Twin makes his first appearance of 2025 today.
We struggled a bit with this, mainly due to Twin’s very crafty use of relatively obscure synonyms in both wordplay and definitions in several clues. However, we finally managed to fill the grid and enjoyed the challenge.
As it’s Saturday, we thought there might be a theme, but we could see no obvious connections. As is often the case when searching for a possible theme, Joyce started putting random likely words from the grid into a search engine….. up came a link with GLEN POWELL film titles:
4d / 6d; 13ac; 14ac; ‘Top Gun: 17ac’; ‘The Dark 19ac Rises’; ’21d 10 1/2′. We’re only seen one of these films: ‘Hidden Figures’ but we do recognise the names of some of the others. Such a shame though that Twin didn’t manage to get ‘The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society’ into the grid!
A reversal (‘swivelling’) of TAIL (seat) in HOG (corner)
MUFF (‘warmer’ – as in hand warmer) cooLER with ‘half removed’
WIN (success) in or ‘wearing’ AG (silver)
LIGHT (torch) in DEED (action)
An anagram (‘free’) of SOME HATED
A reversal (‘about’) of PUN (joke) U R (‘you are’ in texting)
wHITMAN (poet – Walt Whitman) missing the first letter or ‘refusing opening’
Double definition – the second referring to the option of sticking or twisting in gambling card games
AVER (state) in or ‘maintained by’ MICK (Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones)
K (king) NIGHT (dark)
Hidden (‘some’) in surprisingLY CRAss
An anagram (‘terrible’) of HIPSTER IN
BILL (poster) round or ‘absorbing’ AT ERA (times)
mADELEine (sponge cake) omitting or ‘not needing’ ‘mine’ round the outside
EM (space – in printing) BAR GO (energy)
OVETt (Steve Ovett – ‘distance runner’) missing the last letter or ‘short’ round RHO (Greek character)
RAP (hit) H (hard) after G (first letter or ‘onset’ of gunpowder)
An anagram (‘playing’) of MOVIE TITLe missing the last letter or ‘incomplete’
AUGUST (venerable) A (Australian)
HD (resolution – ‘high definition’) round or ‘seizing I (independent) + DEN (studio)
ME (Twin – the setter) LTD (limited) OWN (personal)
URE (Midge Ure – of Ultravox) ‘invading’ FIGS (‘some fruit’)
LAT (muscle) IN
A reversal (‘up’) of OP-ED (column – in a newspaper) in or ‘blocking’ RESIT (second test?)
HUMBLE (put down) BEEr (drink) missing the last letter or ‘unfinished’
hEIGHT (pinnacle, missing the ‘h’, as might occur in the East End) IE (that is) THe missing the last letter or ‘almost)
SO (like this) round or ‘limiting’ CE (church) and a reversal (‘in turn’) of IRAN (state)
ROSTER (roll) round or ‘containing’ A
A reversal (‘northern’ – in a down clue) of ARRAN (island) + TensE missing the middle letters or ‘voided’
A POLL (way to research) O (love)
A reversal (‘put back’) of laBEL with ‘LA’ (city) ‘removed’ and EC (city)
AT after S W and E (three points – of the compass)
Took me some time to see ‘stingy type’ as ‘a type that stings’ and ‘offer’ as ‘a person who offs others’. Well worth the struggle though.
Stuck for a while on my L2i: NARRATE & ADELE. Spotted the movies. >HIT MAN & <emTWISTERS as well…
Got delayed by bumblebee as humblebee is a new word for us. No chance with the theme.
One trouble for me was that until now I’d never heard of a humblebee so that made HITMAN, which is an hexcellent clue, rather hard to get. Never mind. Well worth the struggle as already mentioned. Also, in 29a I was distracted by ‘eyeshot’ for short distance(within). I wonder if that was intentional. Liked LATIN for the def, ‘resolution’ in HIDDEN, and ADELE for the wordplay. Thanks B&J and Twin.
Thanks both. Like others, I was amazed when checking that HUMBLEBEE not bumblebee was the answer – I had as much chance knowing this long-since obsolete word as I did the decapitated poet in HITMAN, and though Greek letters are far fewer than poets across history I was slow to recognise ‘rho’ in OVERHOT though I did know Steve Ovett but still wonder if a ‘distance runner’ exists without a prefix. I feel the setter aimed to win this battle, in which case the objective was at least partly achieved, but quite a lot to enjoy along the way.
I liked this. Twin seems very skilled. Do we know him or her by any other name?
I see there is a battle between the two most frequently-consulted dictionaries over whether or not humblebee (Collins) should actually be humble-bee (Chambers).
occasional @6: Twin is highly skilled and his recent Genius in the Guardian has been hailed by many as the puzzle of the year. Even if Genius puzzles are not your thing, it’s worth checking out both the 225 blog and the article about the puzzle that appeared in the Guardian. We are lucky to have him on the roster.
And, yes, this was not one of his easy ones so I was delighted when the final answer – CELEB – went in. I only managed about 40% of the puzzle on first pass through the clues; crossers made the second go more productive and clue after clue was a pleasure to solve and parse. My only problem was entering PHRENITIS instead of NEPHRITIS. Both are nho and both are medical conditions and my mistake only became apparent when the likely NARRATE would not fit. Particularly annoying as I’d managed to work out the anagram in my head and was chuffed when checking Chambers to discover it existed. A Jorum, I thought!
I managed to avoid the BUMBLEBEE trap – I almost checked to see whether ‘bumble’ might mean ‘put down’ and then thought it surely had to be ‘humble’ and, having wondered whether Twin was being cheeky with ‘offer’ (which I saw as a definition for ‘assassin’ not that long ago), (W)HITMAN immediately came to mind and that justified HUMBLEBEE. There really was not a duff clue to be found here so I won’t list favourites; I could tick just about everything.
Thanks Twin and B&J
To add to PostMark’s comment, Twin is also a top solver, finishing in the final five in the Times championship. 26a made me laugh, as this was a reference to that – he would have been second but he made an error in the final, putting this in rather than Biliteral. I knew phrenitis, my co-solver knew nephritis, so we waited. Thanks Twin and B&J.
Thanks Twin. This was a bit of a struggle with guessing from crossers & definitions occurring more than I like. There were many excellent clues, however, so the effort was worthwhile in the end. My picks included DELIGHTED, MAVERICK, BILATERAL, GRAPH, MELTDOWN, and LATIN. I had problems with HITMAN/HUMBLEBEE (who knew such an insect existed?) as well as a few parsing questions answered thankfully by B&J.
Nearly got this all. Although I knew HUMBLEBEE, I couldn’t set why HITMAN was an offer. Annoyingly, Whitman is a favourite poet of mine, much set by many composers.