A ‘jigsaw’ puzzle from Kite this month – with the pieces all needing a bit of additional work before entry…
The preamble states that:
“Clues are normal but a single letter must be added to each solution, making another word or phrase (as enumerated). These should be fitted into the grid, jigsaw-wise. The inserted letters include the whole alphabet at least once, but with three A’s and two E’s, F’s, N’s and T’s. The clues are listed in alphabetical order of the inserted letters.”
Although, technically speaking one doesn’t need to solve the jigsaw – given that we don’t submit the grid for the prize draw entry, one could, if one was a good enough solver, just solve all 32 clues ‘cold’ and type them into the Grauniad website’s submission form.
And I’m sure some of you may have done just that?!
If, however, like your correspondent, you couldn’t quite manage a full cold solve, it might be useful to work on the jigsaw, in the hope of a few helping crossers and pointers here and there…
(Just to make things a bit more difficult, the first published version of the PDF was missing the grid – making me wonder if it was a pure ‘carte blanche’, and we had to construct a grid as well! And there was also a misprint – a superfluous ‘I’ – in the first clue. These were corrected in the first couple of days after publication, but that misprint may have caused some of you some consternation?… I did e-mail Guardian Crossword Editor Hugh Stephenson about the missing grid, and received a prompt and apologetic reply, citing the rigours of remote/distributed working, and it was updated fairly soon after that. I didn’t mention the extra I, as I hadn’t spotted it by then, but it disappeared at some point.)
My first step was to cut-n-paste the clues into Excel and add a column with the letters to be added – three As, then B, C, D, E, E, etc., and two columns for the ‘before’ and ‘after’ solutions. I then started cold solving and trying to work out how the additions worked. I have often seen this type of addition/subtraction device used where the wordplay leads to one answer and the definition is of the other. However, in this case, the clue is wholly focussed on the original answer, with no definition or indication of what the resulting entry will be – apart from the enumeration, which was always +1 for the resulting solution, and in one case (18) indicated a resulting phrase, while in another (19) it ‘concealed’ a hyphen in the original answer.
I kept a tally of the order I solved the clues in, and spent some time working on a printed copy of the list then transcribing updates onto the spreadsheet, which was going to be useful for the blog as well. By the end of the first day I had 17 clues solved, with most pretty certain what the additive entries would be.
First up was 22 ROUE, plus a Q, which had to be ROQUE. Then 20 QUIT plus O – which could be QUOIT or QUITO (the preamble makes no mention of real words, place names, etc.) Third up was DENT, plus I, which had to be IDENT. And so on…
On the second day, I finally got the gridded version of the PDF, so was able to mull over that. With jigsaws I tend to pencil around the perimeter the lengths of the nearest word, or words, if there are three in a row/column, and then make up a separate list of the words grouped by length, with initial underscores pencilled in, and filled in as things start to get worked out.
There were eight each of 5, 6, 7, and 9 letter entries – so no less frequent outliers (short or long) to help get a way in! There were, however, three intersecting first letters, two of a 7 with a 6 and one of a 7 with a 7…mental note for later…
At some point in the second day I had 26 clues cold solved, but had hit a bit of a wall on the remainder, and decided to start working on the jigsaw to see if I could get any help out of that. Since I had my answers in Excel already, I did a bit of jiggery-pokery to end up with each word split into individual cells – across and down – and drew up the grid next to them. I could then copy-n-paste into the grid to see if things worked, and then just ‘undo’ a few steps, or back to the start, if things went a bit wrong. Easier than the usual approach of paper, pencil and eraser!…
After a few abortive attempts with those intersecting first letters, I decided to concentrate on the 9s – which I had managed to solve all of – and the four points at which the 9s intersected with each other, at their 3rd, 5th and 7th letters, variously. I eventually hit a promising line of enquiry with BARBITONE in the fourth Across 9 slot, bottom right quadrant, and other words started fitting into place, with a bit of legwork and deduction/lucky guessing in places.
There were a few ‘directional’ indicators to help – clue 3 used ‘elevated’ as part of the wordplay indicating reversal, implying it was probably for a Down entry; similarly clue 12, with ‘upset’; and clue 9 uses ‘retired’, which makes more sense as an Across reversal.
I ended up with all of my 26 answers in the grid – resolving the QUOIT/QUITO conundrum along the way – and managed to use the resulting crossers to pattern match/work out/reverse engineer the remaining six – 30, 31, 27, 16, 19, 24, in that order.
And that was that! No particular dénouement or PDM, and all done by the end of the second day – but quite an intense couple of days, and probably 4 hours-plus, all told…
Not a thematic device I have seen before, and quite a challenging solve, both in terms of the initial clueing and the mental agility needed to amend the answers and work them into the grid. A few new/obscure (to me) words – DEBELS and DJEBELS, SQUIRRING, ESTE – and a couple of words – XIANG (two different Chinese rivers, according to my e-Collins) and XIZANG (Chinese transliteration of ‘Tibet’) – which have enhanced my geographical knowledge.
