Just like London buses…you wait ages (since 2018!) for an Enigmatist to blog, and then three come along in a row – two recent Grauniad Saturday Prize puzzles, and now Genius 262…
The (short and sweet) preamble states that:
“Answers to asterisked clues are – of course – undefined. 8 21?”
And a quick scan of the clues shows that twelve (out of 28) are asterisked – a pretty large proportion of thematic material!
Clearly 8 21 was going to be a key entry, and luckily I managed to get it quite early on. Except that I still didn’t really know what he meant! (Or how to parse/classify it fully.) And a little focus on the ‘normal’ clues started to build up a framework of crossers which would hopefully prove useful.
Fortunately, or maybe not(!), I am old enough to remember Freddie Laker and his SKYTRAIN at 5D, and the LAND CRAB, MAGGOT, CRICKET and COMMON MYNA formed a useful menagerie, although I couldn’t find any specific reference to a ‘common’ myna – I guess there must be some posh ones and some common ones(?!)… The ‘cheekily’ shown MOON at 26D raised a wry smile, and the G-STRINGS had to be that from the ‘underwear’ definition and crossers – not Y-FRONTS as they would be too short, but it took a while to unpick the parsing of that one.
Then I chanced upon ‘THINGY’ as a hidden sequence in the unclued 18A, and also ‘vacuous terms’ seemed like EMPTY WORDS at 20A/4D, although I still haven’t parsed it as I write this up. Along with GIZMO and DOODAH, at some point I twigged that we were in the realm of you know, DOOBREY WHATSITs, THINGAMYs, words that people use when they can’t quite remember what it is they were referring to. (We’ll all be there at some point in the old people’s home, if we make it that far!)
And in a bit of a rush it all fell into place – OOJAMAFLIPs, WHATNOTs, DOOHICKEYs and HOOTNANNYs (a new word to me, usually associated with Jools Holland as ‘Hootenanny’ at New year). JIGGUMBOBs and JIGGERs sounded a bit more American than the others, but by this time I think I did know what he meant…
I have to admit to feeling a little daunted by being faced with yet another Enigmatist, and feared for the worst as it wasn’t ‘just’ a weekly prize puzzle but a monthly Genius, but in the end it all fell in to place on the day of publication…although I have been back to stare at it several times in the month since, and still can’t fully parse 20A/4D, or classify 8A/21A…any enlightenment below gratefully received…
Only slight quibble would be that SO-SO at 28A should probably be enumerated as (2-2) or (2,2) – I know hyphens aren’t usually indicated in barred puzzles, but we are still in blocked-puzzle territory here…
My thanks to Enigmatist for a, um, you know, dum-de-dum, what do you call those things that please and entertain, oh yes, eclairs, no, er, Nurse!…
| Across | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Clue No | Solution / Entry | Clue (definition underlined – where there is one!)
