An unusual device characterised this particular puzzle (and made blogging it particularly challenging).
The preamble read as follows:
Due to a D-notice, wordplay (and two definitions) associated with five characters – appearing as six horizontal or vertical lines in the completed grid – is redacted. Answers to two normal clues must be thematically modified before entry. Finally, the initiator of the trouble (five cells) should be highlighted.
As published, several of the clues had letters or words redacted, and in a couple of cases the whole clue was redacted. I have done my best to reproduce the original text in the blog as accurately as possible but the software of the excellent utility that I use couldn’t reproduce the black blocks faithfully. I am very grateful to Ken for stepping in and doing the necessary HTML coding. It’s not unusual in advanced cryptics to have unclued entries which have to be deduced from the theme, but it’s unusual, if not unique, to have specific letters or words omitted from the clues in this way. As it happens, it’s perfectly possible to solve the puzzle without ever completely deducing the redacted characters.
In the event, filling the grid didn’t prove too challenging, although there were some quite complex charades to disentangle. Once the name George Smiley became the obvious candidate to fill in the unclued entries at 5 and 23 down, it then became apparent that SPY appeared across the bottom of the grid, with SOLDIER immediately above it. That in turn led to the confirmation of STINKER at 15 across (I hadn’t been fully confident about that answer), and meant that (the wholly redacted) 25 across had to be TAIL, giving the title of John Le Carré’s novel Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. After that, it wasn’t too hard to find Smiley’s antagonist, Karla, in the grid. I have highlighted all of these in the grid.
In some cases it’s possible to deduce what was redacted from the clues, but in other cases I have no idea. Readers may have their own suggestions. There was only one normal clue which I was unable to fully parse, the clue to GREASE. Again, my thanks to Ken. The other problem is identifying which is the second of the normal clues to be thematically modified. The first of course is ESPIONAGE at 10 across, which had to be entered in reverse (counter-espionage) but I’m not sure about the second. It might be AGENT at 20 across and 4 down, where it seems as though you have to enter the same word twice (i.e. a double agent) but I can’t really see that as a thematic modification, and I don’t understand why the enumeration specifies it as “(10, 1 word)”.
Before the penny dropped, I did wonder about a possible Shakespearean connection, after the words “ONLIE” (a partial nina in line 11) and BEGET appeared in the grid, reminding me of the introduction to the Sonnets, but I think that is just a coincidence.
Finally, a welcome to KGB, if he/she is indeed a new setter: it’s certainly a new pseudonym, as far as I can discover. It may of course be a collaboration.
| ACROSS | ||
| 7 | AGREEING |
Taking time out, eat ginger nuts in meeting (8)
|
| *(EA(t) GINGER). | ||
| 9 | GREBE |
Gross, $$$$ $$ $$$ live bird (5)
|
| GR(oss) (E) BE (live). I’ve no idea what the three words are that the setter used to generate the letter E. | ||
| 10 | UNFORESEEN |
Surprising pleasure cycling with sore bum, even though velocity is dropped (10)
|
| FUN (pleasure, cycled, so that the first letter goes to the end), *SORE, E(v)EN. | ||
| 11 | RUIN |
Bankruptcy? That’s $$$$$ with union issuing stuttering denial (4)
|
| R (redacted word), *UNI(on) – “issuing” indicates that the letters of NO (denial) are to be removed from the anagram, “stuttering” being the anagram indicator. | ||
| 12 | EGANOIPSE |
Wise one catches Dick on backing up electronic act of spying (9)
|
| E(lectronic), PI (private eye, or dick) ON inside SAGE (wise one). The whole answer is then reversed, indicating perhaps counter-espionage. | ||
| 13 | BEGET |
Father, $$$$$$$ gratia, breaking wager (5)
|
| E(xempli) G(ratia) inside BET. In this case it’s possible to make a fairly reliable guess at the identity of the redacted word. | ||
| 15 | STINKER |
Villain in Shakespeare’s first $$$$ (7)
|
| S(hakespeare) TINKER (play). Again it’s possible to make an educated guess at the identity of the redacted word. | ||
| 17 | DEAFEST |
Defeats, as separately mobilised, so to speak, the least attentive? (7)
|
| *DEFEATS. I’m not sure what “so to speak” contributes to the clue: there doesn’t seem to be a homophone here. | ||
