“More Soup, vicar?” No sooner had I finished blogging his recent Saturday Grauniad Prize puzzle than I got a second helping, with this Genius…not that I am complaining, I could cope with Soup for starter, main and dessert, if the opportunity arose!
The preamble states that:
“Twelve clues are normal; their solutions should each have a pair of letters inserted before entry into the grid wherever they will fit. (There are four pairs of letters, each inserted into three answers, always resulting in real words.)
In the remaining sixteen clues, the wordplay omits one letter from the solution. When these sixteen omissions are added, the logic behind the pairs of inserted letters will become apparent.”
So, a game of two halves – a jigsaw of pieces that have something missing from the entry, and a set of numbered clues with something missing from wordplay. It seemed logical to start with the numbered clues, to try to build a framework of crossers for the jigsaw pieces, which might help to work out what they need adding. I also had a few trawls through the ‘Normal’ clues, and started to get some candidates.
My first PDM, or so I thought, was that the first few missing letters from wordplay – various Ls, Vs and Is – suggested Roman numerals, until I plumped for (P)ARSON for 25A – ‘attack church official’… This set me back a little, as I explored other possibilities, until what looked like conflicting crossers took me back to 25A – ARSON is often clued as a ‘crime’ rather than an attack, and you might expect some reference to fire/heat in the clue. An attack is often an ONSET and, to fit the crossers I had, I eventually made the mental leap to SET ON, with X added for SEXTON.
This put me back on the Roman numerals idea, and then another PDM – the preamble specifically says these missing wordplay letters need to be ‘added‘, which can be done if they are all Roman numerals…and given the ‘milestone’ number of the puzzle, I wondered if they would eventually add up to 250?!
The extra letter couplets took a bit of wheedling out, or rather wheedling in! I could start to see a few likely places for some of the jigsaw pieces to go – there was only one 3+2 = 5-letter answer and one 5+2=7-letters, so they had to go in specific places – and there were only two of 7+2=9-letters, so they were one or the other. With the help of a few crossers, I made a few educated guesses at possible additions, e.g.:
- TEE -> TEETH,
- HALE -> HANDLE,
- CRIER -> COURIER,
- CAUTION -> CAUSATION.
And the ‘in order of corresponding entries‘ instruction helped with a few of the others. Eventually there were three each of ‘TH’, ‘OU’, SA’, ‘ND’ – all quarters of 1000 – and the letters all added up to 250 (with the V from AVAST/REVERTED counting twice, so there are only 15 in the grid):
- L = 50 * 4 = 200
- X = 10 * 2 = 20
- V = 5 * 5 = 25
- I = 1 * 5 = 5
- ========
- total = 250
- ========
And there we have it – the numerically self-referencing Genius puzzle 250:
250 puzzles at 12 per year = nearly 21 years of Geniuses! I wasn’t quite in from the start, but have been doing them for most of that time, and blogging every 6th one since Genius 112 by Tramp in 2012. I hope I am still solving (and blogging?) them in 21 years time when we get to Genius 500…who knows, they might even have worked out an interactive grid and submission process by then!
It wouldn’t be a Grauniad Genius without a little gripe about the preamble: not all the extra couplets are ‘inserted’ into their answers, in fact only five of them, with four appended and three ‘pre-pended’ onto the solutions. Could that instruction have been worded slightly differently? In the end it didn’t really hold things up too much, so is only a little gripe.
I wouldn’t say this was the hardest of Geniuses – I started it on the afternoon/evening of the Monday of publication, and had it all wrapped up by 08.00 on the Tuesday, helped by a middle-of-the-night awakening, and an intense early-morning solving session to wrap things up. So maybe four separate solving sessions spread over the two days. But it certainly wasn’t the easiest either, with quite a lot of mental agility needed to piece the various strands together.
