A musical theme for this month’s Genius.
The preamble read: “Clues are in alphabetical order of their solutions, which must be entered in the grid, jigsaw-wise, as they will fit. A word of at least two letters must be removed from each clue (always leaving real words) before solving. When the clues are arranged in grid order, the removed words produce a list that reveals the theme of the puzzle and something about the grid“.
So, an alphabetical jigsaw with a twist. The instructions implied that, in some cases at least, the word to be removed might form part of a larger word, and this proved to be the case. Some were very cleverly hidden, which added to the difficulty. Eventually, I got a toehold by solving a few clues and guessing (correctly) that CEREBELLA and BOUND would go at 21 across and 22 down respectively. It wasn’t until SPEAK TO ME BREATHE IN THE AIR emerged that I was able to do a Google search and discover the theme. As will be apparent to Pink Floyd fans, the omitted words form the track listing to the album The Dark Side of the Moon. I am not a fan of the group and don’t possess the album, so it probably took me longer than it will have done for those who are. As to the grid, I speculate that some of the answers have references to the songs, but I will leave that to others to identify; alternatively, perhaps it represents a schematic map of the dark side of the moon! There was a nina, as mc_rapper67 has pointed out, but which eluded me!
Jack is one of the pseudonyms of Jason Crampton (aka Serpent), the production editor of Magpie; I would grade this as equivalent to an A or B grade puzzle in that magazine.
For the purposes of the blog I have listed the clues in grid order, rather than the order in which they originally appeared. The words omitted from the clues are shown in BOLD CAPITALS.
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | DISCARDS |
Those left behind when crossing road SPEAK on record (8)
|
| DISC (record) followed by R(oa)D in AS (when). | ||
| 5 | HARMED |
Damaged TOme’s hard cover (6)
|
| ME in HARD. | ||
| 9 | PRINCESS |
Crowd including ME stops spoilt young woman (8)
|
| INC(luding) inside PRESS (crowd). “Stops” is the inclusion indicator. | ||
| 10 | EDITOR |
I’m unsure about note I BREATHE to journalist (6)
|
| D (note of the scale) I TO, all inside ER (I’m unsure). | ||
| 11 | CANON |
IN–law is able to accept negative response (5)
|
| NO in CAN. | ||
| 12 | AFTERLIFE |
FaTHEr, I felt strange ecstasy in Heaven, perhaps(9)
|
| *(FAR I FELT E). | ||
| 14 | EXTERMINATE |
Utterly destroy North American AIRbase by destructive insect bites(11)
|
| E (base) X (by), NA inside TERMITE. | ||
| 18 | IDENTIFYING |
Naming two to collect evidence of crash flying lessON left (11)
|
| DENT (evidence of crash) inside I I (two), F(l)YING. | ||
| 21 | CEREBELLA |
Co-ordinators of voluntary movements finance THE rebel landowners partly (9)
|
| Hidden (once you remove the extraneous word). | ||
| 23 | SUSHI |
Contracted vessel to protect people’s food RUN (5)
|
| US (people’s) inside SHI (p). | ||
| 24 | SHAMUS |
Private Eye and TIME mock America (6)
|
| SHAM US. | ||
| 25 | FINISHED |
THE perfect end leads to everyone dying (8)
|
| FINISH E(veryone) D(ying). | ||
| 26 | STEADY |
Support place opening in GREAT Yarmouth (6)
|
| STEAD (place) Y(armouth). You have to read the answer as a verb, not as an adjective. | ||
| 27 | INUNDATE |
Most of GIGantic dune collapsed in flood (8)
|
| *(ANTI(c)DUNE). | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | DEPICT |
Characterise part of beloved IN epic tale (6)
|
| Hidden once you remove the extraneous word. | ||
| 2 | SKIING |
Confess family almost weaTHErs going downhill rapidly (6)
|
| KI(n) in SING. | ||
| 3 | ASCENDENT |
SKY lambasted stance about death rising (9)
|
| END (death) inside *STANCE. I was misled for a while into using the more usual spelling of ASCENDANT, but that doesn’t fit the crossers or use all the fodder. | ||
| 4 | DISTASTEFUL |
Underworld MONEY supply left at US offensive (11)
|
| DIS (underworld) *(LEFT AT US). Good to see “supply” used in its adverbial sense to indicate the anagram. | ||
| 6 | ADDER |
Run sUSpending apex predator (5)
|
| (l)ADDER. | ||
