Comments on: Genius 99

By: Huw Powell

Huw Powell — Sat, 26 Nov 2011 02:05:36 +0000

I have recently taken, very gingerly, to printing out older Graun “Genius” puzzles, since I am a fan of really obscure rules for solving puzzles (see puzzlecrypt.com!).

The rules of this one were just up my alley – missing or extra letters, having to ignore most of the clue to get the answer, etc. In the end I “failed”, since I just wasn’t familiar enough with the show to have everything drop into place, but I got everything but ASHMAN, and messed up KEPPEL with “Koppel” (it works, but wrecks the extra letter thing. Not in ink, at least.).

I had so much fun doing this over many many days between dailies! I got in via the “easier” clues (HYENAS, MASTER (in first), RENO, ELEPHANT, then came strategy and tactics. I knew I had to work on clues with a checked letter or two, that only turned up in one or two places in the clue, and then use all my wiles to figure out what might be going on.

I think I did pretty well, as an ex-pat having no familiarity with the show.

Thanks Duncan for a very nice introduction and well-parsed series of solutions. And thanks to Enigmatist, obviously, for all those hours I am not worried about getting back!

By: John H

John H — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 15:57:20 +0000

Many Happy Returns Gordon!

….but your clue doesn’t work with the rubric and neither is it a question. Apart from that, it’s jolly good.

By: Gordon

Gordon — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 14:22:08 +0000

Hi Enigmatist

There is an old saying ‘Runs with the foxes and hunts with the hounds’ to show a lack of consistency in arguments or stances! It must be hard for you wearing two hats at once!

How about this as a ‘genuine’ ‘superfluous letter clue’ for 2D:

“Intellectual one of fifteeN HAS GAMely studied Martin Luther King.”

Not only do we get a TRUE superfluous ‘G’, but two references to Kevin Ashman’s past glories and that he is in game shows. I like it anyway.

Thanks again for a great crossword.
Gordon

ps today is my 60th birthday, so you have to be nice to me.

By: John H

John H — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 10:56:20 +0000

Hmmm. I can see both sides of this.

As an editor, I’ve entered into discussion with Chalicea about two of her clues on a similar point. Protagonists might wish to view and maybe add their own comments to the message board thread on Alternate Letters on http://www.crossword.org.uk.

As a compiler, I stand by my clue, but can understand Gordon’s frustrations with the likes of 14ac.

Cheers,

John

By: Gordon

Gordon — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 13:14:23 +0000

Hi Thomas

I really disagree.

I could engineer 20 other ‘superfluous letters’ from the other clues, simply by tacking on another letter to the existing jumble. That is not what I take to be superfluous. As you must agree, the letter ‘G’ is not superfluous unless you add it on to begin with. How can you state something is superfluous if you are forced to add it to make it so?

I doubt Enigmatist will agree with me, and it was merely frustrating as I knew what letter was required, but surely you must agree it is a bit disingenuous to have to add something first before you decide it isn’t needed.

As I say, the same logic would make ‘S’ superfluous from 14A for example. I just don’t buy this as being consistent.

Thanks for winding me up again though!!

By: Thomas99

Thomas99 — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 11:54:53 +0000

Gordon-
I honestly don’t think that G can conceivably represent any kind of mistake. It fits precisely with the instructions (see Enigmatist’s explanation at 6 above) and cleverly exploits them to make the puzzle more difficult. You have to realise that the jumble includes the G. As you say, it’s not obvious, which is a good thing, not a bad one. The setters job isn’t to make things easy!

By: Katherine

Katherine — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 14:03:04 +0000

Thanks Enigmatist for responding, but I still do not see that the superfluous ‘G’ in 2D is treated the same as with the other 6 ‘Egghead’ clues. In all the other clues you have to include the superfluous letter in the jumble as it is contained within the group of letters itself, not just tagged on at the start or end. In this case the letters for ASHMAN do not need to include the ‘G’ in the jumble. The jumble could simply be M HAS AN. It is therefore not obvious that ‘G’ is a superfluous letter. You can only deduce this once you realise that the suerfluous letters from the other 6 clues require 2D to have a superfluous ‘G’. I still think that Emigmatist made a mistake therefore, as surely the intent should be to force a letter to be superfluous. Haven’t we all made mistakes though at some point!

I still liked this Genius better than any other this year. Truly great.

Best wishes

Gordon

By: Thomas99

Thomas99 — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 09:23:28 +0000

Thanks for the blog. It was enjoyable reliving a bit of the fun from this unique puzzle.

Since Only Connect has already been mentioned, I hope it’s ok to to tell the Victoria Coren joke I’ve already quoted (some time ago) on the Guardian site. Once on OC she said, “…and remember the losers today have to go on to meet the Eggheads. They don’t have to compete with them, they just have to meet them…”

Well it made me laugh. (And of course she doesn’t mean it.)

By: John H

John H — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 08:43:46 +0000

Incidentally, the question marks in the clues to CHESSPIECE and ANIMATOR are part of the definition.

By: John H

John H — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 08:41:19 +0000

Thanks Duncan, fantastic blog, and many thanks for the comments, folks.

To clear up 2dn (ASHMAN), the definition is ‘intellectual’ and does refer to Kevin himself – I can think of very few more intellectual human beings. The G of ‘paradigm’ is the superfluous letter and GM HAS AN is the anagram group. Given the instruction ‘starts at the start or ends at the end of a word in the clue’, this word is AN – clearly you can’t tread on the definition, (the next word) – so the key letter is G.

Cheers,

Enigmatist