My thanks, again, to Soup, for another challenging mental workout – I’m sure we will cross (s)words again soon enough! And I trust all is clear below…
| Normal – (presented in alphabetical order of corresponding entries) | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Clue No | Inserted letters | Solution / Entry | Clue (Definition underlined)
Logic/Parsing |
|
| – | SA | CAUTION / CAUSATION | Heading away from Quantico, criminal gives warning (7)
anag, i.e. criminal, of ( |
|
| – | OU | CRIER / COURIER | One announces credit rule that is adopted (5)
CR (credit) + R (rule), around (adopting) IE (id est, that is) |
|
| – | ND | DIVIDE / DIVIDEND | Branch I’d pretend to trip over (6)
DIV_E (pretend to trip, usually in football) around (over) ID |
|
| – | TH | EARS / EARTHS | Lugs around extra resources? (4)
surrounding letters of ‘ExtrA ResourceS’ |
|
| – | OU | FLED / FOULED | Split smoothed over when I retired (4)
F( |
|
| – | ND | HALE / HANDLE | Sound of shower – or of body! (4)
homophone, i.e. sound – HAIL (shower) can sound like HALE (healthy, sound of body) [sound doing double duty here?] |
|
| – | OU | TWIT / OUTWIT | Taunt fool (4)
double defn – to TWIT can be to taunt; and a TWIT can be a fool |
|
| – | ND | REVERE / REVEREND | For ever and ever receives praise (6)
hidden word in, i.e. received by, ‘foR EVER (and) Ever’ |
|
| – | SA | LUTE / SALUTE | Booty call that could sound music to my ears (4)
homophone, i.e. called – LOOT (booty) can sound like LUTE, which might make music for my ears! |
|
| – | SA | NEST / SANEST | Set within new design of set (4)
N (new) + EST (anag, i.e. design, of SET) |
|
| – | TH | TEE / TEETH | Sanded steel peg (3)
( |
|
| – | TH | ROBBING / THROBBING | Sacking bishop absorbed in putting cassock on (7)
ROB_ING (putting cassock on) around (absorbing) B (bishop) |
|
| Across | ||||
| Clue No | Omitted letter | Solution / Entry | Clue (Definition underlined)
Logic/Parsing |
|
| 9 | V | FLAVOURS | Gives hints to answer, cracking 44÷50 (8)
F_OURS (44, fours!) around (divided by) L (50, Roman numeral) = FL_OURS, around (cracked by) A (answer) |
|
| 10 | L | IDEALESS | Seaside trips showing a lack of planning (8)
anag, i.e. trips, of SEASIDE |
|
| 13 | I | HISTIDINE | The boy’s first to try and eat essential supplement (9)
HIS (the boy’s) + T (first letter of Try) + DINE (eat) |
|
| 15 | L | LADY DAY | Notice Democrat, advanced in years, on 25 March (4,3)
AD (advert, notice) + Y_Y (year, plural) around DA (D, Democrat; A, advanced) |
|
| 22 | V | AVAST | Stop twice a second time (5)
A_A (twice A) + S (second) + T (time) |
|
| 25 | X | SEXTON | Attack church official (6)
subtractive double defn – to SET ON can be to attack; and a SEXTON is an officer of a church |
|
| 28 | V | AVERSE | Reluctant, make crosses from time to time (6)
alternate letters, i.e. from time to time, of ‘mAkE cRoSsEs’ |
|
| Down | ||||
| Clue No | Omitted letter | Solution / Entry | Clue (Definition underlined)
Logic/Parsing |
|
| 2 | L | STEALTHY | They sat about, avoiding detection (8)
anag, i.e. about, of THEY SAT |
|
| 3 | X | ESSEX | Travelling up and down East Sussex, Kent – and …? (5)
The South East (which could loosely consist of East Sussex, Kent and Essex) is often abbreviated to SE – so SE travelling up and down gives ES + SE = ESSE! [not sure how this defines in terms of clue type, apart from very clever! Not sure I have parsed it 100% correctly?] |
|
| 4 | I | OFF-SPIN | Style of delivery not working at first, so PowerPoint’s needed (3-4)
OFF (not working) + SPN (first letters of So Powerpoint’s Needed) [cricketing delivery – type of bowling!] |
|
| 7 | I | GRATINEE | Used up space in jar with a topping of melted cheese? (8)
GRAT_E (jar) around NE (en, printing, space, used up!) |
|
| 14 | I | HARBINGER | Bushranger, ignoring us, grimly gives warning (9)
subtractive anagram, i.e. grimly, of B( |
|
| 16 | L | ATHLETIC | Start off pitiable, becoming strong (8)
( |
|
| 18 | V | REVERTED | Went back on tree being hacked down (8)
RE (on, regarding) + ERTE (anag, i.e. being hacked, of TREE) + D (Down, crossword notation!) |
|
| 19 | I | INTRUDE | Turned out to be unwelcome (7)
anag, i.e. out, of TURNED |
|
| 24 | V | AVIAN | Sloth with a number of birds (5)
AI (sloth) + A + N (number) |
|
My solving this was greatly aided by making margin notes plus a little table on the side to keep track of the THOUSAND parts. I was pleased with myself that I understood the instruction to “add” the Roman numerals. A very nice construction from Soup. Well done on the blog.
Lovely Puzzle Soup. Super blog mc_rapper67.
HALE: A double duty but an enjoyable one.
