After the now-traditional ‘dance of the seven veils’ with a new Genius puzzle, or in this case, the ‘dance of the six missing clues’, all was eventually revealed when the correct version of the puzzle was posted after a couple of days…
(This caused me some consternation in my first efforts at solving the original version, thinking there must be something fiendishly clever to do to find those missing clues, and there were various postings and grumblings around the cruci-web, but, as I said in my recent Grauniad Prize puzzle blog, ‘…if we all gave full vent to all the things about the Grauniad site that annoyed us our spleens would burst! I prefer to take a deep breath and remind myself that it is FREE!…(and you get what you pay for…)‘…and in the case of the Genius, you get a whole month to solve it, so what is a couple of days between friends?…)
The preamble states that:
“Clues are in alphabetical order of their solutions, which are to be entered in the grid jigsaw-wise, as they will fit. The wordplay in each clue contains superfluous letter. These will all be found around the perimeter of the completed grid. One solution (10,9) is not clued but is hinted at by the puzzle as a whole.”
Yet another alphabetical/jigsaw Genius – there seem to have been a few recently. And with this one explicitly telling us that the superfluous letters will be found around the perimeter, I made the not-unreasonable assumption that with 26 outer cells there would be an alphabetical perimeter.
Unfortunately, I also noticed that ALPHABETIC PERIMETER enumerates to (10, 9), so I confidently added these to my list of nine- and ten- letter answers!
My modus operandi for jigsaws used to be to write out sets of dashes/underscores, grouped by word-length, on any spare white space on the paper, gradually filling the blanks as I solved the clues, and then crossing them off once they were located in the grid. I would also annotate the word lengths around the grid, next to each light, to help track down the available slots.
This has now evolved to using an Excel spreadsheet, with the grid drawn out as black and white cells (or barred), with the entry lengths noted around the edge, next to their respective lights. The clues can then be pasted in, with columns for original list order, word length and solution, and these can then be sorted into original order, word-length order or alphabetical order of solutions, or any combination of those, as they gradually get solved. And for this puzzle, I added an extra column for the superfluous letters, with a count, so I could make sure they were all unique, and I could sort on that column to narrow down the remaining letters required.
I then split the solutions into individual cells, using a simple text manipulation formula, so that I can copy and paste (and transpose, for Down clues) into the grid cells.
This does all take a bit of time to set up, but it gets quicker now I have a basic template, and it means I can chop and change, undo, restart, etc. to my heart’s content, without destroying a paper copy, or covering my desk or lap in eraser detritus…
Anyway, back to the puzzle! The obvious way in seemed to be the two 10s and the two 7s – once solved. I already had ALPHABETIC and soon got ABSTENTION, so I played around with those, seeing which other solutions might cross. I settled on ALPHABETIC top left, ABSTENTION bottom right, but was stuck trying to get a 5-letter word with a C at the fourth position for the end of ALPHABETIC.
I also jumped the gun with FJORDS, crossing it with QUAFF in the bottom left quadrant, and then spent a while trying to find a 4-letter rapper ending in O. And of course PERIMETER just didn’t seem to fit as a 9-letter word with any of the other crossing solutions.
Suffice to say, I was glad of my Excel sheet and the undo/Ctrl-Z function!
I eventually ditched ALPHABETIC PERIMETER and concentrated on the jigsaw pieces I did have, and gradually iterated my way towards a full grid, with the unclued entries being ALPHABETTI SPAGHETTI! And, indeed, the full alphabet is present around the perimeter, with the two clued entries that don’t touch it offset by the two unclued ones:
As I was creating and filling the grid in the PeeDee crossword utility, I used the ‘Nina Helper’ option, which includes a letter count function, and discovered that the puzzle is a double pangram! Obviously there is a pangram around the perimeter, but every letter of the alphabet appears at least once more in the inner section of the grid:
…quite an achievement…the perimeter is the can, and the inner grid is the contents? I’m sure we’ve all got memories of ALPHABETTI SPAGHETTI from our childhoods, and/or from feeding our own children/grandchildren. What could be better in a cruciverbal household than the opportunity to manipulate letters/words even during meal times?!
In summary, an enjoyable tussle, with an impressive grid construction – alphabetical perimeters are few and far between, as are double pangrams. CACIQUES was new to me, but gettable from the wordplay and then checked, but most of the other words were familiar, and the clueing was generally pretty tight/concise, and fair.
