I’m writing this here with no fear that passers-by will get information that detracts from their enjoyment of the puzzle, because it is all quite open: nothing has to be discovered (except perhaps the hint from the first clue). Gemelo has quite brilliantly used the first letters in the words of a well-known poem (until there are no more clues) to restrict the words in the clues and he has achieved this with the minimum of strain, although it must have been incredibly difficult. In fact I solved it all before bothering to look at the preamble. It wouldn’t have helped me in my solving. No doubt because of the restrictions I found this rather harder than Gemelo’s usual.
Why Gemelo makes it so difficult for himself I’m not sure. I eagerly await the day when he produces a puzzle like one of Azed’s excellent Specials, where the solver has to discover something. He seems quite capable of doing so.
In fact I calculated that the poet was born in 1865, so looked for poets who were born then. The first one I found was W.B. Yeats and wondered if “Things fall apart: the centre cannot hold” was something to do with it, but the first answer soon put paid to that idea. If, ‘the nation’s favourite poem’. And of course there was no mistake: I suspected Gemelo had said ‘clues’ when he meant ‘answers’, or possibly ‘the first letters of all clues’. No.
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | KIPLING |
Indian-born fabulist’s YHA offering unopened catapult (7)
|
| kip (= bed; something the YHA (Youth Hostel Association) offers) [s]ling | ||
| 7 | OGRE |
Animal: nothing King Eugene’s ending (4)
|
| 0 GR [Eugen]e — I can’t quite understand why Gemelo thought it necessary to refer to the rather obscure King Eugene, when he could easily have referred to King Edward and his beginning | ||
| 10 | EULOGY |
Praise you overheard – unknown record heads (6)
|
| “you” log heading y | ||
| 11 | AIRED |
Exhibited acting, dire when hammered (5)
|
| A (acting) (dire)* | ||
| 12 | YIELDED |
Eyelid needing adjustment; lid’s last admitted (7)
|
| (Eyelid)* [li]d | ||
| 14 | D AND C |
Basis of uterine treatment: year off unwise, affected rake, essentially ludicrous (5, 3 words)
|
| dand[y] (a dandy is an unwise, affected rake) [ludi]c[rous] | ||
| 17 | INHOOPED |
“Only Shakespeare’s imprisoned, not gone” triumphantly howled (8)
|
| in (not out/gone, as in cricket) hooped (an alternative of whooped) | ||
| 18 | PREP |
Equestrian’s insignificant race school (4)
|
| I can’t really understand this but assume that in the world of equestrianism an insignificant race is called a prep, something that is vaguely confirmed by a Google search, although the normally-confident AI uses the word ‘likely’ | ||
| 20 | MISREADS |
Armies nutty detective badly looks at? (8)
|
| (Armies)* DS | ||
| 21 | NILE BLUE |
Messy inlet, nearly glum in tone (8, 2 words)
|
| *(inle[t]) blue | ||
| 24 | AGAS |
Officers needing yarn overturned (4)
|
| (saga)rev. — not helped by my reading yarn as yam | ||
| 25 | SEASHELL |
Ultimately innocuous, fearsome yakuza operates underworld conch? (8)
|
| [innocuou]s [fearsom]e [yakuz]a [operate]s hell | ||
| 29 | USAGE |
America nail timeless routine (5)
|
| USA ge[t] | ||
| 30 | INSPECT |
Uncertain spec, though you’ll observe underlying review? (7)
|
| Hidden in UncertaIN SPEC Though | ||
| 31 | BILLS |
Strokes embryonic laws (5)
|
| 2 defs — bills are presented to parliament on the way to becoming laws | ||
| 32 | APIECE |
Fog whizz holds each (6, 2 words)
|
| pie (= fog) which ace (= whizz) holds | ||
| 33 | EINE |
Nuremberg article lost lookers (4)
|
| Nuremberg signals German, and eine is a German article, as in Eine Kleine Nachtmusik — also eine is an obsolete word for eyes | ||
| 34 | TWINNED |
Matched effect – note – does occupy unruly boy (7)
|
| t(win n)ed | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | KEY SIGNATURE |
Thing Yale offers unintroduced, being under token major’s attestation? (12, 2 words)
|
| key then [n]ature under sign — nature = being — the key signature in music is a collection of sharps or flats on the stave at the beginnning of a piece and gives information about whether or not the key is major or minor | ||
| 2 | PLEA |
Keeping energy, abridged leisure lawsuit of Wishaw? (4)
|
| e in pla[y] — a Scottish term, indicated by Wishaw, which I could only tell you was in Scotland because the Scottish snooker player John Higgins is known as ‘the wizard of Wishaw’ | ||
| 3 | LOLLOP |
Achieve nothing capital, except final operation (6)
|
| loll[y] op — lolly = money = capital | ||
| 4 | NYES |
Retired things housing egg- laying? I refuse, dropping ordinary “uh-huh” (4)
|
| n[o] yes — yes = “uh-huh” — ‘Retired’ indicates that the word is retired from usage, ie is archaic | ||
| 5 | GADGES |
Browning’s torture instruments needing German trademarks, once opening’s ignored (6)
|
| G [b]adges — Chambers says ‘(Browning)’: I’m pretty sure this refers to the poet, not the gun-maker | ||
| 6 | SIDE-DRESS |
Fertilise yams? Order! (9)
|
| side dress — side as in a side dish, which yams could just about be | ||
| 7 | ORAL |
Unprincipled cutting Armenia’s not written (4)
|
| [Am]oral | ||
| 8 | GENERAL |
All-embracing information to announce naked (7)
|
| gen [h]eral[d] | ||
| 9 | ENCAPSULATED |
Described neatly, object trapping better Eastern talus in reversal (12)
|
| en(cap (E talus)rev.)d | ||
| 13 | INN SIGNS |
Establishments’ decorated boards you’ll want, audibly, in trigonometric items (8, 2 words)
|
| “in sines” | ||
| 15 | DAEDALIC |
Numb going over rabbit-chaser, but eccentricity’s inventive (8)
