Comments on: Guardian Genius 85: a Yarborough

By: Petero

Petero — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 15:42:58 +0000

Agreed that this turned out to be not so difficult as Geniuses go; so I made difficulties of my own. The first truncated answer that I solved was 23D MOTHEA. Definition, shabby – why, it must be motheared, of course. This let up some blind alleys (red – colours? Red queen – Alice?), and it was not until the following day that the absurdity of it dawned on me. At least it led me to the reasonable, and correct, solution that the answers were to be shortened by whole words.

By: Mr Beaver

Mr Beaver — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 18:15:27 +0000

Likewise, we found this easy for a Genius. In fact I only printed it out yesterday morning, having (at last) caught up with our backlog of daily cryptics the day before!
Completing one in a day felt like a real coup: it normally takes a couple of weeks, if ever. It was good to see that, despite the constraints of the form, Paul managed to get a couple of (mildly) smutty answers in.

By: Jan

Jan — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 15:12:25 +0000

Thank you, Bridgesong, for the blog, and thank you to Paul for another really enjoyable puzzle.

The canapes got me going but I had very few solutions when I looked at, —B—–H, and ‘saw’, YARBOROUGH. The light bulb on my head lit up. A quick check that there was an Ipswich in Queensland and I was off.

It took me a little while to explain BO[w]. At least it wasn’t smelly.

LDG, SCARF(ace) was the last to be solved here but was definitely my favourite.

By: Myrvin

Myrvin — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 12:31:14 +0000

The first one of these I’ve tried. I was surprised I could finish it, what with all the non-words.
Spotted the card theme fairly early.
For those new to this (would they be doing one of these?), your explanation for 1d is missing. GAME with ME before GA.
Wouldn’t it be wonderful to set something like this and still be able to enter real words?

By: Little Dutch Girl

Little Dutch Girl — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 10:40:56 +0000

Thanks Ian @4 it’s there now and we’ve just printed it to have a go over lunch!

By: Ian W.

Ian W. — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 10:16:10 +0000

Little Dutch Girl @3,

I was able to access this month’s Genius a little after 1am this morning, so if you can’t, keep trying. I think you need to try searching the archive rather than just the main Genius page. And keep refreshing the page constantly. Very annoying to stay up late just for the crossword and then spend an hour trying to access it, but it’s not the first time this has happened.

By: Little Dutch Girl

Little Dutch Girl — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 07:26:42 +0000

Thanks Gaufrid for the post and explanations.

This is the first Genius Crossword we’ve completed and feel really pleased with ourselves since it is one by Paul a compiler we struggle with – but enjoy. We usually struggle with the instructions for the Genius (including this one!) and lack of time to concentrate (that’s our excuse!) sees the Genius puzzle being abandoned half way through the month! I was also worried when someone earlier this month commented as part of a post on another crossword about the July Genius which made it sound like a real toughie and given the compiler I thought “oh no – no chance with this one then.” How wrong can you be – helped by the House Elf playing bridge.

I’d thought that the non-words might mean acronyms but it was 27 across that gave us the entry into the puzzle’s special clues.

I agree that 24a is not entirely clear. This was one of the last to be solved. I’d taken the flipping to be LP (record) to be reversed in the answer to give PL which then given the definitional part leading to placebo. Having by then grasped the instructions spotted “ace” in the word and removed it. But I can’t also see where the BO comes from. It could be that it is the front syllable from OBVERSE.

I loved 17a.

Thank you to Paul for giving us the encouragement to keep trying with the Genius! This month’s Genius has not yet been posted on the Guardian website. I see that there has been a bit of ding-dong about the June Genius puzzle (Guardian crossword editors blog)and the ambiguity of answers which is the kind of thing that has put us off in the past.

By: Gaufrid

Gaufrid — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 00:07:35 +0000

Hi bridgesong
In 24ac BO is BO[w] (front {of a ship}, not back).

By: Peter LeFanu Lumsdaine

Peter LeFanu Lumsdaine — Sun, 01 Aug 2010 23:38:01 +0000

Re 24 across, I suspect that the final BO is a reversal of OB, abbreviation for OBVERSE, although I couldn’t quite see how this makes “front, not back” add up right (OBVERSE could be defined as “front”, or “not back”, but either way, what’s left doesn’t quite say to flip it).