Many thanks to Claw for the challenge, and I trust all is clear below…
| CLUES | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Superfluous letter | Solution / Entry | Clue (Definition underlined)
Logic/Parsing – superfluous letters (bolded) in brackets |
||
| H | ABSTENTION | Celibacy is a breeze primarily, then it’s awfully concerning (10)
A + B (first, or primary, letter of Breeze) + STENTI (anag, i.e. awfully, of T(H)EN ITS + ON (concerning) |
||
| C | AROUSE | Stir drink noisily (6)
subtractive double defn. – to AROUSE is to stir; and to (C)AROUSE is to drink noisily! |
||
| Y | BUBBLE GUM | Revered Muslim woman drinking unopened champagne? Something to chew on! (6,3)
B_EGUM (revered Muslim woman) around drinking ( |
||
| P | CACIQUES | Cold air conditioning annoys local political bosses abroad (8)
C (cold, as in hot/cold tap) + AC (air conditioning) + (P)IQUES (annoys) |
||
| T | ESSEX | County bridge opponents send rude message (5)
ES (East and South, opponents in bridge) + SEX(T) (send rude message by SMS, contraction of ‘sex-text’) |
||
| U | FANATICAL | Absolutely nothing about sailors being obsessive (9)
FA (absolutely nothing, as in ‘sweet FA’!) + NA(U)TICAL (about sailors) |
||
| B | FIZZED | Became excited, with sparkling wine going over floor (6)
FIZZ (sparkling wine) + (B)ED (floor, as in the sea bed) |
||
| M | FJORDS | If I jump on rides regularly, I could see them in Norway (6)
regular letters from ‘iF I Ju(M)p On RiDeS’ |
||
| S | INJURY | Harm arising from wrongdoing? They weigh up the evidence (6)
(S)IN (wrongdoing) + JURY (they weigh up the evidence) |
||
| L | JEEZ | Rapper always out catching fish – that surprises me! (4)
J_(AY)-Z (a popular music combo, m’lud, without AY, always) around (catching) EE(L) (fish) |
||
| F | KANSAS | Whence Frank has heroine initially run away – extraordinary strangeness ensues (6)
&lit-ish? KANSA (anag, i.e. extraordinary, of (F)( [Frank being Frank Baum, author of the ‘Wizard of Oz’, in which the heroine runs away (is blown away) from Kansas, into extraordinary strangeness!] |
||
| E | KIWIS | Jackie wisely eating fruit (5)
hidden word in, i.e. eaten by, ‘jacKI(E) WISely’ |
||
| W | LEFTISH | Abandoned hope, like the Lib Dem? (7)
LEFT (abandoned) + (W)ISH (hope) |
||
| N | MEGAHERTZ | We’re told Harry’s wife damages a lot of cycles (9)
subtractive homophone, i.e. we’re told – MEGHA(N) (Harry’s wife) + HURTS (damages) without the superfluous letter N could sound like MEGAHERTZ (lots of cycles) |
||
| R | MICHIGAN | Unusually, I’m racing first of heats in lake (8)
anag, i.e. unusually, of IM (R)ACING + H (first letter of Heats) |
||
| K | PRINCESS | Groom’s outside church with soprano diva (8)
PRIN(K)_S (grooms) around CE (Church of England), plus S – soprano |
||
| O | QUAFF | Drink as being off (5)
QUA (Latin, in the capacity of, or as being?) + (O)FF |
||
| Q | RANI | Queen presided over QI (4)
RAN (presided over) + (Q)I |
||
| X | SATANIST | Devil worshipper butchered Stan at six (8)
anag, i.e. butchered, STAN AT SI(X) |
||
| V | SAY-SO | Shrewd, heartless staff officer has authority (3-2)
SA( |
||
| I | SHTETL | Cook lit the square for Jewish community (6)
subtractive anag., i.e. cook, of L(I)T THE + S(square) |
||
| G | SOUVENIR | GI nervous about memorial (8)
subtractive anag., i.e. about, of (G)I NERVOUS |
||
| Z | TAINTING | Explosive fervour about artificial intelligence corrupting (8)
T_NT (explosive, trinitrotoluene) around AI (Artificial Intelligence), plus (Z)ING (fervour) |
||
| A | USING UP | Mr Bolt being pursued by flipping dog becomes exhausting (5,2)
US(A)IN (Usain Bolt, former 100m runner) plus (pursued by) G_UP (pug, or dog, flipping) |
||
| J | VIXENS | Spirited women brought back 14 – Jen’s chasing (6)
VIX (XIV, Roman numerals for 14, brought back) plus (chased by) (J)ENS |
||
| D | WALLOP | Slug turned to clumsily grope entertaining toy (6)
P_AW (paw, or clumsily grope) around (entertaining) (D)OLL (toy) = P-OLL-AW, turned around to give WALLOP! |
||
Thanks, Claw and mc_rapper67!
A superb puzzle and a very high-quality blog.
The initial part of the blog is a very interesting read, detailed and
educative.
the perimeter is the can, and the inner grid is the contents? —–That’s quite impressive.
Loved KANSAS and WALLOP.
Thanks Claw and mc_rapper67.
26 indicated the alphabet, as it turned out. That the clues were arrangred in order of solutions was helpful.
ABSTINENCE instead of ABSTENTION held me up quite a bit. Once sorted, fitting issues got resolved. Two 4s, two 7s, one 10 and three 9s anchored nicely.
With all the crossers in place, the missing 10,9 showed itself.
