“Across answers must be entered in a consistent manner, always producing a real word or phrase as the grid entry.” After getting a few downs in the grid it didn’t take me long to guess that this meant cycling the letters of the acrosses to get the entries. In the explanations below I’ve shown the solution to the clue followed by the grid entry. A fun puzzle, and a clever construction to find a set of suitable words with hardly any obscurities, but definitely on the easier end of the Genius spectrum. Many thanks to Picaroon.
| Across | ||||||||
| 8 | HEATHENS ENSHEATH |
They don’t believe cooks about source of eggs (8) HEN (source of eggs) in HEATS (cooks). Heathens aren’t necessarily non-believers, but rather believers in the “wrong” gods. (Though Chambers does give “someone who as no religion” as one of its definitions) |
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| 9 | DEMOTE EMOTED |
Drop cat from the east in river (6) Reverse of TOM in DEE |
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| 10 | ECHT TECH |
Real and City heading for half time (4) EC (City of London) + H[alf] + T[ime] |
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| 11 | UNDERGOING GOING UNDER |
Having European articles, newspaper’s entered into award (10) UN + DER (French indefinite and German definite articles, respectively) + I (newspaper, styled as a lower-case i) in GONG (medal, award). This is the first clue where the rubric “numbers in brackets refer to the clues’ answers, not their entries” comes into play, to distinguish between (10) and (5,5) – not, as is often the case, because the lengths are different. |
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| 12 | SEARED RED SEA |
On vacation, simple American looking hot and burnt (6) A “vacated” S[impl]E + A[merican] + RED |
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| 14 | STONKING KINGSTON |
Huge monarch’s put on a lot of weight (8) STON[e] (a lot of (a unit of) weight) + KING. I got very confused trying to use TON (also “a lot of weight”) in this |
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| 15 | SPECTRE RESPECT |
Travelling reps receiving shocking treatment, showing spirit (7) ECT (Electro-Convulsive Therapy) in REPS* |
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| 17 | ELATING GELATIN |
What the narrator’s doing, not initially thrilling (7) [r]ELATING |
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| 20 | TAKEOVER OVERTAKE |
Find shelter, Conservative’s going for coup! (8) TAKE COVER less C |
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| 22 | ASTERN STERNA |
Daisy chain’s final piece at the back (6) ASTER (daisy) + [chai]N |
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| 23 | TABLE WATER WATER-TABLE |
You shouldn’t have sheep, maybe, drinking whiskey or a soft drink (5,5) TA (thank you, you shouldn’t have) + W in BLEATER (a sheep, maybe) |
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| 24 | ABET BETA |
Help ex-president Trump, losing seat (4) ABE (Lincoln) + TRUMP less RUMP (seat) |
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| 25 | TASMAN MANTAS |
Navigator took a chair around bishop, say (6) Reverse of SAT (took a chair) + MAN (a bishop is a chess man) |
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| 26 | BARSTOOL TOOLBARS |
Keeps idiot out, one seen in places to drink (3,5) BARS (keeps out) TOOL (idiot) |
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| Down | ||||||||
| 1 | ANTECEDE | Appear before Geordie entertainer on drugs, holding his partner up (8) ANT + reverse of DEC in E E – reference to these Geordie entertainers |
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| 2 | SHAH | Middle eastern ruler needing peace, I see (4) SH (be quiet! peace!) + AH (I see!) |
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| 3 | KANGHA | Winnie’s friend holding husband’s comb (6) H in KANGA (Winnie-the-Pooh’s friend); a new word for me – it’s a comb worn by Sikhs – and I nearly fell into the trap of entering the plausible KHANGA, which is an African word for a piece of decorative cloth |
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| 4 | SHRINKS | Leader of sales personnel puts pen marks on contracts (7) S[ales] + HR (personnel) + INKS (puts pen marks on) |
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| 5 | VERGENCE | Eye movement from priest turning up info on church (8) Reverse of REV + GEN + CE |
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| 6 | SOUND STAGE | Representation of sun to Degas in part of studio (5,5) (SUN TO DEGAS)* |
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| 7 | VENETO | Disallow touring outskirts of nice Italian region (6) N[ic]E in VETO |
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| 13 | SUPERHEATS | Really warms up meal half-heartedly – hot food (10) Half-heareted SUP[p]ER + H[ot] + EATS |
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| 16 | CHASTISE | Rebuke one’s Like a Virgin covers (8) I’S in CHASTE |
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| 18 | IGNITERS | Resiting bombs – they may create explosions (8) RESITING* |
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| 19 | YES-BUTS | Said why subset needs reordering, giving qualified answers (3-4) Y (“why”) + SUBSET* |
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| 21 | VEADAR | Raved wildly about a month in Israel (6) A in RAVED* |
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| 22 | STEP ON | Suppress flipping sign banning domestic animals (4,2) Reverse of NO PETS |
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| 24 | BOBS | Makes a mistake, wanting old hairstyles (4) BOOBS less O |
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No problems with this, and a neat collection of cycled words producing other real words.