| 7 | METRICAL |
Naked brigAND caught stabbing copper perhaps using regular beat? (8)
|
| (b)RI(g) C(aught) in METAL. | ||
| 8 | DARKENED |
Eclipsed THEM having ventured outside range of knowledge (8)
|
| KEN (range of knowledge) in DARED. | ||
| 13 | TERMINATION |
End ANY race started with faulty timer (11)
|
| *TIMER, NATION (race). | ||
| 15 | INGESTION |
Eating finger devoid of skin COLOUR? No, it’s being sent back (9)
|
| (f)INGE(r), NOITS (rev). | ||
| 16 | MISCASTS |
Selects wrong player for YOU to throw in skip (8)
|
| CAST (throw) in MISS (skip). | ||
| 17 | RECREATE |
LIKE play about author? (8)
|
| RE CREATE. “author” has to be read as a verb. | ||
| 19 | ASTHMA |
Inspiring problem in maths getting scatterBRAINed answer (6)
|
| *MATHS A(nswer). Great definition. | ||
| 20 | FIDDLE |
Delicate operation limits DAMAGE to download in data collection(6)
|
| D(ownloa)D in FILE (data collection). | ||
| 22 | BOUND |
Cast a lot of doubt around middle of lunar ECLIPSE in spring (5)
|
| *DOUB(t) around (lu)N(ar). |
Follow round one cell/ring in from the perimeter…
Thanks bridgesong and Jack.
Another terrific puzzle, breaking my DNF run.
Not an expert on theme, but started getting 2+ letters words out. There was no way to guess the order without starting to fill the grid. AFTERLIFE, TERMINATION and EXTERMINATE helped as anchors. Then slowly it came together. Had to Google a few words to get the theme. That done, some more placements became obvious.
It took another day of staring at the grid to see the nina. Not only it was astounding to see the name of the album, and to note all songs were in the same order of the album. Perfection.
I thought the numbers in the grid were for online entry. That was not so; that would have checked if folks had the grid right or not. It was just answers to clues. No question on nina, either. Well…
Again, a terrific puzzle set to perfection.
I think this would have been completable even without discovering the theme, but it was much easier to cross-check and place the solutions with the track listing on hand. I did not see the nina myself until I was describing the completed grid to a friend over the phone. Remarkable work.
A fine tribute indeed
Can we have Wish You were here next?
Thanks, mc_rapper67, for pointing out the nina. I stared at the grid for ages without seeing it, but once you point it out, it’s obvious! It starts with the T of “recreaTe” and you then go clockwise, one cell in from the perimeter.
A brilliant puzzle, wrecked by the Guardian’s decision to have an “online only” crossword that is impossible to solve online. As Ilippu points out, there was no means of demonstrating either that you had solved the jigsaw or found the Nina. This month’s prize could easily go to someone who didn’t solve the puzzle.
There was a cursory apology from the paper when the online functionality broke down, and a warning that for the time being we would have to print out the crossword and use the crude old-fashioned form to submit answers. That was more than a decade ago.
Excellent indeed. I thought this was good even before the “and something about the grid” reference revealed itself.
Perhaps a happy coincidence, but DARK also appears in the top right of the grid in 8d, with SIDE on the top left if you read backwards and round the corner!
Thanks to Jack and bridgesong
Herb@6, I agree about the online entry not being evidence of having fully and successfully completed grid and Nina identification. This has been a flaw in several recent Genius puzzles.
Enjoyable puzzle, thanks to Jack.
The online entry is certainly unsatisfactory, but even had it required solutions to be entered in an order that showed the grid had been filled, the fact that one could complete the puzzle without engaging with the theme was a feature of the puzzle not of the entry form.
The only way to start on a jigsaw is to cold solve as many clues as possible. So literally everyone did some of the puzzle without help from song titles. How much would depend on whether the solver got stuck, not on any requirement of the puzzle. I didn’t get stuck, so filled the whole grid. After that, everything else was optional admin, albeit impressive to reveal.