| 20 | AGENT |
& 4 Mole shown by a book collection about Earth (10, 1 word)
|
| GE (Earth) inside A N(ew) T(estament) (collection of books). This presumably refers to the concept of a double agent. Hard to justify the enumeration; I presume that this is the other (the first being 10 across) of the normal clues being thematically modified. | ||
| 22 | RUN ACROSS |
Encounter resistance by a local $$$$$ship chasing marine giant around (9, 2 words)
|
| R(esistance) UN (local or dialect term meaning “a”) ORCA (marine giant, rev) SS (steamship). Another clue where the identity of the redacted word is pretty obvious. | ||
| 25 | TAIL |
$$$$$$$$$$$ $$ $$$ $$$$$$ $$$$$ (4)
|
| I have absolutely no idea what the wholly redacted clue may have been; I only solved it by reverse engineering, having worked out the theme, TAILOR had to go on this line, and the crossers A and L made it certain. | ||
| 26 | ORGANISMIC |
$$$$$$$$$$ group of stunted m$ce coming after first pair of Anomaluridae is related to living animal (10)
|
| The redacted word at the beginning of the clue gives us OR; then we have G(roup), followed by AN(omaluridae), IS (in the clue), MIC(e) (stunted mice). The second letter of “mice” is redacted because it forms part of the thematic word at 23 down. | ||
| 27 | LYSOL |
Disinfectant: reduced lye $$$$$$$ (5)
|
| LY(e) SOL (clued by the redacted word). | ||
| 28 | DIERESES |
Marks over letters clued by suspect smuggling $$$$$$$ ditching uniform after free $$$$ around East (8)
|
| E(ast) inside RID (free, rev); ESES is clued by the redacted phrase “suspect smuggling [REDACTED] ditching uniform” but I can’t guess what the redacted word might be. I assume that the second redacted word is a reversal indicator, possibly “back”. | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | EGGNOG |
It could be a rum solution perhaps, given award retrospectively (6)
|
| EG (perhaps), GONG (award, rev). | ||
| 2 | ZERO IN ON |
Aim for unknown lead lady, stripped of $$$$$$ (8, 3 words)
|
| Z(unknown character) (h)EROIN(e) (lead lady); the final O should be in the unredacted clue, so may possibly be “of”; the final N is from the redacted word. | ||
| 3 | FIXED IDEA |
Secure ecstacy at drug $$$$$$$$$$$ administration, after KGB had infiltrated complex (9, 2 words)
|
| FIX (secure), E(cstasy) (the misspelling doesn’t seem to be thematic) ID (I’d, i.e. I (KGB) had) inside DEA (Drug Enforcement Administration). The redacted word must be “enforcement”. | ||
| 4 | AGENT |
See 20 (5)
|
| See 20 across. | ||
| 5 | GEORGE |
$$$$, $$$$$$$, $$ $$$$ $$ $$$$$$$$$ $$$ $$$$$$ (12, 2 words )
|
| George Smiley is the protagonist in a number of novels by John Le Carre, including The Spy Who Came In From The Cold; the number of blocks in the redacted clue matches that title, but the length of the blocks is wrong, and the commas are wrong. So I don’t know what the clue is actually meant to be. | ||
| 6 | RETIREES |
Group abandoning work on Hebridean island sanctuary, but only at first (8)
|
| RE (on) TIREE (Hebridean Island) S(anctuary). I thought this was an excellent definition, which misled me for some time. | ||
| 8 | GREASE |
Musical’s good, though short having cut central scene (6)
|
| GREA(t) (good, shortened) S(cen)E. | ||
| 14 | DETAINEES |
Inmates (when run’s cancelled) exercise in river $$$$ ($$$$) (9)
|
| T(r)AIN (exercise) in DEE; the final S is clued by the redacted words. | ||
| 16 | TAG TAILS |
Lacking steak perhaps, $$$$$$$ sickens eating ‘Great ’ $$$$$$$$ worms (8, 2 words)
|
| The initial T and second A are clued by the redacted words. In what’s left we have GT (great) inside AILS (sickens). | ||
| 18 | FIRESTEP |
Sacks the heartless $$$$$$ giving soldier’s support (8)
|
| FIRES (sacks) T(h)E (heartless) P (clued by the redacted word). | ||
| 19 | BULGED |
Puffed out blowing bugle $$$ $$$$$ $$$$$$ $ (6)
|
| Only the final D is clued by the redacted words; the rest is a simple anagram of BUGLE. | ||
| 21 | NO LESS |
Veto exhausted $pies dogging leaders of étrangère? Ironically that’s admirable (6, 2 words)
|
| NO (veto) L(initial of redacted word) E(trangere), S(pie)S. Clearly the redacted letter must be an S; it’s redacted because it forms part of a thematic word (SOLDIER) in the crossing answer. | ||
| 23 | SMILEY |
See 5 (6)
|
| See 5 | ||
| 24 | NOBLE |
Initially national $$$$$$$$$ bothered $$$$$$ English Lady? (5)
|
| Initial letters of N(ational) O(redacted) B(othered) L(redacted) E(nglish). |
Thanks KGB and bridgesong.
