Monk sets June’s Genius challenge.
The preamble reads:
All clues and solutions are normal. However, before entry in the grid the down solutions must be treated in a way indicated by elements of the across entries.
Clearly, the only way to get into this puzzle is to solve a number of clues to identify clashes in the crossing cells to see if a pattern emerges giving an indication of how the down entries are to be treated. The ‘elements of the across clues’ had us really puzzled at the beginning.
Fortunately, we solved 1ac straight away.
We were stuck on a couple of down clues (5d and 6d) but once we guessed that all the letters in the down answers had to be entered in alphabetical order we were able to sort things out. FOLLOW ORDERS appears in the end right and left columns – these are the ‘elements of the across clues’. We noticed the possibility of the nina while we still had a few clues to solve and the extra letters helped us to complete the grid. We’re not sure that if we had solved all the across clues and then noticed the nina, it would immediately have told us that it refers to alphabetical order, but that’s a minor quibble – it is an ingenious grid-fill.
Many of the clues incorporated definitions which we were not aware of – lots of checking in Chambers for us this month.
Thanks Monk – we enjoyed the challenge.
CARPETING (reprimanding) round BEAT (defeat)
S (succeeded) in or ‘stopping’ F (France) ET AL (and others)
‘Half of’ OIL IT ‘half of’ CONtinually, reversed or ‘from the back’. Thanks to Matthew for pointing out the error we made when compiling the blog.
Alternate letters (‘ousted off and on’) of sOcIaLlY
Cryptic definition
ILKLEY (Yorkshire town) with the first ‘L’ (Liberal) ‘jumping’ forward and the second ‘jumping’ back – ‘Liberals jumping both ways’
ONTO (aware of) I (one) in or ‘breaking’ ODD (occasional)
N (note) in LOG (record) HAIR (60s musical) – a new meaning for us
DIE (suffer) round or ‘without’ VIN (French for wine) – we haven’t come across DIVINE as a noun before
C (chapter) in or ‘occupying’ an anagram (‘ground’) of CITADEL ON
BOO (show contempt) R (Republican)
WHAT (that which) round or ‘covering’ INCH (small distance)
R (resistance) + an anagram (‘mobile’) of SAUDI
An anagram (‘another way’) of BUTLERS YES PUT
I (one) FED (US agent) after or ‘trailing’ I (international) CON (convict – ‘prisoner’) round or ‘arresting’ I (one)
S T (last or ‘final’ letters of loseS weighT) after TRY (test)
YELLOW-bellY (coward) without or ‘forgetting’ ‘bell’ (ring)
BURTON (drink – named after the town) + an anagram (‘unexpectedly’) of UP NOT + RENT (split)
A homophone (‘reported’) of COLEMAN – George Coleman, American jazz saxophonist
We’re not 100% sure about this one, but we think it must be: TRIUMph (victory) missing the last two letters and VIRIle (manly) missing the last three two letters – both ‘repeatedly curtailed’ – but not by the same amount Again, thanks Matthew – we missed the fact that we needed another I when it came to writing up the blog.
I (one) inside or ‘sporting’ GONG (medal)
PIG (swine) + an anagram (‘anyhow’) of GONE IN – new word for us
O (old) XI (eleven in Roman numerals – ‘team’) in or ‘intercepting’ NOUS (intelligence) + ugLY (last two letters or ‘not half’)
BERG (mountain) AM (in the morning) all reversed or ‘climbing’ round or ‘traversing’ H (hot) – we were vaguely aware of this term, but we had to check it – the countries of NW Africa collectively, sometimes including Libya
OTT (over the top – ‘too much’) in odd letters of DuRrElL – we’d heard of the bird of this name, but not the ‘stupid fellow’
C (about) HOSE (stockings) – another new word for us, but as it comes from the French for ‘thing’, not too obscure – apparently a legal term
BravE (first and last letters or ‘extremes’ only) reversed or ‘revolutionary’ BED (plot)
In my first pass through the clues I solved 21a, 23a, 24a and 21d at which point I was able to guess how the down answers should be entered, so I didn’t spend too long not being able to make use of checking letters.
