Guardian Genius 238 by Harpo

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A second Genius from Harpo, after Genius 228 last year…

The preamble states that:

“Each of the four linked clues contains two definitions, only one of which is confirmed by the wordplay; the other is hinted at by the solutions to 14 across and 3 down, which are not in themselves defined.”

Short and sweet, but requiring a couple of re-reads to work out what might be going on. A central cross of key, undefined, entries. And four sets of symmetrically placed linked/thematic pairs.

I looked at a few of the normal clues, to try and get a few crossers, but didn’t make too much progress… Then back to the thematics – and a first PDM: 12A seemed to have word-play for TREAT+IES, with a definition of ‘agreements’ – which left ‘repeats’ as the spare definition, and TREATIES is an anagram of ITERATES.

This led to a reasonably well-filled bottom right corner, and 7A having OVER (deliveries) HELD (stopped) as ‘excessively valued’, and VERDELHO as the anagram (admittedly with a bit of pattern-matching/anagram software help).

And from there things fell into place quite quickly – TORCHIER/RETORIC, and PHONETIC/PINOCHET completing the set. 3D WORD ASSOCIATION and 14A SPOILT FOR CHOICE helped to confirm things – the linked pairs of words are ‘associated’, and the ‘choice’ is between two anagrammed, or ‘spoilt’, versions of each other:

 

My LOI was 8D DAKTARI – rather specialised general knowledge, which needed looking up after the wordplay and crossers suggested that is what it must be.

And while typing up the blog and preparing the grid, PD’s excellent grid-creation utility helped me realise that the grid is also a pangram – a nice touch!

(And particularly satisfying as a couple of years ago I asked PD to include such a check – and he implemented not only a pangram check, but also a ‘Nina checker’, which analyses and displays all the unchecked cells, perimeter and diagonals, forward and reversed, to help a blogger to see if there is anything subtle hiding in the shadows…)

Overall I think this was gentler than Harpo’s previous Genius 228 offering and, after a fairly daunting preamble read, it all fell into place reasonably quickly – I think it was done by the close of the day after publication, which is always nice when it is one’s turn to blog!

Many thanks to Harpo, and I hope all is clear below…

ACROSS
Clue No Solution / Entry Clue (Definition underlined)

Logic/Parsing
7 VERDELHO & 26 Deliveries stopped for excessively valued white Madeira (8,8)

definition only – white Madeira (fortified wine)
9 HEATHS Old illustrator excluding Robin on uncultivated grounds (6)

HEATH (ROBIN)S(ON) – illustrator of fantastic contraptions, excluding ROBIN and ON
10 PHUKET Somehow pass the buck when beaten scabs quit Asian tourist resort (6)

subtractive anag, i.e. somehow, of P(AS)S THE (B)U(C)K, without the distributed, or beaten, letters of SCAB
11 DETRAIN Stop exercising and go off the rails? (7)

double defn., give or take a bit of punctuation? – if you stopped doing exercising, or training, you might DE-TRAIN(?); and to DETRAIN is get off a train, or go off the rails!
12 TREATIES & 20 Deal with miners regularly repeats agreements (8,8)

TREAT (deal with) + IES (regular letters from ‘mInErS’)
13 REISTS Son delayed in another lot of exams becomes rancid (6)

RE(S)ITS – another lot of exams – with S – son – delayed, or moved back by one position = REISTS
14 SPOILT FOR CHOICE Chief cook failing to finish recipe (by implication) (6,3,6)

not defined – anagram, i.e. SPOILT, of CHIEF + COO(K) (failing to finish) + R (Latin, recipe, ‘take…)

[the anagrind is part of the solution rather than explicit in the clue, hence ‘by implication'(?)]
18 ANGLER Wife leaving manipulator, one seeking compliments (6)

(W)ANGLER – manipulator, minus W – wife
20 ITERATES See 12 (8)

definition only – repeats
23 CROCHET Unfinished pot with the odd bit of decorative work (7)

CROC(K) (unfinished pot) + HET (anag, i.e. odd, of THE)
24 IBIDEM Wait, stopping one month in the same place (6)

I_M (I, one, plus M, month) around (stopped by) BIDE (wait)
25 JEJUNE Dry and uninteresting pair of months, the first of which is on vacation (6)

J(UN)E + JUNE – two monthes, the first vacated!
26 OVERHELD See 7 (8)

