Guardian Genius 150 / Boatman

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The preamble states that: In one way or another 20,9 is missing from each clue.

Our first one in was 21d – INNARDS which actually turned out to be incorrect but it took us a while to realise why. 3d was the next one before we stalled for hours. Each break for a meal or drink left us more worried. Eventually after wondering  what ‘N’ could stand for, the penny suddenly dropped. A quick check on the internet revealed that the group ‘One Direction’ had been around for 5 years. That helped us fill the grid a bit more and we felt happier that we would be able to complete the puzzle and blog. However, it wasn’t until near the end when we started to identify the missing ‘directions’ that we realised our error in 21d.

The first clue where the grid entry was also the ‘direction’ had us confused for quite some while until the penny dropped. Similarly the two ‘lift and separate’ clues held us up for a while – not everyone likes these but we do!

There were some nifty misdirections but some of the clues appeared to have extra words, no doubt to satisfy the surface reading, which was rather annoying. We are more used to clues where every word plays a part in the parsing – including the single letter word – ‘a’. These ‘extra’ words seemed to hold us up for longer than they should have done.

We need some help though with the gateway clue! Please could someone help us out?   Before the blog was published we had a tip-off from a friend! See gateway clue for details.

Across  
Clue entry Direction missing from clue
7   Lives in abandon (6)
DISOWN DOWN IS (lives) – we’re not quite sure about what role ‘in’ is playing though
8     Exchanging all of mankind’s emptiness! (3,5)
OLD FLAME E The first ‘lift and separate’ clue. An anagram of ALL OF MankinD (first and last letter only or ‘emptied’) – anagrind is ‘changing’
10     Fantastic person to have on your side (9)
SUPPORTER PORT SUPER (fantastic)
11     Headgear worn with jumper (4)
FROG FRO A ‘lift and separate clue’ – G (first letter or ‘head’ of Gear). What part is ‘worn with’ playing here?
12     It goes up encased in flexible structure (8)
ASCENDER R An anagram of ENCASED – anagrind is ‘in flexible structure’
15     Crops planted by religious communities (5)
CULTS L CUTS (crops) – again, ‘planted’ is only there for the surface reading as far as we can see
16     Make up bed, embracing perfected heart (7)
CONFECT N COT (bed) around or ‘embracing’ FEC (middle letters or ‘heart’ of conFECted
19     Complete arrangement, quoting from ballad, is popular (7)
DISPOSE SE Hidden within the clue ballaD IS POpular
22     It’s definitely a thing that solvers have (5)
THINE IN THE (the definite article for ‘it’)
23     Boatman’s following the latest thing to pin on a friend (3-5)
NON–ENEMY ENE MY (Boatman’s) after or ‘following’ N (last letter or ‘thing’ to piN) ON
26     That’s nonsense! Don’t say anything more (4)
TOSH TO SH (don’t say anything more)
27     Boatman’s in the Broads, having fun (9)
STARBOARD STARBOARD TAR (boatman) inside an anagram of BROADS – anagrind is ‘having fun’. In this case the definition – one direction is missing.
29     Superseded members of the press dismissed, made redundant (8)
UNNEEDED NNE sUpersEDED the letters or ‘members’ of PRESS are missing or ‘dismissed’
30     How to preserve the meat of a reptile (6)
CAIMAN AIM CAN (how to preserve). Another clue where we appear to have extra letters. It could read as “preserve a reptile’ and still make sense.
   