It’s the difference between solving a crossword to discover an album, and using a discovered album to solve a crossword.
Herb @6, what do you mean by an “online only” crossword. I had no problem solving this off line. Great theme for a truly great album.
I saw no better way to get into this puzzle than to try and cold-solve the clues for the longer answers, specifically the 11s, 9s and 8s. The upshot of this was that I solved all the 11s and 9s but only one (INUNDATE) of the eight 8-letter words. A lopsided result, but a very useful one because (1) I was able to enter all the answers I had and (2) I had extracted the words ‘gig’, ‘sky’ and ‘money’ (among others) from the clues. I immediately connected those three words with the titles of two tracks on Pink Floyd’s album The Dark Side of the Moon. The total number of words in those track titles (including the full title ‘Breathe in the Air’) is 28, the same as the number of clues in this puzzle.
From that point onwards it was an enjoyable task to find all the thematic words in the clues – including ‘the’ four times! – while solving all the remaining clues.
Although my solution was complete I completely forgot about the phrase at the end of the preamble, and I missed the nina, finding it only now on this blog. This was already an outstanding puzzle, and I would now say it is the best I have done in this series since I started in July 2021.
Thanks to Jack and bridgesong.
Smashing puzzle, thanks, Jack. And thanks Bridgesong for the blog.
James @9 is spot on – I know the album well but it took cold-solving a good number of clues before I could discern the theme. I don’t really care much who wins the prize – it’s never me anyway, but I do these things for my own enjoyment.
Interesting comment about the difficulty level rated by Magpie standards – I should subscribe to Magpie but I find the thought of it terrifying. I don’t consider myself a strong solver, but if this is A-B level, I reckon I might be able to handle a C!
Tim C @10: the Genius is an online-only puzzle in the sense that it doesn’t appear in the newspaper as printed. As Herb says, it was originally interactive, but now it’s almost essential to print out the pdf before solving. I suppose that we should be grateful that the generous prize is still on offer.
Widdersbel @12: go on, take the plunge! The standard of the Magpie puzzles is very high and there is no shame in not being able to complete the more difficult ones, but you do improve with practice.
Superb puzzle. The theme revealed itself to me at just the right time and was a big help in completing the grid. (Something I often find with Serpent puzzles.)
But for the second month in a row I failed to note the solutions next to the clues, which was (again) a headache when I came to submit the form.
I was blown away by the construction of this puzzle. Luckily the album was very familiar and the first few words brought it to mind. I then struggled to work out what exactly was meant by “in grid order” so knowing all the tracks etc did not actually help that much!
Many thanks to Jack and bridgesong but once again the true genius is the setter not the solver.
Excellent puzzle. I got half the answers, then found where most of them could go which gave me enough of the removed words to get the album. This then helped me solve the rest of it. Very satisfying, thanks Jack, and bridgesong.
Just to echo what everyone else has said – I thought this was a superb puzzle, and was very pleased with myself for completing it!
Just for once, a theme that was right up my street. I found Breathe and Gig early on and guessed correctly, confirmed by finding a few more. I was held up a bit by missing the full title of Breathe (in the air) which left insufficient words, and also because I wasn’t sure what “grid order” meant. Surely that should be the same as clue number order, rather than what we got is clue order of across clues followed by clue order of down clues.
Ravenrider @18: I think “grid order” is fairly well understood to mean the usual sequence of across clues followed by the downs. Clue number order is pretty unusual, especially in a grid like this where some across and down clues share the same number.
This was for us, a perfect Genius puzzle. Lovely clues as we would expect from Jack plus a theme that we recognised. It was a real shame in a way when we finished it!
Thanks to bridgesong and Jack.
Many thanks to bridgesong for the excellent blog (and for the Magpie plug). Thanks also to everyone who has taken the time to comment. I’m delighted the puzzle has gone down so well.
I’m just dipping my toe into Genius puzzles, this is only my second one. But I am in awe at the construction here. Magnificent work. I’m not hugely familiar with the album’s track listing so that aspect only helped when I was about 90% complete, but it definitely helped me get over the line to a finish! (albeit with a little Chambers app assistance for a few of the chewier clues)
And to get here to discover that I missed a Nina makes me even more impressed at how well this has been put together. Superb work.
Many thanks both!