Claw last appeared in the Genius series in August of last year, with a very amusing puzzle based on a Castlemaine XXXX TV advertisement. Other than that, there are no other appearances by Claw that I can find in 2025, but such an accomplished setter must surely have other puzzles published, perhaps using different aliases.
The special instructions for this puzzle read as follows:
All clues must have a word removed before solving. These words, along with the completed grid, will be extremely helpful in identifying the cause of a stampede 20 years ago this month and a related phrase. Across clues contain five words and down clues five more which hint at who was responsible. Unclued entries indicate nine words which must be written above.
As usual, I had no idea of the theme, so just started solving clues and identifying the words to be removed. I have shown those [in square brackets] in the clues reproduced below, although of course there was no such help available when solving. After solving a few clues I was still none the wiser, as there seemed to be no logical connection between the removed words. I had spotted the word “extremely” in the preamble, so wondered if perhaps we needed to take the first and last letters from the words, but this was also unhelpful. As I filled the grid, I became aware of a possible Nina, highlighted in the diagram below. I wondered if perhaps this referred to the launch of a tech product, for which there had been a queue of anxious purchasers, causing a stampede. Online research revealed a real stampede at a ceremony during the hajj in Mecca in January 2006, leading to hundreds of fatalities. That seemed to be an unlikely theme for a puzzle and indeed it was a red herring. Only when I saw that the unclued answers at 14 and 16 down could read ALBUM TITLE, did I realise that the theme related to the launch of an album by the Sheffield band, the Arctic Monkeys. The title of the very fast-selling album launched in January 2006 was “Whatever people say I am, that’s what I’m not”, nine words which I take to be the related phrase. There is a podcast about the band called “Don’t believe the hype”, a phrase which I believe can be found in a recording of a live performance.
Closer examination of the removed words revealed that if you took the first and last letters of them separately, they produced two song titles taken from the album: Perhaps Vampires is a bit strong… and I bet you look good on the dancefloor. It is a remarkable coincidence that both titles share exactly the same number of letters, and Claw’s discovery and exploitation of this coincidence is equally remarkable.
Finally, I was left with the five words contained in the across clues and five more in the down clues, which together hint at who was responsible. I spent some time looking for acronyms which might lead to the name of ALEX TURNER (which contains ten letters) but without success. I then tried ARCTIC MONKEYS and eventually spotted the ten words, all of which can form a phrase including ARCTIC (in the case of the Across clues) or MONKEYS (in the case of the down clues). I have printed these words in bold in the clues below.
This was an utterly brilliant puzzle, which was a delight to unravel. Many thanks to Claw, and to Ken, for putting me right in respect of 7 down, which I had initially got completely wrong.
| ACROSS | ||
| 6 | ECHO |
Finally some manic [paparazzi] snatch photo for local newspaper? (4)
|
| Final letters of “somE maniC snatcH photO”. | ||
| 8 | REACH |
Get to [entomb] archer giving away the latest king carelessly (5)
|
| *(ARCHE)r. “The latest king” because the letter R appears twice in the word “archer”. | ||
| 9 | OCHE |
Revolutionary [referee] behind circle from which competitors throw (4)
|
| CHE (Guevara) (revolutionary) following O (circle). Whether by coincidence or otherwise, this answer is an anagram of the symmetrically-placed answer at 6 across. | ||
| 11 | NINJA |
Killer knight in Germany’s rather [hot] (5)
|
| N ( chess notation for knight) IN JA (German for yes, or rather). | ||
| 12 | POTABLE |
[Any] roll regularly taken from pub fixture is fine to consume (7)
|
| Alternate (regular) letters of rOlL removed from POOL TABLE (pub fixture). | ||
| 13 | POTATO TRAP |
Drunk sons ejected from Passport to [Pimlico] at opening (6,4)
|
| *(PA(ss)PORT TO AT). An unfamiliar expression, but it is in Chambers. | ||
| 16 | TEAL |
Dabbler given leave returns bored by advanced [sudoku] (4)
|
| A(dvanced) inside LET (given leave, rev). | ||
| 17 | UNBORN |
Country club briefly held [vessel] awaiting delivery (6)
|
| UN (United Nations, a club of countries) BORN(e) (held). | ||
| 18 | SPATES |
Some weeks [ago] Pat escaped floods (6)
|
| Hidden in “weekS PAT EScaped”. | ||
| 20 | YELM |
Thatcher’s [manifesto] material years before substantial growth (4)
|
| Y(ears) ELM (a tree, a substantial growth). | ||
| 21 | MONTEVERDI |
He noted tern and dove flying in Michigan [park] (10)
|
| *(TERN DOVE MI). | ||
| 23 | HOTFOOT |
Quickly [impressing] sultry fox dropping by to converse (7)
|
| HOT (sultry) FO(X) (dropping the x, which could represent the multiplication symbol, or “by”) OT (the converse or reverse of TO). | ||
| 26 | TASER |
Stunning item on [radio] posed from the right (5)
|
| RESAT (re, posed, all rev). | ||
| 28 | HAIR |
Timid individual’s [ego] picked up – a fine thing! (4)
|
| A homophone (picked up) of HARE, a notoriously shy animal. | ||
| 29 | CANOE |
What’s [sculled] in choppy ocean? (5)
|
| *OCEAN. Without the word that has to be removed, there isn’t really a definition. Even with it, I’m not sure that you scull a canoe. Happy to be corrected by anyone familiar with small boats. | ||
| 30 | APSE |
[Indigo] happy she’d periodically skipped recess (4)
|
| Alternate letters from “hApPy ShE’d”. | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | DOWN |
Blue [screen] – not working (4)
|
| Double definition. | ||
| 2 | ORGANOGRAM |