Logic/Parsing |
||
| 7 | HOOT(NANNY) | & 14 *Call from Member of Parliament to nurse (9)
HOOT (call from an owl, possible member of a parliament of owls) + NANNY (nurse) |
||
| 8 | DO YOU KNOW (WHAT I MEAN) | & 21 Any idea how Motown rebranding involves UK? (2,3,4,4,1,4)
DO YO_ _NOW WHAT I MEAN (anag, i.e. rebranding, of ANY IDEA HOW MOTOWN) around (involving) UK |
||
| 10 | LAND CRAB | Animal to which chromium’s added in research facility (4,4)
L_AB (laboratory, research facility) around AND (to which?) + CR (chromium) |
||
| 11 | DO TIME | Serve porridge left to daughter (one’s last in queue) (2,4)
DO_T (TO + D – daughter, written leftwards) + IM (I am, one is, form the setter’s point of view) + E (last letter of queuE) |
||
| 12 | DOOHICKEY | *I like it very much in the driver’s seat (9)
D_ICKEY (driver’s seat, on a stagecoach) around OOH (interjection, I like that!) |
||
| 14 | NANNY | See 7 (5)
see 7A |
||
| 16 | JIGGER | *A Rolling Stone’s lost without one (6)
J(A)GGER (Mick, Rolling Stone) losing A and then being put outwith I (one) |
||
| 18 | THINGY | *Sequence that’s maintaining health in gym (6)
hidden word in, i.e. sequence from, ‘healTH IN GYm’ |
||
| 20 | EMPTY (WORDS) | & 4 Vaguely you could make do with pretty vacuous terms (5,5)
?? [Still my LOP – Last One Parsed, as I haven’t managed it yet…!] |
||
| 21 | WHAT I MEAN | See 8 (4,1,4)
see 8A |
||
| 24 | UFFIZI | Fine to get backing whenever in gun museum (6)
U_ZI (machine gun) around FFI (F, fine, plus FI, if, whenever, backing) |
||
| 25 | THINGAMY | *Scandalous post typical of a rake (8)
THIN (thin as a rake) + GAMY (scandalous) |
||
| 27 | JIGGUMBOB | *Tree-hugging Gaelic dances (9)
JIG_BOB (Gaelic dances, one Irish, one Scottish) around (hugging) GUM (tree) |
||
| 28 | SO-SO | Not terribly impressive – and missing from a theme word (4)
SO-(AND-)SO could be a theme word, and removing AND gives SO-SO [hyphenated, or 2,2 in Chambers] |
||
| Down | ||||
| Clue No | Solution / Entry | Clue (definition underlined – where there is one!)
Logic/Parsing |
||
| 1 | WHOA | Stop Doctor regenerating on BBC One (4)
WHO (Doctor who regenerates on the BBC) = A (one) |
||
| 2 | DOODAH | *Cook took nothing from the cellar? (6)
DO (cook) + ODAH (HAD, took, plus O, zero, nothing, all upwards, so metaphorically coming up from a cellar) |
||
| 3 | DOOBREY | *Licensed to dispatch blighters originally invading nest in tree (7)
D_REY (squirrel’s nest in a tree) around (invaded by) OO (00, agent licensed to kill, e.g. 007) + B (original letter of Blighters) |
||
| 4 | WORDS | See 20 Across (5)
see 20A |
||
| 5 | SKYTRAIN | Turned creative during organ operation for Sir Freddie (8)
SK_IN (bodily organ) around YTRA (arty, creative, turned) [Sir Freddie Laker, of Skytrain fame in the 70s] |
||
| 6 | COMMON MYNA | Butterfly stays close to my new bird (6,4)
COMM_A (butterfly) around (stayed by) ON (close to) + MY + N (new) |
||
| 9 | CRICKET | It’s unfair if it’s not this little jumper (7)
double defn. – if something is not fair, it is ‘just not CRICKET’; and a CRICKET is a small jumping insect! |
||
| 13 | OOJAMAFLIP | *Old brass receives squeeze and a kiss (10)
OO_F (archaic, i.e. old, slang for money, or brass) around (receiving) JAM (squeeze) + A, plus LIP (to kiss) |
||
| 15 | WHATSIT | *Sense to lag stovepipe and chimney-pot? (7)
W_IT (sense) around (lagging) HATS (stovepipe and chimney-pot) |
||
| 17 | G-STRINGS | Out of zips, spell supplying outsize underwear (1-7)
G(O) (spell, turn) + ST(O)RING (supplying) + (O)S (outsize), all losing their Os, or zeroes, zips, nothings! |
||
| 19 | WHATNOT | *Husband against filling periods of desire! (7)
W_A_N_T (desire) periodically filled by H (husband) and T_O (to, against) |
||
| 22 | MAGGOT | Learned to track periodical grub (6)
MAG (periodical) before (traked by) GOT (learned) |
||
| 23 | GIZMO | *New line north the way to do things (5)
GIZ (zig, new direction, part of a zig-zag, northwards) + MO (modus operandi, the way to do things) |
||
| 26 | MOON | Perhaps cheekily show second leg (4)
MO (moment, second, ‘just a mo’) + ON (leg, cricket term) |
||
20 4 is a bit tricky. I think it’s &lit. but I do often get that wrong.
