This is Eccles’ first Genius puzzle. We are very familiar with this setter as he is a regular in the Independent and we always enjoy his puzzles there, so we were very excited to be blogging his venture into the world of the Guardian Genius.
The preamble reads:
“A number of clues must be manipulated prior to solving. Further information is given in the completed grid” .
As usual with Genius puzzles, we are not expected to be able to guess what the ‘manipulation’ might be, so the only option is to start solving and see how we go…
Fortunately several of the ‘normal’ clues were reasonably straightforward, so we managed to start filling the grid fairly quickly, particularly in the SE corner, but ground to a halt with several entries missing. We noticed that the surfaces of some clues didn’t quite live up to the standards we have come to expect from Eccles and eventually recognised some definitions that would fit the spaces available but could not figure out the wordplay – eg 6ac could be ‘TrEmOr’ with ‘shaking’ as the definition in the clue, but no obvious parsing. Eventually after a lot of head-scratching we realised what was going on – the words in the clues needed to be reversed for the wordplay to work (although unsurprisingly the surfaces generally become meaningless). We needed to check the unusual meaning of LEVANT at 12ac and the novelist at 14ac to confirm that we had correctly interpreted ‘manipulation’. When we had moreorless completed the grid we noticed the ‘further information in the grid’ mentioned in the preamble – the Nina in the perimeter unches reading (when sorted into the right order) SOLVE SEVEN CLUES IN REVERSE.
The seven clues to be reversed are 8ac, 10ac, 12ac, 14ac, 24ac, 1d and 13d – the ‘manipulated’ versions of these clues are in green below. Definitions are underlined.
Thanks to Eccles for an original and ingenious addition to the Genius catalogue. We enjoyed the puzzle even though we did solve some of the ‘themed clues’ without understanding the parsing!
ACROSS
6 Devil-worshipper took a pew next to shocked saint (8)
SATANIST
SAT (took a pew) + an anagram (‘shocked’) of SAINT
8 Shaking, clothes remorseful nudist (6) – ‘manipulated’ to:
Nudist remorseful clothes shaking (6)
TREMOR
Hidden (‘clothed by’) in nudisT REMORseful
10 Unconventional husband is unconscious in saddle (10) – ‘manipulated’ to:
Saddle in unconscious is husband unconventional
OUTLANDISH
LAND (saddle, as in ‘encumber’) in OUT (unconscious) IS H (husband)
11 Italian leader will leave Scottish island in box, perhaps (4)
TREE
TiREE (Scottish island) with the ‘i’ (first letter or ‘leader of Italian) omitted or ‘leaving’
12 Skins body in hollow, returning after time (6) – ‘manipulated’ to:
Time after returning hollow in body skins
LEVANT
T (time) after a reversal (‘returning’) of NAVEL (‘hollow in body’) – we had to check this
14 Writer for Vogue to start resolving ten cracks on egg (8) – ‘manipulated’ to:
Egg on cracks ten resolving start to Vogue writer
TURGENEV
URGE (egg on) in or ‘cracking’ an anagram (‘resolving’) of TEN + V (first letter or ‘start’ of Vogue) – we’d only vaguely heard of this Russian novelist
15 Flapped, as short jeering revolutionary Oscar knocks one out (7)
VISORED
A reversal (‘revolutionary’) of DERiSIVe (jeering) missing the last letter or ‘short’, and with the ‘i’ (one) replaced or ‘knocked out’ by O (Oscar in the phonetic alphabet)
17 Unusual way to get anger managed (7)
STRANGE
ST (street – ‘way’) + an anagram (‘managed’) of ANGER
20 Editor not working on framing head of Manchester City (8)
EDMONTON
ED (editor) + an anagram (‘working’) of NOT + ON round or ‘framing’ M (first letter or ‘head’ of Manchester)
22 I reach out, which is more painful (6)
ACHIER
An anagram (‘out’) of I REACH
24 Somehow in focus, small of back is Iona’s possibly? (4) – ‘manipulated’ to:
Possibly Iona‘s is back of small focus in somehow
ISLE
IS L (last letter or ‘back’ of small) E (middle letter or ‘focus’ of somehow) – unless we’ve parsed this wrongly, the apostrophe ‘s’ seems superfluous
25 Saves Cokes spilt all over the place (10)
STOCKPILES
An anagram (‘all over the place’) of COKES SPILT
27 Thailand charges innocent mother (6)
NATIVE
T (Thailand) in or ‘charging’ NAIVE (innocent)
28 Very quiet in A&E recently (2,2,4)
AS OF LATE
SO (very) FLAT (quiet) in A and E
DOWN
1 Acknowledge cook quickly in Latin (6) – ‘manipulated’ to:
Latin in quickly cook acknowledge
SALUTE
L (Latin) in SAUTE (quickly cook)
2 Aristocrat almost lacking boundaries (4)
EARL
nEARLy (almost) missing the first and last letters or ‘lacking boundaries’
