Guardian Genius 268 by Odo

A debut Genius from Odo…whose real identity was revealed to me at the York get-together…

The preamble states that:

“Wordplay in each across clues generates an extra letter that doesn’t belong in the grid; in order these letters should lead the solver to a thematic modification of a single word in each down clue. The unclued down entry is thematic.”

So a game of two halves – extra letters in the Acrosses, and some word-level ‘modifications’ in the Downs.

An initial run through the Across clues yielded a few letters, but nothing distinguishable yet. But then on the Down clues an initial inkling of what might be going on came at 2D. ‘Seaweed’ is often ORE, that ‘hard’ could be H, and ‘close to land’ could be INSHORE. In which case, ‘correct’ cycling would be INS, uncycled to give SIN…but a sin is a wrong, not correct. So could it be opposite words substituted?

This helped with a few more – 4D looked like ‘something’ in WAR. Exhausted often means to take out the middle letters. But WIN exhausted would be WN, whereas LOSE would be LE, giving WALER. And similarly 7D looked like DOUBT – an anagram of BUT and definition uncertainty. But half of UP would be U, whereas half of DOWN would give the DO.

It was only when I got to 15D that the next realisation dawned – ‘rose’ and ELEGANT ‘rambling’ suggested EGLANTINE, but again the rest of the wordplay didn’t work unless LOSE became WIN. But I’d already swapped WIN for LOSE at 4D – so rather than just being opposites, maybe they were pairs of opposite word in different clues.

And so it became clearer – words from the Down clues for the top half of the grid were swapped with their opposites from clues to the bottom half:

• LOSE for WIN, and vice versa
• WRONG for CORRECT
• BROKE for WEALTHY
• DOWN for UP
• HEIGHT for DEPTH
• HARSH for PLEASANT

At some point, I had enough crossers to suggest that 5D was PARTNERS IN CRIME, although not sure what that signified, and could also turn my attention to the phrase given by the extra letters. These seemed to say:

• EDGE DUKES BET IN FILM

…which didn’t make a lot of sense until I did a diagonal and perimeter scan, and spotted RANDOLPH and MORTIMER. A little Wiki-oogling confirmed that they were two characters in the film ‘Trading Places‘, the Duke brothers (Don Ameche and Ralph Bellamy), who made a bet about the ‘nature vs nurture’ concept of taking a poor down-and-out criminal (Eddie Murphy) and making him trade places with a pampered and spoilt employee at their commodity broking firm (Dan Ayckroyd). Much hilarity ensues, although I probably haven’t watched the film since the 80s, and suspect it might be quite dated by now…

Apart from helping to explain the ‘trading’ of words in the Down clues, this extra information was not actually necessary to complete the puzzle – unless one hadn’t yet got partners in crime? – as there was no need (or method) of indicating that one had worked this out. So I guess solvers could probably have ‘jorum’ed in 5D and submitted their entry without having gone down this particular rabbit hole!

It was only when writing up the blog that I realised I hadn’t fully parsed 10A STUDIO, and worked out that the extra letter was Y, giving EDGY DUKES, who fill the edges of the grid:

 

And that was that – an interesting and challenging puzzle in itself, with the various devices going on, and a bit of 80s nostalgia and research thrown in at  the end!

And therein lies the beauty and variety of the Genius series – from the pure wordplay type puzzles such as alphabetical jigsaws to Soup’s recent ‘overlaying words’ to Enigmatist’s puzzle full of thingumys and whatsits, more classical themes like Dorothy Parker quotes and Twin’s masterful Two Ronnies/Mastermind sketch – to Claw’s recent Castlemaine XXXX advertisement theme to 70s and 80s films like The Taking of Pelham 123 (Claw again) and this one here…

As to Odo? I hope he doesn’t mind me ‘outing’ him here, but he turns out to be Rob Townsend (Rob T on here) who mainly sets as Henri. However he told he was not allowed to use a pseudonym from ‘elsewhere’ for the Genius, so he plumped for another name connected to French royalty – Odo being the birth name of Henry I of France, as well as appearing multiple times in this list…

‘Merci beaucoups’ to Odo/Rob/Henri, and I trust all is reasonably clear below….

 