I particularly enjoyed the definition of LASE as ‘lightly cut’, i.e. cut with light! And the halving of DUNGEONS to give EONS…
My Excel letter-counter tells me the puzzle is also a pangram, but that is taken as given, due to all 26 letters being used as additions.
Since I had everything typed out in Excel by now, it was relatively easy to transcribe/copy-paste into the form for submission, which left less chance for human error at this stage…fingers crossed!
Many thanks to Kite – I hope others enjoyed the tussle as much as I did, and I hope all is clear below…
| ACROSS | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Clue No | Solution | Added letter | Entry | Clue (definition underlined) / Logic/Parsing |
| 1 | CUTENESS | A | ACUTENESS | Nature of appeal from annoying so-and-so holding belief ultimately ignored (9) / CU_SS (stubborn, or annoying, so-and-so) around (holding) TENE( |
| 2 | GATES | A | AGATES | Bent stage doors (6) / anag, i.e. bent, of STAGE |
| 3 | LEERS | A | LEEARS | Eyes up elevated pitch section (6) / LEER (reel, or stagger/pitch, reversed, or elevated) + S (section) (elevated implies DOWN clue?) |
| 4 | BARITONE | B | BARBITONE | Pub with one style for singer (9) / BAR (pub) + I (one) + TONE (style) |
| 5 | ENSURE | C | CENSURE | English nurse produced guarantee (7) / E (English) + NSURE (anag, i.e. produced, of NURSE) |
| 6 | RUBBER | D | DRUBBER | Masseur right over German bachelor put inside (7) / R (right) = U_BER (German for over) around B (bachelor) |
| 7 | LATERITE | E | ELATERITE | Former custom supplying clay used for building (9) / LATE (former) + RITE (custom) |
| 8 | VOCATION | E | EVOCATION | Work break when first associate becomes officious, initially (9) / V( |
| 9 | RAIL | F | FRAIL | Protest from retired storyteller (5) / RAIL (protest) = LIAR (story teller) reversed, or retired (retired implies ACROSS clue?) |
| 10 | RILE | F | RIFLE | Nettle, last one from moor that is left inside (5) / R (last letter from mooR) + I_E (id est, that is) around L (left) |
| 11 | ESTE | G | GESTE | Old Italian noble family‘s way to be described by émigré outsiders (5) / E_E (outside letters from émigré) around (describing) ST (street, way) |
| 12 | DELIS | H | DELISH | Sliding transporter upset around independent shops (6) / DEL_S (sled, or sliding transporter, reversed, or upset) around I (independent) (upset implies DOWN clue?) |
| 13 | DENT | I | IDENT | Transcendentalist hides depression (5) / hidden word in ‘transcenDENTalist’ |
| 14 | DEBELS | J | DJEBELS | In the past conquers the Spanish, intercepting new arrivals (7) / DEB_S (debutantes, new arrivals) around (intercepting) EL (the, in Spanish) |
| 15 | SEWER | K | SKEWER | Channel swimmer at first accompanying vessel (6) / S (first letter of Swimmer) + EWER (jug, or vessel) |
| 16 | EASES | L | EASELS | Leaderless guys making manoeuvres little by little (6) / ( |
| 17 | RAPING | M | RAMPING | Kid acquires fastener for sacking (7) / RA_G (kid, tease) around PIN (fastener) |
| 18 | METAL AGE | N | MENTAL AGE | Old dates got together with a beer after early closing (6,3) / MET (got together with) + A + LAGE( |
| 19 | U-BEND | N | UNBEND | Turn over bishop for pawn being trap (6) / U( |
| 20 | QUIT | O | QUOIT | Leave Parisian who has temperature (5) / QUI (who, in French, i.e. Parisian) + T (temperature) |
| 21 | LATITUDE | P | PLATITUDE | American city bird and cuckoo due for freedom (9) / LA (Los Angeles, American city) + TIT (bird) + UDE (anag, i.e. cuckoo, of DUE) |
| 22 | ROUE | Q | ROQUE | Path with no time for rake! (5) / ROU( |
| 23 | SQUIRING | R | SQUIRRING | Escorting Queen in rising ground (9) / S_IRING (anag, i.e. ground, of RISING) around QU (queen) |
| 24 | LEDGER | S | SLEDGER | Register resident with old European exchange (7) / L( |
| 25 | APPLE | T | APPLET | Bitter covering of very soft fruit (6) / A_LE (beer, bitter) around (covering) PP (music, pianissimo, very soft) |
| 26 | RAVELLER | T | TRAVELLER | Composer takes on allegro regularly — one who makes things convoluted (9) / RAVEL (Maurice, composer) + LER (regular letters from ‘aLlEgRo’ |
| 27 | CRATED | U | CURATED | Packed and transported — moving, right? (7) / CA( |
| 28 | LOURED | V | LOUVRED | Engineers in rowdy surroundings looked sullen (7) / LOU_D (rowdy) around (surrounding) RE (Royal Engineers) |
| 29 | TEETER | W | TWEETER | Balance guarantee terminated in part (7) / hidden word, i.e. in part, in ‘guaranTEE TERminated’ |
| 30 | EONS | X | EXONS | Long stretches served in prisons halved (5) / ( |
| 31 | LASE | Y | LYASE | Lightly cut sink, removing middle (5) / LA( |
| 32 | XIANG | Z | XIZANG | Team starts to apply navigating geographically in Chinese river (6) / XI (Roman numerals, eleven, or team) + ANG (starting letters of ‘Apply Navigating Geographically’) |
