I can usually finish a Genius puzzle in about an hour, 90 minutes at the outside, but this one took nearly a whole morning before the grid was filled, and I had to return to it later to sort out the parsing of three clues, so it must have been at the harder end of the spectrum, at least for me.
The ‘special instructions’ told us that “Thirteen clues involve 13 different letters of the alphabet (not further defined), to be treated as in some rhyming alphabetical lists. Of the remaining 13 letters of the alphabet, 10 need to be removed from and three added to one or other of the remaining 13 clues to make their wordplay work.”
So, what was all this about? Half the clues needed an undefined letter to be converted in some manner and the other half involved the addition or removal of a letter prior to parsing the wordplay.
My first pass through the clues provided half a dozen definite entries and a similar number of possible ones, both having a mix of the two types of clue. I then googled ‘rhyming alphabet’ and consulted a couple of relevant pages that came up in the results, particularly the Wikipedia one, which confirmed my suspicion about the letter treatment.
This enabled further progress to be made but still with some definite and some possible entries. I concentrated primarily on the clues that seemed suitable for letter addition/removal and this was the first set in which I had all 13 answers entered as definites.
The majority of the ‘rhyming alphabet’ letters could be found in an on-line list such as the one in Wikipedia and so the wordplay could be easily confirmed. However, so far as I can tell, five of them are Paul’s creation or adaptation and these gave me pause for thought.
I had five unused letters (I, O, P, U & Y) and five parts of wordplay that needed to be provided via them (thin, apod, all, mystical & Luton) so it was a case of taking each of the latter in turn and preceding it with the letters and ‘for’ until something made some semblance of sense. In the end I was reasonably happy with 12ac, 22ac, 24ac (even though, as noted below, I don’t think it is a real word) and 1dn.
That just left the P and a need for APOD in 17ac. For the life of me I couldn’t see how these went together. P[ea] for a pod is not a normal phrase and in any case it seemed too weak to have been thought up by Paul. Nothing else came to mind so I put the puzzle to one side and returned to it the next day. Despite a night’s sleep, after which things often seem clearer, I could still not make any sense of this pairing so I rechecked all the ‘rhyming letter’ clues to see if the C could be used elsewhere thus releasing a different letter to associate with APOD. Unfortunately this was to no avail.
At this point, under normal circumstances, I would have given up and just accepted that, though the grid was complete, there was a single clue that I was unable to parse. However, I was scheduled to blog this one and so I was determined not to be defeated. I therefore printed off a new, blank copy of the puzzle and solved it again from scratch. Alas, by the end I was left with P and APOD.
It was time to resort to Google! Searches using P, pea or pee and ‘for a pod’ brought up very few hits (7, 5 & 8) respectively. Changing the ‘for’ to other variants such as ‘fer’ got me no further. In the end, the only thing I found out was that ‘pee for a pod’ was the name of an NHS sexual health initiative a few years ago in which young adults had the chance to win an iPod. Knowing Paul’s liking for toilet humour I suppose this possibly could be his rhyming alphabet inclusion but, in view of the number of Google hits, it seems very obscure and therefore unlikely.
At this point I decided I had spent enough time on this puzzle and that it was time to admit defeat. I may have made an error elsewhere or I may be unable to see something obvious. Whichever it is, I am hoping that someone will be able to enlighten me regarding 17ac.
Edit: This blog was written and scheduled the day after the puzzle first appeared on line. Due to , presumably, an error on somebody’s behalf, the annotated solution for this puzzle was posted on the Guardian’s website over a week before the closing date for entries. This gives P for A POD so I suppose the ‘weak’ connection that I indicated above (Pea for a pod) is correct. I could have saved myself quite a bit of time if I had been prepared to accept this from the outset.
[x] removed letter
{x} added letter
X unclued letter
Across
8 Butcher’s product (6)
MUTTON – double def. – B for mutton (beef or mutton)
9 Injection weird, Paul having a turn (8)
EPIDURAL – an anagram (having a turn) of [w]EIRD PAUL
10 Crossworder, on reflection (8)
YOURSELF – double def. – C for yourself (see for yourself)
11 European house (6)
ORANGE – double def. – J for orange (Jaffa orange)
12 Type of protein affecting boy or gull (13)
THYROGLOBULIN – an anagram (affecting) of THIN BOY OR GULL – Y for thin (wafer thin)
15 Lower collection has to drop in the middle (7)
CORSAGE – SAG (drop) in CORE (middle) – the def. is {f}lower collection
17 Month for a lobster, perhaps? (7)
DECAPOD – DEC (month) A POD – P for a pod? (see preamble)
19 Leading light has to communicate with a cold (6,7)
STELLA POLARIS – TELL (communicate with) A POLAR (cold) in SIS – M for ‘sis (emphasis) – unlike the anagram in 12ac where the extra word derived from the (unclued) letter can be inserted in an appropriate place, I can not see here where there is an indicator for the inclusion. The initial S could be provided by the ‘has’ but that then leaves ? for is.
22 With this may come an extra head (2,4)
NO BALL – NOB (head) ALL – O for all (overall)
24 Cryptic (8)
MYSTICAL – double def. – U for mystical (euphemistical) – Is there such a word? I can only find euphemistic and euphemistically.