Tough stuff.
Had to Google when Cambridge Five names would not fit in anywhere, and stumbled on to John le Carre’s GEORGE SMILEY. Unfortunately not a fan of this genre, have never read any of his books, but entered it confidently at 5/23, with GREBE (9a), RUIN (11a) and RUN ACROSS (22a) in place. Solved a few more, and got STINKER for 15a. SPY was in place and then saw SOLDIER straddling 27/28. 25a had to be TAIL with OR already in place. That was it.
KARLA had to be the initiator of the troubles with STINKER’s K in place with A R L A following.
12a ESPIONAGE would not fit in unless reversed (with GREASE, EGGNOG and ZERO IN ON in place. Last in was AGENT AGENT.
Wasted some time trying to guess redacted words – got two, and then gave up.
Well, that was different.
Enjoyed it? I am not sure, but it was completed and submitted, so another Genius done.
I wondered if the setter was in fact KARLA (known to solvers of the Listener, Inquisitor, EV and Magpie) who would necessarily have had to use a different name here to avoid the spoiler.
I hope the fully un-redacted puzzle is revealed at some point.
Great fun, thanks to “KGB” and Bridgesong.
I enjoyed this very much, apart from being annoyed that in some cases it was impossible to work out the redacted words, especially 25a and 5d/23d. I didn’t want to enter one of the thematically modified answers incorrectly, so I avoided the normal clues at first which wasn’t hard because most of the clues have some redaction, and I found the theme quite early and was looking for KARLA in the unchecked letters in row and columns while I was solving but only found him at the end.
The blog’s explanation for 28a doesn’t seem to work because it has the unredacted words ‘free’ and ‘East’ indicating the redacted letters DIER. I believe the redacted words are ‘ecstasy’ and ‘ride’, and so (with redacted letters in bold) ‘suspect smuggling [ecstasy] ditching uniform’ gives S(u)S around E, which is ‘after free [ride]’ so after DIER and then the whole thing is around East=E.
In 11a, I think ‘union issuing stuttering denial’ is supposed to indicate U(n)I(o)N, i.e. the ‘stuttering denial’ is NO made of non-consecutive letters and no anagram is involved.
In 17d, I think ‘as separately mobilised, so to speak’ is supposed to mean move the A and S separately in the word DEFEATS but leave the rest of the letters in their original order.
The clue to 21d in the blog omits the second redaction before ‘étrangère’, but presumably that redacted word is ‘Légion’, forming the French name for the French Foreign Legion.
I also thought the redactions in 16d are supposed to be ‘Trump’ and ‘American’, but then I wondered that if ‘Lacking steak perhaps, [Trump]’ is supposed to indicate T(rump) should the whole word ‘Trump’ be redacted, or only the initial letter. Then I thought that maybe only the first letters of the words in 24d should be redacted, since the partially redacted words ‘m[i]ce’ and ‘[s]pies’ also have some of their letters removed by the wordplay and those letters are not redacted. Maybe applying the redaction inconsistently is a true imitation of real redacted text.
In 20a, I was also a little confused by the (10, 1 word). I have seen puzzles elsewhere where the number indicates the number of letters in the entry but the word count refers to the answer but I felt it could have been explained better, especially since I would usually expect the Genius to enumerate e.g. 22a as (3,6) rather than (9, 2 words).