ESSEX: Can’t see any issue with the parse. Excellent clue.
Thanks Soup and mc_rapper67.
Excellent puzzle! Terrific device!
Congratulations to all setters, solvers and the editor on ‘250’.
Enjoyed this immensely.
Great puzzle, enjoyed it immensely. On the subject on interactive grids, for the last few months I’ve been posting a link over on the crosssolver forum to such a grid for the Genius puzzles which anyone is welcome to use (similarly for the bank holiday Maskarade puzzles).
Thanks to Hamish and MC
Thanks, MC – a pleasure to do business with you again 🙂
This was a fun one to set. I wasn’t aiming for the hardest ever – but I did want something which Boatman has described as “The way in which this preamble may be of assistance to you in solving the puzzle will become apparent once you have solved the puzzle.”
‘Insertions’ – fair point. I couldn’t say ‘added’ because I’d already used that word. Not really sure how I would have worded it better in the circumstances?
Hope to see you again soon.
I don’t think there’s any issue with double-duty in HALE as the repetition of “sound” is implicit in the clue (an example of ellipsis?).
Many thanks to Soup and mc_rapper for the anniversary puzzle and blog.
I thought this was an outstanding puzzle. My first Genius was no. 197 by Soup (the ‘vwllss pzzl’ as I called it then), for which I needed a collaborator in order to finish it. That was before I started picking up the Genius puzzle every month, which is why my only other Genius puzzle by Soup was no. 226 (April 2022).
To start with, I gave the clues (of both types) my undivided attention – a very enjoyable first phase, in which I got the answers to all but one of the Normal clues but much lower proportions of the Across and Down clues. One blunder I made was to cross out my answer TWIT to the clue “Taunt fool (4)” because it was out of place alphabetically – but of course that didn’t matter, as it was the entries that needed to be in alphabetical order. I started the grid with STEALTHY, IDEALESS and LADY DAY, and that prompted me to enter TEETH (from TEE), as it seemed a certainty. THROBBING and EARTHS were not far behind that. When I had extracted at least one I V, X and L from the Across and Down clues, it became easy to anticipate what the remaining letters might be.
I identified the letter pairs TH, ND, OU and SA one by one the hard way – they seemed to be the most promising candidates for triplets. It was much later when I ‘saw’ THOUSAND, which, when quartered, would give those four letter pairs. And when 1,000 is quartered it gives 250! Even better, my first attempt at reading the IVXL letters in clue order gave me a set of seven Roman numerals that added up to 250. An amazing outcome. I cannot imagine how difficult this multi-faceted puzzle was to create.
Thanks to Soup for the puzzle and mc_rapper for the excellent blog.
We thought this was fabulous. For the past few months we’ve been saving the grid on an iPad and using the pencil. The advantage is, of course, that it’s easy to colour-code, note ideas, lists, answers and to erase if they come to nothing!
Thank you to Soup and mc_rapper67
Just wanted to record my thanks to Soup (and mc_rapper67) for the pleasure of working out the different layers to this puzzle. A mightily satisfying solve and I clearly recall my frustration at thinking that the roman numerals (an early guess) were nowhere near adding up to 1000 before enlightenment struck.
I do get frustrated that, with a month between solve and solution I usually forget any high points, so I’ve no real detail to add. However, even with nothing to say I wanted to congratulate and thank the setter.
We enjoyed this, although it took quite a long time for the letter pairs to become clear – we had CRIER becoming DEcrier, so were looking for other DE insertions and decided CAUTION became cautionED (maybe the letters could be inserted either way?) – before THOUSAND suggested itself. But still didn’t make the connection with the number of the Genius, so (like JoFT) were trying to get the letters to sum to 1000.
But we got there in the end!
Thanks for all the comments so far – much appreciated, as usual – especially to Hamish/Soup for popping in…(it was only a minor gripe-ette!)
Seems like the puzzle went down fairly well with commenters.
Jay at #4 – I’ve read about your interactive versions, but not used them yet…I do prefer to solve on paper, although I now tend to use Excel for jigsaws…and like Karen at #8 I do often solve on my iPad (other tablets are available!) using the iPencil (other styli are available!) to write on a PDF (other document formats are available!) – usually on holiday, when I don’t have access to a printer!
My beef with interactive-ness is more with the submissions, as it is a PITA to have to transpose the Genius into that entry form every month…ho hum…
JoFT at #9 – yes, the month’s time lag does dissipate the memory…this was one of the few times I have written the blog up almost immediately after solving…I suffer from last-minute-itis and am often caught blogging these up in the last couple of days and relying on any contemporaneous notes and my fast-fading memory!