OVER (deliveries, in cricket) + HELD (stopped)
DOWN
Clue No Solution / Entry Clue (Definition underlined)

Logic/Parsing
1 ZEPHYR Zip almost catching bottom half of prize lightweight clothing (6)

ZE_R(O) (almost zero, or zip) around (catching) PHY (bottom half, in a Down clue, of troPHY, or prize)
2 GLUTEI Pull up on weight, essentially compressing base of abdominal muscles (6)

G_UT (tug, or pull, up) around (compressing) L (last letter, or base, in a Down clue, of abdominaL) plus (on) EI (part of the insides, or essence, of wEIght)

[NB. ‘essence’ is most regularly used to indicate the middle letter(s) of a word(?)]
3 WORD ASSOCIATION Criminal doctor is/was recipient of a charge (4,11)

not defined – WORD ASSOCI_T (anag, i.e. criminal, of DOCTOR IS WAS) around (receiving) A, plus ION (recipient of a charge)

[Is ‘recipient of a’ doing double duty here?]
4 RHETORIC & 16 It illuminates the art of persuading men and children to stop row (8,8)

definition only – the art of persuading
5 QATARI Question American list of duties without following foreign citizen (6)

Q (question) + A (American) + TARI(FF) (list of charges, or duties, losing FF – following…pages, lines, etc)
6 PHONETIC & 15 Revolutionary Red Guards representative of sound dictator (8,8)

definition only – representative of sound
8 DAKTARI 1960s’ show broadcast it initially after dark (7)

anag, i.e. broadcast, of IT + A (initial letter of After) + DARK

[fairly specialist GK needing e-verification! A US family-drama TV series from the 1960s…]
15 PINOCHET See 6 (8)

PINO_T (red, wine) around (guarding) CHE (Che Guevara, revolutionary)
16 TORCHIER See 4 (8)

T_IER (row) around (stopped by) OR (Other Ranks, the men, as opposed to the officers!) + CH (children)
17 OBADIAH Minor prophet‘s fetish about Bill, I see! (7)

OB_I (magical charm, or fetish) around AD (advert, bill), plus AH (I see!)
19 LOOK UP Take courage ladies, maybe king’s in court (4,2)

LOO (toilet, ‘Ladies’ maybe) + K (King, chess) + UP (in court, up before the judge)
21 EXILED Banished material died following repeated censorship of Time (6)

(T)EX(T)ILE (material, repeatedly censoring T – time) + D (died)
22 EVENLY As one is placed among townies on an equal footing (6)

the even letters of tOwNiEs give ONE, so ONE is placed EVENLY among TOWNIES!

14 comments on “Guardian Genius 238 by Harpo”

  1. Thanks for this detailed explanation. I got a bit further with this Genius compared to last month, but not much. I could see what was happening with the theme; got iterates and treaties, verdelho and overheld (although the latter was not in my Oxford dictionary) and thought rhetoric was a possibility but did not know torchier. Couldn’t get 14A, so was missing some useful crossers to help with more. I get the idea of 14A; we have a setter in Australia who uses this technique quite a bit, but I can’t see how the word recipe can give the single letter r. Don’t think I’ve ever seen that as an abbreviation for recipe. Am I missing something? I used to think I was a fairly advanced cryptic solver until I discovered the Guardian Genius, but I love the challenge!

  2. Thanks for the blog, mc, nicely summed
    up and depicted. I hadn’t noticed the pangram element either so obviously didn’t stare at it for the longest time and would therefore have to agree with your comment about the comparison with Harpo’s previous Genius offering(s) which I’m sure I’ve stared at longer and harder.

    Viv from Oz@1: Well done on making progress, which is always nice and keep going with it, solving these cryptics definitely gets easier the more you do. Blogs and contributions on this site by our friends like mc are also worth their weight in gold.

    With respect to your question about recipe, another of our bloggers, Eileen, usefully included the following in her blog (28995) a couple of months ago:

    “To forestall a possible query about R = recipe – it seems a little while since we had one – ‘recipe’ is Latin for ‘take’ and the abbreviation R was formerly found on doctors’ prescriptions”

    Thanks to Harpo for an enjoyable Genius crossword

  3. Remembering the previous Harpo puzzle in this series (no. 228), I hoped I would get further with this one – and I did. After a slow start solving ten of the normal clues, I got my first pair, TREATISE/ITERATES, and had an enjoyable but by no means rapid romp through the four ‘double clues’ and the remaining normal clues. The long phrases crossing each other in the middle were my last two entries.

