is referring to Lakes and Rivers, and more specifically to Lakes draining in to Rivers?

This helped to retro-solve 25A as (Lake) ONTARIO, which drains into the Saint Lawrence river; and also helped with the NGA of 5D, as Lake BAIKAL drains into the ANGARA river.

So, stage one of the puzzle was cracked, although it took a fair bit more solving and Wiki-oogling to find all the Lake-to-River relationships, ending up with:

Lake -> River
Baikal -> Angara
Geneva -> Rhine
Ontario -> Saint Lawrence
Poyang -> Yangtse
Winnipeg -> Nelson
Powell -> Colorado
Tahoe -> Truckle
Victoria -> Nile
Windermere -> Leven

I knew of the majority of them, although not necessarily their geographical relationships, but Lakes Winnipeg, Powell and Poyang were new to me, as were Rivers Angara, Truckle, Nelson and Leven .

At the same time, a few misprints/corrections were starting to take shape, with MISSISSIPI (river) looking like it was made up of the first ten corrections, along with a possible (Lake) TANGANYIKA later in in the misprints. Given that the preamble tells us that these will give us a few more examples, it seemed logical to assume that a similar pattern would emerge, but again it took a fair bit of methodical checking of the misprints/corrections to come up with the following:

…again, learning a few new things along the way! In fact, in a couple of cases, working out the correction/misprint pairing helped to retro-parse a few recalcitrant clues that were still holding out, and indeed to solve a couple as well…finally leading to a completed grid:

Wow – that is some feat of imagination and grid construction just to get the nine examples in the grid and clues. But to then engineer a full set of misprints/corrections in every other clue to make a similar set just boggles my mind!

Chapeau to Stick Insect for an impressive tour-de-force of a puzzle – a candidate for EVOTY (EV Of The Year), if there were such a thing…

(I’m off for a lie-down, and I hope all is clear below… There was a lot to work into the parsing and writing up, so a few gremlins might have slipped through…)

