Guardian Genius 160 by Puck

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What flight of fancy will Puck – the mischievous, fun-loving sprite from ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ –  take us on with Genius 160?…

Well thankfully, for your correspondent at least, this was a fairly straightforward Genius solve, wrapped up in a couple of productive sessions, but then left to blog at the last minute a month later, so apologies if this is a bit rushed…

The preamble, or rather the ‘rules and requests’ section, tells us:

“Twelve solutions (not further defined) belong to one of two groups, which combined lead to a 23 25. The definitions in each of the remaining clues contain a single letter misprint. These incorrect letters, in clue order, spell out two possible locations for another sort of 23 25.”

1A looked immediately like BERGAMOT, but with no definition, so this must be a thematic. However, apart from knowing that my favourite tipple of Earl Grey tea is flavoured with bergamot, it didn’t ring any bells. Soon after I had RUSSET at 2D – also undefined, and more familiar to me as an APPLE! I then looked up bergamot, to find that while the oil of the citrus fruit from the bergamot tree is used in Earl Grey, it has a secondary definition as a type of PEAR.

So we have an APPLE and a PEAR early on, which implied what the two groups might be!…

And as I worked my way through, I steadily found a few more fruits of my labour – CONFERENCE, COLMAR, WARDEN, COMICE and BARTLETT making up six PEARS, and CODLIN, PEARMAIN, BIFFIN, EATER and IDARED making up the six apples. (Some of these I already knew – CONFERENCE, BARTLETT, EATER, COMICE – but some had to be deduced from wordplay, crossing letters and apparent lack of an obvious definition – followed up by some reference work to check.)

So what could 23 25 be? They ended up as L?N?O? and F?I?H?, which I got as FLIGHT for 25 (apples and pears, stairs, flight of stairs) and then LONDON (reference to Cockney rhyming slang). And to back these up, the extra letters came out as HEATHROW (did Puck second-guess the third runway decision here?) and STANSTED – two locations a ‘LONDON FLIGHT’ might end up, or start from…

 

genius160

So, thanks to Puck for an enjoyable solve – I certainly know a few more apples and pears now!

The intervening month has dimmed my memory of the solving process – I liked 27 across with ‘migrant not working’ as the anagram indicator for economic less ‘on’ – COMICE – very topical in these Brexit days?! 3D has a bitter-sweet reading, as what is going on in Aleppo these days is as far removed from ‘apple-pie’ as you could imagine.

PS. If anyone knows the identity of the winner of Genius 169 then could they share this nugget of information? The Grauniad website still only has the name of the winner of Genius 168…and is also about 12 weeks behind the times on Azed – with the winners of Azed 2305 showing, when that puzzle is currently on number 2317…

 

ACROSS
Clue No Solution Misprint / incorrect letter Definition (with occasional embellishments) Clue (misprinted word in bold) /
Logic/Parsing
1 BERGAMOT pear – undefined Great mob on the rampage (8) /
anag, i.e. on the rampage, of GREAT MOB
5 HOBBLE sKirt / H type of skirt Type of shirt made from small woollen ball, initially hard not soft (6) /
(B)OBBLE (small wollen ball) with H (hard) reolacing B (soft) – both pencil lead ‘gradings’
9 FASTENER tIe / E tie Quick to get Frenchman back on tee (8) /
FAST (quick) + ENER (René, Frenchman, back)
10 IDARED apple – undefined Puck was plucky? (6) /
I (Puck, setter) DARED (was plucky)
11 INEXPERT inEpt / A inept Inapt of 9 to go topless before 10 gets saucy (8) /
(N)INE (9, topless) + X (ten, Roman numeral) + PERT (saucy)
12 CODLIN apple – undefined Small fish? That’s no good (6) /
CODLIN(G) – small cod, or fish, with no G (good)
14 ODIOUS Nasty / T Nasty Tasty food 10 usually ate? (6) /
hidden word, i.e. eaten by, ‘foOD IO USually’
15 PASTA Food / H Italian food Italian hood finished with Mafia, finally (5) /
PAST (finished) + A (final letter of Mafia)
18 EATER apple – undefined Note found in organ (5) /
EA_R (organ) around (finding) TE (note, in sol-fa notation)
19 TEE OFF Hole / R start first hole (in golf) Start first role as normal, if taking this part (3,3) /
PAR(T) would become PAR (normal) if you take the TEE (t) OFF!
23,25 LONDON thematic deduction See preamble (6,6) /
thematic deduction
24 ARBORETA elM / O where elm and ash (trees) appear A right nuisance volunteers where ELO and Ash appear? (8) /
A + R (right) + BORE (nuisance) + TA (Territorial Army, volunteers)
25 FLIGHT thematic deduction See 23 (6) /
thematic deduction
26 ANIMATED moVing / W moving A man I employed has spread grass for drying after mowing (8) /
ANIMA (anag, i.e. employed, of A MAN I) + TED (spread grass for drying)
27 COMICE pear – undefined Economic migrant, not working (6) /
anag, i.e. migrant, of EC(ON)OMIC, without ON – ‘not working’)
28 PEARMAIN apple – undefined Right side of the limb is hurting? (8) /
E (rightmost letter of thE) + ARM (limb), all in P_AIN (hurting!)
DOWN
Clue No Solution Misprint / incorrect letter Definition (with occasional embellishments) Clue (misprinted word in bold) /
Logic/Parsing
1 BIFFIN apple – undefined Strike home (6) /
BIFF (strike) + IN (at home)
2 RUSSET apple – undefined Game’s on TV, perhaps (6) /
RU (game, rugby union) + S (contraction of ‘is’) + SET (television)
3 ALEPPO Fighting / S ancient city with fighting now Ancient city with sighting now of apple pie getting orders to start with (6) /
ALEPP (anag, i.e. pie, of APPLE) + O (starting letter of Orders)
4 OVERRIDDEN Weary / T a horse might be weary getting this A horse might be teary, getting this delivered after six deliveries (10) /
OVER (six deliveries, cricket) + RIDDEN (delivered, having has something got rid of)
6 OLD NORSE fOrmer / A Tongue of former age Tongue of farmer age 50, red and soon diseased (3,5) /
anag, i.e. diseased, of L (fifty, Roman numeral) + RED + SOON
7 BARTLETT pear – undefined All except non-drinker allowed in (8) /
BAR (all except) + T_T (teetoaller, non-drinker) around LET (allowed)
8 ENDANGER riSk / N risk Stop surprisingly near outside rim of skating rink (8) /
END (stop) + AN_ER (anag, i.e. surprisingly, of NEAR) around (outside of) G (outer letter, or rim, of skatinG)
13 CONFERENCE pear – undefined Convict criminal without hesitation (10) /
CON (convict) + F_ENCE (criminal, receiver of stolen goods) around ER (hesitation)
15 PROLIFIC loTs / S making lots Supporting learner, providing one college is making loss? (8) /
PRO (supporting) + L (learner) + IF (provding that) + I (one) + C (college)
16 SCANDIUM raRe / T rare metallic element Rate metallic element found with carbon and iodine in aggregate (8) /
S_UM (aggregate) around C (carbon) + AND + I (iodine)
17 ATROPHIC Wasting / E wasting away Easting away from port over in China, after northing originally away in error (8) /
A_HIC (anag, i.e. in error, of CHI(N)A, without N, original letter of northing), all around TROP (PORT, over)
20 COLMAR pear – undefined Molar confused with canine at first (6) /
C (canine) + OLMAR (anag, i.e. confused, of MOLAR)
21 BERTHA Name / D name, a female one Bed a dame (a female one) (6) /
BERTH (bed) + A
22 WARDEN pear – undefined Tough from East End appearing in West End shortly (6) /
W (west) + EN (EN-D, cut short), around ARD (‘ard, dropping the ‘h’, as an East Ender might do)