DO W[ith] P[rett]Y (vacuous) + TERMS
Thanks Enigmatist and mc_rapper67.
Got 8/21 right away…still it was hard work. Happy to have completed.
Parsed 20/4 as Admin did.
The Common Myna is called the Indian Myna in Australia and is considered a real non-native pest here as it’s displaced the native Noisy Myna.
Parsed EMPTY WORDS as Admin and would also call it an &lit.
EMPTY WORDS
Agree with Admin and Tim C that it’s an &lit.
LAND CRAB
(my understanding)
to which Chromium’s added=AND CR
Thanks Enigmatist and mc.
Yet another quality Genius puzzle with an interesting and original theme. The best moment came quite early on: my first answer was MOON, which helped me to get SO-SO (or SOSO), whose clue referred to a ‘theme word’ that had to be SO-AND-SO. I wondered then whether the answers to the asterisked clues were going to be words like THINGUMMY and WHATSIT. I had to solve a few more normal clues, starting with UFFIZI and G-STRINGS, before I solved any of the themed clues, but, once I got started, they got a bit easier.
I found some of the clues quite tough, but this was to be expected. Also, the fact that some of the theme words have variants or different spellings added some complexity and fun to the task of solving the themed clues (examples being doodad, dohickey and thingummy).
Thanks to Enigmatist and mc_rapper.
I was delighted to complete this (I rarely attempt Genius puzzles, and don’t often complete the ones I start) – a positive wavelength intersection. My way in to the theme was also SO-SO. Some of the theme words took a lot of finding and were a revelation.
Super puzzle. Reminded me of a lovely Arachne clue:
Little sticky whatsit (9)
I must be particularly slow today, but I still can’t parse EMPTY WORDS (although I guessed it had to be the answer) despite the explanation. How does DO W TERMS equate to the answer?
bridgesong @7
Def. ‘vacuous terms’
Anagram (‘Vaguely’) of DO + W[ith] + P[rett]Y + TERMS
with ‘vacuous terms’ (together and separately) doing double duty.
Alan B: thank you!
Many thanks for the blog mc_rapper67. We had circles around 2d and 19d which meant we couldn’t parse them so thanks for the explanation.
Like others, this was quite a challenge as we didn’t know some of the variant spellings. It was however good fun so thanks also to Enigmatist.
Late thanks for this mc_rapper as I hadn’t parsed WHATNOT (confused myself with the AT in the middle, not entirely convinced that periods works as well as periodically would, cryptically, but of course is better for the surface) and was relieved to see that this in fact was the answer as it might have been another word that I hadn’t come across – plenty of googling (I remembered Laker but not the name of his airline, for example) and searching through online dictionaries this month! Overall my solving progress and experience very similar to yours and I think the relative plethora of Enigmatic puzzles in the G recently definitely helped in getting on to the right wavelength here. My main problem parsing 20/4 was that I don’t think the “Vaguely” is needed – “You could make” is enough to give us the hint to get anagramming, I reckon, though the double duty noted above makes this a less satisfactory clue for me. Enough mild carping, I enjoyed this far more than I expected to and felt properly pleased with myself on completion, so huge thanks Enigmatist.
Thanks for all the comments so far – much appreciated, as usual, especially Admin at #1 et al for explanations of EMPTY WORDS.
(I’m usually in there with attributing things as &lit(-ish), and then usually being told they aren’t, so slightly embarrassed to have missed this one completely!)
Otherwise, not too many quibbles and generally well received…by those who have commented…
jvector at #6 – glad to hear you were ‘on the wavelength’ with this one…and thanks for the Arachne memory!