My solving experience was similar to yours, solving on the front and back of two pieces of paper. After I had about 16 answers, I took a guess on the ROQUE/QUOIT location in the grid (SE, although NE might have worked, too), and built out from there. That could have gone frustratingly wrong, and I had a couple of erasures, but luck or intuition saw me through. The last few I do not think I could have figured out without the grid, including LEEARS and LYASE. It occurred to me that, normally clued, LEEARS would probably have had something indicating Scottish, but that was impossible, since the grid-answer was unclued (except for somehow fitting the special instructions).
Although an Excel fiend (or google sheets) myself it didn’t occur to me to use it in this context – I simply wrote the letter additions alongside the clues and made a couple of lists on paper – one for each of the letter lengths where I could write the words in and one tally so I knew when I was done with a certain length. Again I needed a good number of clues solved before working on the grid itself and I think I made one lucky (inspired?) guess to start with as everything else fell into place very quickly then.
I saw someone post elsewhere (cryptic comments on the G website?) that you don’t need the grid at all but you do – I solved “quito” rather than “quoit” and there was at least one other ambiguity which could only be resolved by fitting the words into the grid.
All in all I thought this a most beautifully judged genius – easy enough to get a start on, tough enough to last over a few days and worthwhile enough to make me want to return to it. Many thanks to Kite and to mc_rapper67 for the supremely comprehensive blog and tale of his/her solution.
We were defeated by this. It started well, and eventually (and I mean eventually), the solution count rose to 23.
Unfortunately, one of these was wrong – HUSK(Y) for 31, though without full justification, which didn’t help. Nevertheless, we managed to fill in the NE corner and a bit more correctly, but the symmetry of the grid made it very hard to enter more without having solve nearly all the clues.
I liked the idea, but I think the grid and the inclusion of a number of undefined obscurities made this a particularly harsh challenge, so congrats to those of you who managed it!
I also wondered whether this would have been merely extremely difficult or actually impossible to solve without the elaborate instructions concerning the missing letters? In other words, whether the instructions had said only that an unspecified letter was missing, without cataloguing the specific additions needed? I do not think that would have felt motivated to complete it without that extra bit of framing.
I loved this puzzle. It took me two bedtime sessions. The first time I answered a lot of the clues and the second night I began fitting them in the grid. Fortunately I started entering my answers in the correct places and it all fell into place quite easily. my. method was exactly as thezed at 3 explained.
sorry I mean thezed at 2.
I enjoyed solving this (the two seven letter solutions with the same initial letter were my starting point for filling the grid), but I won’t be picking up the prize. I didn’t get around to completing the puzzle until yesterday, and signed in to submit it at 11pm, an hour before the deadline. While I was typing in my answers, entries were closed and I got an error message when I pressed submit. I know I was leaving it late, but why say the deadline is 23:59 if it’s actually 23:15?
Thanks for the various comments/feedback – looks like most people enjoyed this.
Cineraria at #1 – yes, ROQUE/QUOIT (or QUITO) would have been a good place to start as well, given that Q in the middle of ROQUE. And at #4 – yes, it would have been very difficult without the explicitly-given letters, unless the definition/wordplay had been split between the two options?…
thezed at #2 – good point re. needing the grid fill to prove/disprove QUOIT/QUITO. And EASELS/LEASES, which I completely overlooked. Thanks for your kind words about the blog – for the record, mc_rapper67 is a he!
Mr Beaver at #3 – sorry to hear you weren’t on the wavelength for this one – hopefully 209 will be more to your liking…
DuncT at #7 – I feel your pain – I think something like that has happened to me before – maybe somebody forgot to change the clocks last weekend?… I think at the time I ended up e-mailing a scanned copy of my solution to the Editor, explaining the website issue, and if memory serves me right he did reply to say it would be included in the draw, but I will never know, as I didn’t win!…when a tree falls in the forest and nobody hears it, etc….