3 Short summary of complicated vetting procedure’s conclusion (8)
VIGNETTE
An anagram (‘complicated’) of VETTING + E (last letter or ‘conclusion’ of procedure)
4 Engraver caught partway through number (6)
ETCHER
C (caught) in or ‘partway through’ ETHER (number, as in something that numbs)
5 Stinging complaint rattles hen parties (6,4)
NETTLERASH
An anagram (‘parties’) of RATTLES HEN
7 Sad old Italian city centre ignored (6)
TRISTE
TRIeSTE (Italian city) with the middle letter or ‘centre’ missing or ‘ignored’
9 Excessively promote sexual partner, missing left-winger’s laying? (4-3)
OVER-EGG
lOVER (sexual partner) missing ‘l’ (left) + EGG (‘winger’s laying’)
13 Charge in and buy jersey with a “Sorry” (10) – ‘manipulated’ to:
Sorry a with jersey buy and in charge
APOLOGETIC
A POLO (jersey) GET (buy) IC (in charge)
16 Membranes created by American in Asian country (7)
INDUSIA
US (American) in INDIA (Asian country) – a new word for us
18 Tissue inside out when dancing, leading to cheers (5,3)
THANK YOU
HANKY (tissue) in an anagram (‘dancing’) of OUT
19 Maybe Merkel has nothing for European country (6)
ANGOLA
ANGeLA (Angela Merkel, former German Chancellor) with O (nothing) replacing the ‘e’ (European)
21 Idiot allowed back outside to make decoration (6)
TASSEL
ASS (idiot) with a reversal (‘back’) of LET (allowed) outside
23 Expels English visitors removing uniform (6)
EGESTS
E (English) GuESTS (visitors) missing or ‘removing’ ‘u’ (uniform in the phonetic alphabet)
26 American comedian and singer stripped for British comedian and singer (4)
IDLE
MIDLEr (Bette Midler, American comedian and singer) missing the first and last letters or ‘stripped’ – a reference to Eric Idle, British comedian and singer
Thanks Bertandjoyce and Eccles.
Welcome to Eccles in Guardian.
Good debut though not difficult for Genius.
The device was easily gettable, and the nina emerged on its own.
Hopefully we will see more Eccles including in the daily cryptic slot.
Good fun and not too tricky I thought. I was curious to see Eric Idle described as a singer, but was reminded he had formed a Beatles tribute band called “The Rutles”.
Thanks to Eccles and BertandJoyce
There seems to be no limit to the range of simple but clever technical tricks that setters come up with in this series to spice up a cryptic crossword. In this puzzle I thought I discovered the trick with my fourth clue, OUTLANDISH. I assumed the words of the clue as printed were in random order and should have read “Unconventional saddle is in unconscious husband” (word order now 1, 6, 3, 5, 4, 2), which happens to work just as well as the (far superior) rule to reverse the order. Either way, of course, the surface reading is lamentable, but that hardly matters. I got the actual rule when solving my next special clue (TREMOR).
I thought the best of the special clues were the last two I solved, namely SALUTE and APOLOGETIC, because of their highly plausible surfaces. All of them, though, showed great ingenuity.
I didn’t need the nina, but it clearly confirmed the rule as discovered.
Thanks to Eccles and Bertandjoyce.
I too had some difficulty with the parsing of 24a ISLE. I even thought that “Iona’s” in the restored clue is to be read as “Iona is …” followed by the wordplay, which begins with “is” (for IS). But I have my doubts about this and wonder if there is a better explanation.
The original version of 24a really needs the ‘s to preserve the sense (and misdirection) of its surface reading. The modified version does still parse in the way Alan B describes so a fair compromise I think.
Many thanks to Eccles and B&J
I enjoyed the puzzle and was very impressed by the excellent reversed clues, which seem like they would have been hard to produce. On the other hand, the trick was easy to spot – the clue for TREMOR giving it away very early – and it did not add much to the difficulty, which was a little disappointing. It was probably average Eccles + 2 minutes. Good to see a new name here & hope there’ll be more.
No problem with the ‘s in Iona’s; all of the reversed clues make sense cryptically but not literally, so having ‘possibly Iona is is …’ is fine, since only one of the is’s is a verb, cryptically.
I agree that it was not among the hardest Geniuses, but that didn’t detract from our enjoyment! We vaguely grasped that ‘manipulation’ involved changing the word order in the clues early on, but the fact that they were completely reversed didn’t strike us until quite late.
We spotted the nina in time for it to help with a few of the last solutions, which was a nice change.
Thanks for the admirably clear layout of the blog 🙂