Some good clues here:
MEGA HERTZ, BUBBLE GUM, RANI and USING UP
Overall, satisfying.
arranged
I cannot remember trying a Claw puzzle before, and I was interested in seeing what I would make of this jigsaw, bearing in mind I have mixed experiences of such puzzles.
On two passes through the clues I enjoyed those that I solved – a total of 14 or so out of 26 in total. I thought then it was time to attempt the jigsaw, and I pencilled in ABSTENTION in two places and then experimented (in pencil) with the placements of FANATICAL, MEGAHERTZ and BUBBLE GUM. The first two of those crossed nicely in the bottom right, and they allowed AROUSE to go in and made ABSTENTION a virtual certainty there. The jigsaw developed steadily after that, and eventually ALPHABETTI SPAGHETTI could be written in.
It was a good set of clues, my last two being a pair of toughies: KANSAS and LEFTISH. The pangram was obvious, but (a few weeks ago!) I cannot quite remember if I had spotted the double. I think not. Amazing anyway!
I had one issue with the preamble. It said that ‘the wordplay in each clue contains superfluous letter’ (which is missing the word ‘a’, but that is not the issue). The word ‘contains’ should be ‘produces’. As printed, the rule happens to be true in clues like “Jackie wisely eating fruit”, because (in this case) the wordplay contains a superfluous E, which when removed yields the answer KIWIS. However, in the clue “Stir drink noisily” (for example) the wordplay ‘drink noisily’ does not contain a superfluous letter. The wordplay produces CAROUSE, and that is what contains the superfluous letter C. Saying “produces” rather than “contains” covers the general case and indeed all cases (as used in other series of puzzles).
Thanks to Claw, and to mc_rapper for his very interesting blog.
Thanks for the blog. I’m a great fan of Excel, but the prospect of using it to tackle a crossword like this fair makes my heart quail! So, congratulations to McRapper for his Excellent work, but I’ll stick to writing lists of answers on the white bits of the printed page!
As is often the case, the ‘genius’ is more in the setting than the solution, and I think this lasted 3 or 4 days, about average for us. The ‘Alphabetti Spaghetti’ didn’t click until nearly the end, but it raised a smile when it did.
Alan B @4 – I often find that the Genius instructions are ambiguous (at best) and have wondered if that’s deliberate – to add a further layer of difficulty.
Congrats Claw for a well thought out grid.
I managed to piece this together, being rather lucky with my first attempt to put some answers into the grid. I think I was another trying abstinence at the beginning but ABSTENTION emerged subsequently.
A very entertaining Genius puzzle.
Thanks Claw and mcr.
Had ALPHABETTI SPAGHETTI in mind very early on – no idea why.
Placed the 2 central 7s first. USINGUP & LEFTISH. That way round because there were no E8 (Dalston) or N8 (Hornsey) answers.
That placed TAINTING & SOUVENIR (not SATANIST because of the 4s). Then came JEEZ & RANI …
My loi, the standout KANSAS – it even had my name on it.
Thanks C&m
Thanks Claw for an excellent and impressive challenge, double pangram indeed!
Thanks MC for a splendid blog. I’m in the scrappy paper and pencil brigade for jigsaws and the like but Excel is, as for many situations, a very useful tool to add a
organisation to a task albeit not so friendly for late night solving in bed 😉 ! Unlike you, I didn’t even look for the genius until well into October when the grauniad had fixed the error: how unnerving that must have been for you.
Like FrankieG@7, once I’d seen a missing Q and J, ALPHABETTI SPAGHETTI also came quickly to my mind. KANSAS was also my final definite once I’d ticked off all but one of the 26 surplus letters.
Echo thoughts above as to this puzzle being entertaining and clever, well done Claw.
MrBeaver@5, I have also thought the same about ambiguous instructions for the genius.
Many thanks to mc_rapper for the terrific blog and to all commenters for such positive feedback. This was a lot of fun to create and I’m thrilled it appears to have provided solvers with the entertainment I’d hoped for.
Great puzzle, thanks Claw. And interesting blog, but I think I will stick to my pen and paper.
I was another one with Abstinence to begin with but having worked out a third of the answers and placed the 2 7 letter ones, then others, I realised my mistake.
I kept track of the superfluous & perimeter letters but it didn’t really help me until I needed to place Quaff and work out Wallop.
Kansas was my LOI, having found a Thomas Frank who wrote a book called “What’s the matter with Kansas”! Google is a mixed blessing sometimes.
On to the next one, another alphabetical jigsaw, mc_rapper!
I printed this out before a long plane journey and then had to write in the missing clues by hand. Finally got around to doing it today. With still no access to a printer, I copied out the alphabet twice at the top of the page to try to keep track of what was going on, but the paper was a mess by the time I finished. I was pleased to get the grid filled in correctly – all except for SHTETL. So I finished it in an afternoon – but not much else got done this afternoon!
Thanks Claw for an excellent brain teaser and to mcrapper_67 for the very helpful blog.