I assumed that the setter is actually Karla who has previously set puzzles for the Genius and elsewhere. [EDIT: as Jay@2 mentioned while I was writing too much]
Thanks, KGB and bridgesong.
Oh boy! I’ll say it must have been difficult to blog. Sorry to say I did not finish this one. I more or less had the theme when I got espionage and George Smiley. I then kept looking for characters as Ninas, rather than as hidden in the solutions themselves. I started looking for characters in the Le Carre books, but didn’t think of Tinker etc.
I don’t understand why ‘no less’ is clued by ironically that’s admirable. An incredibly convoluted puzzle. Well done on getting it out.
Matthew @3: I accept all your points, and I’m particularly annoyed that I have omitted the second redaction at 21 down. I’m sure that when solving I realised that the redacted word must indeed be Legion, but when writing the blog I was using the incorrect text so failed to mention it.
Viv from Oz@4: if you look at the definition of “no less” in Chambers you will see that it defines it as an expression usually used ironically to express admiration.
Less of a DNF than a HS (hardly started). Had convinced myself it was Philby, Burgess et al. Might make a good entrance exam for GCHQ entrants!
Not me this time. I applaud the theme, naturally. Well done KGB on constructing such an original and inventive puzzle. And thanks to bridgesong for the blog.
I started to go down that track too, Mr. Beaver@6. I’d just read “A Spy among Friends” by Ben Macintyre about Philby et al which led me down the wrong track. Gripping read btw, and has an afterword by Le Carré.
I loved this. I couldn’t quite parse everything but the definitions made it clear when they were right. As has been mentioned, ‘wordplay omitted’ puzzles are straightforward and expected, but adding the redactions makes it look impenetrable. I just wish I had thought of this myself – it is delicious.
I wonder if the redacted words spell out the intro (or end) of one Le Carré’s novels. I wouldn’t know, not having read any, but it would seem unreasonable if they were not related in some way.
This seemed impossible from the instructions. The key to this for me was intuiting GEORGE SMILEY, part of a genre to which I have not paid much attention, although the cinematic version of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy was within recent memory. I thought that the entries for “counterespionage” and “double agent,” while both cryptic and clever, were a little unfair, since it was not entirely clear whether or how these “modifications” might be “thematic.” That is, these solutions would seem to be “thematic,” but I finally just “modified” these accompanied by a shrug, according to how they fit in the available spaces with the crossers. A fine puzzle. I guessed at the uncensored clues for my own amusement, but I am curious to know what original clues were.
I’m in the “… as it happens, it’s perfectly possible to solve the puzzle without ever completely deducing the redacted characters. …” camp – I just ignored them (sorry KGB!) and solved what I could, tripped across GEORGE SMILEY relatively early on, then the (S)TINKER and the SOL-DIER confirmed things.
The (double) AGENT and (counter) ESPIONAGE raised an amused eyebrow.
Certainly harder than the average Genius, and a very novel device, but these puzzles are supposed to be hard, and have a whole month to be solved, so not complaining.
Several general aspects of the Genius set-up raise their heads here:
a) there is no way to ‘show your workings’, e.g. to show that you got the hidden TTSS – submitting a filled/annotated grid would allow that, as per EV, IQ, etc. (They did give us an extra field on this one for KARLA, but that is very rare, and I can imagine it gave their tech support palpitations at having to tweak decades-old code to do it!)
b) as a corollary to that, I’m never quite sure what to enter in the form – with ESPIONAGE, should I put ‘EGANOIPSE (counter ESPIONAGE)’ to show that I got the thematic modification? For the double AGENT, should I indicate that I realise it is a ‘double’ agent? I have read on here before that the entries are processed automatically, e.g. by stripping punctuation, ignoring case and then comparing to a ‘correct’ value, but then any exceptions are manually checked, just to make sure. So hopefully anything similar to above would be checked and passed as correct, but who knows!
c) since the Grauniad copped out of providing annotated solutions a couple of years ago, we may never know what the correct answers are, or the full explanation of the device. So unless KGB comes out of the cold and explains all here, we may never be any the wiser…
Rant over – and it wasn’t directed at KGB, to whom thanks for the entertainment and challenge!
mc_rapper67@12: you make some good points about the Genius submission process. For some time now software has been available that allows solvers to submit entries with highlighting, or with more than one character in a cell. I first came across it when submitting entries to CAM (the Cambridge University magazine, where John Henderson is the resident setter) and Adam Vellender has developed something similar for entrants to the monthly competition on Derek Harrison’s Crossword Centre website. So there really is no excuse for The Guardian to persist with such an outdated and inefficient method.