Wow, many thanks to mc_rapper67 for such a comprehensive blog. It was really interesting to read how you attacked the solve.
As people may realise, it was quite a challenge to find 32 pairs of words with one letter difference, use all the letters of the alphabet, and fit into a grid. That did mean that there were some obscure words required. I was aware of the LEASES/EASELS ambiguity but missed the QUOIT/QUITO one. I’m glad that that didn’t seem to lessen the enjoyment though.
Cineraria @4; I did give a draft copy to a friend for a test solve where I hadn’t indicated the starting letters. He found it almost impossibly difficult so I decided to add the letter counts.
I enjoyed the tussle of compiling this and am happy that most people seemed to enjoy it also. Thanks to all the posters and to the editor for smoothing out some of the clues.
Kite@9: Excellent work, and for me, quite a hard solve! Thank you for commenting. I suppose an intermediate-level approach (between hard and impossible) might have provided the list of missing letters but provided the clues in random order. Solving some clues would whittle down the list, etc. But I am not sure that I would have been able to solve that hypothetical version.
Kite at #9 – glad you enjoyed the blog! And thanks for the insights into the ‘gestation’ of the puzzle…
Mr Beaver at #3 – I see Genius 209 is another of those ‘marmitey’ Paul puzzles, with ‘whimsical’ book titles/authors (not giving anything away here, the preamble states as much) – hope you are a marmite-lover!
Thanks mc_rapper! Just had a look at #209 – intrigued that there’s no special instructions, but Paul is one of our favourite setters.
I’m sure with all solvers, our ideal crossword is one which is hard, but not quite too hard, so inevitably what lesser minds find “particularly harsh” will be right up others’ street. Perhaps more a matter of the 3 bears’ porridge (too hard, too easy, just right!) than marmite 🙂
Nice image Mr Beaver @12 perhaps Genius 210 will turn out to be some Heston Blumenthal creation of porridge *and* marmite!
Yes – a nice analogy at #12!
Mr Beaver – it does seem that the web page for Genius 209 doesn’t have the preamble (yet), but it is there in the PDF version – click on the link to the ‘print version’, just below the grid…
A lovely puzzle! It took me and my Better Half some time to complete, but that was part of the fun – to chip away at it slowly over tea breaks, gradually and very satisfyingly finding new or obscure words in the dictionary and seeing how it made sense of the clueing. We were stumped by leears though and struggled to find any reference that convinced us it was the correct answer. While googling around in the hope of corroborating this, we did see that someone was on a well-known puzzle answer-sharing site (are we allowed to name other sites? AB may be a hint!) brazenly asking the answers to what seemed to be about half the clues. And someone gave them all. Somehow that spoiled the fun a bit and I’m afraid to say it rankled a bit to think that people can enter and possibly win without doing the legwork – am I being ungenerous? I think a bit of help and sharing in our little crossword community is fine, but this seemed to be a bit much!
A bit late to answer manxjax @15 but LEEAR can be found in Chambers, you have to look under LEE, number 3!
and even later to reply to say thank you Kite @16 – hope you get to see this 🙂
Yes, I’m still here, thanks.
manxjax at #15 – to try to answer your cri de coeur around the ‘ethics’ of just asking for and being given whole tranches of answers on ‘other sites’… Yes, it does seem a bit unfair that people might be entering and winning without doing the legwork – the idea of which does rankle a bit with this self-confessed ‘prize tart’ as well! However, I guess it is down to their consciences.
Having said that, I have to admit that I do, occasionally, ‘hold my nose’ and visit AB, or elsewhere, to try and find the last one in a chewy common-or-garden blocked cryptic prize puzzle – where there is the possibility of taking £20 off Mr Murdoch or a pen off the Telegraph, say – but I have my limits, and wouldn’t do so for a ‘serious’ puzzle like the Genius, or a Grauniad Bank Holiday special, or the themed/barred IQ/EV/Listener.
The risk with Go-ogling is that you can occasionally trip across such posts which, once seen, cannot be unseen, and can maybe spoil your enjoyment of a puzzle.
There was some anguish and a little navel-gazing in the EV (Enigmatic Variations) sphere recently when another external site – BD, as a hint! – started to offer ‘Hints and Tips’ on each week’s puzzle, later on the day of publication. This was with the intention of trying to encourage new solvers to a shrinking population. I had my reservations at the start, but it does seem to have worked as intended, given the increase in comments both on our blogs and on the BD site. The hints and tips are just that – gentle nudges, with nothing explicitly revealed, and one can choose whether or not to read them – and they are complemented each week (after prize deadlines) by a ‘setter’s blog’, giving some insight into how the puzzle came into being.
(A little off topic – apologies to Gaufrid, if you are monitoring!)