Across
Clue No	Misprints/Corrections	Solutions -> Entries	Clue (definition underlined, misprinted letter in bold) Logic/Parsing
1	–	GENEVA -> RHINE	Space walk, going after knowledge (5) GEN (information, knowledge) + EVA (Extra Vehicular Activiy, spacewalk) [Lake Geneva drains into the Rhine]
7	B / M	UGLIFY	Bake worse pie of frugality, lacking cooking art (6) subtractive anagram, i.e. pie, or confusion, of F(R)UG(A)LI(T)Y, lacking the cooked up letters of ART [make worse, not bake worse!]
12	E / I	HUGUENOT	Beg to include Unionist, never French Protestant (8) HUG_E (big) around (including) U (unionist), plus NOT (never) [big, not beg]
14	M / S	UNARY	One local advanced railway having mole component 5) UN (dialect, local, for one) + A (advanced) + RY (railway) [sole, not mole]
15	I / S	GRAD	Bachelor perhaps in reverie of calendar girls (4) hidden word in, i.e. in reverse, in ‘calenDAR Girls’ [reverse, not reverie]
16	D / I	VEIN	Western Nevada embraces centre of wildest humour (4) VE_N (Nev, Nevada, heading West, or reversed) around I (centre of ‘wilIest’) [wiliest, not wildest]
17	J / S	STYLO	Cycling yard, junk pen (5) Y (yard) + LOST (sunk) = YLOST, cycling three letters to the back = STYLO [sunk, not junk]
18	I / S	ANADEMS	Maenads waited for garlands (7) anag, i.e. wasted, of MAENADS [wasted, not waited]
21	N / I	FINEST	Best go inland with headland ending prematurely (6) FI_T (go) around (inlaid with) NES(S) (cape, headland, ending prematurely) [inlaid, not inland]
22	E / P	SHADE	Quiet about lies of damnable ghost (5) SH (quiet) + A (about) + DE (lips, or edges, of DamnablE) [lips, not lies]
23	A / P	ATHEISES	One Shia imbibing ecstasy after an article promotes godlessness (8) A (an) + THE (definite article) + I (one) + S_S (steamship, ship) around (imbibing) E (ecstasy tablet) [ship, not shia]
25	–	ONTARIO -> SAINT LAWRENCE	Working sailor into void (13) ON (working) + TAR (sailor, jack Tar) + IO (IntO, voided) [Lake Ontario drains into the Saint Lawrence]
27	G / I	AIRDROPS	Gran in active duty runs operations for supply missions (8) A_D (active duty) around IR (Iran), plus R (runs, cricket notation) + OPS (operations) [Iran, not gran]
29	H / B	NIECE	Priest’s daughter hacked one German church (5) NIE (ein, one, in German, backed) + CE (Church of England) [backed, not hacked]
31	C / A	RECOUP	Indemnify agent clocking 60 per cent of number (6) RE_P (agent) around (cloaking) COU (three of five letters, or sixty percent, of COUnt, or number) [cloaking, not clocking]
34	A / N	NUTCASE	Tease taken in by nationalist cause, reckless and lunatic (7) + NU_CASE (anag, i.e. reckless, of N (nationalist) + CAUSE, around, taking in, T (tense) [tense, not tease]
35	Y / N	LET UP	Indian boat yearly returning to stop (5, 2 words) nearly all of PU_TEL(I), Indian flat-bottomed boat, returning = LET UP [nearly, not yearly]
37	U / S	PITA	Lout painted den badly going off for bread (4) subtractive anagram, i.e. lost, of PAI(N)T(ED), minus the mixed up (badly) letters of DEN ‘going off’ [lost, not lout]
38	G / E	KITE	Tackle end of wing, bird (4) KIT (tackle, gear) + E (end of winE) [wine, not wing]
39	A / N	SNARL	Tia beginning to agitate both hands in tangle (5) SN (Stannum, tin) + A (beginning of Agitate) + RL (Right and Left, both hands) [tin, not tia]
40	–	POWELL -> COLORADO	So humourless at first (8) PO (humourless) + WELL (so) [Lake Powell drains into the Colorado River]
41	C / E	SEQUEL	Pair in scam mostly suppress what follows (6) SE (first pair of letters in SEam) + QUEL(L) (mostly suppress, quell) [seam, not scam]
42	O / C	NEWSY	Full of tales, Wednesday broadcast dead rooky’s departing (5) subtractive anagram, i.e. broadcast, of W(ED)NES(DA)Y, without the mixed up (rocky) letters of DEAD [rocky, not rooky]
Down
Clue No	Misprints/Corrections	Solutions -> Entries	Clue (definition underlined, misprinted letter in bold) Logic/Parsing
1	M / A	RHUSES	Mitch occupies plots for plants (6) R_USES (plots) around (occupied by) H (aitch) [aitch, not Mitch]
2	O / A	HUNT	Chose shrub nuts regularly (4) regular letters of ‘sHrUb NuTs’ [chase, not chose]
3	T / D	NURLS	Beats head up, laughs heartlessly (5) NUR (run, head towards, up) + LS (LaughS, heartlessly) [beads, not beats]
4	A / D	EEYORE	Arab literary donkey hidden by viceroy eerily recurring (6) reversed hidden word, i.e. hidden by and recurring, in ‘vicEROY EErily’ [drab, not Arab]
5	–	BAIKAL -> ANGARA	Blast-off’s beginning, Laika is frantic (6) B (beginning of Blast-off) + AIKAL (anag, i.e. frantic, of LAIKA) [Lake Baikal drains into the Angara]
6	N / A	CORNET-A-PISTON	Cornish lenders of excellent tin are pleased if such fashion brass for player (13) CORN (Cornish) + ET_A_PIS (leading letters of ‘Excellent Tin Are Pleased If Such’) + TON (fashion, people of fashion) [leaders, not lenders]
8	G / L	GIDDIER	More unsteady, unconscious entering Goose Ridge (7) G_DIER (anag, i.e. loose, of RIDGE) around ID (the unconscious instinct, psychoanalysis) [loose, not goose]
9	–	WINDERMERE -> LEVEN	Watch key, nothing better (5) WINDER (watch key) + MERE (nothing better) [Lake Windermere drains into the Leven]
10	A / U	FEIS	Excitably, half-cat in Irish festival (4) FEIS(~~TILY~~), excitedly, half cut [cut, not cat]
11	–	POYANG -> YANGTSE	Smell surrounds yak, briefly (7) PO_NG (smell) around (surrounding) YA(K) (yak, briefly, or stopping short of last letter) [Lake Poyang drains into the Yangtse]
13	N / K	DEMESNES	Green township functions without independent land estates (8) DEME (Greek township) + S(I)NES (trigonometric functions without I, independent) [Greek, not green]
19	Y / U	THAI	Asian native had it awfully, dyke failing (4) subtractive anagram, i.e. awfully, of HA(D) IT, without D – duke, failing [duke, not dyke]
20	I / G	HAIRCUTS	Styles of ragini crush it around America (8) H_IRCUTS (anag, i.e. raging, of CRUSH IT) around A (America) [raging, not ragini]
24	K / A	ECCE	Behold Roman eccentric gutted common erk (4) EC (EccentriC, gutted) + CE (Common Era) [era, not erk]
25	A / M	SARAPIS	God of monkeys eating Nora up (7) SA_IS (monkeys) around (earing) RAP (par, norm, up) [norm, not Nora]
26	–	TAHOE -> TRUCKLE	You shouldn’t have weed (7) TA (thanks, you shouldn’t have) + HOE (weed, garden) [Lake Tahoe drains into the Truckle]
28	G / I	STEELY	In Seychelles, local Ming turns hard (6) S_Y (Seychelles) around TEEL (leet, dialect, or local, for little, or mini, turning up) [mini, not ming]
29	–	WINNIPEG -> NELSON	Pooh embraces Piglet initially, before Tigger’s most frequent character (6) WINNI_E (Winnie the Pooh) around (embracing) P (initial letter of Piglet), plus G (most frequent letter in ‘tiGGer’) [Lake Winnipeg drains into the Nelson]
30	A / N	EMPLOY	Occupy time, reading polymer endlessly (6) anag, i.e. rending, of POLYME(R), endlessly [rending, not reading]
32	R / C	OTAKU	Section of manuka top bark for obsessives (5) reversed hidden word, i.e. section of and back, in ‘manUKA TOp’ [back, not bark]
33	D / I	GENRE	Green rodsters in style of painting (5) anag, i.e. roisters, of GREEN [roisters, not rodsters]
34	–	VICTORIA -> NILE	Winner denuded Siam (4) VICTOR (winner) + (S)IA(M) (denuded Siam) [Lake Victoria drains into the Nile]
36	A / O	URDS	Beans in irrational stakes hitting the floor (4) SURD, irrational mathematical quantity, with S (stokes, physics) dropping to the floor, or bottom, for a Down entry) [stokes, not stakes]

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