Guardian Genius 256 by Claw

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Is it Groundhog Month? This time last year I had a Claw October Genius to blog, I went to the Times Champs and met Claw at the pub afterwards, and then met him again at the York get-together… Can you guess what happened this year?!

The (rather daunting) preamble states that:

“Each clue’s wordplay indicates an extra letter: these spell out an instruction. Following this will take the solver on a journey. However, the journey will quickly be thwarted in a couple of places. To resume it, the solver must change one letter each time. The journey will resume at pace until close to the end, when one final letter change will complete a release from 50 years ago this month. The original letters give a Homeric summary of its conclusion. Final entries are all real words or names.”

It has been a while since I studied anything ‘Homeric’ – I vaguely remember doing some of the Iliad in Latin classes at skool, and there were a few epic journeys going on there.

Anyway, my usual response to a complicated preamble is to dive into the clues and solving, to see if anything starts to help the preamble make more sense, starting with the message in the extra letters.

And so it proved – a few runs through the clues and a bit of mental tussling with the extra letter complication started to bear fruit, and the grid slowly started filling up. I did wonder if the ‘journey’ would be a perimetral one, but a few combinations of letters scotched that idea.

The extra letters started to take shape and, with a bit of educated guessing and reverse engineering, they finally revealed: SELECT EVERY NUMBERED CELL IN ORDER.

So the journey does start along the perimeter, but then swerves around the grid in a generally downward (southward) direction, taking in all the first letters.

TDETOKI along the top – not particularly helpful, but then NGOFPELHAM…and at that point I was transported back to my schooldays – not to to Mr Brooks’ or Mr Owen’s Latin classes, but to the Film Club, where we put on a showing of ‘THE TAKING OF PELHAM ONE TWO THREE’ in about 1980. My memory of the film is a bit sketchy, but the title, for some reason, has lodged in the memory banks.

TDETOKI… becomes THE TAKI… by changing D to H and O to A, and the H at 26 changes to an R. With the ‘Homeric’ realisation being of the Simpsonian kind – DOH!

 

And the preamble is finally unpicked – the film was released on 2 October 1974, making this month the 50th anniversary. The initial interruptions to the ‘journey’ at 2D and 5D (as explained to me by Claw over beers and curry last weekend) correlate to two early stops of the train in the film. It then runs uncontrolled for a while, before the power is switched off, around 26A/D, and it screeches to a halt. And without wanting to give too much away, the dénouement of the film includes a ‘Doh!’ moment, when one of the escaped protagonists accidentally reveals himself to investigators by replying ‘Gesundheit‘ to a sneeze, as he had on the radio earlier in the film… Too soon for a spoiler?

I guess I was a bit lucky in vaguely knowing the film, but it shouldn’t have been too hard to track it down once enough of the numbered cells were filled. And I have a vague idea that I have seen this device of thematic material embedded in the numbered cells of a grid before, but it is pretty rare, and an impressive piece of grid construction.

My thanks, as usual, to Claw – and I look forward to our next annual coincidence, if not sooner…

 

Across
Clue No Extra letter Solution / Entry Clue (definition underlined)

Logic/Parsing (extra letters in bold)
8 S NAVIGATE Is vehicle reversing towards crowd? Advise driver! (8)

NAV(S)I (IS + VAN – vehicle – reversing) + GATE (crowd)
9 E GLEAN Pick up bird when cycling north (5)

GL(E)EA (eagle, bird, cycling last three letters to the beginning) + N (north)
10 L ODES Sailor leaves guiding light creative works (4)

(L)ODES(TAR) – guiding light, losing TAR – sailor, Jolly Jack Tar
11 E FIBRE-OPTIC Spirit dispenser about to exist made of thin flexible glass (5-5)

FI_RE (spirit) + OPTIC (dispenser, of spirits!) around B(E) (exist)
12 C POWELL He’s held in conflict by political activists, Colin? (6)

POW (prisoner of war, held in conflict) + (C)ELL (political activists)

[Colin Powell, former US Secretary of State]
14 T LAH-DI-DAH Posh architect to stop coming over (3-2-3)

HAD-ID (Zaha Hadid, architect) + HAL(T) (stop) = HAD-ID-HAL, all coming over = LAH-DI-DAH!
16 E AIR PUMP A current note: Prime Minister informed about cause of inflation (3,4)

