Pangakupu is quite a regular in the Genius slot, and his last appearance was only 3 months ago. This was a fairly easy-going puzzle as Geniuses go, though I was helped by spotting the gimmick early on.
Knowing that “each entry [of 26] begins with a different letter of the alphabet” and that “clues are arranged in an order which will indicate two three-letter words hidden in the grid” put me on the lookout for a meaningful pangram in the initial letters, and after some cold-solving the sequence ZYDG at the end led me to suspect that it would be the famous “THE QUICK BROWN FOX JUMPS OVER THE LAZY DOG”, with the repeated letters omitted, giving THEQUICKBROWNFXJMPSVLAZYDG. This then gave me the first letters of the yet-unsolved clues, which was an additional help.
Fitting the answers into the grid was also quite easy: I had SPONTANEOUS early on, which could only go in the vertical 11-letter space, otherwise its U would have been the start of an 8-letter word, which I knew was impossible as I’d already found the 7-letter UNCIVIL.
Finally, it was no great surprise to see that the 3-letter words hidden in the grid were the two animals from the pangram, FOX and DOG.
Thanks to Pangakupu for the relatively brief but entertaining challenge. I imagine the other constraints would not allow his trademark Māori Nina, but you never know. The IAMS (a type of DOG food) in row 13 is probably a coincidence.
| TENDINITIS | One clot is observed after care for tissue damage (10) TEND (to care) + I NIT IS; an apparently illogical but widespread version of “tendonitis” |
| HOGARTH | Painter to monopolise painting, say, with introduction of humour (7) HOG (monopolise) + ART + H[umour] |
| EGGNOG | Drink, say, being consumed after upset I avoided (6) E.G. (say) + reverse of GOING (being consumed) less I |
| QUIP | Question right-wing party ousting King? It’s only a joke (4) Q + UKIP less K |
| UNCIVIL | College in University mostly very unpleasant and rude (7) C[ollege] in UNI + VIL[e] |
| INQUIRED | Asked about investing in pound after international institution’s closure (8) I[nternational] [institutio]N + RE (about) in QUID |
| CAMARADERIE | Ireland’s crisis about hosting a regressive brotherhood (11) Reverse of A in EIRE + DRAMA + C (circa, about) |
| KITCHEN | Equipment, getting hot in central cooking area (7) KIT + H in CEN |
| BEREFT | Take charge of match Forest finally lost (6) BE REF[eree] + [fores]T |
| REMAIN | Brexit stance provided by old woman in government (6) MA (mother, old woman) in REIN (government) |
| OTALGIA | Earache? Start to achieve goal with it being treated (7) Anagram of A[chieve] GOAL IT |
| WAPITI | Deer trap: mostly hold off circling that (6) PIT (trap) in WAI[t] (hold off) |
| NEEDLE | Unnecessary to scuttle ship to make a point (6) NEEDLESS less SS |
| FLAMBEAU | Young animal portrayed in iron and gold torch (8) LAMB in FE + AU |
| XIMENES | Leader of Inquisition, one with fellows interrupting revolutionary copulation (7) I + MEN in reverse of SEX. Francisco Jiménez de Cisneros was the Grand Inquisitor of Spain, and gave his name (with some spelling variation) to the influential setter Ximenes (aka Derrick Somerset Macnutt) |
| JOURNALESE | Newspaper reports fellow accepting container with beers (10) URN + ALES in JOE (man’s name, and also a generic word for a man, as in “ordinary Joe”) |
| MONOXIDE | Bullock pushed into grotesque monied compound (8) OX in MONIED*. The terminology around livestock can be a bit of a minefield, but Chambers defines “bullock” as “an ox or castrated bull” |
| PROLIXLY | In favour of girl accepting kiss, in so many words? (8) X (kiss) in PRO LILY |
| SPONTANEOUS | Peanuts soon redrawn on a whim? (11) (PEANUTS SOON)* |
| VENDETTA | Old soldier cheers about finishing feud (8) END (finisihing) in VET + TA (thank you, cheers) |
| LIMELIT | Half of line later repeated in US opera house under a theatrical glow (7) LI[me] + LI (again) in MET (the Metropolitan Opera House in New York) |
| ACADEMIC | Account blocked by dodgy media intellectual (8) MEDIA* in ACC |
| ZIFT | Some select fizz, after recalling fertility treatment (4) Hidden in reverse of selecT FIZz. ZIFT is an acronym for zygote intrafallopian transfer |
| YOWLING | Yard due to apprehend learner driver that’s crying (7) Y + L[earner driver] in OWING (due) |
| DOE-EYED | Old English programme finally coming in colourised, having substantial viewers? (7) O.E. + [programm]E in DYED |
| GLITCH | Error in Guardian leader initially an irritation (6) G[uardian] L[eader] + ITCH |
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I wrote my solutions alphabetically on a separate page, so failed to notice the acrostic aid in the clues as listed. This presented no obstacle to spotting the endgame, though. Fun puzzle.
Yes, no real struggles here. The only difficulty on my part was that when I did the submission, the form didn’t have anywhere to enter the hidden 3 letter words. I noted that the form was updated a few days later.
Thanks Andrew and Pangakupu.
Well, this collapsed, when I saw the order of the clues starting like this:
?h? quick ????n f? etc.
With starting letters for each solution, the 2 11-letter solutions intersecting in the middle, and, the 2 4-letter solutions providing further anchor, the jigsaw fitted nicely. Crossers helped with tricky clues. Yes, the animals jumped out as well.
I will take this as one more Genius done.
It’s been a while, so I have forgotten the details, but I am very much with the others in my pleasure at how the pieces clicked into place without ever being simplistic. [I have just finished the big bank holiday puzzle, which I found similarly satisfying, though much much harder.]
Thanks Andrew. I don’t think we found it as easy as you did, but we finished it, so it can’t have been too hard! I think we’d solved over half the clues, and placed many of them in the grid before the penny finally dropped as to the ‘gimmick’. I can see it would have been helped a lot had that happened earlier.
I thought the clues were typically not as hard as I often find Pangakupu’s, which is probably fair for a jigsaw-style puzzle.
This was an excellent puzzle that kept on giving. I started by solving about half of the clues, including SPONTANEOUS, PROLIXLY and FLAMBEAU: I guessed where those three words might be placed, along with three other words. What enabled me to make progress from that point was to discover (as I see others did) enough initial letters of a familiar phrase to enable me to guess it: THE QUICK BROWN FOX…. Naturally, that helped with the solving of the remaining clues. My last three to solve were BEREFT, EGGNOG and DOE-EYED.
The FOX and the DOG were the icing on the cake. I thought this was a well-conceived, well-designed puzzle with a very good set of clues.
Thanks to Pangakupu and Andrew.
I like these jigsaw puzzles and this was no exception. It wasn’t terribly difficult even though there were few starting letters to guide other entries. I think I had one false start but then it fell together very satisfactorily.as the clues were all straightforward. Thank you for an entertaining evening.
Thanks Pangakupu and Andrew
That wasn’t as bad as I thought it might be. One long session making for a very enjoyable solve. My first answers were in a block around ..PSV.. which didn’t really help much early on.
An enjoyable and relatively straight-forward Genius – thanks Pangakupu and Andrew.
IMHO, “Y” is a vowel, not as usually treated, a consonant, which means “DOE-EYED” (especially marked in the clues as (7) not (4-3)) has 5 consecutive vowels. Is this a record? (I know the record for consecutive consonants is 6, of course.)
{OK, so now I used a well-known search engine to find the answer – two real words that beat DOE-EYED. Trust G****e to take the fun out of the search.)