Being [ambivalent], is to pass up artist – this’ll show who’s boss! (10)
|
| ORGANISM (being) with IS replaced by GO (pass, rev) RA (artist). I’m not entirely sure that “go” and “pass” are synonymous, but it’s the best parsing that I can come up with. | ||
| 3 | NAPPERS |
Heads to sleep on a small [bench] (7)
|
| NAP (sleep) PER (a) S(mall). | ||
| 4 | THAT |
[Issue] the other Tesla bonnet? (4)
|
| T(esla) (representing the unit, not the car brand) HAT (bonnet). | ||
| 5 | BOOB |
British show disapproval of retracted [tabloid] howler (4)
|
| BOO (show disapproval) B(ritish), all rev (although the answer is a palindrome, so doesn’t need to be reversed, although the word order of the clue would have to be different). | ||
| 7 | CONGO |
Runner with [stamina] and energy (5)
|
| CON (with) GO (energy). I originally entered CAN-DO, which I parsed as defining something viable, i.e. a runner, with Sebastian COe (a runner) providing the outer letters; it was so contrived as to be impossible. | ||
| 10 | HEEHAWS |
The [token] man was injured capturing what sounds like an ass (7)
|
| HE (the man), EH (what), *WAS. | ||
| 15 | PEPPER TREE |
Evergreen forward always upset under [realistic] City manager (6,4)
|
| PEP (Guardiola, long-serving manager of Manchester City) PERT (forward) E’ER (always, rev). | ||
| 17 | URETHRA |
River craft taking hours turning [once] you go through this (7)
|
| URE (river), H(ours) inside ART (craft, rev). | ||
| 19 | INSTANT |
[Naff] moment in street with TV presenter (7)
|
| IN ST(reet) ANT (of Ant and Dec). | ||
| 22 | DORIS |
Day for one [girl], possibly Diana, to cross island (5)
|
| There are two 1950’s icons in this clue: the titular Doris Day, the Hollywood film star, and her rather brasher British rival, Diana Dors. I(sland) in DORS. | ||
| 24 | TORE |
Leader leaves [bistro] to squirrel away rent (4)
|
| (s)TORE (to squirrel away). Shouldn’t the answer, grammatically, be TORN? | ||
| 25 | OUCH |
[Undergo] reaction to hurt chippy rejecting outsiders (4)
|
| (t)OUCH(y) (chippy). | ||
| 27 | SLAV |
At last Spurs can [transfer] Eastern European (4)
|
| (Spur)S LAV (slang for toilet, or can). |
Thanks bridgesong and Claw.
Knew nothing about the theme.
I liked the puzzle and completed it in a few hours and had the nina around the perimeter – DON’T BELIEVE THE HYPE.
Also had the unclued ALBUM TITLE.
Googling the nina led me to Public Enemy album, IT TAKES A NATION OF MILLIONS TO HOLD US BACK. That, of course, has 10 words. Knowing that the setter is unlikely to make a mistake in the number of words – knowing also that Gdn sometimes makes mistakes – I posted this in Gdn site. A kind soul there confirmed that I was wrong.
Then, I took the trouble to list the extra words. It required not so narrow hints and heavy nudges from expert solvers for me to see the light – and the significance of “extremely” in the rubric. (“extremities of the extra words” would have been more merciful to folks like me*)
That finally led me to the correct Album Title by Arctic Monkeys, and the two songs.
Re the 10 words, like the blogger, I also looked for Alex Turner; it never occurred to me to look for Arctic Monkeys. At that point I abandoned it.
I liked Claw’s last one with CASTELMAINE XXXX ADVERTISEMENT nina. That led us directly to SHERRY.
* this puzzle seemed to me like tail wagging the dog. Genius puzzles have this extra layer; if a solver completed the grid and had enough additional info to uncover that layer that is good. Here, the nina itself is a kind of misdirection, though not irrelevant. Looking for additional 10 words was a bridge(song) too far for me!
That is not to say it is brilliant setting by Claw – as the blogger points out getting the names of the two songs with equal number of letters fitted into the clues. The misdirection and finally the 10 words leading to the name of the band.
Again, thanks Claw and bridgesong.
my third last sentence – should it be:
‘that is not to say it is not brilliant setting’…. well, I mean it is brilliant setting.
I suspected we needed to use both the first and last letters of the extra words but I wasn’t sure, so I didn’t think about it until I had solved about half the clues and when I made a list of the letters I was able to guess the rest. I didn’t know about the theme so I originally read the two titles as a single phrase and wondered if looking good on the dancefloor was something that vampires are known for.
I usually think having to remove a word from a clue is the easiest clue alteration for a solver to deal with, but I didn’t find it so easy in this puzzle and there were several clues which I couldn’t see how they worked until I knew the first and last letter of the extra word, and the last clue I solved was 2d where even after finding a word that would fit, partly thanks to the perimeter message meaning the first letter must be O, it took me a while to see how the clue worked and it didn’t help that the extra word could be ‘ambivalent’ or ‘artist’.
I was about to submit my entry when I reread the instructions and found I had forgotten about the ten words. My desire to understand everything meant I spent a while searching for these words, which wasn’t too hard once I had the right idea even if I had never heard of an ‘Arctic roll’, but this used up most of the time I had available to type and check my solution so I had to do that the next day. I don’t really like the use of the word ‘hint’ in this context since I think one should be able to find hints before knowing the answer and I don’t think I had any chance of that, but I would be willing to reconsider my opinion if someone told me they worked out Arctic Monkeys from the hints before finding the names of the songs from the extra words.
For 29a, I accepted that ‘What’s in choppy ocean?’ could be a definition of CANOE, but not a really good one. My interpretation of 5d was that only BOO was reversed, which made the reversal seem less pointless.
Thanks, bridgesong and Claw.