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kitsune

7th August 2024, 20:44
I’ve just come to the forum to ask for parsing help (as usual) and was surprised to see how much controversy this puzzle has caused. I found it a bit trickier than recent weeks but on the whole it wasn’t too bad a solve. It did take a while for the penny to drop but once it did I thought the endgame was a very impressive construction. So I will happily take my hat off to Agricola and say thank you for a few hours of enjoyable entertainment.

On the parsing front, I am struggling mightily with 38a and would appreciate a nudge so that I can understand how it works:

Deep yellow derelict van quits (3)

I am reading this as a typo in the first word, which is the definition, but the wordplay eludes me. Any help would be much appreciated!
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candledave

7th August 2024, 20:55
Old word for yellow (of an egg) with its first letter (the van) removed
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kitsune

7th August 2024, 22:50
Of course, thank you candledave.
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rhsl

8th August 2024, 01:50
Huge thanks to Smellyharry (at #77) for the path to the real unambiguous solution!
And I now realise that others have hinted at the same thing...
That elevates the puzzle in my estimation.
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0pt0

8th August 2024, 11:03
Many thanks to Jack Aubrey (80 & 90) and Candledave (87 & 89). The penny has finally dropped!
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smst

10th August 2024, 14:20
I really liked the theme and very much admire the construction. I thought it was very clever how instruction D worked in harmony with the theme, and my only issue at first was choosing poor colours that made me consider the non-C features in an inverted way! Also happy enough with the letter change, based on the final hint in the preamble.

(I do wonder if anybody fills in their grid in a slightly different style which will not have worked for this endgame!)

However the colouring has caused me some consternation. I know, it's just for fun, but this crossword has stats and one is recognised for an all-correct year. That changes the game for me; I wish it didn't, but that's my brain.

The preamble is unambiguous: using D, "solvers must
show a picture", and "C’s corrections spell what must then be added by changing one grid letter". "Then" clearly indicates the picture is to be shown first and the change is to be made afterwards. The nature of the change is one letter; if it were more than that, it would have surely said so. But this leaves me unsatisfied as the final picture (squinting my eyes and look at the colours only) represents the problem, not the solution.

I will be submitting the result of following the instructions precisely, and not making the additional change that would show the solution fully. If we're to guess at the expected correct submission, this is surely the one that's indicated by the text. It's not satisfying though, and it's a shame that the ambiguity is there. (Even if either possibility is marked correct, as has happened before in similar situations, it's too late in the sense that we're already fretting over what to submit.)

To not end on a low note: I really did think this was very clever.
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