Guardian Genius 261 / Pasquale

13 comments on “Guardian Genius 261 / Pasquale”

1. I did this with a friend in a pub in Lewes.

   Confidently started with ELL and one other which I can’t remember.

   It was CRANBERRY TART that alerted us to what was going on.

   Great fun indeed. Thanks to setter and blogger.

2. A thorough write-up. I cannot remember how I solved this now. I can tell from my notes that I marked the clues according to the three categories, so toward the end, I could tell what type of clues I still needed. I think I worked out the poem from guessing and googling RING-BO-REE from the crossers, and with the text in hand, finding the other nine items plus JUMBLIES was short work. This is reminiscent of some other recent Genius puzzles, which also referred to poem. These can certainly be an exercise in frustration when you cannot deduce the source text.

3. My experience was identical to yours, Duncan, with reference to the three misleading clues that fooled you. I can remember this puzzle because I only got round to solving it relatively late in the month. Once the theme was revealed, filling the grid became much easier. Thanks to the Don.

4. I also did this in a pub, though mine was in the City. Agree that the wording of 27a and the accompanying “!” was Pasquale’s way of letting us know that he had set some deliberate traps… “my one or two misleading clues” is correct!

   Good fun and a nice choice for a theme.
   Thanks to Duncan and Pasquale

5. We also had ELL for 13a to start with, and FATE for 17d, but got there in the end. Overall, it seemed relatively gentle, and we finished early in the month so I had quite forgotten the details. That’s why I usually like to start the Genius towards the end of the month so it’s fresh in my mind when the blog comes out.
   We had to look up the words of the poem, as we’d forgotten most of it, though Ring-bo-ree did strike a far-off bell!

6. After studying the instructions so that I would know what to look for in the clues, I got a very lucky start with 1a. I’m not particularly good at anagrams as a rule, but that clue was written as though it began with wordplay, and I innocently took the phrase “What makes …” to indicate an anagram of what followed. CRANBERRY TART stood out almost immediately from the letters of “Arab carry tent”. No other clue yielded in that way, but I enjoyed the task of identifying the ‘type’ of every clue before solving it. Some of them were quite tough. I got all except two of the thematic anagrams before I looked up the theme, which I recognised when I found it, although I had remembered none of the food items. RING-BO-REE was the only clue I had any trouble with. I loved the clue to MONKEY!

   Thanks to Pasquale and Duncan.

7. I got it all out but must admit I googled ‘who received these items?’ when I had a few answers like jackdaws, stilton cheese and cranberry tart. I too fell for the ell! The one thing that has me bothered; I cannot find anywhere where cantaloupe is spelled without an ‘e’ at the end.
   I had not heard The Jumblies poem. It’s delightful. There is a youtube clip of American actor John Lithgow reciting it. Lovely.

8. @7

   It’s in Chambers as an alternative spelling

9. When I entered my email address, my actual address was automatically filled in, in the answers to 6d, 5d, and 15a,
   because those clues contain the words “Street”, “city”, and “country” respectively. Luckily I was able to override them.
   Then, after submitting my answers, I was asked if I wanted to update my address as “ARMADA | YORICK | PERU”. I declined.

10. Thanks duncansheill and Pasquale.

    Pleased to complete another Genius.

    Was not familiar with the poem but the instructions were clear enough to get a few themesters and most of the missing letters fairly quickly.

    Of course, had to Google to get the theme.
    ELL & FATE led to the joke in 27a. Simpler, but was fun.

11. Learning of the poem was useful to solve Vulcan’s 9A – Riddle of the Jumblies’ craft (5) (#29638) a week later, and Enigmatist’s 23A – Retired Limerick man’s enthralled by couple from Jerusalem? (7) (#29649), a couple of weeks later!

12. Loved this one. I also fell for ELL, CART, and FATE. MONKEY was my first item – it just jumped out at me. Then I got JACKDAWS, and thought I was looking for animals, but the next one I found was RICE. A quick Google took me to the Jumblies and the rest fell into place. Thank you very much Pasquale and Duncan.

13. Thanks for the excellent blog Duncan, doing justice to this fine puzzle, I am somehow cheered to learn you fell into the same traps as me (and others) along the way! I got onto the theme after a stroke of inspiration with the letters J, U and S – I could only remember that there were such things as Jumblies and that they went to sea in a sieve, so had to look up the full poem to make sure I was on the right lines. As well as the red herrings and clever theme I thought some individual clues were very nice, eg ARMADA. Thanks Pasquale, this was a real pleasure to solve.

Comments are closed.