7 comments on “Guardian Genius 160 by Puck”

  2. This was the second Genius I’ve tried and the first I’ve finished — and very enjoyable it was too! The comment that it was fairly straightforward (presumably compared to other Genius puzzles) makes me think I got lucky to be trying this one.

    Thanks Puck and mc_rapper67.

  3. Thanks mc_rappwr67. I also started with BERGAMOT and RUSSET, but it took me much longer to discover that the former was a type of pear. My biggest difficulty was with 23,25 – I got the answer easily enough but then spent ages trying to parse “See standfirst” as a clue (London = “see” being a promising start)!

    Thanks to Puck for a typically inventive and enjoyable solve.

  4. Good to check I’d got all these right. Fairly straightforward – a 24hour solve for me – but good fun all the same. I liked the categories and the connection to the false letters and the double meaning for LONDON FLIGHT. Very pleasing, and while on the easy end for a Genius, not too easy: enough challenge I think.

    I have a grumble. I print the PDF straight off from the Guardian website and then work with my paper version. I was a bit stuck on understanding 10A – I found IDARED but didn’t know what Puck had to do with it. The PDF doesn’t have the setter’s name! And setters quite often self-refer in their clues. I only realised when I went back to the online version to enter my answers.

  5. Thanks for the various comments and feedback:

    Steve at #2 – welcome to the wonderful world of Genius crosswords – and well done for completing only your second…I’m sure it took me much longer…this was probably as good an intro as any – there will be much harder and more devious ones…keep at it!

    DuncT at #3 – I forgot to mention it in the blog, but yes, I was a little confused by ‘see standfirst’ until I twigged/guessed it meant ‘preamble’…I have just checked and Chambers defines ‘stand first’ as:

    stand first n () an introductory paragraph in bigger and/or bolder type summarizing the contents of a newspaper or magazine article.

    which isn’t quite the same thing – a ‘summary of contents’ isn’t necessarily a set of instructions?…

    Francis at #4 – I have given up griping about the general level of delivery of the Genius – timeliness of postings; incorrect grids and/or preambles to start with; not being able to submit in a grid format (which we could do before the ‘upgrade’ to the site); winners’ names not being published (I see the winner of 160 has just been published, but 159 never was…?); setters name not always obvious; incorrect submission dates (when I looked yesterday the submission date for Genius 161 was 1 October, although that has now been corrected to 3 December) – as when I do I get comments that I am being ungrateful because it is a free service…to which my response is that I would much rather go back to paying £25-30 a year if it would improve the service and allow me to gripe with impunity (;+>)…

  6. I have actually just noticed that the PDF version *does* have the setter’s name on it, I just hadn’t looked for it (used to seeing it in the same place as it sits in the print edition of the standard Guardian cryptic) – so anyway my criticism was out of line, mea maxima culpa.

  7. In the instructions why does it not say ,without definition, instead of ,not further defined,-as someone who just casually looks at the solutions to these puzzles this left me confused as i would have looked for random clues which belonged to one of the two groups.Sorry if I have not been too clear on this-

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