My only problem was with submission where the usual confirmation message didn’t appear.
I wonder how many other words besides these 14 allow this sort of cycling? This device is reminiscent of another Genius with a kind of wraparound effect. Some of the down solutions were pretty obscure, but I enjoyed this puzzle.
Thanks for the blog. Agreed that this was on the easier side for a Genius, although it took us a while for the exact nature of the change to the across clues to become clear.
I think 14 was the key for us – the answer was looking like KINGSTON from the crossers, then in a light-bulb moment, we realised that Huge could be STONKING. Some obscure (to us) answers – VERGENCE, KANGHA, VEADAR, but the wordplay was very fair and just meant a quick Wikipedia check to confirm.
Not as intelligent as others and it was a DNF for me.
I was convinced that the across adjustment was to eliminate one letter and move the remaining word accordingly. Unfortunately this worked for my first few answers and I remained convinced to a point where I did not look elsewhere.
Probably the fastest time I’ve solved a Genius in, as like Andrew, some down answers soon showed me that I had to cycle the across answers. Enjoyed it. We had one like this several years ago by one of our more difficult setters in Australia, but he had the solutions actually looping around the grid, both horizontally and vertically.
Gordon F, I did the same for a while. For example, given that it worked for a few answers, I changed HEATHENS to SHEATHEN on first go.
As others found, the entry of a few Down answers (in my case in the NE of the grid) was enough to reveal the trick. All very enjoyable, especially with BARSTOOL and STONKING, as those were the most unexpected.
Cineraria @2, this was indeed reminiscent of a previous ‘cycling’ puzzle in this series: one by Picaroon in which the Across answers were entered in joined pairs, but cycled.
Thanks to Picaroon and Andrew.
A correction to my comment @6. The previous puzzle by Picaroon that I had in mind was no. 223 from two years ago, and the answers to all bar one of the clues were entered together in pairs and cycled.
Tim C@1 – The usual confirmation message didn’t appear last month, either. Looks like that’s the new normal from now on.
The Genius has been going for twenty years now and gradually falling apart for the last ten. Time for a reboot, AlanC.
Thought I’d seen VEADAR in a crossword before, but it must’ve been Pasquale’s ADAR SHENI from 4 years ago. Dr. WhatsOn explains.
It provoked a Marmite reaction – 36 mentions in the blog, and Pasquale himself gets a tad tetchy.
Thought I’d seen KANGHA in a crossword before, but it must’ve been Paul’s KIRPAN from last November – a different one of The Five Ks of Sikhism.
Thanks P&A
KANGHA
AZED 2670 had this clue:
A ‘K’ a Singh’s deployed … is this? (6)
KVa@10 – I haven’t done (tried to do) Azeds since the ’80s, when I gave up buying The Observer because of too many front-page stories about Harrods.
Who cared? Only the proprietor. With KANGHA, Azed’s a repeat offender: 1887, 2659, and 2670.
And Bradman (aka Pasquale) was trying to educate us about THE FIVE KS with an anagram *(HK FESTIVE) in The FT 12,895 way back in 2008.
There was only one commenter – Octofem – who “particularly liked” it. But I wouldn’t’ve seen any of these.
Thanks Andrew and Picaroon.
Neat. Enjoyed this.
Yes, remembered #223 by Picaroon, cycling pairs of answers across and down, except a single across clue as anchor. The grid entries, as we saw, were gibberish, but the perimeter had letters A to Z. That helped.