25 Group securing important car for floosie (8)
STRUMPET – SET (group) around (securing) TRUMP (important car{d})
26 Steer vehicle, cross with vehicle breaking toe the wrong way (6)
OXCART – X (cross) CAR (vehicle) in TO[e] reversed (the wrong way)
Down
1 English town (5)
LUTON – double def. – I for Luton (highfalutin)
2 Supporting church at night, a slight formality (6)
STARCH – STAR (at night a [s]light) CH (church)
3 Next earring twisted in gaps between kings or queens (10)
INTERREGNA – an anagram (twisted) of NE[x]T EARRING
4 Greenery seen in meadow over smoke vent”s opening (7)
LEAFAGE – LEA (meadow) FAG (smoke) E[nt] ([v]ent’s opening)
5 Back half of African country vehicle (4)
LIMO – [ma]LI (back half of African country) MO – R for mo’ (half a mo’)
6 Trip on Waikiki Beach? Oops! (4-4)
HULA-HULA – HULA HULA ({h}oops) – ‘trip’=dance
7 Rudely interrupt nobleman eating egg in rum (5,2,2)
BARGE IN ON – BARON (nobleman) around (eating) an anagram (rum) of EG[g] IN
13 Somehow, nana messed up singular performance (3-3,4)
ONE-MAN SHOW – an anagram (messed up) of SOMEHOW NAN[a]
14 Right in Scottish river, US city (4,5)
FORT WORTH – R (right) TWO in FORTH (Scottish river) – T for two (tea for two)
16 After study vacated, learners studying details (8)
SYLLABUS – S[tud]Y (study vacated) LL (learners) A BUS – Q for a bus (queue for a bus)
18 Farm’s not changed plans (7)
FORMATS – an anagram (changed) of FARMS [n]OT
20 Dozy two freaks inhaling cannabis initially – stupid behaviour (6)
IDIOCY – an anagram (freaks) of DO[z]Y II (two) around (inhaling) C[annabis] (cannabis initially)
21 Supernatural being (5)
FAIRY – double def. – L for fairy (elf or fairy)
23 Bound to get cut, end of week (4)
LOPE – LOP (cut) [we]E (end of wee[k])
Thanks for the detailed blog, Gaufrid. Like you I took a long time over this one, even though I was familiar with (parts of some version of ) the “Cockney Alphabet” (I wouldn’t really call it “rhyming”) and guessed from the preamble that it was involved. I managed to fill in most of the grid without fully understanding some of the clues, and it was only when I tried to make a list of the letters of the alphabet and which clues they corresponded to that I realised that the puns could apply to parts of answers.
I shared your doubts about MYSTICAL, but I suppose some looseness is part of the game here, and it couldn’t be anything else. In 15a the F is added to the definition part of the clue, so I wondered if this really matched the rubric “..to make their wordplay work”.
(I hadn’t noticed that the answers had been published early: good to see they’re keeping up the fine Grauniad tradition of getting something wrong with the publication of the Genius almost every month!)
Thanks Gaufrid. I also spent a long time over P for APOD. For a while I had it against R (arthropod?).
I didn’t submit my entry until late last week. Presumably this won’t be eligible (again) if the solution was already posted.
Thanks Gaufrid. Unlike you, we expect to solve the Genius over days or weeks!
In fact we did get all the answers to this, but couldn’t fathom the rationale behind the first group of letters, so many were entered tentatively and I never submitted the solution.
I did vaguely wonder if it was the ‘Cockney’ alphabet (‘A’ is for ‘orses etc), but didn’t know it properly and didn’t have access to the web as we were on holiday.
Pity, as I always enjoy Paul’s humour and it was frustrating not having properly solved this.
Thanks Gaufrid
I generally like the Genius puzzles even on the occasions that I cannot solve them completely. I also normally really like Paul’s puzzles. So, I should have liked this a lot, but did not. I found it convoluted and poorly clued. Moreover, like Mr. Beaver, I was on holiday and had no recourse to the internet for most of the time. I therefore managed to complete the crossword without getting one of the 13 ‘cockney’ letters, although I did think that it had to be t for two. Even when I saw the annotated answers many of these failed to ring any bells. Despite the fact I lived in London for several years and was in the East End a lot I never heard anyone use any of these; although I did commonly hear the indirect rhyming slang of Berk, Butchers, Barnet, Dog etc. Like many ‘so-called’ Scottish clans [and I am Scottish so I know this to be true], many of these alphabet words seem to be a fiction just to promote a degree of cockneyism [OK not a real word as I know].
As Gaufrid mentioned I also saw the early posting of the solution so knew my entry would probably be ignored for the third straight month.
I wrote to the Guardian editor last month querying how the Guardian managed to be so incompetent, not only in the errors they introduce but in the dreadfully complacent responses. I never got a proper answer to this. With the recent criticism of him allowing poor clues in numerous crosswords this last month, it really makes me wonder what he actually does. Thank god the rest of the paper is not like that.
Terrible crossword all round. Here’s hoping for better things from Vlad, whoever he/she is.
I enjoyed this crossword, my only doubt being 17 which simply didn’t chime in with the rest, so I’m pleased I wasn’t alone. ‘Pee for yourself’ was a possible alternative but led nowhere. I also had ‘o for head’ (overhead) for 22 and was surprised to see the answer given on the Guardian website.
Thanks to you both.
ps – Vlad is terrific.