I was pretty sure that 4d was something UPON TRENT, but waited until I had all of the checking letters and was able to guess what the first word was. I see now that an online search for ‘upon trent’ would have quickly led to the answer. I was a little unhappy that the word for drink was derived from the same town as the answer.
In 9a, I think ‘half of it’ is supposed to refer to the whole phrase ‘oil it continually’ which has 16 letters.
I believe the answer to 6d is the plural TRIUMVIRI, which means both words are missing their last two letters. Obviously TRIUMVIR is one letter short, but you have the correct jumbled entry in the blog. I was still a little unhappy with this clue because we would use the plural if we were talking about only two members of a triumvirate, or even two people who are members of different triumvirates.
Thanks for the blog, Bert and Joyce. I agree that the ‘help’ in the preamble was no help as to how the down clues were to be treated: like you, we had to guess that they had to be sorted alphabetically, only to see FOLLOW ORDERS much, much later. 21d was our way in to the method – we had the answer and –D-E in the grid, so some sort of re-ordering seemed in order.
We shared Matthew’s reservation about 4d, but overall found it an enjoyable challenge after an initial lengthy period of bafflement!
It was a tough winkling the last few downs out even when you knew what was going on
I needed help!
Thanks Monk for a Genius worthy of the name
And thanks B&J
Thank you Monk and BertandJoyce. I found this tough, not cottoning on to the alphabetical order until very late in the game. The nina helped me with a couple of across clues and I thought it a very good genius with enough easy starters to get a foothold and enough chewy ones to keep me at it for some time. Again, ingenious gridfill to stop us using wordfinders (if tempted) and some lovely definitions. I thought 11ac a weak point but enjoyed 4dn as though I’d never heard of the drink, as a homebrewer I knew about “burtonising” water so it was not an unreasonable guess.
A great challenge and very satisfying to solve. Well done Monk and thanks to B&J.
I think this is the first Genius I’ve completed, having spotted the trick early on (but still didn’t notice the nina until today!). I had Ornette in mind rather than George for the saxman in 5d, not that it makes any difference. Can I ask a question of procedure, though? When submitting the entry, should I have entered the down answers in their normal order or alphabetically? Thanks!
An enjoyable Genius – thanks to S&B, or rather, M and B&J!
I had a similar solving experience to several here – gradually realised, by osmosis, that Downs were probably to be sorted alphabetically, some ‘chewiness’ towards the last few, and only saw the Nina right at the end.
brian-with-an-eye at #6 – there has been much debate on Genius form entry over the years – there is minimal guidance provided. A while back the Grauniad editor indicated that entries are human-checked, rather than machine-checked, so as long as the human checking your entry can understand what you mean (and you are all correct!) you should be in with a chance of the prize. I quite often put the ‘grid entry’, followed by any relevant ‘working’. So here I chose to put the alphabetically sorted entry first, and then the original in brackets:
‘CDEFIIINO (ICONIFIED)’
etc.
But having said that, it is years since I won the prize – so either my approach is wrong, or I am just being unlucky!
AHKNST KMNO!
My first 2 downers were PIGEONING and EBBED and as a I also had SUPERSUBTLETY spent a long time thinking the device might be ‘first to last’ or some thing similar.
Very impressive when the PDM occurred, this made a really interesting challenge.
The wording of the Nina was a bit at variance with the theme as our blogger says but added to the enjoyment. I definitely worked out the Nina from the theme rather than vice versa, and managed to pick up some handy crossers as a result.
Ave Monk for a great fun concept and challenge. And gratitude to Bertandjoyce (abcdeejnorty) for crystal clear blgo and all other contributors for augmenting the unf.
Thanks Bertandjoyce for unravelling all this with an “assist” for Matthew@1, many across solutions were beyond me so I never got as far as working out what to do with the few down clues that I could solve, but enjoyed those that I did unscramble and can now appreciate the full subtlety of the puzzle. Brian-with-an-eye@6 I was also thinking along those lines plus of course Coleman Hawkins so there is a ‘Triumvirate’ of saxophoning Colemen! Thanks Monk for stretching my grey cells to breaking point.