Well, the instructions told us that “The solution indicated by the wordplay in each of the 26 clues is lacking a required letter. Each letter of the alphabet is missing from a particular clue, though in three cases it is missing twice and in one case three times.” but that was not the case! (at least at the time I printed off the pdf, solved the puzzle and wrote this preamble – am 7th Nov). Edit: I see that at sometime between the Monday morning and Wednesday afternoon the instructions were corrected.
I think my maths is right! By my count there are four cases where the letter is missing twice (A, L, S & T) and one case where it is missing four times (D). Still, at least the puzzle was available and indexed when I got up this morning and so I didn’t have to go searching for it.
I spotted the solution for 1dn whilst the puzzle was being printed so I started with the downs before moving on to the acrosses. My first pass through the clues resulted in only five entries but these were enough for me to gain a foothold as they were scattered around the grid. Thereafter it was a case of working round the grid, starting in the NW corner then mainly progressing anticlockwise.
The only significant hold-up came with 3dn and this was due to the erroneous instructions. I was reasonably sure quite early on that I knew the answer but I was loath to enter it until I had all the checked letters and nothing else would fit. Overall I would say that this one falls at the easier end of the Genius spectrum, and it would have been easier still had the instructions been correct.
Across
4 Light meat (6)
BEACON – BACON (meat)
6 Rushing quickly into second courtship (8)
SWOOPING – S (second) WOOING (courtship)
9 One fool, then another (6)
NITWIT – I (one) TWIT (fool)
10 Felicity’s younger and playing indoors (8)
GLADNESS – an anagram (playing) of AND in (indoors) LESS (younger)
11 It shows change in opinion of regiments marching around ring (11)
SWINGOMETER – an anagram (marching) of REGIMENTS around O (ring)
15 “Paradise” sooner reached? (7)
EREWHON – ERE (sooner) WON (reached)
17 Soup produced first, then a wine (7)
MADEIRA – MADE (produced) I (Soup) A
18 Drink tea, out of it from methaqualone high (5,6)
LEMON SQUASH – an anagram (high) of ME[t]HAQU[a]LON[e] (methaqualone minus tea)
22 Put topping on cake — daughter gets stuck in (8)
ICEBOUND – ICE (put topping on) BUN (cake) D (daughter)
23 Author speaks to erudite in-crowd (6)
STOKER – hidden in (in-crowd) ‘speakS TO ERudite’
24 Two girls, rather old (8)
MEDIEVAL – EDIE VAL (two girls)
25 Manage GP’s first practice (3,3)
DRY RUN – DR (GP) RUN (manage)
Down
1 Working at being asleep (6)
DOZING – DOING (working at)
2 We left supporter hiding queen — that’s a relief (7,3)
TWELFTH MAN – WE L (left) plus FAN (supporter) around (hiding) HM (queen)
3 Trembled — is it come true? Oddly not (8)
DODDERED – [c]O[m]E [t]R[u]E (come true? Oddly not)
4 Support from nastier bullying (8)
BANISTER – an anagram (bullying) of NASTIER
5 Got little bear to carry the can (8)
ATTAINED – TED (little bear) around (to carry) TIN (can)
7 I live alongside an animal (4)
IBEX – I BE (live)
8 Dropping belt, thong … that’s the idea (4)
GIST – G-ST[ring] (dropping belt, thong)
12 Amazing half day with lads — nearly got up late (10)
MONUMENTAL – MON[day] (half day) MEN (lads) LAT[e] (nearly … late) reversed (got up)
13 One taking over might thus greet clarinettist (8)
HIJACKER – HI ACKER {Bilk} (might thus greet clarinettist)
14 The woman leads me into a train carriage — that’s sweet (8)
VACHERIN – HER (the woman) I (me) in (into) VAN (train carriage)
16 Dug out Wodehouse compilation that’s no use (8)
HOLLOWED – an anagram (compilation) of WODEHO[use] (Wodehouse … that’s no use)
19 Old computer made in the Gulf (6)
QATARI – ATARI (old computer)
20 Premieres of Industrial Light and Magic movie (4)
FILM – I[ndustrial] L[ight] M[agic] (Premieres of Industrial Light and Magic)
21 Close sale (4)
VEND – END (close)
Thanks Gaufrid. We tend to first look at the Genius half-way through the month so fortunately the instructions were right by this time.