    This was a typical Genius puzzle, in that it was unique, but in a similar style to a number of others with technical themes. The clues were very good, some of them being quite challenging. I particularly liked PHUKET, IBIDEM, JEJUNE, ZEPHYR and EVENLY. It was a bonus to see that the completed grid was a pangram (I suspected it and only had to check it).

    Thanks to Harpo and mc_rapper67.

  4. Ed the Ball at #2 – thanks for clarifying ‘recipe/r’, and my apologies to Viv from Oz, I do normally expand on that usage, but for some reason – senior moment? – I hadn’t completed the parsing of the clue – duly updated. I like to think of my grandmother’s recipe for Yorkshire puddings…’take two eggs, some flour…’ (then after they flop again, go to the freezer and take out the Aunt Bessies!…)

    Viv from Oz at #1 – thanks for your detailed comment – it is great to feel the enthusiasm bursting out of every word! And glad to hear you are making more progress – as Ed says, the more you solve, the easier it will become, especially learning little tricks like recipe/take/r. As Arnold Palmer once said (of his golfing prowess)…’The more I practice, the luckier I get…’

    Alan B at #3 – those two long ones only fell towards the end for me as well, so they were confirmatory, rather than being of any early assistance…

  5. Thanks mc_rapper67 and Harpo.
    After three consecutive DNF, was delighted to complete this. Saw the possibility of pangram that helped with 1d. TREATIES, ITERATES
    was also my first pair, leading to the anagram device as well. Liked several clues. Enjoyed it.

  6. Thanks to setter & blogger.
    I guess I can claim to have finished this one after an enjoyable tussle, but I wasted a long time searching in vain for any reference to Reists meaning goes rancid (13A), although it was obviously the right answer. Could somone point me in the direction of the authority for this please?
    If I was being picky I might say that the usual use of word association is rather different to that of anagram, and this delayed me somewhat but hey ho, it is a Genius puzzle!

  8. Looks like it, ilippu. Maybe we have to re-create the grid from the clues given as part of the challenge?

  9. paul8hours at #6 – Chambers has REIST/REEST/REAST as ‘to become rancid, especially of bacon’. (and also to smoke/cure meat; and of a horse to baulk/refuse to move. (My eCollins only seems to have the horse-related one, and not the REIST variation.)
    In terms of crossword authority, I would recommend investing in some form of Chambers – the paper version is around £40 new, but there are Android and Apple apps, both around the £5 mark a few years ago when I acquired them onto my Android phone and iPad, respectively. There is also an app version of Collins – again available on both operating systems at a similar price. This is useful as it has a lot of real names/places etc. that don’t appear in Chambers. They both allow wildcard searching, which can be useful for pattern-matching…
    (I don’t have any vested interest in either, I am just passing this info on!)

    As for Genius 239 – I haven’t looked yet, but I’m guessing a case of Bank Holiday-itis at the Grauniad. There is quite often a glitch up front and a revised edition posted soon after, so maybe try again tomorrow? And please make sure not to make any comment about the puzzle itself while it is live…

  10. I had the same question about GLUTEI, but that had to be the right answer. Fun puzzle, and great job on the blog.

    For Genius 239, the grid displayed on the online page appears to be correct (but not the PDF version, yet).

  11. As predicted, there is an updated version of the PDF for 239 on the website this morning…

  12. Thanks Ed The Ball at #2 and mc_rapper67 at #7. I never knew what that big R meant on prescriptions; now I get it. I recall now that when one of my high school friends had just graduated as a pharmacist, his mum made him a 21st birthday cake with that big R scrawled on the top with icing. A sort of R with a cross at the tail.

  13. I so enjoyed the current Genius that I came back to look at this one, finding it much harder but no less enjoyable. Normally, when I get an answer I can generally work out the parsing after the fact, but there were four or five here that left me in stupefied awe at the blogger’s ability to see what I couldn’t. Thanks for that!

  14. RogerBear at #13 – thanks for the feedback – happy to hear that the blog was helpful, and glad you enjoyed the both puzzles…there’s a decent archive of them on the Grauniad website, if you are new to them…

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