A + I (electric current) + R(E) (note in sol-fa notation) + PUMP (PM, Prime Minister, and UP, informed, all about)
18 V OINKING Almost sheepish man making noise like an animal (7)

O(V)IN(E) (almost all of ovine, or sheep-like) + KING (man, chess piece)
21 E TWIDDLES International British gymnast’s trapped fingers (8)

TW(E)_DDLES (British gymnast, Beth Tweddle, plus contracted ‘s) around (trapping) I (international)
23 R OBTAIN Get old boy to take vigorous exercise (6)

OB (old boy) + T(R)AIN (take vigorous exercise)
24 Y TWITCHIEST Most anxious hush after White City in turmoil (10)

TWITCHIE(Y) (anag, i.e. in turmoil, of WHITE CITY) + ST (interjection – hush! be silent!)
26 N HAFT / RAFT Firmly establish dynasty with newspaper (4)

HA(N) (Chinese dynasty) + FT (Financial Times, newspaper)
27 U EBONY Dark brown ox and small horse lose their heads (5)

(Z)EB(U) (ox) and (P)ONY (small horse) both losing their first letters, or heads
28 M ENCIRCLE Uncle initially avoided working with crime ring (8)

subtractive anagram, i.e. working with, of (U)NCLE (avoiding initial letter) + CRI(M)E
Down
Clue No Extra letter Solution / Entry Clue (definition underlined)

Logic/Parsing (extra letters in bold)
1 B TANDOORI Brown thingamyjig mostly cooked in clay oven (8)

TAN (brown) + DOO(B)RI(E) (thingamyjig, mostly)
2 E DISS / HISS All but showed contempt for Norfolk town (4)

DISS(E)(D) – almost all of dissed, or showed contempt for
3 R EARFUL Lecture faculty for discerning noted works – roll up! (6)

EAR (faculty for discerning noted work, or music!) + FU(R)L (roll up)
4 E TEA BALL Beer held by broken table leaves brewer (3,4)

TEA B_L (anag, i.e. broken, of TABLE) around (holding) AL(E) (beer)

[brewer of loose tea leaves]
5 D OGEE / AGEE Do I say ‘having S-shaped curves’? (4)

(D)O + GEE (interjection, I say!)
6 C KEEP WICKET Can powerless protestor continue in front field with guard for protection? (4,6)

KEEP (continue, keep on) plus (in front of) W(C) (toilet, can) + (P)ICKET (protestor, striker, without p – power-less)
7 E INTIMA Figurine Tim Allen keeps inside coat (6)

hidden word in, i.e. kept inside, ‘figurIN(E) TIM Allen’
13 L EXPEDITION Speed delivery, not cocaine – drive out in the van (10)

EXPE(L) (drive out) + DI(C)TION (delivery, speech, without C – not cocaine)
15 L HUI Maori party regularly will push for uprising (3)

reversed alternate letters, i.e. regularly and uprising, in ‘wIl(L) pUsH”
17 I MEL Honey, I’m twelve essentially (3)

(I)M + EL (centre, or essence, of twELve)
19 N NAIL FILE Digital editor adapted final line (4,4)

anag, i.e. adapted, of FINAL LI(N)E
20 O ESSENES Religious community members see noses put out of joint (7)

anag, i.e. put out of joint, of SEE N(O)SES
22 R WAWLED Swiss tennis player was up dumping Inka – cried like a baby (6)

WAW(R)(INKA) (Stefan Wawrinka, Swiss tennis player, dumping INKA) + LED (was up)
23 D OUTACT Play better than tense jazz fan double act put up (6)

T (tense)+ CAT (jazz fan) + (D)UO (double act), all reversed, or put up, to give OUTACT
25 E HOYS Spurs stop fine (4)

HO (interjection, stop!) + Y(E)S (fine, OK)
26 R HARE / RARE Overwhelming favourite in classic race advanced from capital (4)

HAR(A)(R)E – capital, of Zimbabwe, minus A (advanced)

[the race between the hare and the tortoise]

13 comments on “Guardian Genius 256 by Claw”

  1. Much of the preamble made little sense until I had got enough of the extra letters to make the message readable. The other message (from the numbered cells) was a very neatly engineered surprise, and the ‘Homeric’ conclusion was hilarious. Altogether, a very good Genius puzzle with many excellent clues. It was a clever idea to avoid the ‘nina’ that would otherwise have formed itself across the top (THETAKI) by putting two ‘wrong’ letters there (TDETOKI).