I think 6a was our first in, soon followed by 1d, although I can’t claim to have worked through the puzzle as methodically as you. Still, I think it was done within 2 or three days, so yes, one of the easier Geniuses 🙂
Just for a change the Guardian’s messed up with the link to the December Genius. If you can’t wait will they fix it, right-click on the link and save it to your PC. Rename the saved file by adding ‘.pdf’ to the file name. It should open OK then. (Courtesy of a kind soul on the crosswordsolver.org forum.)
cruciverbophile
Thanks for the heads-up. This must be a browser/pdf reader specific problem because I had no difficulty when I clicked on the pdf link a few hours ago, the printable version of the puzzle appeared immediately. I was using IE11/Acrobat Reader DC and the .pdf extension wasn’t required for the file to display.
That’s strange Gaufrid – I’m using the same browser/pdf reader and I’m just given an option to save the file. It does open with Acrobat once saved (with or without renaming) but I can’t open it directly from the link. It probably depends on settings but it’s likely others will be affected. I just hope there aren’t any errors with the typesetting of the clues!
On this month’s PDF: the Guardian’s website has been corrected now (I had the same problem: no extension and no MIME type served — some browsers/extensions may sniff the file contents to deduce it’s a PDF I suppose). I see 19D’s clue is repeated (once in its proper place and once after 5D) but I can read around that. More of an issue is that the numbers in the grid are illegible (as they were last month!).
Anyway, back to the topic: one of the first Geniuses I’ve tried and I found it not too taxing, although like Gaufrid I was tripped up by 3D and the misprint (and then again later with 5D when I found the fourth double-letter, having not spotted the other correction). Very satisfying though. Thanks to Soup for the puzzle and Gaufrid for the write-up.
Hi Gaufrid
Thanks for your notes, which I was initially confused at, as I printed the crossword a couple of days late and got the correct special instructions. I liked this puzzle, because of its inventiveness, as I also did the last time that Hamish wrote a puzzle [his first I believe] for the Genius [the one with doubled up across clues]. I enjoy these more that a really tough puzzle that I cannot do that simply frustrates me. Everyone to their own preferences.
So thanks to SOUP from me for this nice puzzle.
I originally balked at LESS ? YOUNGER but Chambers has it. I cannot think I have ever heard it used in that context.
By the way, did you know the auto-correct feature on this page suggests FRIGID for GAUFRID. Surely not, I hope!
Thanks Gaufrid. I’m another that didn’t get round to printing the puzzle for a week or so, so had no problems with the instructions. Maybe the Guardian is trying to give us a two-level puzzle – extra hard for those who print it before the mistakes are fixed.
Gordon@6 – I looked up “less” in Chambers as well. Alongside “younger”, in the section headed “archaic and inf”, they also list “more”!
Thanks to Soup, look forward to your next offering.
Thanks for the comments, folks, and to Gaufrid for the blog. Hopefully it was enjoyed; Gordon@6, I agree that it’s important to have puzzles which are tricky but soluble. I’ve had a number of comments from people that they were pleased to complete it and that they’d look at other Geniuses in the future, having always assumed (never having tried!) that they were impenetrable.
The error in the instructions came about during editing (my original set didn’t have the number counts in it) and was fixed on the afternoon of publication – I put a note on the comments for the cryptic for the day on the Guardian’s site, where it was being discussed, and a couple of other places, but not here, so apologies for that. Given the troubles getting the Genius up correctly in recent months, I’d suggest waiting a few days before printing it out to solve!
As for Less = Younger – inspired by the church of St James the Less in Pimlico, which I walked past a while back.
If you like my puzzles you’ll find another of mine on Alberich’s site – one like Araucaria used to do, with alphabetical rhyming couplets. I’ve also just taken over editorship of 1 Across, a monthly subscription magazine started by Araucaria, from Tom Johnson (Maskarade/Doc etc.). I’ll have the occasional puzzle in there, but there’ll also be lots of inventive offerings from some names you’ll know plus some others. (Next month, for example, we have a Printer’s Devil puzzle from Chalicea plus other ‘normal’ puzzles by others; in December’s issue we have a tricky themed one from Phi plus a 3D puzzle from Sirius…)
All best wishes,
Hamish (Soup)