Across
Clue No	Extra letter	Solution	Clue (definition underlined) Logic/Parsing (extr(A) letter bolded in brackets)
1	E	RIPSAW	One’s cutting with praise, craftily (6) anag, i.e. craftily, of W (with) + PRAIS(E)
5	D	PARADIGM	Soldier and doctor circling mine, for example (8) PARA (paratrooper, soldier) + M(D) (Medicinae Doctor, Latin, Doctor of medicine) around (circling) DIG (mine, for example)
9	G	ASSAILER	A special project with German aggressor (8) A + S (special) + SAIL (to project, separate definition in Chambers) + (G)ER (German)
10	Y	STUDIO	Movie producer‘s exercise in art: The First Love (6) STUD(Y) (exercise in art) + I (one, the first) + O (zero, love in sport scoring, e.g. tennis)
11	D	NOWT	Retired professor put on weight for nothing (4) NO(D) (don, professor, retired, or reversed) + WT (weight)
12	U	RENAL	Neural convulsing of kidneys (5) anag, i.e. convulsing, of NE(U)RAL
13	K	TEAR	Cause pain to the heartless chest (4) T(H)E (the, heartless – either losing central letter, heart, or losing H – hearts, cards?) + AR(K) (chest)
14	E	DEGREE	Tailless bird in river for 60 minutes (6) D_E(E) (UK river, mostly in Wales but flowing into England) around EGRE(T) (tailless bird)
16	S	RICOCHET	Bouncer – doorman, essentially – in charge briefly of strongbox (8) R (essence, or middle letter, of dooRman) + IC (in charge) + O (of, briefly, or abbreviated) + CHE(S)T (strongbox)
18	B	OLD DELHI	Daring shop taking on hotel in walled city (3,5) (B)OLD (daring) + DEL_I (shop) around (taking on) H (hotel)
20	E	SCAMPI	Waitress finally arrived with epic shelled seafood (6) S (final letter of waitresS) + CAM(E) (arrived) + (E)PI(C) (epic, shelled, outer letters removed)
22	T	LEVA	In Bulgaria, money from rent very advanced (4) LE(T) (rent) + V (very) + A (advanced)
24	I	NACRE	Newton, one collecting infrared iridescent material (5) N (newton) + AC_E (one) around (collecting) (I)R (infrared)
26	N	TERM	Nine months? Three months! (4) TER(N) (three, set of three) + M (months) [the term of a human pregnancy being about 9 months]
27	F	PIROGI	On the counter, provided travel bag to carry duck dumplings (6) I(F) (provided) + G_RIP (travel bag) around (carrying) O (zero, duck, in cricket) all gives IGORIP which, on the counter, or reversed = PIROGI!
28	I	INHUMANE	Cruel to bury entertaining Scotsman (8) INHUM_E (bury, inter) around (entertaining) (I)AN (stereotypical name for a Scotsman)
29	L	HEXYLENE	Witch ‘English Nelly’ knocked back chemical (8) HEX (witch) + YL(L)ENE (E, English and NELLY, knocked back)
30	M	LINEAR	Latin writer is almost straightforward in terms of narrative (6) L (Latin) + I(M) (I’m, the writer is) + NEAR (almost)
Down
Clue No	‘Traded’ words	Solution / Entry	Clue (definition underlined, traded word in bold) Logic/Parsing
2	WRONG for CORRECT	INSHORE	Correct to cycle on hard local seaweed close to land (7) INS (sin, wrong, cycling first letter to last) + H (hard) + ORE (dialect, or local, for seaweed) [first inkling – opposites?…]
3	BROKE for WEALTHY	SHATTERED	Wealthy new theatre’s deserted (9) SHATTERE (anag, i.e. new, of THEATRES) + D (deserted)
4	LOSE for WIN	WALER	In contest win exhausted horse (5) WA_R (contest) around LE (LoseE, exhausted, or emptied)
5		PARTNERS IN CRIME	[Not clued] (8,2,5) thematic deduction
6	DEPTH for HEIGHT	RESELECTS	Again picks lesser canine, oddly lacking height somehow (9) anag, i.e. somehow, of LESSER + C (canine) + ET (dEpTh, lacking odd characters)
7	DOWN for UP	DOUBT	Up in the first half but floundering in uncertainty (5) DO (first half of DOwn) + UBT (anag, i.e. floundering, of BUT)
8	HARSH for PLEASANT	GRIMACE	Smirk provided by pleasant afternoon these days (7) GRIM (harsh) + A (afternoon) + CE (Christian Era, these days)
15	WIN for LOSE	EGLANTINE	Starting late, lose elegant rambling rose (9) anag, i.e. rambling, of (W)IN (win starting late) + ELEGANT
17	UP for DOWN	CRAFTSMAN	Saddler perhaps can’t initially settle farm down (9) anag, i.e. up, of CANT + S (initial letter of Settle) + FARM
19	CORRECT for WRONG	LEE TIDE	Wrong fish over in current moving with wind (3,4) EDIT (correct) + EEL (fish), all over to give LEE TIDE
21	PLEASANT for HARSH	PIRANHA	Head of harsh country has curtailed swimmer (7) P (first letter, or head, of Pleasant) + IRAN (country) + HA(S) (has, curtailed)
23	WEALTHY for BROKE	ATONY	Ultimately broke, after a fashion, leading to lack of energy (5) A + TON (fashion, fashionable people) + Y (ultimate letter of wealthY)
25	HEIGHT for DEPTH	ETHYL	Alcohol essentially thrown up, washing liquid limiting depth (5) LY_E (washing liquid) around (limiting) HT (height), all ‘thrown up’, or reversed, to give ETHYL