    Thanks to Claw and mc_rapper.

  2. I got about 60% of the grid filled and then filled in the gaps of the hidden message (incorrectly) to get: SELECT EVERY NUMBERED VWEL IN ORDER. So I didn’t get much further than that even though I was aware that …Pelham 123 was released in 1974 (after googling film releases of 1974).

    This was my first attempt at a Genius – thanks Claw. The mind boggles how anyone can construct a puzzle like that!

  4. Amazing Crossword. Really enjoyed solving. Loved the film too – and the theme music echoed round my head for days afterwards (and has started again).

    Thanks Claw and Mc_rapper

  5. Although I knew nothing about the film, and so missed some of the subtleties explained in the blog, I thought this was an ingenious puzzle which I enjoyed solving. My only minor criticism relates to the clue for 23 down where ACT appears in the clue and the answer; presumably an oversight by the setter and editor.

  6. Wow, what an incredible multi-layered construction! A pleasure to tease it out and very satisfying to complete, but hats off to Claw. And great blog, Mc_rapper.

  7. I was surprised and gratified to see that we’d got 25d right! It remained unfilled for several days, as I couldn’t see why any of HAYS, HEYS, HOYS, HOYA or HIYA would be right. Eventually, I alit on the same parsing as McRapper but was not at all convinced by it.
    We also put in ODES, EXPEDITION and TWITCHIEST without parsing, so thanks for the explanations. I tried to make and anagram of White City and Sh! for the latter, finding that it almost worked. Is St! really an alternative to Sh! for shurrup?
    Otherwise, like Ex_225 @2, we had most of the grid filled before the instructions appeared, and the penny finally dropped about the film when it was almost complete.
    We knew nothing of the film, only the title from its misquotation in a track called “The Taking of Peckham 123” by Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine. (But of course, everyone knows that!)

  8. @MrBeaver #7. It’s not so much St! It’s more ‘sT (an almost swallowed s followed by a percussive t) I always thought of it accompanying a raised finger to immediately prevent a reply or interruption when a teacher or parent is speaking to a child. I can almost visualise it being used in a familiar film/TV prog but cannot place it.

  9. Thanks mc_rapper67 and Claw.

    Very clever and satisfying to finish.

    As you say TDETOKING was not particularly helpful, but getting OF PELHAM cracked it.
    I was not familiar with the movie, so Google brought it home.

    If Claw had said it is an Acrostic of the solutions, would we have done it sooner?

    In stead burying the instruction to look for the first letters was wicked, and including 3 ‘errors’ in it, to be fixed by us and calling ‘DOH’ as Homeric summary, I felt Claw was not only stabbing us but twisting the knife as well!

    Good stuff.

  10. Thanks for the excellent blog, Mike. It was a pleasure to hang out with you again last weekend. Thanks also to everybody who has commented, especially for the reminder of Carter USM – a cracking band I haven’t thought about for years.

  12. Thanks mc_rapper, it’s a beautifully constructed blog and animated grid, and I am especially grateful for the early stops revelation as a result of your curry with Claw – I saw the film (original version -really enjoyed it) on a plane not that long ago but had forgotten the exact details of the plot so that really is the icing on the cake in terms of fitting all those elements into one puzzle (I actually laughed when I got the Homeric summary, having like you worried that my high culture deficit may hinder me at the last). Also like you I found the different stages of the special instructions helpful in getting me through some solver’s block on the actual clues, having avoided the trap that Ex-225@2 fell into – commiserations – and hope the next one goes all the way. I am still struggling through some Genius puzzles which seem to pretty much need full cold-solving before the endgame can begin so was glad of this rare success. Thanks Claw for a fabulous puzzle (it’s easy to forget the actual clues, many of which I found very droll too, and for me the obscurities were not beyond reach which I especially appreciated).

  13. [PS sorry forgot to add that I think your “spoiler” has it the wrong way round but that is of course a minor detail!]

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