Down  
1     Death’s head is used to indicate footnotes (6)
DIESES ESE D (first letter or ‘head’ of Death) IS
2     Porter needed to make connection (6)
COUPLE UP COLE (Porter as in Cole Porter)
3     A little intelligence, supposing love follows (4)
INFO N IF (supposing) O (love)
4     A rock band that’s fashionable (7)
COUTURE OUT CURE (rock band – musical not geological!)
5     A short film about a congenital problem (5,3)
CLEFT LIP LEFT CLIP (short film)
6     Brings relief to some border? (8)
EMBOSSES SSE Another lift and separate clue – read it as some b order – an anagram of SOME B with the anagrind as ‘order’
9     See 20
13     Rook (or castle) opening? (3)
CON ON C (first letter or ‘opening’ of castle)
14     In this way, beginning to drop (9)
DECREASED DECREASE D (first letter or ‘beginning’ to drop)
17     Spooner’s fighting ’usky? (8)
OUTBOUND OUTBOUND  A spoonerism on BOUT ‘OUND (fighting dog). Again, the definition – one direction-  is missing.
18     What Magwitch does to Pip in the opening scene of Great Expectations (8)
FRIGHTEN RIGHT FEN – the opening scene of Great Expectations
20,9     After disc appears, go into decline and disaster! Avoid their sound — we’ve been hearing it for five years (3,9)
ONE DIRECTION R  NE Well, what can we say? O (disc) an anagram of INTO DECLINE without the L – anagrind is ‘disaster’ perhaps. But, that still doesn’t seem to explain the inclusion of ‘go’, ‘and’ or ‘avoid’ or   explain why L is missing. What are we missing?  O (disc) DI (sounds like DIE – go into decline) REC (sounds like WRECK – disaster) TION (sounds like SHUN – avoid). The use of these ‘loose’ homophones is indicated by ‘their sound’. Many thanks for the explanation.
21     They’re seen in one hung, drawn and quartered for devastating raids (7)
INWARDS NW An anagram of RAIDS – anagrind is ‘devastating’
24     Make a fuss about a dietary supplement (6)
NIACIN IN CAIN (make a fuss) reversed or ‘about’
25     At an intermediate point on the motorway, on time before dusk (6)
MIDWAY W MI (motorway) DAY (time before dusk)
28     Resist one change to uniform? The opposite (4)
BACK BACK BuCK (resist) with U (uniform) being changed to A (one). ‘The opposite’ is needed to indicate this. The definition – one direction – is missing.

 

20 comments on “Guardian Genius 150 / Boatman”

  2. This was certainly the toughest Genius that I can remember, and not made any easier by some rather loose clues. As you point out, there are some extraneous words in a few of the clues, and I for one was exasperated rather than amused by the “lift-and-separate” clues.

    I think that you need to adjust the colouring in EMBOSSES, where it is the first S that should be black. And I have reservations about DECREASED, where the definition seems woefully vague. An alternative reading would be AS in DECREE (the direction), but that seems a bit of a stretch as well. Finally, I am unhappy that NON-ENEMY isn’t to be found in Chambers.

  3. I was just about to make the same points as Bridgesong. I thought NON-ENEMY was particularly poor – we thought it might be the answer, but delayed entering it until it was obvious it could be nothing else.
    One expects Genius puzzles to be hard, but if the device (missing a ‘direction’ in various ways) is so slippery, then I think the setter owes it to us to make the remaining clue precise.

    I too had entered INNARDS, and only realised it should be INWARDS as I was completing the online form. Alas, the same insight didn’t occur for 1d where I entered DIESIS, not DIESES. Damn!

  4. Thanks bridgesong@2 – We didn’t like DECREASED either. Bert came up with your alternative parsing as well but in the end we liked it even less! Thanks for the comment about the colouring – we’ll sort that out later today.

  5. Thanks Bertandjoyce. I agree with all the above comments – too many loose clues for this style of crossword.

    There were several answers I was uncertain about, but 21dn wasn’t one of them as I didn’t give INNARDS a second thought. Oh well.

    I got badly held up at 19ac as DISPONE seemed to be as valid as DISPOSE.

  6. I still don’t understand 21dn – how does “they’re seen in one hung drawn and quartered” relate to INWARDS?

  10. Virtual failure on my part 🙁

    I solved one or two of the clues (CONFECT, STARBOARD, INNARDS(!); guessed at One Direction; didn’t undertand the wordplay for 20, 9; spilled coffee over puzzle; lost interest; didn’t bother reprinting. 🙁

    Well done to B&J (and others) for persevering.

  11. I know that we shouldn’t comment on current puzzles but I think I can safely say that the inclusion of 28 down from this puzzle in Genius 151 is not intended. Perhaps someone at the Guardian will get around to removing it from the list of clues which have to be completed.