Where in the Guardian are solutions to the Genius published? I’m probably being dim but I’ve never found them. Also, is the winner’s name published somewhere? I’m fairly sure I’ve seen it somewhere but can’t remember where now.
bridgesong at #13 – indeed, there are better ways out there. I suspect the issue is IT budgets, and to be fair to the Grauniad they have kept their puzzles free/un-paywalled…it is just that you get what you pay for!
Crossbar at #14 – as per point c) of my comment above, the Grauniad used to publish an ‘annotated solution’ for the Genius and the Prize puzzles, but they stopped this a while ago, and the main justification seemed to be that the 15×15 blogs provide the answers!
The winners’ names for Prize and Genius are on the main Grauniad Crosswords page (https://www.theguardian.com/crosswords), just have to scroll down a bit – and they are a bit haphazard in terms of updates…
Crossbar, the winner is published (one month behind) under the heading for Genius Solutions (which are two years behind). I had a thought about the redaction for 25. It seems to scan as 7,2,3,6,5, so I suggest – Remnant of one myopic mouse. (4) … the theme is nursery-rhyme-ish.
Thanks mc_rapper@15 and prospero@16.
That’s really bizarre that they don’t publish any solutions.🤷♀️
The setter is an experienced one. This pseudonym is “version 2” of his usual one!
See now this article by Alan Connor (particularly the link to the pdf) https://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/crossword-blog/2025/aug/04/crossword-editors-desk-a-genius-is-unredacted?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
I was pleased to see that where I did guess the redactions, I was right, as was Matthew @3 above.
Pleased to see the big reveal, though we’re none the wiser as to the identity of KGB!
Thanks for the link @bridgesong, but I’m disappointed that there appears to be no connection between the redacted words or logic to decide which ones to redact. I’m glad I didn’t persist in the hope of a Damascene revelation. Am I missing something?
Mr Beaver – there is a logic: everything that touches any of the theme words is redacted – see jono’s elucidation on crosswordsolver.org
Mr Beaver: Prospero is correct, and I should perhaps have been more explicit about this in my preamble. The wordplay for every letter forming part of the four thematic words (Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy) is redacted, even in the clues to answers which cross the thematic words. The thematic name George Smiley is also wholly redacted in the same way.
Thanks for the elucidation, prospero and bridgesong
If you look at the people who may be at the York S&B in October, Stuart Thomas has given his pseudonyms as Cagey and KGB.
When we saw the setter’s name and the clues we realised we were in for a challenge as we blogged Cagey’s puzzle that he submitted for the Nottingham S&B.
Most of the time we ignored the redacted words. The only one we couldn’t parse was GREASE so thanks to Ken for helping out. We wondered about AGENT AGENT too. We actually entered our completed grid which we hardly ever do but had the same concern as others about what to enter.
Thanks to S&B. This was one of those Genius puzzles that we were relieved to find that we weren’t blogging!
Good point, B&J, I forgot to thank bridgesong for ‘taking one for the (Genius blogging) team’…I also offered up a silent prayer of thanks!
This might have been a fair puzzle for me unredacted. With about a third of the clues involving some sort of NHO like Tiree, fire step, un (why not “a French”?), or ge, there was no way for me to get enough of the grid to winkle the theme, and there was no way forward without that. Especially with lurking fear that anything I might have written in could turn out to be one of the answers that had to be modified.
I hope the next puzzle with this complex a theme makes it easier to fill the grid in partway before leaping to the theme.
Late to the party. I’m fairly certain the redacted phrase from 9 across is “start to eat”.
Half goat: you’re right, but if you refer to my comment at 19 above and follow the link to the pdf in the article by Alan Connor, you will see the full unredacted text.
Belatedly, congratulations to Matthew on winning the prize!