I’m sure the idea of replacing an answer with its ‘pair’ has been done in the Genius series before, but it gives plenty of scope to the setter. Some of the pairings here might be a bit obscure to some, but the crossing letters should have given enough clues, which googling could confirm. Although I knew all the pairings (with a slight question mark over 19d), the large proportion of them made this quite a challenge. For the 17 modified entries in the notes below I’ve shown the answer to the clue first, followed by the grid entry. Thanks to Crucible for the entertainment.
| Across | ||||||||
| 1. | HAWK (HANDSAW) |
Warmonger has always warned Korean leaders (7) First letters of Has Always Warned Koreans. The pairing is from Hamlet’s line to Guildenstern in Act 2,Scene 2: ‘I am but mad north-north-west. When the wind is southerly, I know a hawk from a handsaw.’ The word ‘handsaw’ here is believed to be a variant or corruption of ‘heronshaw’ or young heron, which makes rather more sense of the remark |
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| 5. | DANCER (PRANCER) |
Hamlet, for instance, takes in initially contrite king (7) C[ontrite] in DANE + R – and here is Hamlet in person. Dancer and Prancer are two of Santa’s reindeer in the poem by Clement Moore, but there seems to be no definition here. |
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| 9. | ASWIM | Once afloat, plan to tackle short wave (5) SW in AIM – ‘once’ because it’s an archaic word |
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| 10. | FRIENDS (RELATIVES) |
Sitcom finishes after last working day (9) FRI[day] + ENDS. I had RELATIONS here for a long time, as I think it goes better with FRIENDS (as in Rabbit’s Fs & Rs in the Winnie-the-Pooh stories), until 7d proved me wrong |
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| 11. | STALAGMITE (STALAGTITE) |
POW camp force reported underground growth (10) STALAG (POW camp) + MITE (‘might’ = force) |
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| 12. | BLAH | Black Prince returns? Nonsense (4) B + HAL< |
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| 14. | POMPEII (HERCULANEUM) |
Ruined city pageantry with most of HM’s logo (11) POMP + most of EIIR (as seen on pillarboxes, etc) |
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| 18. | CLEVER CLOGS | Brainbox in cold bar with 100 records (6,5) C + LEVER + C + LOGS |
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| 21. | BOLTS (NUTS) |
Runs off lots of cloth (4) Double definition, the second being a measure of cloth |
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| 22. | MAD DOGS (ENGLISHMEN) |
Son blasted back: “Their bite’s worse than their bark!” (10) Reverse of S + GODDAM. The pairing is from the Noel Coward song |
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| 25. | HONEY BEAR | Stand behind pet nocturnal mammal (5,4) HONEY (pet – term of affection) + BEAR (to stand) |
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| 26. | BEYOND (ABOVE) |
It’s extremely easy to crack spy further off (5) E[as]Y in [James] BOND |
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| 27. | SUSPECT | Second American audibly kissed person in dock (7) S + US + ‘pecked’, though surely the person in the dock is the accused, not just a suspect |
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| 28. | ESTATES | More than one landed property develops bar frontage (7) GESTATES less (‘bar’) its first letter or ‘frontage’ |
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| Down | ||||||||
| 1. | HEARSE | Picks up European boxcar? (6) HEARS + E |
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| 2. | BADDIEL (NEWMAN) |
Villain appears with rookie comedian (6) BADDIE + L (rookie, as in L-driver). Before he teamed up with Frank Skinner, David Baddiel was in a double act with Robert Newman; they appeared as part of The Mary Whitehouse Experience and a TV series of their own, but apparently broke up rather acrimoniously. |
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| 3. | SYMPATHIES | This MEP, say, represented concerns (10) (THIS MEP SAY)* |
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| 4. | BEST (WORST) |
Risk retaining small footballer (5) S in BET, with George Best (‘I spent a lot of money on booze, birds and fast cars. The rest I just squandered.’) as the footballer |
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| 5. | POLITBURO | Mostly courteous Polish lifted old red cabinet (9) POLIT[E] + RUB< + O |
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| 6. | CRAFTS (ARTS) |
Credit a newspaper’s manual skills (4) CR + A FT’S |
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| 7. | ROUNDHEAD (CAVALIER) |
Crown worn here, much to his displeasure? (8) A crown is worn (vaguely) ’round the head’ |
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| 8. | REST HOME | Most here in need of treatment? (4,4) (MOST HERE)* &lit |
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| 13. | FALSE START | Disqualification may follow this after SALT’s disputed (5,5) (AFTER SALTS)* |
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| 15. | RECONNECT | Again join rock concert touring north-east (9) NE in CONCERT* |
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| 16. | ACANTHUS | Bush leaves for capital (8) Acanthus leaves are depicted in the capitals of some classical architectural columns, so this is technically a double definition, though it hardly qualifies. |
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| 17. | GREETINGS (MEETINGS) |
Scots cry and sing out “Welcome!” (8) GREET (Scots ‘cry’) + SING* – ‘meeting and greeting’ is a wel-known phrase, but I’m not sure whether this plural version is |
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| 19. | EXPORT (IMPORT) |
Send away old wine (6) EX + PORT |
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| 20. | MARX (ENGELS) |
Original red stains on phone (6) Homophone of ‘marks’, with Karl Marx as the founder of communism, or ‘original red’ |
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| 23. | LITTLE (LARGE) |
Rarely tell cast about it (5) IT in TELL*. If you haven’t heard of the dreadful double act of Little and Large, who inexplicably had a prime-time slot on BBC1 for over ten years, then I can only say that I envy you |
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| 24. | WEAR (TYNE) |
Conflict involving English river (4) E in WAR |
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I remember this theme appearing in a previous Genius too, but that didn’t mar my enjoyment of the puzzle. I got stuck on the NE corner for a while, having put RELATIVES instead of RELATIONS at 10. This left an impossible letter combination at 7 and for a while I wondered if the gremlins had crept in before the penny dropped. I agree that there is no definition at 5.
Thanks Andrew. Crucible has used this device (with some variation) several times now (and at least one pairing has appeared before – MADDOGS/ENGLISHMEN in Genius 113). It’s a good one though, so no complaints and many thanks to Crucible.
I also put in RELATIONS at 10, and as I hadn’t entered anything for the definitionless 5a it left me ??o?l?e? for 7. I was convinced this was going to be SHOULDER as a pairing for “head” and it took me as long to untangle these last three as it did to solve the rest of the puzzle.
I meant RELATIONS instead of RELATIVES (rather than vice versa) of course. Sorry. I had exactly the same experience as DuncT in trying to justify SHOULDER and thinking PRANCER must be wrong, and also spent longer on this than the entire remainder of the puzzle. Never mind!
And I`m glum, having entered Hacksaw for 1a ( obscure but not unknown duo ) and Cowman ( from Ratboy & Cowman, likewise ) having assumed villain = rat, novice = boy. Hey ho.
Arrggh. Another one who put RELATIONS for 10a. Eventually I put in PRANCER for 5a – reluctantly as I couldn’t see a definition (!), so didn’t manage to find an answer for 7d.
We’d enjoyed it up til that last corner, but it was frustrating not to be able to finish it.
Good to see I wasn’t alone.
Andrew – just spotted a small typo in the blog – it should be stalaCtite, not stalaGtite – I wonder how many submitted solutions had the same mistake?