|
| (dead)rev. Alic[e] — Alice (in Wonderland) chased a rabbit — ‘but’ indicates removal | ||
| 16 | BOMBSHELL |
News! Good-looking lady (9)
|
| 2 defs | ||
| 19 | A LA MAIN |
Indonesian endless dish available (7, 3 words)
|
| [M]ala[y] main — the word order is slightly unnatural, but Gemelo had to make the clue sound | ||
| 22 | LEGIST |
Barrister on Uist to dismiss opening (6)
|
| leg [U]ist — leg = on (cricket) — because of the restrictions Gemelo couldn’t say anything like ‘barrister, perhaps’ to stop it from being a definition by example | ||
| 23 | CHOPIN |
Noted technician developing etudes alongside Liszt – interrupt! (6)
|
| chop in — for some reason Chopin is often associated with Liszt; chalk and cheese, so far as I can see | ||
| 26 | OGLE |
New Lego in eye, salaciously (4)
|
| *(Lego) | ||
| 27 | GNAW |
Old region below eye inverted; nag greatly here (4)
|
| (wang)rev. — it is just coincidence so far as I can see that the answer contains an anagram of nag | ||
| 28 | SEEN |
Audience’s tableau, e.g. discerned (4)
|
| “scene” |
I read the first letters of the clues which helped to solve 1a, but I mostly forgot about it while solving the puzzle. I imagine it must be very hard to write such a set of clues, and presumably the clues must be written in order and any change to the number of words in a clue would require all subsequent clues to be rewritten.
I had to look in Chambers to find INHOOPED which annoyed me a little because I was pretty sure I had seen it there before. I had been wondering if HOOT could mean ‘triumphantly howl’, and probably wouldn’t have thought of HOOP unaided as I would normally spell it WHOOP in this sense.
In 7a, if you want to use King Edward, you couldn’t change ‘ending’ to ‘beginning’ because it starts with the wrong letter.
For 18a, one meaning Chambers gives for PREP is “a preparatory race, ie a minor one that test a horse’s capabilities before the major one (horse-racing)”, but I only knew the ‘school’ definition.
Thanks, John and Gemelo.
Thanks for the blog , I agree that the setting is something to admire but I would prefer Specials that require me to do some extra work .
DAEDALIC is a very neat clue .
SIDEDRESS , yams is very weak . ENCAPSULATED , talus in clue and answer , not wrong but clumsy . Similar for (U)ist in LEGIST .
NYES , Chambers93 gives this as a variant of nid , not archaic , this may have changed .
PREP is simply a double definition .
Roz @2, hello again. 🙂 C2016 has NYES as a variant spelling of NID or NIDE which are both labelled as archaic and so I assumed that NYES was also archaic. I may be wrong as I have been many times in the past.
I suspect that my days of Azed and Gemelo may be limited due to the onset of paywalls and technology making all our lives easier. It was good while it lasted.
Hello Tim , NID/NIDE are not archaic in Chambers93 , must have got old in the next 23 years .
If you look on General Discussion or Site Feedback there are usually some links to Azed/Gemelo . I know less than nothing about this but I think the puzzles are still free in some format .
Yes Roz @4, haven’t we all got older in the last 23 years. I know about the links to the puzzles but given my knowledge and experience it won’t last long. I’ll probably try and spend more time on setting.
32a: APIECE is surely one word, not two, isn’t it?
thanks J and G! Tour de force wrt clue writing — but as you note once the trick has been discerned (“seen”) it no longer plays a role — other than forcing you to (re)read the poem.
thanks for GEN,ERAL parse (I was trying to make ERAL sound like a naked synonym — didn’t get very far).
If Gemelo wants to make it difficult for himself, that’s up to him. Unfortunately, it also impacts the solver, as some of the clue elements are stretched past normal tolerances. As Roz@2 (nice to see you again, Roz!) says, “yams” = SIDE is very weak and I thought “YHA offering” = KIP was, too. I also thought “Retired things housing egg-laying” was ridiculously convoluted, Indonesian endless = (M)ALA(Y) was very obscure and “Only” in 17ac was questionable. I struggled quite a lot with this and I can’t say I really enjoyed it. I haven’t always enjoyed “Specials” (I dislike Spoonerisms, for one), but I definitely prefer the concept to this kind of thing.
Thank you MunroMaiden@8 , I agree that a lot of clues could have been shorter or longer . It is difficult for Gemelo , very daunting to follow Azed in this slot , things may settle down over time . My advice would simply be – just write some hard clues .
I was told that Azed clue writing entries are now judged anonymously because of on-line entries . It certainly seems to have made a big difference to winners and VHC . I always suspected this .
I agree with Chris @6 that there is an enumeration error at 32 ac.
The winners of the December Azed competition can be found in today’s paper, or by looking at the pdf for today’s Azed prize puzzle. The number of VHC winners is very low, suggesting a very small entry. Unfortunately, the December slip has not yet been published, although in recent months it has been very brief and has not always included the number of submissions.
I did not get very far with this puzzle but I can say that Chambers defines A PIECE – two words – as each.
Bridgesong @10, I guess the recent changes to the free availability of Observer crosswords could have caused numbers to fall, but the low VHCs in this case could be due to an unusual number of people clueing pedaller instead of pedalier. I imagine Azed will tell us if so.