  12. @bridgesong: there are a number of things wrong with various incarnations of the Genius today:
    – Early versions of the PDF missed off my name as setter, which is needed (not just me being vain!) (now corrected)
    – The online submission form wasn’t up till about 10am (now corrected)
    – There’s indeed a spurious 28d in the form (still there at time of writing)
    – Early versions of the PDF also missed off two down clues (now corrected)
    – The across clues should all be identical pairs – some of the punctuation is slightly different. The clues on the form are correct.
    Hopefully they’ll all be sorted out soon – slightly takes the sparkle off my Guardian debut! 🙂

  13. I got stuck half way through, and so I am grateful for these explanations.

    In 24d ‘make a fuss’ = ‘RAISE Cain’, and the ‘about’ is sort of redundant, I think.

    I feel uneasy about 22a. How can ‘It’s definitely’ point to the definite article? Perhaps ‘thing’ belongs to this part of the clue, but that does not help much. I also feel that ‘that solverS have’ should be ‘yours’ rather than ‘thine’, but perhaps that is pedantic.

  14. well i spent most of december and into january trying through to get this one, even having got ONE DIRECTION fairly early on. I’d echo many of the grumbles above about the clueing. it was a right bugger this one, and I didn’t complete it despite my determination and perseverance!

    Particularly unhappy with THINE for 22a as this relates to the singular thou rather than the plural that “solvers” indicates. What’s the point of the Guardian having a crossword editor?

    Several answers (OLD FLAME, DECREASED, UNNEEDED, NON-ENEMY, CON, NIACIN) I was pretty sure would be right but still couldn’t parse the clues! It always feels wrong when you fill in answers “by sight” as it were because they are the only reasonable word that fits, and then you go back and reverse engineer the clue to try to work out what its relevance is. Occasionally this process reveals a great insight (“How could I have missed that clever surface construction!”) or at least a groan, but in this case it usually led merely to further frustration.

    I completely failed to get FROG and EMBOSSES, and didn’t realise that INNARDS and DIESIS were slightly wrong. Here’s to January’s!

  15. THINE: I wondered if the wordplay was “thing” missing its ending (“definitely”?) and then E being the missing direction.

  16. Thanks to B&J for their valiant effort.

    I didn’t submit my solution because I had to use too many hints from the Crossword Solver forum to complete it. I would never have completed it on my own.

    When the grid was filled I could appreciate Boatman’s construction, but I didn’t enjoy it at all even though I had actually heard of the boy band referenced and it was my first entry.

    As a solver I found that there were far too many clues where one had to make a guess at the answer from the definition and hope to make the wordplay, and direction, fit.

  17. I thought DECREASED was missing R and the wordplay was d=deceased (as in d. 1965 – or is it “died”? I’m afraid I didn’t stop to think). Surprised to see the alternative parsings here. They don’t appeal much!

  18. Thanks Herb@17 – We’ve had a look at the Guardian website it has “14ac decreased AS/D(rop) (+ DECREE)” which seems to make as much sense as our parsing. We can’t see where the definition is though, unless it is seen as ‘&lit’. But the answer is DECREASED so the clue even then doesn’t seem to make sense! What is the definition?

  19. @18
    Well that would put the kibosh on my idea. Yes, it must be a rather roundabout &lit. – if something has decreased it’s, presumably, beginning to drop? My version relied on the same thing, less convincingly I suppose, “in this way” having to imply both that, when decreased, things begin to drop (to make it the definition) and that this “way” (decreased) contains “d” (involving it in the wordplay). Somewhat academic now I know it’s wrong, but I think it saved me a lot of time. Not sure I would ever have got “as” or “decree”. Well done bridgesong and Bert!

  20. Actually, I’ve just remembered that ‘s not actually how I saw the definition – at the time I thought it was saying “in this way”, i.e. in decreased/abbreviated form, the word required is “d”, therefore in full it’s deceased. Then you put the “R” in. Still wrong, pretty tenuous, and a bit circular but that’s what I thought.

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